Singapore, a country that has just celebrated its 50th birthday, has overcome a wide range of challenges in its history. In the 1960s, the nation overcame large numbers of illiteracy, pushing education in the region to the forefront. However, the nation’s most recent push may be one of its most colorful.
Many critics were concerned that while education was enjoying a greater emphasis in Singapore, arts and encouragement for creativity were falling flat. To combat that idea, the Singaporean government began offering programs and incentives for artists coinciding with its 50th birthday. This creative push culminated in National Gallery Singapore, a blossoming art museum that is bigger even than the National Gallery in London.
National Gallery Singapore boasts a number of highly important collections and exhibitions, including two significant displays by some of the foremost artists in the country. Another collection explores history and identity in the nation from colonial rule by Great Britain to the present. It also displays a wealth of art from creative minds located throughout the Southeastern Asian region, making it a bastion of art in the area.
The balancing act — and Singapore’s next challenge to overcome — includes supporting artists and their visions in the context of the country’s still-stringent censorship considerations. Singapore has had a history of cracking down on art that can be defined by some as possibly being offensive. National Gallery Singapore has tried to balance education and the celebration of different artistic visions with these concerns, posting multiple warnings for visitors that some collections might contain sensitive content. The majority of these postings occur in areas where nudity might be present as well as politically charged art.
However, one opinion writer who visited National Gallery Singapore did not see anyone outwardly offended by the content presented within the beautiful halls of the museum. For the most part, visitors the writer witnessed were schoolchildren, listening to lectures, taking notes, and making sketches of a wide variety of art pieces — some of them treating possibly sensitive subjects. National Gallery Singapore also contains an art education component, partnering with several nearby schools to offer credit and a course of study. Singapore remains very interested in shaping itself into a nation with a proud and vast arts scene, and National Gallery Singapore is at the forefront of that push.
Are you interested in adding a creative component to your education? Think about signing up for an art class through SGArtClass.com. SGArtClass.com is a comprehensive website that offers easy browsing through dozens of art classes on tap — from rudimentary sketching to oil painting. Even if you’ve never had any formal artistic training, teachers specializing in art education are on hand to help steer your curriculum and your learning in the direction you’d like to see it go. Art classes have a wealth of benefits, including developing creative problem solving skills as well as launching an artistic approach to life inside a person’s mind.
For more on National Gallery Singapore, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/10/opinion/singapores-artistic-experiment.html?_r=0.