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February 23, 2018 – Review
Singapore Art Week
Kathleen Ditzig
![](https://images.e-flux-systems.com/aa_2018_02_01-20180118_-JOE_9751_HIGHRES.jpg,1600)
Developed by the Singapore government in 2013 in an attempt to create hype around the fair Art Stage Singapore, Singapore Art Week (SAW) is a loose collection of events organized by museums, art spaces, and cultural producers. This year’s edition featured a series of festivals that turned the Civic District’s museums into glowing canvases for art projected on its walls and a relentless deluge of installations, performances, and exhibitions. Yet recently, news sources have focused on the decline of Art Stage as a pronouncement on the state of the arts in Singapore. Amplifying the claims of Art Stage founder Lorenzo Rudolf that the Singapore art market has stagnated and that there is a lack of domestic art production due to state censorship, the South China Post remarked that Singapore had lost its edge to Hong Kong, and the Asia Times ran the headline “Singapore Swings and Misses at the Arts.”
Is Singapore an art hub in decline? Singapore’s development of art infrastructure and support of Art Stage have been attempts to define itself as a delta to Southeast Asian art. These efforts have been successful for the most part. The National Gallery Singapore has arguably one of the best existing collections …