Yeo Chee Kiong in Singapore
Traveling to Singapore is a splendid luxury that suggests that some very good things are right around the corner. You’ll be enjoying the fantastic metropolitan flavor of the place, and discovering that some of Singapore’s best restaurants can change the way you might think about food. There is a great blend of cultures here, and Singapore’s history as a port town means there has been exchange between this world and others for centuries. Along with the exchange of goods, there are exchanges of cultures, ideas, and visions of the world. This is evident not only in the food, but also in the works of art. There is an interesting correlation between art and food, anyway, and it seems that the more multicultural places have a much greater variation in their spices and artistic styles.
This is certainly true in Singapore. It’s interesting to consider that when a place becomes open to new tastes in cuisine, other tastes also open up. There are many cultures at play here, and they do show themselves in the cuisine and in the forms of visual art. Both are extraordinarily diverse and fascinating. If your after-dinner stroll takes you near Marina Bay, by all means check out the enormously exciting Jendela Visual Arts Space. This is part of the Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, and there is a lot to see here, with many different kinds of visual and performing arts. Jendela is a space that features work by local and international artists, and the taste here runs toward the contemporary.
The curatorial staff here has a real eye for the sublime and the smart, and often they combine, in shows such as Yeo Chee Kiong’s The House which is constructed with the Jendela space in mind. It is almost site-specific, and compliments the center very well, and is itself a fantastic work. The viewer walks through the exhibition as if through a house, and Yeo Chee Kiong’s acute sense for visual punning and seduction in his sculpture start to come alive. The familiar becomes strange in a suburban house gone wrong, but still somehow wonderful. It’s worth a visit when you’re in Singapore.