Arts give voice to our personal and collective aspirations, as well as our identity

Speech by Mr Lawrence Wong, Acting Minister for Culture, Community and Youth at the 32nd UOB Painting of the Year 2013 awards ceremony and exhibition

Mr Hsieh Fu Hua, Chairman, UOB Group 
Mr Wee Ee Cheong, Deputy Chairman and CEO, UOB Group and Chairman of the UOB Art Committee
Distinguished Guests 
Ladies and Gentlemen 

1. I am happy to join you this evening for the 32nd UOB Painting of the Year awards ceremony. Let me start by expressing my appreciation and thanks to Mr Wee and the UOB group for their staunch support for the arts all these years. Thirty-two years of arts events is quite rare in Singapore, so we are grateful for the bank’s support to the arts and culture in Singapore. 
   
2. Singapore’s arts and cultural landscape has grown significantly over the years. In the visual arts sector alone, we have seen very strong interest and growth. For example, the number of visual arts organisations has doubled over the past decade. We see many more people going to visual arts exhibitions and shows. Just today, the newspapers reported the record attendance and sales at the Affordable Arts Fair. The ongoing Singapore Biennale is seeing more visitors both locally and abroad, including groups from Tate Modern and Mori Museum. I met some of them and they gave very good feedback on this year’s show. 
   
3. These are heartening trends. The arts give voice to our personal and collective aspirations, as well as our identity. With culture, we are able to mature as a society and as a people. Also this makes us a cultural capital – a city with character and life; a city that is dynamic, distinctive and attractive as a place to live and work in. 
4. We should be optimistic because we can look forward to even more developments in our cultural calendar. Coming up in January next year, we will have the Art Stage and the Singapore Art Week which have become an annual fixture. The National Art Gallery, or NAGA, will open in 2015. We are also setting up a Visual Arts Cluster to bring together all our visual arts institutions under one roof – NAGA which will be focusing on modern and historical arts, Singapore Art Museum (SAM) to focus on contemporary art, and Singapore-Tyler Print Institute (STPI) for print-making – for greater synergy and better coordination across these institutions. 
   
5. We are looking at developments not just within Singapore, but we are also bringing our artists overseas to expose more Singapore art to the international audience. We are now making plans to return to Venice Biennale in 2015, and making a commitment to stay for the long-term. The team is finalising the location of the Singapore Pavilion and setting up a Commissioning Panel to identify artists to represent Singapore at Venice. We are doing this early, to give our artists more lead time to prepare their works.
   
6. Our journey of cultural development is possible only with the strong patronage of numerous individuals and corporates, including the UOB. For over three decades, UOB has been supporting our painters and developing our visual arts scene through the UOB Painting of the Year competition. 
   
7. The Painting of the Year competition has played a significant role in raising awareness and generating interest in Singapore and Southeast Asian art. 
   
8. As the longest running painting competition in Singapore, the competition has identified, encouraged and nurtured many artists who have gone on to play important roles in the Singapore arts scene. 
   
     a. Goh Beng Kwan, a veteran of the visual arts 
       i. he studied under pioneer artist Chen Wen Hsi 
       ii. won the inaugural Painting of the Year award back in 1982 with a work called “The Dune” 
       iii. subsequently won the Cultural Medallion in 1989 
       iv. currently based at Telok Kurau Studios (subsidised under NAC’s Arts Housing Scheme) 
   
     b. Robert Zhao Renhui, an emerging talent 
       i. won the UOB Painting of the Year Award in 2009 
       ii. and the Young Artist Award in 2010 
       iii. commissioned to participate in the President’s Young Talent exhibition at SAM earlier this year 
       iv. his work is currently on display at the Singapore Biennale 
   
9. This year, UOB has once again raised the bar with a larger regional prize pool and new award categories to identify emerging talents and recognise established painters. 
   
10. I would like to place on record my appreciation for the Bank’s passion and generosity in championing Singapore and Southeast Asian arts and artists over the years. I would also like to thank our many stakeholders here - the painters, judges, and arts collectors - for your support and contributions to the arts in Singapore. I have shared with you the landscape of Singapore’s art and culture, and how we are excited about the many development that are happening in the overall landscape, particularly in visual arts scene, but many of these cannot be done by the Government alone. We certainly look forward to your support, encouragement and collective input into how, together, we can build and grow the art and culture landscape in Singapore. 
    
11. Finally, let me congratulate all the winners of this year’s competition. May you enjoy continued success in your artistic endeavours.