Contemporary artist Song-Ming Ang tells the story of Singapore’s arts and music education with his presentation at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia
Sound and music may form the basis of his art today, but for Singaporean contemporary artist Song-Ming Ang, one of his first musical encounters, which involved learning to play the recorder, was less of an enjoyable experience. “Like almost every child, I first encountered the recorder during music lessons in primary school. It’s probably fair to say that many of us didn’t enjoy the learning process, as 40 children simultaneously blowing hard into their recorders can sound very uncoordinated and dissonant.”
Despite this, the musical instrument left an indelible note on him for it led to the making of a three-channel film installation, Recorder Rewrite—the centrepiece of his presentation, Music for Everyone: Variations on a Theme, at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Inspired by the Music for Everyone concert series by the then-Ministry of Culture of Singapore in the 1970s to encourage public appreciation of the arts, Ang’s multidisciplinary presentation, comprising film, digital prints, sculptures and banners, will be on show at the Arsenale – Sale d’Armi in Venice from May 11 to November 24.
The show is “an alternative vision to Music for Everyone—something more ‘ground up’ than ‘top down’, and based on egalitarianism and improvisation”, Ang explains. Recorder Rewrite, for example, features children from diverse cultural and musical backgrounds performing their own composition. “Sometimes art that appears simple or amateurish gets dismissed for looking untechnical. So if visitors leave the show thinking, ‘Oh, I could do that too’, I’d take it as a compliment. It probably means that they feel empowered by the works.”