You know what they say about imitation ..
Happy birthday, Keith Haring !
He would have turned 54 today. (A fact that Google is celebrating with one of their always-entertaining doodles.)
Singaporeans who frequent the Bras Basah neighbourhood may have noticed the Haring-esque mural on the low wall of the walkway leading up to the foodcourt – the work of a local public art enterprise, Social Creatives. The similarities are a little too, ahem, salient to be overlooked.
We’ll consider it a tribute — one especially apt here.
And you know what else they say: Good artists copy, great artists steal.
Yup, we’ll consider it a tribute.
delmonte
May 4, 2012 at 1:49 am
Lol, indeed …
jusdeananas
May 4, 2012 at 10:31 am
Interesting! I’ll never quite walk by bras basah the same way again..
lampoondish
May 5, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Glad you enjoyed the post. Thanks for stopping by.
jusdeananas
May 6, 2012 at 12:16 am
I had wondered about that mural…
notabilia
May 12, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Um hmm. I actually think this crosses the line from being a tribute or a homage to, frankly, plagiarism. I know the line there is fuzzy, but the sheer scale and strictly imitative quality of this work – as well as the fact that there’s no sort of overt acknowledgement of Haring – sits a bit ill with me. Also, I’m not sure about the implications here: that local students and budding artists don’t have enough originality to come up with their own ideas ? I mean … I don’t know. I want to be supportive, but I have serious doubts about how this is supposed to be fostering creative talent – or not.
jusdeananas
May 12, 2012 at 11:59 pm