In 1999, Cultural Medallion winner and contemporary local artist Lee Wen created the provocative interactive video work World Class Society for Nokia Art Singapore. In a sepulchral room imbued with white and designed like a prison cell, one visitor at a time watches, through a white cloth tube, a close-up of Lee dressed like a typical servant and delivering a bombastically satirical speech replete with the words “World class.” Visitors are also required to fill up a questionnaire at the end of the exhibition and receive a badge. More than 13 years later, Terry Ong turns the table on the artist in an interview format reproduced based on the original questionnaire.
About yourself
Lee Wen, male, 54 going on 669.
Your income per year?
Tell you after i submit my tax returns.
Do you consider yourself very poor/poor/middle-class/rich/very rich?
I sleep under shelter from the elements, i go where the action takes me, the only time i feel poor is when my money cannot buy what SHE (the one i lay with) wants.
Where would you like to live in other than in Singapore?
Italy or Mali.
If not creating art, what would you rather be doing?
Making love or music if not lunch.
Do you think Singapore is a sophisticated city?
Used to be but not anymore. when the white man cheated the sultan it’s been downhill all the way.
Do you think Singapore is a renaissance city of the arts?
No but trying ah very hard.
What is the most important thing in the arts?
Humanity, love, compassion and giving serious critical responses.
What is the most important thing in life?
Love.
Lee Wen’s solo exhibition Lee Wen: Lucid Dreams in the Reverie of the Real is on through June 10 at the Singapore Art Museum.
