Don’t Give Money to the Arts

This artefact from a performance by Tang Da Wu in 1995, is a jacket emblazoned with the statement ‘Don’t Give Money to the Arts’. In 1995 Da Wu approached the then-President of the Republic of Singapore at the inauguration of an art exhibition. He asked the President for permission to wear the jacket, and then presented him with a letter which read: ‘I am an artist. I am important.’ The work was a reaction to a ban on performance art funding put in place after the 1993 Brother Cane incident. That performance by Josef Ng highlighted a critical moment in the art history of Singapore in the 1990s. Da Wu is widely regarded as an iconic figure in the development of conceptual art in Singapore. He is renowned as one of the artists to challenge established art forms and conventional art practices.