David's Summer 2008: Michelangelo in Singapore

            Michelangelo's (1475-1564) white-marble 'David' stands majestically in naked splendor at the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio on the Piazza della Signoria in Florence. But... is it Michelangelo's 'David'? It is in fact a replica for the original is in the Accademia, also in Florence. Originally meant to be one of twelve Old Testament figures for the religious adornment of Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, 'David' after his placement on the Piazza became a symbol of Florentine civic independence as a small city state. Thus 'David' even at his 'birth' had a variety of meanings, and so it has been down through the centuries.
Often a symbol of aesthetic beauty, of 'maleness', of human independence and power, but also of 'prettiness' as in myriad garden ornaments, often bowdlerised for the prurient prudish. The great copy in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England, even had little hooks in the necessary places to hinge on a bronze, detachable fig leaf in case the Queen Victoria or her ladies were to come on a visit... David's 'iconic' and at once a commodity for change in meanings.
Entering the stately Singapore Art Museum - itself an example of change for in the nineteenth century it was a Christian missionary school - we gasped. In the neo-classical, enormous white rotunda stood well-known and beloved 'David', but entirely red and in polystyrene or some-such; moreover, he was stiched-over (reminding me of the line by the early-deceased Dutch poet Hans Lodeizen (1924-1950): "Tot ik veranderde in gobelin").
Covered and not covered he is in her rendition of the handmade brocade of the traditional 'kebaya' of the blouse of Indonesian women: Titarubi (1968-) of Bandung and Jogyakarta in Indonesia, conceives of her 'Surrounding David' as a way of undermining Western concepts of maleness by applying meticulous Eastern female art. She adds that the rotunda is symbolic of an interior womb-space which does away with the autonomy of 'David' as the ultimate phallic symbol: 'surrounding' him, as it were. Her project is a postmodern one, of course, in which ambiguity and diversity, even contradiction, are emphasized. Titarubi tries to escape from the idea of an interpretative central organising and historical principle in looking at 'David'. Much in the way perhaps that 'David''s meaning changed when it was not placed by Santa Maria del Fiore but by the Palazzo Vecchio. (continued at David's Summer 2008: Amstelveen, the Netherlands)
   

Taken in: Singapore / Central Singapore / Singapore (show map)

Taken on: June 22, 2008

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