Art, culture, and society; these three elements are closely linked. These three elements affect one another in one way or another. There is often a conflict of interest between the artist, the audience, and the government body. The artist’s aim is to express art freely. The audience’s aim is to view art in forms that are not offensive to them. The government’s aim is to mitigate the conflict of interest between the two parties by implementing policies and restrictions to art pieces that are produced and viewed.
Controversy is an issue to take into consideration by the government when funding art and censoring art. This is due to art pieces being widely reached through the advances of technology. Audiences of art are thus easily accessible to art that could influence or offend.
However, art is innately challenging and often provocative. Creativity would be stifled if the government funded only art so bland that it offended no one. Creativity would also be stifled if the government creates censorship to limit art that challenges the strongly held beliefs of the society.
These concerns raise a few questions to Art in the society. Firstly, how much restriction should the government restrict the type of art forms that could have an adverse effect on the society? Or rather what limitations on censorship and funding should be made for the sake of artist value, or more broadly freedom of expression? Secondly, should it be the responsibility for the artist to take into consideration the effect on the viewer when creating art pieces that may seem controversial to others?
In Singapore, Art is increasingly promoted. The promotion of Art in Singapore can be seen from the provision of arts institution that provides full time programmes for the performing arts, the implementation of the yearly Singapore Art Festival which provides a platform for artist to express their talent and for the community to appreciate and to understand