"conceptual bullshit"

It started out as a fairly typical Friday morning. I left the house at about ten to nine, Sandy still snoring away. I walked past the mosque and was invited by the bearded one to celebrate Prophet Mohamed's birthday on the 29th. I stepped over the railway tracks and made for the main road to grab a cab when suddenly I noticed a herd of cows grazing in the field. Nothing unusual with that if you live anywhere in the world apart from Singapore. We don't do cows. We have two in the petting zoo but for most Singaporeans they're as rare as zebras, penguins, kangaroos and sheep. (Actually we do see sheep once a year when the bearded one next door slaughters a herd for mutton curry.)



These cows were definitely of the Milton Keynes variety. Rather static and unusually colourful. However, the famous "concrete cows" were built in Milton Keynes in 1978 by an artist "poking fun at the preconceived notion of the new city, held by commentators who had never seen the place, that it would consist entirely of concrete pavements where once there were fields, and where its deprived children would need models to know how real cows once looked" -- the reality being that Milton Keynes was in fact very green. In Singapore, however, the citizens really do need models to know how real cows once looked! Worse, there never were many cows in Singapore in the first place. Some artist has copied an idea which even in 1978 was dubbed "conceptual bullshit". Why not use an animal indigenous to Singapore?

Update: As Ming (blogging from San Francisco) correctly points out (see her comment below), artistic expression is not allowed in Singapore. Silly me. Our herd of cows is nothing more than advertising (an ad agency advertising itself). I saw more cows on a taxi this morning.