Art That Creates Worlds Unto Themselves

LEAVE YOUR WATCH at home and don't track time at the APB Foundation Signature Art Prize 2018 show, being held at the National Museum of Singapore and organised by the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and Asia Pacific Breweries (APB). Curated by Louis Ho, the show features works that are so absorbing and accessible on so many levels, you find yourself looking, listening and reading for much longer than you'd expect. Before you know it, three hours have passed and you've barely covered half of the exhibition.

Take, for instance, Yuichiro Tamura's Miky Bay, an immersive art installation that invites you into a club with three pool tables and TV screens at the top corners. The sign on a wall says "Semen's Club", a deliberate misspelling of "Seaman". A narrator's voice intones the true story of famous Japanese writer Yukio Mishima, who legendarily committed suicide by seppuku in 1970 when he was 45.

Artist Tamura has recreated an actual seaman's club in Yokohama from which Mishima embarked on a world tour that inspired his personal and creative life. Tamura imbued the club with sexual overtones, such as the busts of Greek men as well as suggestive videos of bodybuilders playing pool. (Mishima was gay.)