Art Stage Singapore (12 - 15 January 2017), the flagship art fair of Southeast Asia, kicks off the international art season every January with the very best of Asian contemporary art. Here's an event you should consider:

Art + Money – A Dangerous Liaison?

With Franz Schultheis and Alain Servais Hosted by Lorenzo Rudolf

Date: Friday, 13 January 2017

Time: 2:00pm - 3:30pm

Venue: Marina Bay Sands, Sands Expo & Convention Centre, Level 3, Angsana Room (3E and 3F), 10 Bayfront Avenue

Andy Warhol famously predicted that “making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” Today, the global art economy largely operates on the same principle as the luxury market and the financial industry: commodities are validated by money and brand pedigrees — artists, galleries, international exhibitions, fairs, institutions, art degrees — are sought after by the “super tax” bracket for social currency and speculation. The unbridled excess of art produced on demand to keep up with the worldwide proliferation of commercial platforms and dealers, comes at the expense of possibly losing generations of art as a form of socio-political agency.

This conversation with Alain Servais, a collector who advocates engaging with art for its power to challenge, and Franz Schultheis, (co-)author of books including What People Do for Art? and When Art Meets Money: Encounters at Art Basel, probes the art market's often opaque modus operandi and asks some inconvenient questions: why should one buy art? What kind of art is worth collecting? Are fairs and galleries ruining art? Should the art market be regulated? Who should regulate it?

About the Speakers

Franz Schultheis is Professor of Sociology and Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. He did his PhD at the University of Konstanz, Germany and habilitated with Pierre Bourdieu at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. He was Head of the Department of Sociology at the University of Geneva and the University of Neuchâtel and has taught at several Universities including Paris-Sorbonne, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris, the University of Strasbourg at Louvain, Belgium, and the University of Konstanz, Germany. His main research areas are: sociology of art, transformations of work worlds, poverty, popular culture and sociology of creative class.

Alain Servais

trained in investment banking and worked at Drexel Burnham Lambert on Wall Street, and Société Générale Strauss Turnbull and James Capel in London. He was Head of International Bond Trading at Banque Dewaay in Brussels. Currently, he consults independently for banks in the management of asset-backed securities. Alain is a passionate and committed contemporary art collector and member of numerous art juries and collectors' committees among which include Art Basel's Council of Global Patrons. In 2014 and 2015, he was selected for Artnet's list of “Top 200 Art Collectors Worldwide”. Blouin Artinfo named him one of “The 50 Most Exciting Art Collectors Under 50”. He founded and designed Registr'art, a service for private collectors, and the smartphone app, European Art Tour (E.Art.T). He is an investor in ArtRunners which was created to streamline fine art logistics. Alain is an avid “information sharer” via Twitter (@aservais1) and email blog.

Lorenzo Rudolf

is Founder and President of Art Stage Singapore and Jakarta, international art fairs in Southeast Asia. From 1991 to 2000, he was Director of Art Basel. During his tenure he created a new art fair concept and transformed Art Basel from a classical trade show to the flagship of the art world. He subsequently created and launched Art Basel Miami Beach. In 2000 Lorenzo was appointed Director of the Frankfurt Book Fair. After three years in the publishing industry, he returned to the art world. In 2007, he co-founded and helmed SH Contemporary, Shanghai, the first international contemporary art fair in Asia. In 2010 he founded Art Stage Singapore with the objective of establishing the Southeast Asia region as a strong player on the global stage of art and culture. In 2016, he launched Art Stage Jakarta.

Location: Marina Bay Sands, Sands Expo & Convention CentreLevel 3, Angsana Room (3E and 3F)10 Bayfront Avenue Singapore, 018956

Encircle Your Child In ‘Circle of Care' For Better Care. Today's children are tomorrow's citizens. Shaping a child is shaping the nation. So join your hands to strengthen our nation. How the Baby will be protected in the mother's lap, same as protected in the Circle Care program. The program, which is designed in the Care Corner, is to simplify the children who are in impoverished conditions and trained accordingly. The main intention to start this program is to benefit more children and include more families in this program. This program was organized by the Lien Founation. Three years ago Circle Care started its journey with two pre - schools. Now it has expanded its circle and the organizers involved in this program are school teachers , child psychiatrists and social workers. This program aims mainly the disadvantaged children and it received very good response and enrollments in this program also increased very quickly in the two centres. At present the Circle Care program expanded to fifteen schools. Along with the kindergarten, this program touched, even the primary schools also. Among the organizers, social workers, whose duty is to collaborate with the teachers, educators and also with the school counselors to take the data about the children and continue its treatment to rectify the child's aberration. This treatment will continue up to the third primary standard children . The latest and excited news is, that the expansion in this program has increased more than 25% of the enrollments and nearly 1700 pre – schools requested for further help with this program.

The integrated program designed by the program experts encircles a ‘Circle of Care' on the child, there into identify the root element of the Child's problem and provide necessary help in their own method with different fronts. According to the survey conducted by the team, the children who are at risk factor, are from poor families and who are below the poverty line. So, the care team supported these children and increased their attendance from thirty percent to more than 75 %. Wow! Great work of the care centres. The organizers in the team include educational therapists, whose duty is to improve the child's numeracy and educational proficiency. With the encouragement received by the program, the officials visited Australia and stated that their program is going under certain changes and said that their experts are looking to improve the program themes to promote the standards of the children. The officials also stated their high quality and extensive programs to concentrate the disadvantaged children made them to start in a few cities in Australia.

One more important step taken up by this care center is providing care for the mothers in the ante inherent care and health care, for babies the care program includes how to talk, read and write. The chief executive of the Lien Foundation main intention is along with the children, even he wants to focus on the families also , for better improvement in their children. This works wonders because if parents are well educated, then automatically children will be in the right path. He also noted that the program designed to help the children to develop the overall behavior. All programs were designed in the Circle care centre to increase and improve the standards and concentration and self consciousness in children. The expert team in the circle care centre expressed that they focus on tenacity and grit along with the literacy and other skills because impulse control is most dangerous which should be controlled in the childhood. To train the disadvantaged children the Lien Foundation also introduced a “Principal Matters” program where all the principals undergo certain training to help the children and to strengthen their leadership qualities. The officials expressed that if the higher authorities like Educational Minister and Social Welfare Minister also supports them, the outcome of the centre will be more and we can pick up the disadvantaged children in the society.

The Central Provident Fund board was set up in late 2014 with a single goal in mind: to make the CPF system as strong, fair and efficient as possible. The Fund itself is hugely important to Singaporean society, as it provides for retirement, housing, healthcare and employment benefits in the state. If poorly managed, the CPF could slow down or even halt the state's increasingly powerful economy.

Well, the first batch of recommendations from the Panel has now been handed in to the government and, certainly, there are some interesting issues raised and ideas offered. In particular, this list of recommendations focuses upon future adjustments to the Minimum Sum and the issue of lump sum withdrawals.

What the CPF Advisory Panel is hoping to respond to with this review is to strike a balance between providing a life-long, reliable safety net for the country's citizens, while also allowing them the economic freedom and flexibility upon which the state's economic boom has been founded.

For example, on the issue of retirement, the Panel proposes adjusting the Minimum Sum in order to allow people a more flexible monthly pay out during their retirement. A key suggestion is that those CPF members who turn 55 in the year 2016 put a large enough proportion of their CPF savings in order to make up a basic pay out of about $700 per month when they retire in 2026.

If that is you, then you'll need to put a Basic Retirement Sum of $80,500 as premiums in 2016, as worked out by external actuaries hired by the CPF. If, however, you turn 55 in 2020, then you have a 70% chance of having enough saved up in your fund to meet this Basic Retirement Sum.

To offer a more flexible service, the Panel recommends that CPF members can withdraw cash from their savings above the Basic Retirement Sum. However, these withdrawals will only be available subject to a charge or a pledge on the value of property held by the member. So, should you make a withdrawal and sell your property, then the pledged amount will be returned to your CPF, thus garnishing your basic pay out. If you do not own your own home, then it is highly recommended that your Full Retirement Sum is twice the Basic Retirement Sum, which would be something like $161,000 if you are retiring in 2016.

The Panel also wants to make topping up pay outs to ensure larger monthly amount in future easier for members. An Enhanced Retirement Sum would be established that will allow members to add savings or cash to their premiums. It is likely that this ERS would be three time the BRS. If, for example, you wished to top up in 2016, this would be capped at $241,500.

Another key recommendation involves the concept of deferral, which would allow members to put off their retirement provisions until the age of 70. As well as allowing them more time to save more money for retirement, this will also help those who wish to work past retirement age, a phenomenon that is becoming more and more popular in Singapore.

Recently, a Singaporean insurance agent was sentenced to a 14 day detention order for an assault on a taxi driver. The assault took place when a 23 year old punched a driver, after drinking in Clarke Quay with friends. He had argued with the driver over the $18 fare in the run up to the incident.

Though his eventual punishment was far smaller than the potential five years in prison that Lai could have served, it is interesting to note that the story was quite big news in Singapore. In this bustling, multicultural melting pot of a state, with a population of over 5 million people crammed onto a 716 km² island, incidents are extremely rare. In a similarly densely packed, business-heavy urban area, like, say, Paris, New York or London, such a story would barely be a story or, at least, certainly not a story that would grab many headlines.

The reason for this is that Singapore is one of the most peaceful, safe and non-violent states in the world. This fact, as much as the low tax rates, superb education, gorgeous weather and pro-business legal system, contributes massively to why so many people are now coming here to work, study and live.

So how do the Singaporean authorities manage to keep the peace so effectively?

Singaporean law and order

Singapore's laws are there to ensure that the population are free to roam the streets in peace and quiet, without needing to worry about the lewd or violent behaviour. In some cases, these laws become very strict indeed, though it is this strictness, and the respect for authority that they inspire, that ensures the state remains a law-abiding one.

For example, littering, chewing gum and smoking can all get you in big trouble in Singapore. Expect a fine of up to $1,000 the first time you are caught dropping your rubbish on the street and $2,000 the second time, plus a spot of Corrective Work Order. Corrective Work Order, or CWO, forces you to donate a few hours of your spare time cleaning up a public place wearing an unmissably bright orange jacket watched and recorded by the local media.

As most people know, chewing gum is strictly contraband in Singapore, as a preventative measure against the littering that the authorities so despise. Possessing, selling or gifting chewing gum will all land you in trouble. Though this might sound draconian, the ban was brought in as chewing gum stuck on the Mass Rapid Transit train doors was actually preventing trains from being able to run, causing a serious safety hazard.

One of the major no-nos of Singapore is drugs. Possessing any of the following quantities of following controlled substances will land you the death penalty: 15 grammes heroin, 30 grammes morphine, 30 grammes cocaine, 500 grammes cannabis and 1.2 kg of opium. Again, if this sounds strict, it is worth remembering Singapore's geographical position. Just an hour away from the notorious Golden Triangle, Asia's chief opium producing area located on the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam, the authorities must do all they can to ensure that the drug trade, and the violence and corruption that come with it, do not invade their shores.

All of these laws contribute greatly to ensuring Singapore remains the healthy, thriving, happy society it is today and help keep incidents like the one we mentioned earlier thankfully rare occurrences.