Anyone else think the past few days have been the most hectic and most exciting the local visual arts scene has been in ages? Art Stage Singapore, new (and equally exciting) exhibitions opening elsewhere at SAM (Collectors’ Stage), LASALLE (a solo show by highly influential and extremely low-profile Pinoy artist Chabet – roughly think Tang Da Wu of the Philippines), and The Substation (the first of Ang Song-Ming’s Sonic Visions series this month – including an effin’ Zaireeka listening party next week!) – which tonight also hosted this year’s first Rooted In The Ephemeral Speak performance art session. Not to mention the open-houses at LASALLE and NAFA. Did I miss out on anything? Not everything was hunky dory though. Sensationalist journalism reared its ugly head once more, with two newspapers (including that notorious tabloid – not tabloid-sized newspaper because TODAY kicks ass) kicking up a fuss over one of the pieces at Art Stage where one can get his/her photo taken with a nude dude. Like, come on, seriously? A group show at Post-Museum, The Pearly Gates, with its extremely graphic content apparently had the authorities knocking on their doors earlier today after some complaints from anonymous prudish public (which was settled when it was explained that it was an exhibition of works for sale). It seems like if controversial art is shown within the context of some money changing hands, like in Art Stage’s nudie boy, it’s okay? Hah. Unfortunately, the RITES event wasn’t so lucky. One of the participants, activist artist Seelan Palay, wasn’t given the go-signal to perform.  Dude, maybe next time, you should tie a price tag on your left toe. That’d solve everything -- and it's ironic too. *** Admittedly, I hadn’t had time to catch all of these. But I finally got to go to this year’s Open House (which I missed last year).