You’ll get a much better sense of what it’s like to spend a night in Tatzu Nishi’s Merlion Hotel from Straits Times reporter Corrie Tan.  Me?  I’m just using this site as a dumping ground for my pics on the night of 11 March:

Approaching.

And approaching some more.  (Sorry ah, these are iPhone pics.)

There was quite a party going on outside, and we had to join a queue to get into the actual installation space.

But it was worth it!

That’s me and my boyfriend getting photographed by Tan Chee Sean, Biennale staff.

And this is my POV, realising that Nishi’s work really does have relevance.  We take the merlion for granted, really: that thing looks tiny when we compare it to other national architectural symbols like the Petronas Towers or the Statue of Liberty or the Sphinx, but up close and elevated we see how colossal it really is, and how concrete and weathered its surface is from decades of flash cameras and hard-core spitting.

Just like Singapore, ah?  Boring and superficial until you take a close enough look.

That’s Nishi-san himself, in white.  The wallpaper depicts fellow Singaporean icons Raffles Hotel and the white Raffles statue, the latter of which actually went up around the same time as the Merlion.

There’s a lovely view from the bathroom.  Long baths are possible with the tub!  (You do not share the tub with the lovely volunteer depicted, sadly.)

This, I think, was a very important gesture: a framed photograph of the men involved in the manual labour of setting up the hotel around the statue.  Art isn’t just about inspiration, guys; it’s about the perspiration of the folks who lug around lorryloads of dreck to make it visible.

Awww!!! And here’s the complimentary goodie bag!

Yeah, you’re not getting anything intelligent out of me today.  Maybe the commenters will lay some turds of wisdom.