About the Author

Co-founder and Artistic Director of Singapore’s first professional dance company, Singapore Dance Theatre, Goh Soo Khim (b.1944, Singapore) is a highly respected figure in Singapore’s dance scene and has been closely associated with the development of ballet in Singapore. Hailing from a family of well-known dancers, teachers and choreographers, Goh first trained at the Singapore Ballet Academy (SBA) before becoming the first Asian to be admitted to the Australian Ballet School in 1964. She assumed leadership of SBA in 1971 and was actively involved in the dance scene as educator, dancer and choreographer throughout the 1970s and 1980s culminating in the founding of the Singapore Dance Theatre in 1988. Goh was awarded the Cultural Medallion in 1981 and the National Day Public Service Medal in 1989 for her contributions to dance. She was also named Her World magazine’s Woman of the Year in 2008. Goh was inducted to the Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame in 2014.

The Private Museum Singapore is pleased to present Make Yourself at Home: A Glimpse into All Welcoming Scenarios, an exhibition at a special interim location, a private residence, since it moved out of its previous home. Having been preparing for its relocation to 11 Upper Wilkie Road, it was also a time for introspection, ruminating on what it means to be ‘The Private Museum’.

The conceptualisation of the exhibition began in part as an existential query into the meaning behind why The Private Museum was founded, and continues to pose similar questions to the public through a multi-focal approach. The exhibition is carved into two parts that correspond to the disciplines of art and design, offering a glimpse of the museum’s upcoming programmes at its new home, which is projected for its inaugural launch in the second half of 2023, on top of its ongoing developments in design and branding.

Revisiting the museum’s key platforms, the exhibition features selected works and practices by artists from Singapore and the Asia Pacific such as Kumari Nahappan, Natee Utarit, Ian de Souza, Andy Yang, and independent curator John Tung. Within the design and branding presentation are an interactive and research-driven showcase presented in collaboration with local design studio Currency as well as a dollhouse model of the museum’s new home, designed by the award-winning WOHA Architects, and produced by Integrus Model.

Drawing from the philosopher Jacques Derrida’s ethics of hospitality, Make Yourself at Home is a double entendre that not only reflects the roots of the museum as a hosting ground for open collaboration with art practitioners and home for private collections, but also the ‘hospitality’ that is shown when a host welcomes guests into their living abode or art space. The locale of the exhibition being in a home is itself an enactment of one such welcoming scenario, serving as an apt reminder of the importance of patronage.

“In order to constitute the space of a habitable house and a home, you also need an opening, a door and windows… a passage to the outside world / to the stranger” says Derrida of hospitality. The exhibition invites viewers to embark on their journey of reflection—whether as a first-time visitor or a devoted museum-goer—to really consider what the words ‘The’ ‘Private’ ‘Museum’ put together as an entity in the arts eco-system could be for them.

This exhibition will run from 7 January to 26 March 2023.

Download our exhibition leaflet for more information here.

In conjunction with the Singapore Art Week and to commemorate renowned Singaporean sculptor, Anthony Poon (1945 – 2006) on the 10^th anniversary of his passing, The Private Museum is proud to present From Maquettes to Sculptures: An Anthony Poon Estate Collection.

This is the first major exhibition of Poon’s sculptural maquettes from the artist estate collection following his last retrospective exhibition in 2009. The exhibition showcases a selection of 25 maquettes; of which some were materialised into iconic public commissions and others remained as unrealised ideas in the artist’s estate collection.

Tracing the Cultural Medallion recipient’s artistic practice as a sculptor, the highlights of the exhibition include significant commissions such as Affinity commissioned for the HDB Hub, Aspirations for the Old Hill Street Police Station, Crimson Eagle for Tampines Junction, Joyluck for Singapore Turf Club, Sense Surround for St Regis Hotel and Waves Columns for International Plaza.

The Private Museum is proud to present Han Sai Por: Secret Landscapes – A Bali Purnati Artist Residency by one of Singapore’s leading sculptors and cultural medallion recipient, Han Sai Por. The exhibition marks the museum’s second collaboration with Yayasan Bali Purnati, as well as the artist’s inaugural solo acrylic-medium focused exhibition.

Nature has been always one of Han’s core influences in her practice. With vigour and tenacity, she immersed herself in the rich textures of natural landscapes and traversed in the untamed terrains of the mystical Indonesian island of Bali. Han’s new body of works captures the essence of Balinese topography—allowing the viewer to delve into the depth of her art practice.

The highlights of the exhibition include artistic interpretations of various geographical visits: the volcanic regions of Mount Batur and Mount Agung, the pristine beaches of Amed, Ketewel and Bias Tugel, the crashing waves of Water Blow Nusa Dua, and the expansive rice terraces of Jatiluwih.

In conjunction with the Singapore Biennale 2016: An Atlas of Mirrors, The Private Museum is proud to present Ahmad Abu Bakar & Suriani Suratman: Tanah Air (Homeland)—the first collaboration between visual artist Ahmad Abu Bakar and ceramic artist Suriani Suratman, in which they explore the theme of Tanah (Land) & Air (Water) and its significance to the notion of homeland. The exhibition features a new body of clay works where the artists share a dialogue on the prominence of the natural elements, Tanah and Air.

Ahmad explores the nuances of homeland, expressing his relationship with the land as a component of his identity and embracing it as an inherited gift. His series of three distinct bodies of works, fittingly titled Tanah Ku Sayang, hints at his affection for his adopted motherland where he looks into the complexity of identifying with land in relation to nationality. Suriani addresses the importance and necessity of water in the form of rain and river—the primary source of life and creation. Her works interpret the expression tadah tangan—to cup the hand and contain—and examines expression in movement as a symbolic suggestion of one rejoicing when the rain comes.

Their probe into the interplay of Tanah and Air is an attempt to uncover the allure of the semantic duality of homeland. Through the use of clay as a unified medium of artistic expression, the exhibition reflects the artists’ exploration of the shared historical origins of the region and the conception of Homeland as a mirror to their identities drawing parallel with An Atlas of Mirrors.

In celebration of International Women’s Day and in conjunction with Singapore Design Week 2018, The Private Museum is pleased to present In Flux by New York-based Singaporean artist, Dr Wee Hong Ling, from 16 March to 6 May 2018. This solo exhibition follows the most recent development of Wee’s artistic practice, featuring three distinct series of ceramic works (Brooklyn, Moxie and My Family Portrait) and, importantly, the inaugural showcase of blacksmithing works by a Singaporean female artist.

Brooklyn is a series that acknowledges both Singapore and New York as Wee’s homes. From one island to another, Brooklyn references her mediation between continents and her abiding state of flux. By contrast, Moxie, a series of large vessels with daring cantilevers, engages the viewer to ruminate on the artist’s internal qualities of fortitude and persistence as requisites of creating sizable ceramic works.

In this exhibition, Wee also revisits My Family Portrait, the sole figurative sculpture from her body of work that has never been shown. In Flux presents her interpretations in clay and steel juxtaposed against the old childhood photograph.

For the second blacksmithing work, Heaven and Earth, Wee experiments with time and chance by exposing nine forged discs to the elements, including the first snow of winter in New York, to develop a skin of rust. Heaven and Earth, inspired by Chinese cosmology, can be seen as the artist paying homage to her mother tongue and heritage.

As a whole, In Flux is an artistic endeavour by Dr Wee Hong Ling to challenge perceptions and break social stereotypes. Personal and endearing, the works mirror her mindset regarding the continual state of uncertainty that she experiences in the physical, metaphysical and humanistic worlds.

The Private Museum is pleased to present You, Other; I, Another, a group exhibition curated by Dr Susie Lingham. This marks The Private Museum’s new initiative in collaborating with Guest Curators to facilitate and support independent and experimental curatorial practice, and to present different perspectives on our world. The exhibition will feature works by nine artists including Regina De Rozario, Mithun Jayaram, Mumtaz Maricar, Siew Kee Liong, Leroy Sofyan, Vincent Twardzik Ching, Victor Emmanuel, Susie Wong and Yeo Chee Kiong.

Relation is reciprocity. My You acts on me as I act on it. […] Inscrutably involved, we live in the currents of universal reciprocity. *

To and from every I there is a You, a They, a We, an Us, an Other. To whom is another, Other? Or is it more precise to say: when is the other Other to another? Otherness is an oscillation; is in oscillation. The binary-dynamic of finding the self in the other has always been tipped at moments, and shifts to finding the other in the self—recognising difference within oneself is ongoing, and unnerving, for every ‘I’.

Within the structures of any society, how is the other conditioned into being ‘Other’? How is otherness represented? Who represents otherness? In what way do we feel ‘other’, and how do we feel for and with ‘the other’ who differs from our self-sensed otherness? The Other demarcates the line of belonging; what we identify against.

The Other fascinates; confounds; is feared and rejected; is reviled; is ignored, dismissed; is mistreated, marginalised, alienated; is tolerated. Then again, some specimens of otherness are denied even ‘existence’ because quite anomalous, and uncategorisable: perhaps the Other is a Hydra, not a community.

Otherness differentiates on a spectrum of ‘difference’—in kind, by degree, by decree, by choice, inevitably. In You, Other; I, Another, nine artists’ works diverge off various individual realities of lived Otherness, or concepts of difference—expressed in diverse materialities and modes. From the rhythms of the natural world to the measures of culture and custom, and stemming from the personal, the familial to societal—all manner of Other manifest here reciprocally, “inscrutably involved.”

___________________________________________________ * Martin Buber, I and Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Touchstone, 1996), p 67.

In celebration of International Women’s Day 2019, The Private Museum (TPM) is pleased to present From Lost Roots to Urban Meadows by Singapore-based artists, Madhvi Subrahmanian and Nandita Mukand. As part of TPM’s Women Artists series, this joint exhibition follows the most recent developments of the artists’ practices, featuring installation and sculptural works informed by their ongoing explorations into nature and how it responds to our everyday life in the city.

Subrahmanian reflects on the fluid interconnectedness of nature and urban cultures. Bringing together conceptual and sensory experiences, her works are often participatory and/or immersive in nature. Her contemplative process attempts to trace the imprints of the intangible through her investigations into city structures, space layouts, archaeological sites and the displacement of objects by shape-shifting shadows. Drawing upon her interest in metaphysics and its abstract concepts such as being, knowing, identity, time, space; and neuroplasticity, Mukand’s practice observes the deep intricacies of nature, mingled and merged with the working of the urban mind. Through the amalgamation of synthetic and organic materials, her works ruminate upon citified mindsets and illuminate urban veils that separate us from nature.

Through the inquisitive lens of both the artists, From Lost Roots to Urban Meadows seeks to challenge our perceptions of nature and life – inviting the viewer to delve deeper and engage in new conversations about our urban existence—with or without—nature.

The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore is pleased to present Repeat, Repeat, Repeat; revising the phenomenon of printing—a group exhibition curated by Zaki Razak. This marks the second edition of the TPM Guest Curator series—collaborating with Guest Curators to facilitate and support independent and experimental curatorial practice, and to present different perspectives on our world. The exhibition will feature works by seven artists including Miguel Chew, Weixin Chong, Mona Choo, Urich Lau, Nadia Oh, Shin-Young Park, and Yeo Shih Yun.

There have been numerous exhibitions based on traditional printing methods and the expanded practice of artists who adopted painterly approaches; explored a certain degree of experimentation; challenged the convention in what is permissible; and demonstrated sophisticated control of process. What seems more substantial is the repeating pattern of thematic exhibitions, which emphasized on the possibilities of print. There seems to be a similar sentiment towards an often-repeated source, the rockstar of printmaking, Albrecht Dürer. His works are the first to be considered the most refined and celebrated due to their meticulous and dynamic forms which never fail to feed on our sight.

One definite consensus made is not to realise a medium-based approach exhibition but to break open the closed system of perception of printmaking and to instil a point of discussion on the phenomenon of printing; responding to the essence of the tradition or the emergence of the mechanism of multiplication and repetition; the context of its evolution and revolution; and what its consequences are in this day and age. The artists’ visual responses in forms and formation are meant to be symbolic visual cues to the journey of printing towards a knowledgeable ascent—to bring a certain degree of consciousness. What was before and after the invention of the Gutenberg printing machine and how did printed matter change or affect the human condition?

The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore is pleased to present I am a CON artist: Continuous Contemplations of Justin Lee. The exhibition is a special collaboration between artist, collector and space, locating itself in two spaces with a main exhibition and special showcase happening in conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2021.

Alongside a selection of past works from The Teng Collection, a new body of works will also be exhibited, building upon Justin Lee’s continuous contemplations on his identity as an artist and member of civil society. The artist employs visual and cultural references to provide social commentary on the perennial issues of consumerism and individualism, which in today’s digital age of instant gratifications and everyday glorifications become exponentially magnified.

Composed of paintings, text-based artefacts, performance and interactive art installation, the exhibition confronts its audience not only with the ceaseless forces of rapid globalisation and hyper digitalisation, but also challenges them to examine their individual complicity in glorifying and immortalising one’s self in the everyday.

Through this special collaboration, TPM expands beyond its scope as a home for private collectors by merging its artist and collector platforms to present the interconnectedness and intimate relationships that form between artists, collectors, art spaces, and their audiences.

Featuring Justin Lee’s monumental installations from The Teng Collection, the one-week special showcase reflects the artist’s expanding oeuvre that explores the themes of identity and socio-cultural norms in Singapore across a variety of mediums. The showcase forms part of the exhibition I am a CON artist: Continuous Contemplations of Justin Lee, happening in conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2021.

In conjunction with Singapore Art Week 2020, The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore is pleased to present Emerging: Collecting Singapore Contemporary – Selections from the DUO Collection. As part of TPM’s 10th anniversary celebrations, the museum revisits its foundation of bridging the private and the public; this exhibition is the first in a series of five featuring an array of private collections in Singapore.

The DUO, whose collectors prefer to remain anonymous, started building their collection five years ago with a focus to support emerging artists in Singapore and Southeast Asia, though they have been collecting widely for more than a decade.

Emerging is the inaugural showcase of selected works collected in the past five years featuring 16 Singapore-based artists. These works reflect some of Singapore’s emerging urgencies in recent years by responding to themes of identity, migration, urbanisation, the environment, places and spaces. The exhibition seeks not only to stimulate new conversations on Singapore contemporary art through the lens of private collectors, but also to expand on their role in the art eco-system as imperative patrons of the arts.

The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore presents Mediations: A Selection of Works by Ulrich Sante, a digitised exhibition experience in collaboration with the German Ambassador to Singapore Dr Ulrich Sante. Building on our mission to bridge the private and public by facilitation an exchange of ideas across cultures, Mediations celebrates the bilateral ties forged between Singapore and Germany, and importantly offers a glimpse into the converging worlds of art and diplomacy.

This digital project emerged as a result of the COVID-19 crisis which prompted us to rethink how we engage with our audiences and adapt to new norms of virtual experiences. Bringing the exhibition experience to the residence of the German Ambassador, this short film will feature a rarely-seen body of selected artworks by Dr Sante, who, beyond his diplomatic duties, is not only a keen appreciator of the arts, but a passionate contemporary visual artist at heart. Viewers will also be able to witness Dr Sante in conversation with Singapore Ambassador-at-Large Professor Tommy Koh.

Since his inaugural exhibition 18 years ago in Brussels, Dr Sante’s artistic practice focuses primarily on working with everyday found materials such as wood, metal and bricks in creating sculptural works. Throughout his practice, the artist explores mankind’s relationship with nature, which, on one hand may seem at odds with each other, but can also be complementary and in harmony. His works can be found in private collections in Germany, France, Belgium, Great Britain, Lithuania, Austria and the United States.

The Private Museum (TPM) Singapore is pleased to present Search and Discover: The Joy of Collecting – Selections from the Yeap Lam Yang Collection. TPM revisits its foundation of bridging the private and the public in this year’s final and largest exhibition that forms part of the museum’s 10th anniversary programming, featuring an array of private collections in Singapore.

Co-curated by Aaron Teo and Beverly Yong, the exhibition features 65 carefully selected works by 35 artists from the Asia-Pacific region from the Yeap Lam Yang collection, spanning over three decades. While the works are categorically small—the exhibition’s curatorial theme intentionally limits the size of the works to 60 cm by 60 cm—there is nary a “smallness” in their significance. Each work is precious and treasured, each a symbolic step into the collector’s foray into the art world as a patron and supporter of the arts.

Search and Discover: The Joy of Collecting unravels the process of exhibition-making and reveals the joy of collecting; discovering and revisiting artists, a rekindling of old relationships, and a forging of new ones. Yeap Lam Yang’s apt reminder that “there is good art everywhere waiting to be uncovered” is an invitation to all viewers to chart their individual, personal journeys in search and discovery of art and artists, new and familiar.

“Building, structure, edifice. Home, office, organisation. Community, city, country. Shelter, safety, comfort. Identity, memory, history. 99-year lease, freehold, 3+3+3, Master Plan.”

The Private Museum Singapore (TPM) is pleased to present 3+3+3: On Condition—a group exhibition curated by Andrea Fam. This marks the third edition of TPM’s Guest Curator Platform—collaborating with guest curators to support and experiment with independent curatorial practice through the presentation of different perspectives of our world. This interdisciplinary exhibition will feature both new and ongoing works by five artists and architects including artist duo Finbarr Fallon & Claire Goh, Geraldine Kang, Michael Lee, Mervin Loh and Isabella Teng Yen Lin.

Our governing bodies, architects, invisible labour, civilians, new and temporary residents have seamlessly infused their own histories and intimate memories into the foundational and poignant blueprints of our small island nation. Borrowing its namesake from the commercial lease agreement under the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), 3+3+3 explores these unseen psycho-spatial associations and the complexities of our urban planning while musing on the ephemeral nature of space and place-making in our land-scarce city.

Through preparatory sketches, utopian models, performative engagements and satirical ‘white papers’, this exhibition is an open-ended invitation to reflect on our ever-evolving relationships with our urban environment. Engaging our different senses, these works contemplate notions of nostalgia and transience while considering the overlooked inhabitants of Singapore.

Having served as an independent arts platform for the past 11 years, 3+3+3 marks TPM’s last exhibition in our home at 51 Waterloo Street. Such is the life of built spaces in our metropolis—though they bestow us with character, identity and heritage, we confer them with impermanence and dispensability, provocating the question, “If buildings retain the lived histories imbued into them, shouldn’t we consider their embodied human spirit?”