‘The Joy of Collecting’ at The Private Museum
By Susan Htoo

Chen KeZhan, ‘Red Lotus’, early 1980s, chinese ink and mineral colours on rice paper, 41 x 42cm. Image courtesy of The Private Museum.

Chen KeZhan’s radiant rendering in ink of ‘Red Lotus’ (c. 1980) – their gentle petals clumping against one another as they shoot upwards beyond the paper’s edge – acts as a symbolic introduction to both the exhibition and to Yeap Lam Yang’s robust journey as a collector. “This was my first lesson in art sharing,” noted the collector,¹ who acquired the work after seeing it on a postcard from gallerist Marjorie Chu.

Installation view of ‘Search and Discover: The Joy of Collecting – Selections from the Yeap Lam Yang Collection’. Image courtesy of The Private Museum.

“Search and Discover: The Joy of Collecting” is part of The Private Museum’s 10th anniversary programme. The show weaves together a selection of 65 artworks by 35 different artists from the Yeap Lam Yang Collection. Co-curators Aaron Teo and Beverly Yong kept the size of each work under 60 x 60 cm, and as I set foot into the show, the constellation of modestly-sized works beckoned me to go closer to unearth their stories, setting the stage for an intimate, personal visit.

Chang Fee Ming, ‘Novice Monks (Mandalay, Myanmar), 1994, ink on stamped envelope, 11 x 23.5cm. Image courtesy of The Private Museum.

Yeap delights in the friendships that collecting has brought to him, such as with the Malaysian artist Chang Fee Ming, whose paintings he began to collect in the 1980s. For me, it is a revelation to see his meditatively detailed work up close. Chang focuses on the process of research in his work, sketching in-situ the different places he has visited and the sights he has seen. ‘Novice Monks (Mandalay, Myanmar)’ (1994) highlights Chang’s fascination with Buddhist traditions on his trip to Myanmar and the finesse in rendering the creases in the monks’ robes. Simultaneously, the sketching on the envelope emphasises the transient nature of both his immediate experience and the work itself.

Being a mother and a Vietnamese woman allowed Mong Bich to empathise with her subjects, who tend towards women of an older age, working class or ethic minorities. Viewers can easily identify individual characters in her evocative portraits. This affective quality is recognised by some members of the local arts community. In 1997, Mong Bich won the first prize in the Vietnam Fine Arts Association's annual competition for her silk painting 'Bà Già' (1993).

Ni Jui Hung, ‘Singapore dreamin’, 2018, poster colour, pencil on paper, 35 x 35cm. Image courtesy of The Private Museum.

Sitting directly opposite the gallery door is a salon hang of contemporary works in various styles. From Lin Yen Wei’s ‘Just Like the Way You Are’ (2014), a series of hyperrealist oil-on-canvas works featuring close-ups of handmade animal forms to to Ni Jui-Hung’s ‘Singapore dreamin’ (2018), rendered on a Haitai cheese cracker box on unexpected planes, the distinctive humour in these works demonstrates Yeap’s eclectic tastes as an art collector, and encourages visitors to chart their own journey to “search and discover” art they enjoy.

Sarah Lai, ‘Tracing the misty eye’, 2017, oil on canvas, acrylic box, matte film, 61 x 51 x 4cm. Image courtesy of The Private Museum.

The works on display go across a range of mediums. Entering a white-walled room, my eye catches the gaze of ‘Tracing the misty eye’ (2017) by Sarah Lai. The wistful, angled glance invites me to appraise an array of ceramic and sculptural works that are at once materially fragile and enduring.

Next, I move to a section of works by Malaysian artist Roslisham Ismail (or Ise) and Singapore artist Lee Wen, in a thoughtful homage to the late artists. From culinary stories to participatory performances, interaction and exchange formed a large part of each of their practices. It is a tribute not only to their artmaking but of the friendships they formed while they were alive. This links once again to the importance of meaningful connections in Yeap’s own collecting journey.

Michael Lee, ‘God’s Villa’, 2011, paper board, 27 x 79 x 19cm. Image courtesy of The Private Museum.

Finally, Michael Lee’s paper sculpture ‘God’s Villa’ (2011) is hard to miss. The labyrinthine construction of domestic space in the body proposes compelling considerations of inhabited space. It is a fitting conclusion – and invitation -- to reconceive the metaphorical spaces we occupy within the art ecosystem.

In this exhibition, The Private Museum achieves its aims to bridge the gap between the private and public spheres to promote art appreciation. Yeap’s collection, filtered through the curatorial vision of Teo and Yong, presents a timely reminder to revisit relationships and consider possibilities in a journey of art discovery. Following Yeap’s path, I leave the exhibition reflecting on my own connections with my favourite artworks, and look forward to encounters yet to come.

‘Search and Discover: The Joy of Collecting’ is on view at The Private Museum from 22 October to 23 December 2020.

¹As quoted in Beverly Yong, “Always Something Different to Look Forward to: Collecting as Small Acts of Discovery” in Search and Discover: The Joys of Collecting – Selections from the Yeap Lam Yang Collection (Singapore: The Private Museum, 2020), 10.