The CollectorInspired by Oscar-winning short starring Singapore ballerina, private museum rolls out new film fund
Wife of philanthropic art collector and mother of the museum’s director caught the eye of French director in the 1960s
Private collectors in Singapore tend to be low-key, perhaps a reflection of the government’s dominant role in the country’s cultural development. But they still have an urge to share and make an impact on the local art scene. Over the years, numerous exhibitions have featured works usually hidden away by private collectors, such as “The Collectors Show: Chimera”, held at the Singapore Art Museum in 2012, and, more recently, the “Impart Collectors’ Show”, at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre in January.
Now, a private museum has upped the ante by setting up a fund to expand its programming, support artists and, unusually, invest in art films.
Called The Private Museum, the eight-year-old establishment has its roots in the Wetterling Teo Gallery, which was set up in 1994 by Swedish dealer Björn Wetterling and Singaporean architect and property developer Daniel Teo. The commercial gallery specialised in American expressionist and pop art, but went quiet after the Asian financial crisis of 1998, when Wetterling left Singapore.
Some of the art ended up in Teo’s personal collection, which until then had focused on Singaporean and Chinese work. “He [Teo] would just use the gallery as a space to show what he has, or let his friends use it to show their collections,” the developer’s daughter and the museum’s director Rachel Teo says. “I said to him, you’re doing it like a private museum, and Singapore does have a need for a space like this. So we restarted it as a proper private museum.”
In 2010, the space was relaunched as a non-profit museum, with curators, improved public outreach programmes and collaborations with collectors, estates and artists, including help for those who want to join overseas residency programmes. Until recently, the museum had little to do with the moving image – a category of art that the Teos do not collect. What prompted the film fund was the discovery of a short made by Oscar-winning French director Serge Bourguignon.
The 19-minute Étoile de mer (1961) was shot in Singapore and stars Rachel’s mother, Goh Soo Khim, a ballerina who co-founded the Singapore Dance Theatre in 1988. Goh was one of four teenage dancers to have been picked for the film.