ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

Life is a performance and we all have a role to play. For museum director Eugene Tan, the various roles he has taken on in the visual arts ecosystem have primed him to helm both the National Gallery Singapore and the Singapore Art Museum and be at the forefront of shaping Singapore's art scene and reframing the way we see art 

- Hashirin Nurin Hashimi

The first thing that catches our eye when we step inside Eugene Tan’s office at the National Gallery Singapore is the sheer number of art and design books on his desk. With several towering stacks, it looks as if the museum’s director is surrounded by a fort as he works in front of the computer. As he gestures for us to take a seat at the other side of the large wooden table cleared of books, we catch sight of a framed text‑based print on the floor, leaning against a wooden bookshelf filled from floor to ceiling with even more books.

It is a work by Singapore‑based artist Heman Chong (who coincidentally explores elements of literature in his practice), created as a “publicity poster” for the opening of a fictitious franchise of the famous Guggenheim museum chain in neighbouring Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The copy, in red capital letters, reads: “Just because museum directors in Singapore are so f ***ing ridiculously boring to talk to, much less hang out with”.

Such tongue‑in‑cheek social commentary is typical of Chong’s art, but this particularly acerbic one titled Obscenely Bad Guggenheim Joke #4 is targeted at those running Singapore’s cultural spaces, so much so that a Johor Guggenheim would be less boring than having one here. The sentiment of the work aside, we ask Tan if he is boring to talk to. “Absolutely. I’m not a very interesting person,” comes his self‑deprecating reply. “To be fair, he (Chong) made the work in 2011, before I became a museum director,” he adds.