Private collector Richard Koh: Exhibiting his collection is like exposing himself

Enter Osbourne House, the site of The Private Museum, and one comes face to face with the muscular physicality of British artist Thomas Houseago's gigantic sculpture The Walking Man.

- Clement Yong

It is breathtaking, but also the last time this exhibition of Malaysian gallerist Richard Koh's private collection relies on scale to impress.

"Too obvious," the 60-year-old Koh says when asked to pose in front of this artist proof, which he had wrangled through his connections in the art world.

"As a piece that I've bought, it's very much an exception."

Of Dreams And Contemplation: I Am All But A Story is The Private Museum's second time exhibiting Koh's collection.

The shy collector and founder of Richard Koh Fine Art, with spaces in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, says with a smile that he and the gallery are "very different entities".

The previous exhibition in the museum's Waterloo Street space in 2019 featured 33 works. This show has more than 50 pieces spread out over the two floors of the colonial bungalow, an elaboration of the different facets of Koh's nearly four decades of collecting.

For Koh, it is also a chance to see some of his own acquisitions that have been in storage for 10 to 15 years.