A WEALTH of ART

Banks, law firms and hotels here are showing their commitment to local and regional art, with some hiring consultants to curate collections and plan outreach programmes

- Clement Yong

Stepping into the hush-hush reception area of multinational investment bank UBS in Penang Road, one encounters what looks like a 3m-long gold foil, covered end to end with Danish words in Gothic script.

Someone in search of a meeting room would likely pay it scant attention. But according to UBS art collection specialist Kwok Shao Hui, it has given those of a particular demographic pause — German and Danish clients, who cannot help but remark: "Why is this here?"

The gold on vellum work by Vietnamese artist Danh Vo, titled Pantoffel (2020), details Cinderella's stepsisters' mutilation of their feet to fit into the glass slipper that could catapult their fortunes.

Vo, an immigrant to Denmark, makes the suffering of these ridiculed characters his own: For a shot at a better life, he, too, has chopped and sawed, pulled and snipped at himself to fit in.

In the cocooned environments of banks, law firms and hotels across the country, art — specifically those by Singapore and South-east Asian artists — continues to fulfil its function of kick-starting unexpected conversation. Against notions of a lack of corporate support for local art, a wealth of counter-evidence is emerging for those who care to look.

Company collections hold histories of how founders' passions for art came to be "institutionalised", as in the case of Wong Partnership founder Wong Meng Meng's snagging of vessels by Singapore ceramist Iskandar Jalil for a few hundred dollars in the 1990s. Those are now spot-lit and given pride of place in the law firm's Marina Bay Financial Centre office.

The Farrer Park Company chairman Maurice Choo personally oversaw the commission of a life-size stork by Malaysia-born Singaporean sculptor Kumari Nahappan, hoisted to One Farrer Hotel's sixth floor from street level in the wee hours of a quiet night in 2022.