'Strange things' done for art

At Morgan Stanley, there was similar trepidation that Victor's A Patchwork Tells A Thousand Histories would be too big to move into the skyscraper.

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It was a close thing, with workmen twisting and turning to make sure the painting-installation fit through the doors leading into the office from the cargo lift. Victor's work came in at 2.08m tall, just 2cm short of the 2.1m maximum height.

At a time when paperwork was less rigorous, older purchases were in some cases, understandably, not thoroughly logged. At Wong Partnership, partners went shopping after the firm was founded in 1992, buying with the aim of filling wall space each of the three times the firm expanded and moved.

This meant some of the artwork information required unearthing, such as Malaysian artist Tajuddin Ismail's Zen Garden (Revisited) hanging rather forlornly outside a photocopy room. On the optimistic side, this informality also makes room for a personal touch and the spontaneous encounter.

The law firm's founder-consultant Wong recounts the origins of a Tan Swie Hian calligraphic work that guards the entrance to his office. On a visit to Tan's studio with a friend, the home-grown artist had spontaneously decided to gift Wong a work, opting to write a Chinese idiom that, when translated, meant not a single thread of silk to wear, or buck naked.