Art Collectors: Collecting Habits and A System of Support

Ho See Wah

Collectors support artists in more ways than acquiring their works. They are also often patrons of public institutions, and provide support through their foundations and private collections. With the onset of Covid-19, however, the essential quality of this role — to collect art — has had to adapt to changes in the art circuit. Owing to travel restrictions and social distancing measures enacted on a global scale, conventional platforms for the acquisition of works such as through exhibitions, art fairs and studio visits, have slowed down. This precipitated a wave of online activations as the industry adopted new ways of showcasing art with virtual art fairs like OPPO Art Jakarta 2020, and digital viewing rooms on galleries’ platforms like Manila-based Silverlens Galleries and G13 Gallery in Petaling Jaya. Accordingly, collectors have visited Online Viewing Rooms (OVRs), attended virtual auctions, browsed e-catalogues from galleries, and attended studio visits on screen when it comes to viewing and buying art.

In spite of these adaptations, the consensus is that viewing artworks online simply cannot replace the experience of encountering them in person. Melbourne-based Indonesian collector Konfir Kabo says, “Part of the joy of art collecting is the interaction with the artist, the space and the curator… the social aspect. The other part — the more important one — is the ability to observe the tactile nature and the presence of the works.” Indeed, while many digital offerings have popped up in the past year, many are thankful for the easing of restrictions that has allowed for art viewing in real life again. Malaysian collector Tan Hon Yik is also glad he has been able to attend a number of local gallery exhibitions and auctions in person. However, it is unlikely that travelling and gathering for art events will return to their pre-pandemic states, and with the rapid development of a digital infrastructure for art circulation, a virtual approach toward purchasing art seems here to stay.

A more austere climate when it comes to physical showcases of art notwithstanding, collectors have continued to acquire art through their individual, focused approaches. Tan has a purposeful formula for both his modern and contemporary art collections. For the former, his interest is in collecting Indonesian modern abstract works from the Bandung school, with particular attention paid to Srihadi Soedarsono and Mochtar Apin. Additionally, he aims to collect at least one artwork from each phase of an artist’s career. Similarly, for contemporary works, he focuses on building a collection of works that follows an artist’s professional trajectory, and is interested in emerging and mid-career Southeast Asian artists such as Ruben Pang, Yeoh Choo Kuan, Lugas Syllabus and Natee Utarit. This allows him to continue building his collection in a thoughtful manner despite physical limitations.

The collectors I interviewed are all patrons of younger artists. Tan takes the initiative to actively buy the works of young Malaysian artists. “I believe that every collector has a duty to support the local art scene despite the fact that its development is progressing slower than regional counterparts,” he says. These sentiments are echoed by Singapore collector Dennis Tan, who says, “I see my role as helping to support and advocate the works of talented Singapore artists, even more so if they are young emerging artists.” Lito and Kim Camacho have done the same. “I have also personally bought and commissioned some artworks by young artists in order to support them,” says Camacho.

In the same vein, Camacho, in her position as a member of a museum’s acquisition committee, has been avidly advocating for the acquisition of living artists during this difficult period. The Camachos regularly lend artworks from their collection to museums. These loans can sometimes take the artwork away from the collector for a substantial period of time, such as the Yayoi Kusama shows going to M+. After this show, After the show, they will continue to travel to Power Station in Shanghai and then finally, to a museum in South Korea. Through their generosity, collectors play a key role in giving the public access to vaunted artworks.

Other collectors have started their own foundations to champion a cause that they believe in, such as Hong Kong collector Patrick Sun, who is the Founder and Executive Director of Sunpride Foundation. Founded in 2014, it is committed to uplifting the work of LGBTQ artists to push for a more equitable world in this regard. Notably, in collaboration with first the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei and then the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Sunpride Foundation has staged two iterations of ‘Spectrosynthesis’, a monumental survey of LGBTQ art from Asia that aims to, in part, raise awareness for this community. The foundation is preparing for its next exhibition in Hong Kong planned for the last quarter of 2022.

Kabo, along with his family, established the Project Eleven initiative in 2016. “We have been providing support for various projects and artists on an ad hoc basis for years, and we finally decided to give it a name and structure,” says Kabo. “We had a philanthropic advisor conduct a workshop with the family to tease out what was important to us when we give support, and how to balance out the various interests of our family members.” Recent projects include loaning works from their collection, such as for ‘#Perempuan 2021: Contemporary Indonesian Art’ at the Castlemaine Art Museum as part of the Castlemaine State Festival, as well as supporting the production of ‘Composing Archipelagos’ at Contemporary Art Tasmania. In this manner, collectors such as Sun and Kabo perform this additional role of actively advocating and shaping the landscape for contemporary art.

Indeed, the role of a collector is a multifarious one, and moving forward from this extended lull precipitated by the pandemic, collectors are also cognisant of their expanded capacities. “The support from collectors is even more important now when the art world is struggling with the socio-economic impact caused by the pandemic,” says Sun. We will likely see collectors taking more initiative in shaping their agendas beyond collecting.

We asked the collectors about the favourite artworks in their collection at the moment.

Patrick Sun

Zheng Bo, ‘Pteridophilia I’, 2016, single-channel colour 4K video with sound, 17min. Image courtesy of the artist, Edouard Malingue Gallery and Sunpride Foundation.

‘Pteridophilia’, a series of video works by Zheng Bo that explore eco-queer potentials and extend our imagination of the complex co-existence of all living things on this planet.

Dennis Tan

A current favourite of mine is ‘Blue Tarpaulin’, an oil painting I collected immediately after Singapore’s Circuit Breaker last year. I went to the studio of the talented artist Yeo Tze Yang and purchased it on the spot. It is a picture of an everyday scene of the mundane, but such a powerful interpretation!

Yeo Tze Yang, ‘Blue Tarpaulin’, 2020, oil on canvas, 180 x 105cm. Image courtesy of the collector.

Tan Hon Yik

That is a difficult question to answer but I currently find myself being constantly drawn to two recent acquisitions: namely, a Srihadi Soedarsono work from the early 1990s entitled ‘Girl on the Shore’, which is listed in the ‘Srihadi Soedarsono: Path of the Soul’ book by Jean Couteau, that I acquired from an Indonesian gallery. The other is a Ruben Pang work entitled ‘Sheath of Flexors’ that he completed during the pandemic.

‘Girl on the Shore’ is a unique work combining a classic Srihadi landscape with a rare female nude figure and fills a gap in my collection in relation to both the subject matter and period in the artist’s career. The work by Ruben Pang reminds me of a modern reinterpretation of a classic Italian renaissance work, which seems quite apt considering that the artist relocated to Italy during the pandemic.

Ruben Pang, ‘Sheath of Flexors‘,2020-2021, oil, alkyd and dammar varnish on aluminium composite panel, 220 × 150cm. Image courtesy of the artist and Primo Marella Gallery.

Srihadi Soedarsono, ‘Girl on the Shore’, 1991, 90 x 96cm. Image courtesy of the collector.

Konfir Kabo

Ruth Marbun, ‘One is a Million’, 2018, watercolour on 300gsm cotton paper, cotton fabric, polyester, dimensions variable. Exhibition installation shot at Castlemaine Art Museum. Image courtesy of the artist.

It is like choosing between my children; I love them all.

Kim Camacho

Yayoi Kusama, ‘Sex Obsession’, 1992, acrylic on canvas, 194 x 260cm. Image courtesy of Lito and Kim Camacho.

My favorite artworks in our collection are all by Yayoi Kusama’s: ‘Sex Obsession’, an extremely rare piece which has been exhibited around the world; ‘The Prisoner’s Door’, which was exhibited in the important Kusama retrospective at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Tate Modern, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris and the Whitney Museum, New York; and the two mosaic pumpkins which were two of the three exhibited at The National Art Centre, Tokyo.