This private arts club founder wants to preserve art heritage

The Reason (2007), mixed material on canvas, Jie Li-Elbraechter.

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Tell us a little bit about your art practice and what art means to you.

I started learning Chinese ink painting at six years old. My first art teacher was excellent. He didn’t just teach me painting skills. Instead, he told me the culture behind ink painting and how such culture relates to the real world. He told me ink painting is about power and vitality, just like life. So, I thought painting was art. Later, I started to learn all sorts of art genres and forms. Now, after studying and living in so many different cultures, I think, to me, art is inspiration; it’s about broadening our horizons and opening our hearts. Painters, musicians, and actors are all artists. A curator is also the director of a stage. Life itself is a stage. I paint, because the brush is a useful tool, and I also make sculptures, art installations, and exhibitions. So, to me, life is an artwork, and the earth is a palette. 

City Impression 1 (2000), mixed material on canvas, Jie Li-Elbraechter.

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You’re an artist and a collector. What role do collectors play in keeping the arts alive? 

That’s a good question, the private collector is also an artist in their own right and they curate the work they keep. While they might collect art pieces for various reasons, such as decoration, pure admiration of an artists’ work, investment, and so on, the private collector helps to keep conversations about art going with the work they collect – from around the world or from a subset of artists – as they exchange ideas with their network of partners and fellow art lovers. 

I think if collectors in Singapore have a community, they can make more contributions to art education and exchange.

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Illusion (2018), glass, Jie Li-Elbraechter.

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What is your vision for the collector’s community that you initiated? 

I wish there’s a group of collectors who can talk with each other, share, and come up with innovative and constructive new ideas. In Singapore, many collectors are also artists. They are creative and passionate about art. Many of them collect artworks all over the world, and they travel around to different countries to learn their cultures. 

Sunyata (2018), handmade glass, Jie Li-Elbraechter.

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The Mysterious VIP Art Treasure Stewards Exhibit you organised was a masquerade party with collectors donning masks. Do many collectors want to retain anonymity? 

I came up with the idea, firstly because fthe word mask rhymes with masquerade, and the mask is symbolic of the past two years of Covid-19. Also, some of the attendees wanted to be anonymous. The third reason is that this exhibit is themed “mysterious”, so I wanted to use the mask to make the house, the house owner, collectors, and all the attendees mysterious.

Guan Zizai (2018), Glass, Jie Li-Elbraechter.

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If you had to shine a spotlight on just a single person in the art world, who would it be?

I shared in my exhibition opening speech about German collector Harald Falckenberg, who is well known in the international art collection network and who only started collecting art at age 50. He once said to this effect, “I don’t care about the list ranking of the collectors. From my personal point of view, I look upon art as a historical document. For you who deal with social-oriented art, you must bring the collections to the public. What is hidden in a closet is not art, and that has never been my approach.” I agree with his words, and so I am doing my best to bring together artists, collectors – stewards of these art pieces, if I may – and curators to create this artistic space. 

An artist who has influenced you greatly?

Marcel Duchamp.

 

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