THE LIFE! INTERVIEW WITH Alan
Oei
Putting the buzz into
art
Artist-curator Alan Oei is a savvy
marketeer who is making art engaging for artists and the
public
Sculpture Square
artistic director Alan Oei is credited with 'always bringing
something edgy and interesting' to the arts scene. --
PHOTO: MARK CHEONG FOR THE STRAITS TIMES
Huang
Lijie
A nondescript ash grey shophouse in Niven Road,
christened Evil Empire by an unlit blue neon sign hanging in a
corner, is the place of a rendezvous with artist-curator Alan
Oei.
The building is the headquarters of the popular OH!
Open House, an annual art tour he co-founded in 2009, which has
since attracted more than 5,000 participants and a loyal
following.
The event features works of art installed along a
walking trail in a different neighbourhood each year, such as
Marine Parade and Tiong Bahru. Its inspiration: to bring art
making, art viewing and art appreciation into everyday spaces.
Viewers pay a small fee of $20 to take part in the art walk.
The latest edition,held in Marina Bay, was launched
over the weekend and runs till Jan 20.
Oei, 36, who greets you outside the nerve centre a
few days before OH! Open House, is relaxed and collected. The two-
storey unit also houses his art studio and the office of Salon
Projects, his arts curatorial and management company.
Before you enter, however, he discreetly suggests a
detour to Sculpture Square in Middle Road.
He was named artistic director of the arts centre
last September and he has plans for new art residencies,
exhibitions and events in the space dedicated to three-dimensional
art. The launch will not be until March but the savvy marketer
wants to whet public interest.
His plan is to have himself photographed at
Sculpture Square for this interview and he offers a quick ride
there and back in his shiny red Mazda hatchback. Unable to refuse
his earnest proposal, you become a willing hostage.
In just four years as a full-time artist, curator
and arts entrepreneur, Oei has earned recognition for adroitly
juggling different hats and gained wide-ranging support for his
mission of bringing art and community together.
This has allowed him to champion the arts with
programmes such as the volunteer-run OH! Open House and art shows
in established spaces.
He curated Campaign City: Life In Posters, an
exhibition on posters for national campaigns such as the family
planning campaign in the 1960s that advocated no more than two
children a family and the courtesy campaign from the 1980s. It
opens at the National Library in Victoria Street on Wednesday.
Dr Richard C. Helfer, 62, chairman of Sculpture
Square's board of directors, says Oei was appointed artistic
director because of his "sensibility and sensitivity to the local
arts scene", and versatility in working with different forms of
art, artists, spaces and audiences.
Oei was also an obvious collaborator for Mr Oliver
Bettin, who came up with the idea for OH! Open House.
Mr Bettin, 37, managing director of Deutsche Bank
in Singapore, the founding sponsor for OH! Open House, says: "He
always brings something edgy and interesting to the arts scene."
Blackout, an exhibition Oei curated in 2009 before the first OH!
Open House, for example, made visitors experience art in a darkened
Paya Lebar warehouse.
Mr Bettin, who got to know Alan through a mutual
friend, adds: "He is very engaging and passionate about what he
does and it is infectious. This is why he rarely gets stonewalled
when working with different parties, he is able to get people on
his side.
"You have people who are successful artists or
curators or businessmen, but rarely do you find someone with all
three qualities. Alan is one of them."
Oei, who has a fine arts diploma from Lasalle
College of the Arts and a bachelor's degree in art history from
Columbia University in New York City, credits his two years as a
National Arts Council manager for teaching him how to organise
large-scale art projects.
He managed the 2007 Singa- pore Art Show, a
biennial that showcases Singapore art.
He says: "I learnt about marketing, managed the
budget, that's probably why I could do Open House, because I have
the confidence to pull off a bigger scale event with limited
resources."
As for coming up with creative ideas for art
projects and shows, he says he simply responds to things happening
around him. Some of his plans for Sculpture Square will address
what he perceives are gaps in arts practice and policy here.
There will, for example, be art programmes to
encourage artists to take risks and explore art freely. The
approach reflects Oei's concern that artists here are obsessed with
results and prices of art, and his view that the Government "sees
art as a tool", a means to achieving an end such as attracting more
tourists or becoming known as a global city.
"Art needs its own space to breathe as well," he
says. "When you mobilise art to become an instrument of something
else, that is potentially problematic. The art that emerges under
this sort of constraints is likely to be dull and derivative, and
doesn't contest its time and space."
He also plans to launch art residencies that bring
artists of different disciplines together to collaborate on a
project, making art outside their comfort zones.
He says: "Elsewhere, artists work in the studio and
create stuff, then they show. But because of the grant system in
Singapore, artists write a proposal, then they make their art.
"But what is the point of doing art if it is so
safe, if you always want to know what your outcomes are going to
be."
He would like the artists-in-residence to engage
the community too. "As long as there are individual interactions
between the artist and residents of the community that are
meaningful, then that is art engaging the community," he says.
Oei's paintings are similarly enmeshed in the local
narrative although his style, mostly portraiture, is indebted to
old European masters such as Rembrandt and Diego Velazquez.
Some of his paintings are passed off as works by a
fictional Singaporean artist, Huang Wei, born in 1914. The name is
an abbreviation of Oei's Chinese name, Huang Zhi Wei.
The character arose from his interest in the
Equator Art Society, a group of socialist-realist painters here in
the 1950s, who have been largely forgotten. He says: "Huang Wei is
a metaphor for this missing part of our art history."
Painting, however, is not a daily exercise for him.
In the last four years, he has painted about 40 works and only when
he feels a compulsion that usually stems from melancholy.
He says: "I am extra productive after failed
relationships. The running joke among friends is that my heart
needs to be broken before I can do art."
He is single and lives with his civil engineer
father and housewife mother in a semi-detached house in
Kembangan.
He has sold more than half of his paintings, priced
in the range of a few thousand dollars. He paints commemorative
portraits on the side for fun and charges about $4,000 for a
portrait.
With his finger in so many pies, friends in the
arts scene have advised him to focus on developing his strength in
one area. He says: "For a while, I struggled with that as well. I
thought, 'Am I stretching myself too thin?'
"But they were giving career advice, not life
advice. If I want to be famous and successful and rich, then I have
to focus on one thing. But that's not my objective. My objective is
to have a life well lived so I want to do all these different
things."
He juggles between three and four projects at any
one time and he has not had a vacation in four years. The only
thing he makes time for is a weekly game of basketball with friends
from his secondary schooldays. "People tell me I am a workaholic
but I don't think I work hard enough," he adds.
His restless nature surfaces during the interview.
One moment, he is leaning into his Chinese wood-carved chair, the
next moment, he has a foot on the seat, his knee drawn to his
chest. Then, he uncoils and runs his forefinger along grooves on
the coffee table, gathering dust into a tiny mound. But he remains
attentive to the questions, maintains eye contact most times and
gives eloquent answers.
His workaholic streak is the opposite of his
penchant for loafing about when he was younger.
The second of three children and the only son, he
studied at Tao Nan School, then Maris Stella High School. His older
sister, Jean, 38, is an architect in New York and his younger
sister, Angeline, 26, is a fashion student in Amsterdam.
He was a rebellious teenager. He skipped classes,
failed examinations and ran away from home when he was 16 - he
stayed with friends, then relatives, for almost six months.
After his O levels, for which he scored 20 points,
he enrolled in Temasek Polytechnic but quickly dropped out. He
says: "I mucked around, hung out with friends, played basketball,
grew my hair long and tried to start a band."
His mother, Jackie, 60, feared he would become a
good-for-nothing so she enrolled him in Lasalle College of the Arts
after his national service.
She says: "He could draw well and I felt that art
school would benefit him because he was like a lost sheep."
He acquiesced to her wishes to make up for his
youthful rebellion but he soon discovered an interest in art. After
Lasalle, he attended Columbia University.
His tendency to loaf though, did not go away
completely. He dropped out of university for a semester to become
"a full-time artist". And in his final year, he lived the life of a
flaneur. "Every morning I would go to the cafe, eat my bagel, and
do my reading and drawing. Then I would go to the museum. After
that, I would go home and paint."
But he wised up after seeing his college classmates
land plump jobs in Wall Street upon graduation. He returned home,
became a part-time art teacher briefly, then joined the National
Arts Council.
He left civil service to start an arts education
business with a partner in 2008 but they split up over differences
on how the firm was run. Shortly after, he curated his first
exhibition Blackout, which proved to be a landmark show and a
personal turning point. The alternative art event in a far-flung
venue drew 3,000 people over three nights.
He says: "The air was buzzing, there were a lot of
people, they were really excited and they didn't want to leave. And
I realised, 'Oh, art can actually make some kind of impact'."
Not only has he made a mark with his painting and
art shows, he has also managed to stay profitable. He declines to
say how much he earns, except that it is more than if he had
continued as a civil servant.
Still, his art projects are not without challenges.
OH! Open House has been struggling to stay in the black. The first
two editions barely broke even but last year, a lack of sponsorship
meant a loss of $50,000 and he and Mr Bettin had to dip into their
own pockets.
The challenge ahead: To find a way to make Open
House sustainable. He is hopeful though that support from sponsors
and meeting the target of 3,000 visitors this year will put the
event in the black.
He adds: "I am completely invested in Singapore. I
think there is some measure of influence in the stuff that I've
done here and that, for me, is the most important thing right now,
to keep at it. I think Singapore can be more interesting."
Alan Oei at age 16 with young sister Angeline, then six (far left),
when he was three or four with his mother Jackie (left), and when
he was 23 (right), with his graduating work for his fine arts
diploma from Lasalle College of the Arts.
My life so far
"Whenever I am giving artist talks or
curator talks to younger kids, I always stress the importance of
mucking around. I think it's very important for them to find their
balance."
On taking breaks in life, which he has done several
times, especially when he was in school
"The first year, I wanted to be a
Renaissance sculptor. The second year, I wanted to be an abstract
painter. The third year, I wanted to do something more
conceptual."
On his artistic journey at Lasalle College of the
Arts
"I think I am fairly headstrong so I don't
regard that sort of dissuasion."
On whether he faced any discouragement from others in
choosing to pursue art
"They are always happy when I'm doing
something rather than doing nothing."
On how his parents view his profession as an
artist-curator
"I have two rules. One, it's not about me.
Two, it's always my fault."
On how he manages to get along with the various
stakeholders in the large-scale art projects that he
undertakes
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF ALAN OEI
LIFE! People, The Straits Times, Monday, January 7 2013, Pg
C4