The National Gallery Singapore (NGS) is set to lose its inaugural chief curator, Patrick Flores, and assistant chief executive Chris Lee before year-end, the Straits Times reports. The departures come just over a month after the museum announced the impending exit of chief executive and director Eugene Tan. Tan had led the institution since 2013.
Onetime Singapore Symphony Group chief executive Chng Hak-Peng, who will take over as CEO of NGS in January, told the Straits Times that “interim leadership arrangements are in place, and the gallery’s programs, partnerships and services continue as planned.” Chng said that more details would be available “in the coming months.”
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During his four-year run, Flores curated exhibitions including “City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris 1920s–1940s” and “Passion Is Volcanic: Desire in Southeast Asian Art,” which was open only to attendees eighteen years and older, marking the first time NGS had imposed such a restriction. His departure comes as the institution is in the middle of renovating its gallery devoted to Southeast Asian history, with a projected completion date of November 2027. Flores is said to be returning to his native Philippines, but he has not yet made his professional plans public.
Lee, who had been with NGS for just over a decade, will begin as CEO of Medan Pasar Realty and Muara Arts, an arts nonprofit in Kuala Lumpur, in December.
NGS has not yet confirmed whether it has begun a search for the departing pair’s successors. Of particular interest is whether Flores’s position, which was created in 2024, will be filled or folded into another job. NGS was opaque on this point, saying only that it was looking at “future appointments that would best support the museum in the long term.”