Guggenheim looks East

FOR seven decades, the Guggenheim Museum in New York has been a temple for art lovers. But in its vast collection of more than 6,800 artworks, only 12 were from South and South-east Asia. None was from Singapore.

To redress its Western-centric focus, the museum partnered with banking and financial services group UBS to launch the Guggenheim UBS MAP Global Art Initiative in 2012. For five years starting in 2012, it seeks to expand its collection to include works from three territories - South and South-east Asia; Latin America; and Middle East and North Africa.

The curator picked from several candidates to help the museum acquire Asian works was none other than Singapore's June Yap, a familiar face in the local art scene. Yap, 40, was once a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Singapore, and then the Singapore Art Museum.