National Gallery Singapore Leadership Shake-Up Leaves Key Roles Open

National Gallery Singapore will lose chief curator Patrick Flores and assistant chief executive Chris Lee in December, the museum told The Straits Times on October 26. Their departures coincide with director and chief executive Eugene Tan’s year-end exit from the Gallery, but successor Chng Hak-Peng has been named only as chief executive. The unresolved director and chief-curator posts matter because the museum is rebuilding the permanent galleries for its Southeast Asian collection.

 
 

Three Departures Leave Four Portfolios in Play

The dates tell two stages of the story. In a September 28 announcement, National Gallery Singapore said Chng would become chief executive on January 1, 2027. Tan will remain through the end of December for the handover, then concentrate on his continuing posts as chief executive and director of Singapore Art Museum.

A separate October 26 report by The Straits Times disclosed that Flores and Lee will also leave in December. The paper said Flores will return to the Philippines. Lee is due to become chief executive of Medan Pasar Realty and Muara Arts in Kuala Lumpur on December 16.

The museum’s published titles show why this is more than a change of three names:

Portfolio	Current holder	January status
Chief executive	Eugene Tan	Chng confirmed
Director	Eugene Tan	Not announced
Chief curator	Patrick Flores	Role not confirmed
Museum experience and operations	Chris Lee	No successor named

Three departing executives therefore account for four named portfolios. Only the chief executive portfolio has a publicly identified January holder. The Straits Times reported that the museum did not directly answer whether it would conduct an international search for the director and chief curator, or even whether the chief-curator position, created in 2024, would continue. Chng said interim leadership arrangements are in place and programs, partnerships, and services will proceed.

Infographic by Art in Context, based on The Straits Times, National Gallery Singapore.

 
 

The Southeast Asia Gallery Is Already Being Rebuilt

Leadership is changing while one of the museum’s central interpretive projects is unfinished. National Gallery Singapore describes itself as steward of the world’s largest public collection of Singapore and Southeast Asian modern art. Its former long-term display, Between Declarations and Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia since the 19th Century, presented more than 300 works before it ended.

The museum’s current exhibition record says the UOB Southeast Asia Gallery is closed and will reopen in late 2027 with a new presentation. Works from the National Collection remain on view elsewhere in the building.

CNA reported in February that the closure would begin April 1, 2026, across three levels of the former Supreme Court Wing, with reopening planned for November 2027. Flores then described the overhaul as the result of years of research and said it would reflect changes in how the region’s art is understood. His December exit does not, by itself, establish any change to the schedule. Phoebe Scott is the publicly identified lead curator of the UOB Southeast Asia Gallery revamp, although the museum has not announced who will occupy the chief-curator post after Flores leaves.

That distinction is crucial. A permanent-collection rehang is not merely construction. Selection, chronology, labeling, and the relationships drawn among artists determine the account of Southeast Asian modernism that visitors encounter. Phoebe Scott is leading the revamp’s curatorial work, while the museum has not disclosed how authority above the project level will be structured after December.

Raden Saleh, Boschbrand (Forest Fire), 1849, collection of National Gallery Singapore. Public-domain image via Wikimedia Commons.

 
 

The Gallery Retains a Senior Curatorial Bench

The departures do not justify describing the museum as devoid of curatorial leadership. Its current senior-management page lists Lisa Horikawa as director of curatorial and collections, Seng Yu Jin as director of curatorial, research and exhibitions, and Derrick Yam as director of artwork and exhibition management. Those positions sit alongside Flores’s chief-curator title.

The Gallery’s published management chart places the chief curator and senior curatorial directors alongside one another beneath the chief executive and director. It does not disclose who will hold final authority after Flores leaves, and none of those directors has been announced as his interim or permanent replacement. The distinction between a chief curator and a team of collection and exhibition specialists matters: background on what curators do helps explain why continuity of staff and continuity of authority are related but different questions.

Lee’s portfolio presents a parallel issue on the visitor side. The museum says his Museum Experience and Services unit integrates visitor experience, innovation and technology, marketing and communications, and business development. That remit connects exhibitions to the way audiences enter, navigate, and encounter them physically and digitally. A successor has not been named, although the museum says interim arrangements cover its continuing services.

The evidence therefore supports a narrower conclusion than a “leadership vacuum.” National Gallery Singapore retains multiple senior directors and says operations will continue, but it has not made the January chain of responsibility public for three portfolios that shape art, exhibitions, and the visitor experience.

Interior circulation spaces at National Gallery Singapore. Photograph by Basile Morin, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

 
 

A Postponed Exhibition Adds a Separate Uncertainty

The leadership changes also arrive after a major exhibition disappeared from the calendar. The museum’s March 2026 visitor guide advertised After the Monsoon: Art & War in Southeast Asia, describing art as a means of reflecting on, documenting, and healing from conflict. The Straits Times reported on October 26 that the exhibition, initially scheduled for May, remains postponed indefinitely because of what the museum called the “uncertain global situation.”

The museum’s reported explanation concerned the global situation rather than staffing. Treating the exhibition and the personnel changes as one causal story would go beyond the evidence. Seng Yu Jin, Lisa Horikawa, Phoebe Scott, and Kathleen Ditzig were identified as the show’s curators, although the museum has not said whether the leadership changes would alter that team if the exhibition is revived.

 
 

One Successor Is Named; Three Portfolios Are Not

National Gallery Singapore has confirmed that Chng will become chief executive on January 1, while Tan, Flores, and Lee leave their Gallery posts in December. The institution’s own role list establishes that those three executives currently cover four portfolios, and the director, chief-curator, and museum-experience portfolios have no publicly named successors.

The senior curatorial directors who remain make “transition” more accurate than “vacuum.” What is still unknown is whether the chief-curator role will survive, who will become director, who will take Lee’s remit, and whether any of those decisions will affect the postponed exhibition or the late-2027 reopening of the Southeast Asia galleries.