Two Senior Figures Leave National Gallery Singapore as Chief Executive Steps Down
Patrick Flores, the chief curator of the National Gallery Singapore, will leave the museum in December. His colleague Chris Lee, the assistant chief executive, is leaving the same month. The museum confirmed both departures on 26 October 2026 in response to questions from The Straits Times.
A chief curator leads the team that decides which works go on show and how the collection is cared for. An assistant chief executive is a senior manager who helps run the day-to-day work of the institution. Lee's formal title at the museum is Assistant Chief Executive, Museum Experience, which covers how visitors move through and use the building.
The exits come at the same time as a change at the top. Eugene Tan, who had been chief executive of the National Gallery Singapore and also chief executive of the Singapore Art Museum, is stepping down from the gallery role. ArtNews reported that Chng Hak-Peng will take over the post. Tan will stay on as chief executive of the Singapore Art Museum in the new year.
Flores was the first person to hold the title of chief curator at the gallery, a post he took up in 2024. He is a professor in the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines, and he is the director of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network. Earlier in his career he curated the Philippines Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale and the Taiwan Pavilion at the 2022 edition. He was also artistic director of the Singapore Biennale at the Singapore Art Museum in 2019 and 2020.
At the National Gallery Singapore, Flores organised several shows, including "Figuring a Scene," "Elusive Edge: Philippine Abstract Forms," and "Ties of History: Art in Southeast Asia." ArtNews reported that he plans to return to his native Philippines after he leaves.
Lee has spent about a decade at the museum. He joined as chief marketing officer, the executive in charge of promotion and audiences, and rose to assistant chief executive in July 2021. He is moving to Medan Pasar Realty, where he will be chief executive from mid-December. The company is behind efforts to revive a historic market district in central Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.
Lee will also run Muara Arts there. It is a nonprofit gallery and theatre, and it is the cultural anchor of the Medan Pasar redevelopment. A nonprofit is an organisation that reinvests its money in its mission rather than paying profits to owners.
For visitors in Singapore, the immediate change is the leadership handover. The museum has not, in the reports so far, named successors for Flores or Lee.
