We Made Space | A Conversation with Choy Weng Yang and Shabbir Hussain Mustafa

The 1970s was a time when Singapore began developing its curatorial know-how within a museological setting. The National Museum Art Gallery (NMAG), which was inaugurated in 1976, was a key site in this period. In this conversation, artist Choy Weng Yang discusses his work as a curator at the NMAG with Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Senior Curator, National Gallery Singapore). Choy also discusses his influences, creative process and ideas about art with a focus on his painting Horizontal I.

Choy Weng Yang (b. 1930, Singapore) is a local artist, curator, arts writer, educator and one of the most notable abstract painters in the post-independence period. He graduated with a National Diploma of Art from Hornsey College of Art, London, in 1962 and was awarded with an Art Teachers' Certificate from the University of London's Institute of Education in 1963. He subsequently took office as a Curator of Art at the National Museum of Singapore from 1978 to 1985, and has received acclamation for his writings about local artistic movements and art criticisms for fellow second-generation artists such as Teo Eng Seng and Anthony Poon.

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_{This conversation was filmed on 16 September 2017.}