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Keong Ruoh Ling

Keong Ruoh Ling

Founder, KRL Art Advisory
Keong Ruoh Ling joined Christie's in 1996 as a junior specialist of the very young department of Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, becoming the head of department in 2000. She later set up at Present in 2016 that aspires to present thoughtfully curated exhibitions with a playful twist or an experimental edge by contemporary Southeast Asian artists. At Present organised its first exhibition Paper Matters by a group of contemporary Filipino artists in October 2016 at Singapore's Gillman Barrack. Lemniscate, which is a solo show by the young Indonesian artist Syaiful Garibaldi from Bandung, was the 2nd exhibition in 2018 organised under the entity of at Present and in partnership with Mindset Art Center in Taipei and ROH Project in Jakarta. In 2022 at Present was renamed KRL Art Advisory and curated the solo exhibition of Albert Yonathan, an Indonesian contemporary artist based out of Tokyo, in partnership with Mindset Art Center, Taipei.Ruoh Ling regularly writes and lectures on Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art in English and Chinese. Since 2016, Ruoh Ling has been invited to join the panel of independent evaluators of Singapore National Heritage Board and has been regularly providing evaluation service of visual art for the National Gallery of Singapore, Singapore Art Museum and the Asian Civilisations Museum of Singapore.

Articles by Keong Ruoh Ling

Society

What Chew Shou Zi and two art exhibitions tell us about being Singaporean

As Singapore turns 60, two exhibitions at the National Gallery of Singapore explore the layered, transnational identities that shape its art and people — just as the earlier Chew Shou Zi congressional hearing showed that complex, evolving notions of belonging still defy easy labels. Visual art adviser Keong Ruoh Ling gives her take on being Singaporean.

Keong Ruoh Ling

26 Sep 2025

Culture

Venice Biennale 2024: Troubled worlds on art’s stage

Keong Ruoh Ling decodes the 60th Venice Biennale 2024, seeing it as a framework of understanding the world. The stories of those on the margins — the migrants, the outsider artists, the global south — come together in a patchwork of artworks. In the theatre of the geopolitics of art that is the Venice Biennale, one sees the different acts playing out.

Keong Ruoh Ling

16 Aug 2024

Culture

From East to West: Hong Kong art auction market's changing taste in the internet age

From establishing itself as a congregation of all and a cross pollination of buyers and art, the Hong Kong auction market has matured since 2000. It went from highlighting Asian art and artists to internationalising and conflating East and West, and then becoming a marketplace for a "curated" Asian palate with a huge appetite for Western contemporary works. The market has always ruled, and as the pace of life quickens and social media permeates daily life, so has the need for novelty and peer recognition increased.

Keong Ruoh Ling

25 Aug 2023