SINGAPORE – Singaporean artist Ho Tzu Nyen and Dr Eugene Tan – who is director and chief executive at both the National Gallery Singapore (NGS) and the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) – have been named among the top 100 most influential people in the art world by leading contemporary art magazine ArtReview on Dec 4.

Ho, who leapt from 72nd place in 2024 to fifth spot in 2025, has had a banner year.

He tells The Straits Times: “I’m grateful to be acknowledged and it has been an intense few years of new opportunities, beginning with the tour of Time & The Tiger at the end of 2023.”

His sprawling and lauded mid-career

exhibition Time & The Tiger,

curated by Dr Tan and first staged at SAM in November 2023, has been touring internationally to the Art Sonje Centre in Seoul, the Hessel Museum of Art in New York, Mudam Luxembourg and is now showing at its final stop at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany.

He was

appointed the 2026 artistic director of the Gwangju Biennale

, the oldest biennale in Asia set to open its 16th edition in September 2026, and was

one of six medallists in the established artist category at the inaugural Art Basel Awards

. The artist was also commissioned to make work by Hong Kong’s M+ museum and Luma Foundation in Arles, France.

He says of his busy year: “One of the most memorable moments of the year was...