Through his New York-based foundation, Lorin Gu is extending his reach to the region, with plans to open a museum in Singapore
Clad in a navy suit paired with a white T-shirt and matching sneakers, Lorin Gu looks every bit the millennial entrepreneur. His boyish good looks is a sharp contrast to the urban industrial surrounds of our shoot location, a former ship repairs factory on 2 Cavan Road, which had been transformed into a pop-art art destination, Twenty Twenty, by the Singapore Arts Club in January.
The camera loves Gu—the 26-year-old founder of Recharge Capital, a growth and private equity investment fund headquartered in Hong Kong and operating in Beijing, New York and Singapore—and so does our art director who extols the way his face catches the light oh so naturally. Perhaps this innate ability, along with the painting he is pictured with featuring a lone figure with striking turquoise hair by British artist Lisa Wright, and the diamond-encrusted Cartier Rotonde de Cartier timepiece on his wrist—both from his own collection—provide reference points for our ensuing conversation about his passions: jewellery and art.
Both passions form the basis of his non-profit Recharge Foundation, which he founded in 2014 to promote the cross-cultural preservation and conversation of visual and bejewelled arts. Besides building his family’s interdisciplinary collection of art, antiques and jewellery, Gu is offering grants to support artisans who are turning traditional craftsmanship on its head—just the kind of disruption that one has come to expect of his generation.
Growing up, Gu would often follow his mother to jewellery boutiques and workshops around the world. He later became interested in the idea of what jewellery means to people of different times and societies.
“Jewellery is probably one of the oldest forms of cultural narration—from an indication of men’s power to women’s trophy status to women’s independence and ambition today,” he expounds. “This corresponds to the theme of the Recharge Foundation’s collection, which explores cultural narration and value evolution. We look at the convergence and divergence of values, customs and materialism in the world.”
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