Cover Patrick Sun (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
Patrick Sun (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
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In the first of Tatler’s new series of ‘The Art of Collecting’, we speak to property developer Patrick Sun, who sees art as a safe space for championing diversity
Two decades after his death, Hong Kong actor and singer Leslie Cheung remains an inspiration to many, including property developer and art collector Patrick Sun. While watching local TV programme Celebrity Talk Show in June 1989, Sun found himself admiring the pop icon’s confidence and outspokenness. “He casually mentioned his relationship with his boyfriend, Daffy Tong, in front of the three hosts. To me, that made him one of the bravest entertainers; to have come out to the public like that,” Sun says. Being part of the LGBTQ+ community—and talking about it—was considered taboo in the 1980s and 1990s, and for Cheung to openly talk about his sexuality could have been detrimental to his career. Sun feels that Cheung’s action was “so inspiring” because he showed the public that a man loving another man was nothing to be ashamed of.
Sun, who is gay, has always wanted to promote inclusiveness for the LGBTQ+ community. “I’ve always actively participated in activities that supported the LGBTQ+ movement, same-sex marriage and the decriminalisation of the archaic colonial laws [related to homosexuality]. We cannot just rely on other people to step up [to make a change],” he says. “If an artist like Leslie can do something like that, [I felt] art could be a way to promote visibility and respect.” But while he was interested in art, Sun admits he had no talent for creating it, “so I became interested in collecting art instead”.
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Above ‘Pahlawan’ (2016) by Dua (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
Above ‘Heart Daughters’ (2005) by Jimmy Ong (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
‘Pahlawan’ (2016) by Dua (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
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Years of buying art culminated in the setting up of Sunpride Collection in 2014, a non-profit art foundation and collection with a mission to “foster a stronger, healthier, more equitable world for the LGBTQ+ community and its allies through the collection and exhibition of art”. A seasoned traveller, Sun has always visited art spaces in other places: from the likes of Tate Modern in London and the Guggenheim and Moma in New York to smaller, independent galleries everywhere. While some of the western institutions have, in the past, presented queer exhibitions—and a New York favourite, the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, is dedicated to LGBTQ+ art—this is less common in Asia. Sun realised he could make this difference, saying: “If I collect contemporary art by Asian artists, I should do it with a clear focus.”
At the time of writing in mid-April, the collection has more than 300 artworks by either LGBTQ+ artists or straight artists making queer-themed works, currently all stored in Sun’s warehouse in Kwun Tong. He has a small team of art professionals who work with him to select the pieces. “The selection has less to do with my personal preferences, investment or decorative plans and is more about what the artist has to say, if the art piece has a place in a queer art exhibition and how it will eventually work in an exhibition,” he says.
Above Patrick Sun (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
Patrick Sun (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
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Sun chooses to present the art at large, public institutions for free; so far, these have been Taipei’s Museum of Contemporary Art in 2017, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in 2019-2020 and Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun in 2022-2023. Coming up next spring is an exhibition at Seoul’s Art Sonje Center. For each of these shows, Sun invites curators from the exhibition venues to his warehouse to select pieces that form a narrative that will be relevant to the local audience. He also collaborates with the curators and their art institutions to loan and commission works.
“[Private galleries] aren’t what we aim for. It’s not just about having the shows reported by newspapers and [then] forgotten. We don’t want to just reach out to the queer community; we want to reach out to the general public, which is why accessibility is so important and why we choose public institutions which people can easily access,” he says.
He knew he had made the right decision when his first show was met with opposition. Back in 2017, Taiwan was polarised by debates about same-sex marriage; it would be legalised two years later. Sun thought that it was a crucial moment to go ahead with his exhibition: “It wasn’t that we could change anybody’s view but it created a platform for people to talk about it.” He was prepared to have eggs thrown at him when he arrived for the opening—but instead, to his surprise, a group of Christians were peacefully protesting outside the museum, and handing out pamphlets speaking out against marriage equality.
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Above Patrick Sun (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
Above Paintings by Shiy De-jinn (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
Patrick Sun (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
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“That was perfectly fine and right to me, because everyone has a right to say what they want. To me, that was a moment of dialogue,” he says. “People discriminate [against the LGBTQ+ community] out of fear [and ignorance]. If you get to know us better, gay people are no different from [anyone else]. We worry about the same issues: getting old, loneliness, our parents, life and death and love. These are all universal subjects.”
He was delighted to hear that straight visitors found the topics at the exhibition “very relatable”, and that some wanted to know more—although the questions asked were sometimes insensitive: “An old couple came up to me and asked if being gay was a fashionable thing to do.” But it was at moments like these that Sun felt his exhibitions upended general misconceptions that “queer art shows are about sex or homoerotica. Our exhibition was about more than that.” The show was so successful that he decided to bring it to other Asian cities.
Above Patrick Sun and the catalogue of ‘Myth Makers’, a 2022-2023 exhibition in Tai Kwun that addressed queer mythologies (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
Above Patrick Sun and works from his art collection (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
Patrick Sun and the catalogue of ‘Myth Makers’, a 2022-2023 exhibition in Tai Kwun that addressed queer mythologies (Photo: Tatler Hong Kong)
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The collector admits that the places he has chosen to hold his shows are relatively tolerant of the LGBTQ+ community. “A journalist once asked if I was preaching to the converted. That was a good question, but there are places where it’s illegal [to discuss LGBTQ+ subjects]. I don’t want to get myself or the artists arrested.” Moreover, he feels there is still work to be done even in the more liberal places. “Even in Thailand or Taiwan, there are still struggles: marriage is one thing, or civil union, but even something as simple as discrimination at work [can be an issue]. Hong Kong is [even] more backwards as far as gay rights are concerned, because we don’t even have an anti-discrimination law.”
Through his collection, Sun hopes to continue his efforts to champion LGBTQ+ rights—and on new ground too. For the upcoming exhibition in Seoul, he has been actively collecting more Korean artists, such as Young-jun Tak and Grim Park, and has invited Korean curators to work on the show. “People perceive it as a very conservative society and a place with a very strong religious take on many social issues,” he says. “But this only means we should continue pushing the conversation further. I’m confident that the exhibition in [South] Korea will achieve the same [ripple] effect.”
Credits
Photography: Ivan Wong
Photography Assistant: Wu Ho Sun
Topics
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
