What is art?
“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.”
Oscar Wilde
Dominic Khoo worked with over 150 international celebrities including Cate Blanchett, Nicholas Cage, Zinedine Zidane, Zhang Ziyi and the Dalai Lama.
Carolin Scheufele, Artistic Director and Co-President of Chopard
Photographed by Dominic Khoo in 2007
Who is Dominic Khoo?
The retired celebrity photographer, watch expert and all-round creative Dominic Khoo opened his out-of-the-box gallery in 2011. The name “28th Février” refers to Khoo’s date of birth. During his seven years of photography, he was nominated with his idol Annie Leibovitz for Asia Pacific Photographer of the Year and held the title of the producer of the most expensive photography coffee table book in the world. His fine art print of “Tony Leung in Beijing” made him Singapore’s most expensive living artist in 2012, and he was given Ambassadors’ roles to brands like Nikon and Leica Asia-Pacific.
The self-taught photographer has been engaged to shoot for international brands such as Hermes and Mont Blanc, and has taken pictures of and worked with more than 150 international and Asian celebrities, including actors Cate Blanchett, soccer star Zinedine Zidane, Nicolas Cage, Zhang Ziyi, and the Dalai Lama.
Contrary to the media, Khoo’s first love and career was in watches. It was in 2006 that he was trained as a watch expert at the world’s biggest watch auction house Antiquorum. Under the watchful eyes of world famous watch experts Osvaldo Patrizzi and Etienne Lemanager, he spent several periods of the year in their offices in Geneva, Hong Kong and Shanghai, appraising and authenticating watches for international clients and auctions.
Khoo worked in brand management for the biggest Girard-Perregaux distributor and later became a watch journalist writing for many of the world’s top watch magazines, including Revolution, Prestige’s Tic Talk, Real Time, and the world’s first online luxury magazine Goldarths.com.
After 14-years of watch collecting and investing, Khoo has now started The Watch Fund. It is the first structure that seeks absolute returns from professional investment in timepieces, and the first in the world that allows investors to hold and wear their investments themselves.
OOZI Clubhouse | chinese for “house” Founded by the OO-Brothers
Dominic Khoo
Simon Poon
Welfred Woo
What is art? Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton. What is art? Art begins with resistance — at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor. André Gide. What is art? Above all, artists must not be only in art galleries or museums — they must be present in all possible activities. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in whatever endeavor people take on, at every level. Michelangelo Pistoletto. What is art? Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. Leo Tolstoy. What is art? Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton. What is art? Art begins with resistance — at the point where resistance is overcome. No human masterpiece has ever been created without great labor. André Gide. What is art? Above all, artists must not be only in art galleries or museums — they must be present in all possible activities. The artist must be the sponsor of thought in whatever endeavor people take on, at every level. Michelangelo Pistoletto. What is art? Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man’s emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity. Leo Tolstoy. What is art? This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness. Maria Popova. What is art? Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton. What is art?
