My interest in Asia does not arise from fascination, but from the recognition of a cultural sediment that resists superficial readings. China and Japan have been fundamental references in this process, both in the realm of visual arts and in that of symbolic management. Their literature and philosophy have not lost their capacity to converse with contemporaneity—not as untouchable corpora, but as tools for living thought, applicable to politics, ethics, cultural architecture, and aesthetics. Examples accumulate one upon another: The Art of War by Sun Tzu, the Tao Te Ching by Laozi, the Analects of Confucius—whose influence remains clearly visible in Asian models of governance, family enterprise, and cultural formation. From Japan come The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, centered on personal discipline, technical mastery, and mental clarity, and Hagakure by Yamamoto Tsunetomo.

Taken together, these works constitute a system of structural knowledge that is anything but ornamental. Read today, they offer solid alternatives to Western instrumental thinking, proposing models in which strategy, ethics, aesthetics, and everyday life are profoundly intertwined.

For these and other reasons, I pay close attention to publications from the region, even when the aim is simply to fine-tune my conceptual tools.

Tatler, for instance, is a publication that originated in the United Kingdom in 1709, yet whose contemporary identity as a magazine of culture, luxury, and leadership has developed primarily in Asia. It publishes editions in Malaysia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

In the December issue of the latter, I came across an article on Audrey Zhang, founder and director of the renowned Prestige Gallery, located in the upscale district of Tanjong Pagar.

Her description of the gallery’s conceptual and operational framework invites a mode of attentive listening—alert to what, for me, might otherwise remain out of focus. What I find is not, strictly speaking, novel. What proves valuable is where she places the emphasis.

Audrey conceives her curatorial projects through narrative thinking, likely informed by her previous experience as a documentary filmmaker. Each exhibition is articulated through a discursive structure that connects the artist’s life, context, and evolution. She understands exhibitions as meaning-generating mechanisms, capable of eliciting from the viewer an experience that is more reflective than merely visual.

Education occupies a central place in the ethos of Prestige Gallery. Far removed from speculation, artworks are valued for their cultural density, historical coherence, and their capacity to project themselves as legacy. In my view, this is precisely where its Asian character becomes most evident: in the insistence on time, in the invitation extended to new collectors to move without haste and to understand collecting as a process shaped by considered decisions rather than impulse or momentary compulsion. To conceive it as a shared journey—an experience in which different generations may meet, reflect on values, and decide what kind of inheritance they wish to build. Understood as an ethical exercise that demands pause, this approach materializes in concrete practices—collector walk-throughs, workshops, and round-table conversations—designed to consolidate trust and professional credibility.

This vision is particularly valuable for those operating within institutions more invested in cultural sustainability than in short-term financial yield. In recent years, she has observed a growing appetite among Asian family enterprises for achieving lasting cultural impact, and she is convinced that private museums and patronage will define the next phase in the evolution of wealth in the region.

The final impression is that Prestige Gallery appears to function more as a museum-like space than as a gallery in the strict sense. At least insofar as I can observe, its operation aligns more closely with a curatorial, pedagogical, and ethical logic than with the customary dynamics of the market. If what she describes corresponds less to an aspirational narrative than to an actual practice, the model would require a considerable operational structure, with a scale of staff and resources difficult to sustain within the conventional margins of the gallery business. Yet this tension—between museological vocation and commercial viability—does not necessarily invalidate the project; on the contrary, it situates it on a stark and singular terrain, where the coherence of such a discourse is deferred to trials yet to come, likely more demanding than its conceptual formulation. To endure in both idea and material form—nothing less.