While the global art market seems to be suffering from a general malaise between complex geopolitical conflicts, inflation and high interest rates, Asia seems to be on a markedly different path.
Last year saw a 14 percent year-on-year decline in sales in mainland China and Hong Kong, according to the latest report. Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report. While sales in the region were still 13 percent above 2020’s $11.2 billion, it was the second-lowest total since 2009 and the report found that auction sales fell in Japan, South Korea and other markets small internationally in 2022.
With this in mind, it was totally surprising when this year’s market indicators revealed an entirely different shift for the very diverse Asian region.
In November 2023 Survey of the global collection of Art Basel and UBS reported that in the first half of this year, collectors in mainland China had the highest average spend of all collectors, at $241,000. That figure represented a sharp increase over the previous two years. Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, Indonesian-based art fair Art Jakarta launched a well-attended edition at its new venue and time slot from November 17-19, while Art Fair Philippines returned for its 10th edition in February with 63 exhibitors, an increase from 46 last year. The country’s leading gallery, SILVERLENS, expanded with an outpost in New York last July.
It’s safe to say the regional art market has been driven by a sense of confidence, a hunger for disruption and deep pockets. It was precisely this atmosphere in 2021 that allowed NFTs and related technologies to become so popular in various parts of Asia starting with young tech entrepreneurs making their first forays into the art market, changing the very spirit of buying art in region, to improve. or worse
While techno-optimism remains particularly prevalent in major capitals such as Seoul, Hong Kong and Singapore, that mindset tends to breed willful ignorance towards the various pressures hovering in the background, such as growing censorship and social inequalities, geopolitical conflicts and that are coming climate crisis These issues were clearly on display amid ambitious efforts to expand or innovate this year.
To that end, here are five big trends that have stood out in Asia’s art market and institutional landscape in 2023.
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New Local Art Fairs
Image Credit: Photo Moriya Yuki/Courtesy ACK
While much has been made of the launch of mega international art fairs in Asia since the pandemic, new and ambitious homegrown fairs have also been launched.
In early November, Define: Seoul, from the organizers of Art Busan, launched in Seongsu-dong, a neighborhood known for its trendy cafes, boutique shops and Instagram popularity. The fair was held in three different locations, allowing visitors to immerse themselves in the neighborhood. A week earlier, young Korean collector JaeMyung Noh announced the launch of his new art fair in Seoul in April 2024, ART OnO, promising low booth fees and experimental works in a bid to break the traditional fair model.
Then there is Art Collaboration Kyoto, with its new concept of pairing foreign and local galleries in a uniquely designed exhibition stand and structure. Its most recent edition was a great international success. Whether these efforts will bear fruit remains to be seen.
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Chinese private museums face challenges
Image credit: Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Ding Yixiao, previously described as a “deep-pocketed and aggressive” Chinese contemporary art collector, founded the Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art in China in 2021. In August, the museum was closed and News Artnet revealed that he was barred from doing business with Phillips due to outstanding payments.
At the same time, Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, the billionaire founders of Shanghai’s Long Museum, announced that they would sell 50 to 60 works for their collection. While the sale, in October, reached the highest total for any single-owner sale in Asia, the fee-only total of $69.5 million was $20 million short of the low estimate of $95.4 million . When the sale was first announced, it was expected to raise about $150 million. Meanwhile, the star batch, the 1919 painting by Amedeo Modigliani Paulette Jourdain, sold for $34.8 million with premium, a total of $10 million less than its estimate.
These developments raise the question of whether this is the beginning of more and more challenges for private museums in China.
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Seoul and Singapore move beyond the new fair hype
Image Credit: Photo Justin Shin/GA/ARTnews via Getty Images
The Korea Arts Management Service reported that the country’s auction market in the first half of 2023 was down 9.9 percent from the previous six months and 44.8 percent from the first half of 2022, with high-end works affected, probably due to rising interest rates. . Those numbers aren’t surprising, as the frenetic activity and buzz that led to the launch of Frieze Seoul last year subsided almost instantly after the inaugural edition ended. A similar phenomenon occurred in Singapore with the launch of ART SG in January 2023. Sotheby’s first auction in Singapore, held in August 2022, recorded total sales of $17.5 million, while this year’s edition in July only grossed $11.1 million.
However, Korea remains a strong market with strong international attendance at Frieze Seoul’s second edition, a base of committed local collectors and strong national cultural ambitions. Plans were announced last month for an expansive new multimillion-dollar art storage facility next to South Korea’s Incheon International Airport. However, Singapore’s development as an art market may be hampered by a weak primary market and exorbitant living costs.
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Hong Kong passes through
Image credit: Maximiliano Durón/ARTnews
Since 2019, Hong Kong has seen its art market diminished by political protests, as well as lockdowns and travel restrictions due to the pandemic. However, this year, Hong Kong’s art exports rose nearly 60 percent in the first quarter compared with a year ago, according to the Art Basel UBS Global Collecting Report. In addition, the city’s growing local scene, the launch of its much-anticipated West Kowloon Cultural District, the move of Hauser & Wirth to new premises and the return of Art Basel Hong Kong to its pre-pandemic size in 2024 provide reasons for the optimism
In an interview with Japan Times this fall, Pace Gallery CEO Marc Glimcher said he was “pleasantly surprised by the level of activity” and “pretty sure of Hong Kong,” adding, “You can’t kill a city like that.” However, caution is still in order as the city’s autumn auction sales did not look favourable, with Christie’s four modern and contemporary art sales this November totaling $128 million, slightly below the $161 million accumulated by the five Sotheby’s modern and contemporary sales in October, which was considered very disappointing at the time.
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To censor or not to censor
Image credit: Courtesy of Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong
Although most Asian industry experts consider censorship issues to be par for the course in the region, they tend to affect the local dynamics and global standing of any art scene. Due to the $2 million fine levied on comedian Li Haoshi for his joke referring to the Chinese military, this year’s Beijing Gallery Weekend, the first since the end of the pandemic restrictions, local galleries are self-censoring or censoring images military
On the other hand, Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun Contemporary held “Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III,” considered the first major survey exhibition of LGBTQ+ perspectives in the city. Just one work, the video series by Taiwanese artist Shu Lea Cheang 3x3x6, was removed, due to explicit sexual content, despite concerns about increased censorship. Then there is the work of Shanghai-born artist Lu Yang Electromagnetic Brainology! (2017), which was published in ART SG’s inaugural edition, with two of the key virtual gods portrayed in the work resembling the Hindu deities Kali and Shiva, as the state agency raised questions about the suitability of such images for children.
