Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Asia\u2019s rapidly growing economies have bolstered, and at times rescued, the global art market since the financial crisis of 2008. International auction houses, galleries and art fairs have invested heavily in Hong Kong, the de facto hub of the continent\u2019s art trade, and successfully captured its burgeoning buyers.In recent years, though, demand from China, by far Asia\u2019s biggest consumer base for luxury and art, has waned, as the country suffers its own economic malaise. This dented public auction sales in Hong Kong, which fell 27.5 per cent last year, a greater drop than in the market\u2019s other centres of New York and London according to the specialist analysis firm ArtTactic. Shifting political dynamics, not least the threat of tariffs from the United States, are adding to the economic uncertainties around China.\u00a0Fortunately, for the art market, the net is spread wider through Asia, with countries such as South Korea, Taiwan and Japan among those now on the commercial cultural map. The question is whether these other regions can make up the slack in a shifting landscape.\u00a0This seems to be the longer-term goal of Magnus Renfrew, co-chairman and global director of The Art Assembly, which runs fairs in Taipei, Tokyo and, opening this week, Art SG in the wealth haven of Singapore. \u201cAsia\u2019s art scene has changed out of all recognition since 2008,\u201d Renfrew says, having launched Hong Kong\u2019s first international fair that year (Art HK, now owned by Art Basel).\u00a0He acknowledges that back then, \u201cI used to pitch Hong Kong over Singapore, mostly because of its location. Now, being a bit further south and further from China is seen as an advantage.\u201d He notes that tech giants, including Meta and Alphabet, have their Asian headquarters in Singapore. \u201cIt is one of the only places regarded as a neutral territory [in Asia]. The Chinese are happy to do business here, the Americans are happy to do business here, it\u2019s seen as neutral. Singapore doesn\u2019t have political beef with anybody,\u201d Renfrew says. A business-friendly tax regime likely adds to its appeal while wealth migration since the Covid-19 pandemic, including from mainland China, continues today, he says.With art business down around the world, some of this week\u2019s fair exhibitors welcome the opportunity of Art SG.\u00a0\u201cFor some time I\u2019ve wanted to show Makiko Nakamura\u2019s paintings in Singapore,\u201d says the London gallerist John Martin, a fair newcomer this year. The Kyoto-based Nakamura \u2014 born in 1951 \u2014 who makes delicate abstract paintings, has never had a show in Asia, he says, adding \u201cwith the London market relatively flat, Art SG was perfect for us.\u201d Liza Essers, owner-director of Goodman Gallery, says that Singapore has proved \u201can easy place to do business\u201d, helped by a wide use of English. She notes too that the hub\u2019s reach stretches beyond south-east Asia. \u201cAustralia is proving an important market for us and many collectors are happy to come from there to Singapore,\u201d she says.\u00a0Despite cooling winds, Asia still has a higher share of global billionaire wealth than Europe \u2014 27 per cent versus 22 per cent, according to last October\u2019s\u00a0Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2024, with the bulk in mainland China, Hong Kong and India.\u00a0Christie\u2019s reports that Asia Pacific buyers contributed 26 per cent to its global auction sales in 2024, down slightly from 2023, but responsible for some mega-sales above HK$200mn ($25mn), including paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet.Rebecca Wei, an auction and gallery veteran who recently opened her own advisory business in Hong Kong, says that the big-brand, 19th- and 20th-century artists will continue to be the first choice of Asia\u2019s top art collectors. She estimates there are about 30 such buyers across the continent, \u201cand while they used to buy Chinese contemporary art or Asian masters [such as the bold and colourful French-Chinese painter Sanyu, 1901-1966], it\u2019s now all about the big western names,\u201d as the market everywhere zones in on the safer investment of blue-chip art. In terms of specifics, she says these are few and far between. \u201cMany collectors just say they are looking for a Picasso. They can be very vague, sometimes about their budget too,\u201d she says.Further down the wealth chain, taste is changing, says the Singapore gallerist Richard Koh. \u201cThere has been a real generation shift in the 21st century as older collectors are slowing down and their kids don\u2019t want the same works. There is still a market, with lots of younger collectors entering in the past few years, but they are not so into connoisseurship or understanding an artist\u2019s practice, it\u2019s all very visual.\u201d The prevalence of social media is thought to have contributed to this more surface-based taste. \u201cIf they like something, they will buy it, though at a certain price point,\u201d Koh adds.Emi Eu, executive director of Singapore\u2019s STPI gallery and project director of the boutique S.E.A. Focus fair for Southeast Asian Art, which opens alongside Art SG this week, characterises a more nuanced next gen. \u201cSure, they are looking at what\u2019s plainly out there and well-marketed by the auction houses and international galleries, but they are also becoming interested in artists from Singapore and Asia, including the older generation,\u201d she says. This week, her gallery opened a show of the multimedia artist Suzann Victor, born in Singapore in 1959, whose latest works toy with the effects of light on transparent acrylic discs. Sales have already been made, \u201cand not just under S$10,000\u201d ($7,300), Eu says. Her prices for Victor\u2019s work go up to S$80,000 (the exhibition, Constellations, is on view at STPI until March 2).Meanwhile, investment in Hong Kong, still by far the most internationally-friendly trade centre on the continent, has not stopped, notably from the auction houses that remain Asia\u2019s preferred sales channel. But, Renfrew says, what Singapore and some of Asia\u2019s other emerging art centres offer \u201cis a sense of optimism, which you don\u2019t feel everywhere in the world at the moment\u201d. There is a way to go before any of these become key strategic locations for the trade \u2014 Renfrew is working to a 10-year plan \u2014 but south-east Asia\u2019s fast-growing economies bode well, he says. \u201cIt is accurate to say that money doesn\u2019t make a market, but if there\u2019s no money, there is definitely no market.\u201dArt SG runs January 17-19 at Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, artsg.comS.E.A. Focus runs January 18-26 at Tanjong Pagar Distripark, seafocus.sgFind out about our latest stories first \u2014 follow FT Weekend on Instagram and X, and sign up to receive the FT Weekend newsletter every Saturday morning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Asia\u2019s rapidly growing economies have bolstered, and at times rescued, the global art market since the financial crisis of 2008. International auction houses, galleries and art fairs have invested heavily in Hong Kong, the de facto hub of the continent\u2019s art trade, and successfully<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-167754","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167756,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167754\/revisions\/167756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}