Speaker 1: Art is a reflection of our times, a way to
Speaker 1: convey emotion and communicate. As Picasso wrote, art washes from
Speaker 1: the soul the dust of everyday life. Visual art is
Speaker 1: also a major store of wealth and has been for centuries.
Speaker 1: Global auction houses and private deals see billions of dollars
Speaker 1: passed between collectors, galleries and museums each year, and many
Speaker 1: of those sales to the world's wealthiest.
Speaker 2: But recently things haven't looked so good for the art market.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four, global art auction turnover fell to
Speaker 2: nine point nine billion dollars now that's down thirty three
Speaker 2: percent from twenty twenty three. According to Art Market, China
Speaker 2: sales were the lowest. There are fewer blue chip art
Speaker 2: works for sale, and some major art fraud cases have
Speaker 2: weighed down on confidence.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Asia Centric.
Speaker 4: I'm Katy Dimutrivo in Hong.
Speaker 2: Kong, and I'm John Lee in Hong Kong, and.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking all things art and wealth with Betsy Vikar,
Speaker 1: art advisor and senior vice president at City Group's Private
Speaker 1: bank Art Advisory Unit.
Speaker 4: Welcome, Betsy, thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to be here and.
Speaker 4: We're happy to talk to you about all things art.
Speaker 4: Can you tell us a bit about Art advisory as a.
Speaker 1: Business, because this is such an interesting corner of the
Speaker 1: financial world, you know, Can you give us an idea
Speaker 1: of kind of who your clients would be, what art
Speaker 1: is generally used for in your world?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 5: So we are the Art Advisory Group is part of
Speaker 5: the private bank at City. We're a group that was
Speaker 5: founded in nineteen seventy nine, so we've been around for
Speaker 5: about forty five years. We work with ultra high net
Speaker 5: worth clients of the private bank, and those clients engage
Speaker 5: us to build museum quality art collections. We are art historians,
Speaker 5: we're not bankers. So even though we work in a bank,
Speaker 5: the idea is not to treat art as investment, but
Speaker 5: rather as a passion. And what I mean by that is,
Speaker 5: of course we're interested in how the art will hold
Speaker 5: its value over time, but more importantly, it's about education
Speaker 5: and it's showing people how to become connoisseurs and build
Speaker 5: world class collections that last for generations. We do a
Speaker 5: lot of due diligence, We do front loading with education.
Speaker 5: Education is really important. So a lot of what we
Speaker 5: do with our clients is we take them to museums,
Speaker 5: we take them to galleries, art fairs, We take them
Speaker 5: around and show them how the market works. So we
Speaker 5: educate them on the market on kind of how to
Speaker 5: navigate a very opaque and inefficient market and pay the
Speaker 5: correct price in that market. But ultimately our advice comes
Speaker 5: from a place of wanting them to love the art
Speaker 5: that they're buying.
Speaker 2: Betsy, how does the scene in Hong Kong compare with
Speaker 2: other regions? Was? As we mentioned earlier, the global art
Speaker 2: is down about thirty percent in terms of sales and
Speaker 2: auction prices. Now, given China's week economy, what's the vibe
Speaker 2: this year?
Speaker 5: I think the vibe is, you know, the art market's funny.
Speaker 5: The art market is not like other markets, so you
Speaker 5: can have a dip of thirty percent, but it just
Speaker 5: sort of keeps going in a way. It's so big
Speaker 5: and it's so nuanced. Roughly fifty percent of the art
Speaker 5: market is what we call private, meaning that those artworks
Speaker 5: are transacted through galleries, so there's no data available that's
Speaker 5: verifiable on those transaction prices.
Speaker 3: The other half of the market is auction and there is.
Speaker 5: Data so to kind of predict what the market is doing.
Speaker 5: You're working with a dearth of data, so all of
Speaker 5: those numbers are always inherently a little bit inaccurate in
Speaker 5: my opinion. The other thing is, I think Hong Kong
Speaker 5: is exciting. It's the third largest market for contemporary art.
Speaker 5: Certainly most of the high all our value transactions are
Speaker 5: happening in the US, and then you know, behind the US,
Speaker 5: UK and then behind that obviously Hong Kong. But it
Speaker 5: is the third largest market for contemporary art and it
Speaker 5: remains that way. A lot of the dealers have opened
Speaker 5: brick and mortar galleries here, the auction houses all have
Speaker 5: new spaces in twenty twenty four, so I think there
Speaker 5: is a faith in the market for contemporary art here
Speaker 5: and I think it will continue. Sure it's a buyer's market,
Speaker 5: but I see it as an opportunity for our clients.
Speaker 1: Can you talk a bit about your clients as well,
Speaker 1: and how the trends have sort of changed in recent
Speaker 1: decades in terms of using art sort of as a
Speaker 1: store of wealth or perhaps you know there's a lot
Speaker 1: of newly minted millionaires out there and bitcoin bros, if
Speaker 1: you will, and maybe how some of their tastes influenced this.
Speaker 4: How have they changed? Sure?
Speaker 5: When I started in this industry almost three decades ago,
Speaker 5: there were just a handful of household names of collectors
Speaker 5: and also a handful of household names of emerging artists.
Speaker 5: If you were in the industry now, I mean you
Speaker 5: can't keep up it is. The lists are enormous. The
Speaker 5: art market has expanded exponentially. I think in recent years
Speaker 5: since the pandemic, there has been a real sort of democratization,
Speaker 5: if you will, of the art market. You have new participants,
Speaker 5: you have a more diverse crowd of participants, you have
Speaker 5: younger collectors. Tastes are changing. I think tastes are now
Speaker 5: much more about things of a digital nature, things that
Speaker 5: have to do with youth culture, cartoons. You know, there's
Speaker 5: a sort of a freedom with subject matter that you
Speaker 5: didn't see pre pandemic, and I think a lot of
Speaker 5: that came out of that period where people were not
Speaker 5: able to see art in person. And you know what
Speaker 5: we see. We see a lot of really really good
Speaker 5: collections coming out of Asia. But certainly, I think our
Speaker 5: clients are global, so we're a global service. We have
Speaker 5: advisors in New York and London, but we work with
Speaker 5: clients everywhere, and those clients are interested in art that's
Speaker 5: being shown globally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just to your point on art buyer is getting younger,
Speaker 1: there's a stat from art at Millennials and gen Z
Speaker 1: now account for a quarter to a third of bidders
Speaker 1: and buyers at the two major houses in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: The two major houses being in the States, Yeah, Christie's
Speaker 1: and Southeast.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So thos as US data.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think you know, at the same time
Speaker 5: we did last year, as you were talking about the statistics,
Speaker 5: we saw dip in artworks being sold over ten million dollars.
Speaker 5: But for us, what we're seeing is like I have
Speaker 5: clients that I've worked with for ten years and we
Speaker 5: were instrumental in building those collections. Now some of those
Speaker 5: pieces they bought ten years ago, they can sell for
Speaker 5: ten times the price because they've appreciated. But it's not
Speaker 5: because they went in as investment.
Speaker 3: It's because because they educated themselves.
Speaker 5: And they bought the right things. And those artists have
Speaker 5: flourished and they have good gallery representation, and those galleries
Speaker 5: have helped those artists gain international recognition and institutional support,
Speaker 5: and their markets have just blossomed. So you know, I
Speaker 5: think for us, we're seeing a lot of clients who
Speaker 5: now really have a store of wealth of art that
Speaker 5: they didn't expect.
Speaker 1: Because you had mentioned, you know, as long as you
Speaker 1: buy the right thing, just to jump off that. So
Speaker 1: to your point, how do you buy the right thing?
Speaker 5: It's a very complicated answer, but the short version is
Speaker 5: one of the reasons that someone would hire an art
Speaker 5: advisor is to do the due diligence. So you want
Speaker 5: to make sure first and foremost that you're buying an
Speaker 5: artist whose overall practice.
Speaker 3: Is very sophisticated.
Speaker 5: So obviously emerging art, you know, you're taking a risk,
Speaker 5: and that's great and it can be fun. But when
Speaker 5: we're talking about anything other than emerging art, you want
Speaker 5: to look at does the artist have institutional support? You're
Speaker 5: looking at their CV the way if you were interviewing someone,
Speaker 5: you're going to look at their CV. So you're looking
Speaker 5: at which institutions are collecting them, which galleries have they
Speaker 5: shown in, which other collectors hold their work. Also, you're
Speaker 5: looking at how has their pricing evolved over time. A
Speaker 5: good gallery will control an artist's market to the extent
Speaker 5: that the pricing sort of goes up in a very
Speaker 5: gradual line. It shouldn't have spikes. Now we are in
Speaker 5: a moment in history where that there are exceptions to that, certainly,
Speaker 5: but I think, you know, the underlying principle should be
Speaker 5: the same that a gallery is slowly and surely growing
Speaker 5: the artist's market, and that they have good gallery representation.
Speaker 5: Then if you're buying on the secondary market, there's due
Speaker 5: diligence to be done, and.
Speaker 3: We do a lot of that for our clients.
Speaker 5: You know, our clients are supposed to have fun, so
Speaker 5: we do all of the work so they can just
Speaker 5: have fun doing it. And that involves anything from researching
Speaker 5: any questions of authenticity, provenance, history of the artwork condition.
Speaker 5: If it's in bad condition, it can affect the sale price,
Speaker 5: or it can be unsaleable. So they're all kinds of
Speaker 5: ways that we work with clients to help them feel
Speaker 5: comfortable around what they're buying.
Speaker 2: Betsy, you've mentioned something quite interesting. You mentioned that you
Speaker 2: have to look at like the institutional support of an artist.
Speaker 2: That almost sounds like a finance book build or finance deal.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what that means, but.
Speaker 5: I'm an art historian, so you know, I think one
Speaker 5: of the things we're really looking at when we're talking
Speaker 5: about building a private collection that is quote unquote museum quality.
Speaker 5: Would a museum look back and say, oh, if it
Speaker 5: were a small museum, that's the kind of collection I
Speaker 5: would have built. Would those curators look back? So we
Speaker 5: are essentially curators for private individuals, wealthy individuals, and we're
Speaker 5: unlike a museum. A museum has certain criteria that they
Speaker 5: need to follow, right they're looking to represent certain geographies
Speaker 5: or certain art historical movements. We don't need to do that.
Speaker 5: We have more freedom with a private collector. But it
Speaker 5: is about is that artists work in major museums and
Speaker 5: you'd be surprised, you know, even some young artists that
Speaker 5: are up and coming are in very good museum collections.
Speaker 5: But you need to look at that, you know, is
Speaker 5: it an artists that has a market. There are lots
Speaker 5: of artists that have markets and they're trading actually for
Speaker 5: hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, but they're
Speaker 5: not in major museum collections because they're just what we
Speaker 5: would call more commercial, and so it's important to just
Speaker 5: understand those distinctions.
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Speaker 2: and chair Betsy. You did mention that you educating your
Speaker 2: clients for art and you try to get them to
Speaker 2: build art collection for a lifetime. But a lot of
Speaker 2: your clients are from the business world, A lot of
Speaker 2: them also from the finance world, and they do look
Speaker 2: at returns. What type of returns can you expect if you,
Speaker 2: I won't say invest in art, but purchase art.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's a good question.
Speaker 5: We tell clients not to expect anything oh interesting, Yeah,
Speaker 5: don't expect anything. Be pleasantly surprised when n if it does.
Speaker 3: Increase in value.
Speaker 5: I think our goal we look at it as roughly
Speaker 5: a seven to ten year holding period for artwork, and
Speaker 5: you want to buy something that you anticipate you will
Speaker 5: love and want to live with for that period of
Speaker 5: time and think about it the way you would buy
Speaker 5: your marry residents. You know, obviously you don't want the
Speaker 5: value to fluctuate or you don't want it.
Speaker 3: To lose value.
Speaker 5: Part of that value is that intangible living with the
Speaker 5: object for those amount of years. And you know, we
Speaker 5: have clients that their children were not as interested in
Speaker 5: the art when they started collecting, but now the children
Speaker 5: have become so engaged in the collecting and it's really
Speaker 5: a touch point for the whole family. So that value
Speaker 5: is not something you can put a price tag on now.
Speaker 5: As I said, if you are doing all of your
Speaker 5: due diligence and you're paying attention to the right things
Speaker 5: when you're buying, chances are some of the pieces in
Speaker 5: your collection will increase exponentially.
Speaker 1: So you had mentioned earlier that something like half the
Speaker 1: market is private deals.
Speaker 4: So half of it is.
Speaker 1: Auction that's where we get all the data from and
Speaker 1: all these kind of big pieces we hear about that
Speaker 1: make it through auction houses. But curious about the other half,
Speaker 1: the sort of private deals. In your experience, how do
Speaker 1: those deals happen and is it just straightforward? Do you
Speaker 1: go to the gallery, you like something and you want
Speaker 1: to purchase it over your client.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 5: So you know, you go into an art gallery and
Speaker 5: very rarely when you see price tags on the wall,
Speaker 5: that is not something they do. It's not a retail store.
Speaker 5: I think a good gallery the main goal is to
Speaker 5: foster an artist's career, and that means only selling the artworks,
Speaker 5: not to the wealthiest person. It's selling the artworks to
Speaker 5: the person that they believe will be a good steward
Speaker 5: of the art. And one of the things that we
Speaker 5: do for clients is we provide access. So we're vetting
Speaker 5: the clients in the sense that the clients are people
Speaker 5: that we believe, even if they've never purchased a work
Speaker 5: of art, they have the right attitude and again not
Speaker 5: going into it as investment, but looking at it as
Speaker 5: forming a collection. And so when we bring even new
Speaker 5: clients in, we have relationships with the salespeople, the dealers.
Speaker 5: It's about relationships and knowing how to select an artist
Speaker 5: from the gallery's roster that is appropriate for the client.
Speaker 5: And so let's say, for example, a new client, we
Speaker 5: take them to some galleries. They have an idea of
Speaker 5: what they like. We say, let's go visit this gallery.
Speaker 5: We'll talk to so and so and so. That dealer
Speaker 5: is a really good source for education about the artists.
Speaker 5: So I know a lot about these artists, but I
Speaker 5: don't know everything. I rely on those dealers because they
Speaker 5: tell me, you know, some backstories about the paintings and
Speaker 5: about the artist lives and what's happening.
Speaker 3: You know, there might be an exhibition.
Speaker 5: At the Guggenheim or MoMA that hasn't been announced, so
Speaker 5: they can give you that information. And then typically, if
Speaker 5: it's what we call primary market, meaning it's coming directly
Speaker 5: from the artists through the gallery, there's not a lot
Speaker 5: of negotiation and not a lot of due diligence. It's
Speaker 5: pretty straightforward in terms of just looking at the artist's career,
Speaker 5: selecting the right piece that feels like an important piece
Speaker 5: of a series or of the artist's body of work
Speaker 5: in general. If it's secondary market, that's where all of
Speaker 5: the fun stuff comes in. So secondary market, you know,
Speaker 5: again you're looking at did the gallery do its due
Speaker 5: diligence on any parties involved? You know, city Obviously we're
Speaker 5: as a regulated fiduciary, we do a lot of due
Speaker 5: diligence on the galleries. We do due diligence on the artwork,
Speaker 5: you know, where it has been, any gaps and provenance,
Speaker 5: any gaps. You know, is there a certificate of authenticity?
Speaker 5: If there is, you know, like for Boscia and Warhol,
Speaker 5: there are different criteria for each artist. You know, how
Speaker 5: do you assess is that a good certificate? Does it matter?
Speaker 5: These days no one really authenticates art, very few people,
Speaker 5: so it's you know, a leap of faith in some ways.
Speaker 5: So we're doing that and getting the client comfortable to
Speaker 5: a point that they can make a decision confidently.
Speaker 2: So you're reducing some of the risk, like the fraud
Speaker 2: risk out of purchasing art.
Speaker 5: Yes, you know a lot of what we do and
Speaker 5: this is not a bank term, but it's almost an
Speaker 5: informed intuition. So people who in the art world will
Speaker 5: talk about authenticating and there are certainly forensics that one
Speaker 5: can do. There are all kinds of things that one
Speaker 5: can do. But what really comes down to is you've
Speaker 5: seen I don't know, five hundred examples of Warhol. You know,
Speaker 5: if I look at a Warhol that looks funny, something
Speaker 5: goes off. There's something in me that says this is funny,
Speaker 5: and you know, I'll tell my client, Let's wait, let's
Speaker 5: do some more research, or maybe not purchase it at all.
Speaker 5: We often tell people not to purchase things if there's
Speaker 5: any kind of doubt.
Speaker 4: Banana taped to a wall by or no bye bye.
Speaker 2: Yes, but the odd market isn't regulated.
Speaker 5: There are regulations, yes, and I think further regulations are.
Speaker 3: Coming in the EU and the UK.
Speaker 5: There are regulations around money laundering and sanctions the US.
Speaker 5: You know, the galleries are not held to the same standards,
Speaker 5: but at City actually we are really working at the
Speaker 5: highest level. We're working at like the way that we
Speaker 5: do it is the way it's done in the in
Speaker 5: the EU and the UK, and we're applying those principles
Speaker 5: in the US, even though I think the galleries aren't
Speaker 5: there yet, but they're on their way. So there is
Speaker 5: some regulation. But it is a buyer beware market. So
Speaker 5: if you don't do your due diligence and you don't
Speaker 5: ask the questions, you're stuck with it and then you
Speaker 5: might not be able to sell it in years to come.
Speaker 1: I was going to ask just exactly about that. So
Speaker 1: have you had clients who've come to you and basically
Speaker 1: told you sort of horror stories of like previous experiences
Speaker 1: where they maybe didn't have an advisor, maybe had an
Speaker 1: advisor who you know, wasn't that great. You know.
Speaker 4: Have you heard some of those stories.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've had a handful. And in fact, that's how
Speaker 5: we get a lot of new clients is they've had
Speaker 5: bad experiences and there are traps that anyone could fall into.
Speaker 5: I've learned a lot over the years from my clients.
Speaker 5: We had a client that bought some prints and didn't
Speaker 5: realize the prince had been screened over. You know, someone
Speaker 5: else who wasn't the artist, you know, created a whole
Speaker 5: other screening layer over the prince.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: There are things that we've seen gallerists modify artworks that
Speaker 5: were not the original artwork, but how would you know
Speaker 5: if you were the buyer, And so a lot of
Speaker 5: that was just digging into the history of the pieces
Speaker 5: and trying to figure out what happened to this artwork
Speaker 5: in its lifetime, because they're sort of organic objects and
Speaker 5: they have different owners throughout their life cycle. So a
Speaker 5: lot of it is piecing together the history of an object,
Speaker 5: you know. And then we've had other clients that just overpaid,
Speaker 5: they bought something their friend told them about it. It
Speaker 5: was fun and cool, and sometimes they've overpaid by a
Speaker 5: million dollars or more.
Speaker 1: Well, so, you know, not like going to the store
Speaker 1: or buying a pair of shoes not getting the ten
Speaker 1: percent discount we're talking about. It's a little different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, But so you travel the world, you attend
Speaker 2: art fairs like you are this week in Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: But there must be a lot of trends, like some
Speaker 2: hot artists or some areas of arts and pockets of
Speaker 2: art that's really going up. What are the cool trends
Speaker 2: right now you're seeing?
Speaker 5: So I think the zeitgeist of the art world right
Speaker 5: now is about looking at underrepresented, marginalized groups. And I
Speaker 5: hate to say women maybe are part of that, but
Speaker 5: I suppose we are. You know, I think there's a
Speaker 5: lot of focus on rediscovering some artists who didn't get
Speaker 5: their due in their moment. There are artists who, for
Speaker 5: whatever reason, their partner, their husband was more famous than
Speaker 5: they were at the time, and only now their work
Speaker 5: is sort of being rediscovered by the market. And then
Speaker 5: I think the other thing you're seeing is a lot
Speaker 5: of interest in figurative painting, but of painting, not just
Speaker 5: of Western white subjects. It's really because I think the
Speaker 5: demographic of the collector base is changing, and so what
Speaker 5: they're interested in is changing, because art speaks to people's
Speaker 5: heart and they're interested in something that they can relate to.
Speaker 1: Are there some examples of artists like that, Like when
Speaker 1: you say partner is a famous artist, like Jackson Pollock's.
Speaker 4: Wife, I think Krasner. Yeah, yeah, is that sort of yeah?
Speaker 5: So Lee Krasner, certainly her market has gone up significantly
Speaker 5: in the past few years as a result of that.
Speaker 5: There's another artist being shown this week, Lynn Drexler. She
Speaker 5: was a second generation abstract expressionist. She trained under Hans Hoffman.
Speaker 5: She was an extremely experienced colorist, and it's like think
Speaker 5: of Van goh meets Hans Hoffman.
Speaker 3: They're beautiful.
Speaker 5: But she was married to someone whose career was front
Speaker 5: and center. You know, her own career was marginalized, and
Speaker 5: I think she's offered from some psychological issues and became
Speaker 5: a hermit. And what's interesting too, is the scholarship is
Speaker 5: still coming out about her because you know, the market
Speaker 5: since twenty twenty two has really gone up for her work.
Speaker 5: So now I think a lot of galleries are behind it,
Speaker 5: and people are showing it, museums are behind it. It's
Speaker 5: possible that she was colorblind at the moment she was
Speaker 5: painting some of these pieces in the mid seventies, and
Speaker 5: they're about color, so they're really interesting. There's another artist
Speaker 5: who is Canadian of Chinese descent, Dominique Fung, who I
Speaker 5: think is really interesting. You know, that's figurative. She's looking
Speaker 5: at even though she never lived in China, She's looking
Speaker 5: at these historical female Chinese figures and telling these untold
Speaker 5: stories about this kind of unspoken heroism. So I think
Speaker 5: those are two examples of artists that are very, very different,
Speaker 5: but they're sort of it's what people are looking at
Speaker 5: right now.
Speaker 1: Since you're speaking of the psychist, I wonder if you
Speaker 1: can tell us what it's telling you. You know, throughout history,
Speaker 1: both visual art also literature kind of gives us a
Speaker 1: view into what's going on right now. There's a lot
Speaker 1: going on globally, So are you seeing that reflected in art?
Speaker 4: Is there something in the art that you're seeing some themes.
Speaker 1: Or whether it's color or style, or perhaps Ai being
Speaker 1: involved in some of the processes that's kind of giving
Speaker 1: you a like, what is art telling us about our
Speaker 1: current moment.
Speaker 5: Right, And I think it's always hard to know until
Speaker 5: you're you know, hindsight is twenty twenty. And this is
Speaker 5: actually a really good question because it's one of the
Speaker 5: things that we tell clients to look at when they're
Speaker 5: buying art, is what is the art that represents your time,
Speaker 5: because that will end up in the art historical canon.
Speaker 5: I think digital art is certainly still you know. I know,
Speaker 5: there was like a moment for NFTs, and then some
Speaker 5: people say that they're dead and some people say that
Speaker 5: they're very much alive. You have all these different camps
Speaker 5: of opinions about NFTs, But I think apart from NFTs,
Speaker 5: digital art is still really interesting. AI generated art is
Speaker 5: very interesting, And as you say, I mean we have
Speaker 5: a different demographic now, so there are a lot of
Speaker 5: people who are not as physical object oriented. They're much
Speaker 5: more interested in this kind of intangible, conceptual concept So
Speaker 5: I see digital art as really just an extension of
Speaker 5: conceptual art that began in the sixties. The other thing
Speaker 5: that's interesting to me is this sort of contemporary surrealism
Speaker 5: we're seeing in painting, and I think that is artists
Speaker 5: interpreting what feel like very surreal times.
Speaker 4: What does that.
Speaker 1: Look like just for the listener, contemporary surrealism. Is that
Speaker 1: a lot of different conflicting or contrasting colors.
Speaker 4: Is it sort of a face but it maybe isn't
Speaker 4: a face?
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I mean I think they're very dream like.
Speaker 5: It's there are a lot of you know, a lot
Speaker 5: of it is figurative, some of it is landscape. There's
Speaker 5: a Swiss artist, Nicholas Party, who sort of embodies this surrealism,
Speaker 5: and it's like it just transports you into another time
Speaker 5: and place and the figures maybe you are a little
Speaker 5: stretched out, or the trees are red, the fruits are.
Speaker 3: Sort of melting.
Speaker 5: It's like, but it's it's sort of like a place
Speaker 5: to rest your mind in sort of uncertain times.
Speaker 2: That's the A lot of art is also down to taste,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of different cultural differentiations. Do you
Speaker 2: notice a big difference in taste or preference when you
Speaker 2: come to Asia in terms of the buyer based versus
Speaker 2: other regions.
Speaker 5: You know, that's a really interesting question. So when art
Speaker 5: Basil started here I believe in twenty thirteen, a lot
Speaker 5: of the Western galleries and dealers didn't know what to
Speaker 5: bring because they didn't know what the contemporary Asian taste was,
Speaker 5: you know, the new sort of the history of the
Speaker 5: Chinese painting market.
Speaker 3: But they just didn't know.
Speaker 5: So they brought ourartists, you know, like Liu Fan Anish Kapur,
Speaker 5: the artists that they thought would resonate with the Asian buyer.
Speaker 5: And they also brought some Chinese artists, you know, more emerging.
Speaker 5: But very quickly they realized that the Hong Kong buyer
Speaker 5: and the Asian buyer that was coming to Hong Kong
Speaker 5: was very sophisticated, and those buyers had already been buying
Speaker 5: at auction. They had been buying here and there, and
Speaker 5: since then it has really grown. And you know, I
Speaker 5: was looking at what's up at auction and what the
Speaker 5: dealers are bringing.
Speaker 3: It's a mix.
Speaker 5: I mean, there certainly are pieces that are by Asian artists,
Speaker 5: but there are lots of pieces that are black figurative
Speaker 5: art or art that's you know, someone like Theastro Gates,
Speaker 5: whose art really sort of has a very specific conceptual
Speaker 5: idea behind it that is in many ways very American.
Speaker 2: So we're recording this episode on March the twenty fifth,
Speaker 2: just ahead of Art Baso's opening and by the time
Speaker 2: we air Art Basle would have been closed. But what
Speaker 2: can we expect in terms of Art bas or Art
Speaker 2: Central this week in terms of sales and activity.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it will be tempered by what's happening
Speaker 5: in the market in general.
Speaker 3: My read on the market.
Speaker 5: Is that the big blue chip galleries tend to do
Speaker 5: well no matter what, because there's so much demand for
Speaker 5: the art that they are showing. And I think the
Speaker 5: emerging galleries tend to do well because the price points
Speaker 5: are lower. It's a little easier, there's not as much risk,
Speaker 5: or there's risk, but it's mitigated by the price point.
Speaker 3: Maybe.
Speaker 5: I think the mid sized galleries have been struggling, and
Speaker 5: I don't think Hong Kong will be any different. I
Speaker 5: do think, though, contrary to what I just said, the
Speaker 5: presentations are really great by the mid sized galleries, so
Speaker 5: I wouldn't be surprised if they do do really well.
Speaker 2: And Betsy, before you go, I have to ask you,
Speaker 2: there's been a lot of newly created wealth. Yes, you know,
Speaker 2: we can talk about bitcoin, Bitcoin Bros. Some of the
Speaker 2: stocks in Asia have gone up a lot, Like if
Speaker 2: you bought Ali Baba two months ago, you're up eighty percent.
Speaker 2: So just say you know, someone from your private bank says, Betsy,
Speaker 2: I want to dip my feet into art. Yes, they so,
Speaker 2: I would say two of their big coins. So maybe
Speaker 2: is there anyone that you could recommend or any tips
Speaker 2: you would give them.
Speaker 5: I would give them the same tips as anyone else.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I think we're seeing this enormous amount of wealth creation
Speaker 5: happening globally, and you know it's not just in the US.
Speaker 5: It's expected to be significant outside of the US. You know,
Speaker 5: they're anticipating one hundred trillion dollars of wealth.
Speaker 3: Creation in the next decade.
Speaker 5: I think the advice is the same as we give
Speaker 5: to everyone, and that advice is do your homework. Don't
Speaker 5: just buy something because the cash is burning a hole
Speaker 5: in your pocket. Buy something that you love. And the
Speaker 5: only way to really understand what you love is to
Speaker 5: do a little homework up front, give yourself six months,
Speaker 5: maybe a year before you buy anything. And I know
Speaker 5: it's really hard when you have empty walls and a
Speaker 5: lot of money to burn, but you'll thank yourself in
Speaker 5: the long term.
Speaker 2: It's great advice.
Speaker 1: M M.
Speaker 4: It's great advice. But before we end.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that you had down that you think
Speaker 1: that we missed, or anything else that you wanted to
Speaker 1: highlight or no.
Speaker 5: I think people should just have fun this week, go
Speaker 5: and look at the art, do a little education for yourself.
Speaker 3: The auction houses have the previews up. It's free, you.
Speaker 5: Can walk in. You can see museum quality work there.
Speaker 5: You can see it at the fair and people should
Speaker 5: enjoy it and just use it as a touch point
Speaker 5: to start learning some more about contemporary art.
Speaker 4: Great, thanks so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Asia Centric Katydimitrieva in Hong Kong.
Speaker 2: I'm John Lee, also in Hong Kong. You can listen
Speaker 2: to all our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever
Speaker 2: you listen. And this podcast was also produced and edited
Speaker 2: by Clara Chin. Thanks for listening.