Modemonline’s Post

My latest article reviewing two excellent Alaia exhibitions is now live!

While I am glad that women artists are getting their well-overdue attention and appreciation in many artistic movements and periods that are well-studied, I am saddened by the price tags attached to their work, and for all artists in this predicament. Placing a price on art keeps it in the hands of the elite. Art is for everyone. I encourage folks to watch The Price of Everything, a documentary that examines consumer culture and contemporary art. While the film has some bias, it provides excellent examples from living and working artists on the issue of pricing art—and particularly doing so at astronomical prices. For example, in the movie, Nigerian-American artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby sadly watches as her painting is resold for $900,000, as she will not receive profit from the sale. The greater issue at hand, however, is how this will further affect sales and pricing of her art and how it creates worries from the artist about authentic expression and keeping up with market demand. We must decouple art from money. "Breaking auction record" is not something to celebrate.

Usually the major auction houses run blue-chip art auctions in parallel in order to generate the highest possible amount of attention. It was therefore surprising that Sotheby’s was the only auction house to stage (relatively small) auctions in Hong Kong last week. Despite the particularly high sell-through rate of 95% the overall performance was only in line with somewhat lowered expectations. Total sales amounted to USD 86 million with only two blue-chip contemporary paintings selling for more than USD 10 million each. #diversification #artinvesting #artinvestment #alternativeassets

"From what I observed at the recently concluded Hong Kong auction sales, the Chinese contemporary art market appears particularly weak. Buyers in mainland China are not as active right now. "Frankly speaking, the Asian market is doing quite well and is quite resilient; it’s not as bad as it could be. At least our gallery is performing well, with increased sales. When the market was strong, each artwork generated more interest. That has declined, but overall business activity remains similar. "Meanwhile, collectors are becoming more careful, discerning, and selective about their purchases. It’s also a learning process for them, and they prefer to take things slowly. "We work closely with Asian galleries. For example, Tomio Koyama Gallery is a highly respected gallery in Tokyo that has been around for over 20 years. We collaborate with them to promote Japanese artists outside of Japan. We follow a similar approach in Korea. "We take it step by step, first promoting Asian artists within Asia, and then gradually expanding to Europe or New York. We believe in building the market steadily." - Alice Lung, Partner, Perrotin "Alice Lung is a partner at Perrotin, overseeing the gallery’s operations in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, and Los Angeles."

Great to be featured in the Financial Times yesterday. The article gives a good overview of my exhibition that opens at Kenwood House July 1. Hope you can make it!

The Traveling Art Circus Arrives in Basel The art market isn’t in as much trouble as everyone seems to suggest. It just isn’t generating much excitement. This week, the big money crowd arrives in Basel. Will they find anything to make them open their checkbooks? There was a time when Art Basel was the only art fair in the world that mattered. Galleries waited years to meet the sometimes mystifying demands of the fair and its vetting committee in order to get a booth. Once they did, they would save up their best, most coveted works in anticipation of the crowd of the richest and most committed collectors, who would fly to sleepy Basel just to spend a day or two perusing the floor of the Messeplatz. The fair’s quality and reputation were so great that even the most entitled wealthy patrons lined up at the glass doors for the opening “preview.” Those days are long gone. Lining up at the doors no longer makes sense because much of the preselling is done by gallery directors over email. In the week leading up to the fair, you can follow many of those same directors, and a battalion of art advisors, on Instagram as they make their way to Basel, some via Paris, others transiting through Venice, and a few making other European stops along the way. Twenty years ago, the fair acted like an auction—it was an event that created a sense of urgency and consequence. Collectors were on notice that they would have to act decisively or risk losing the objects of their desire to other buyers. Now, Basel competes in a far larger market, where there are more buyers and artists and means of communications. It’s also operating under the whims of new-ish majority owner James Murdoch, who continues to push the company to expand outside of its core business. https://lnkd.in/e7WQR-qe

Now available for bidding

Roughly 20% of the fine art secondary market is made by Private Sales (i.e. both galleries and auction houses). Art industry is known to be one of the most opaque, where majority of the provenance is characterised by private collector or private collection. The increase of the number of transactions executed in Private Sales is negatively contributing to the level of opacity of the art market. At Collectory we believe that the artworks transacted in a private sale environment should be disclosed as a first step to a more transparent market: not the seller, nor the buyer, neither the amounts paid, but at least the artworks.

Vietnamese Silk Painting - More than a national treasure 💚 🌟 I got to learn & practice silk painting by chance and have just recently emerged into art industry. A lot of my friends & acquaintances asked me on the interesting move. The truth is the decision at first was out of business intention. Vietnam, as commonly recognized in global art market, is for long time represented by renowned pioneering artists such as Nguyen Phan Chanh, Mai Trung Thu, Le Pho, Vu Cao Dam, etc. Medium-wise, compared to lacquer and oil painting, Vietnamese silk painting is a bit less popular due to its nature of fragility and insufficient awareness. So why silk painting? 🌟 Silk painting is an art form named based on the canvas material - silk. This waves the fluid lines of fabric that are delicately visible regardless of coloring. It reflects the rich cultural heritage of Vietnam & needs to be jointly preserved. 🌟 Vietnamese silk painting originated from the reign of the Ly Dynasty & Tran Dynasty. Modern silk painting is often credited to Artist Nguyen Phan Chanh as the pioneer to drive its popularity in the 1930s as well as its peak in aution value till now. 🌟 It takes due diligence to finish a silk painting, requiring both artistic and craftmanship skills. Harmony & balanced are key characteristics of silk painting despite the fact that more & more new artists have been injecting & experimenting contemporary techniques. If you want to learn more about one of our Vietnamese prides, take a glimpse at below video on "The Kén Silk Painting Exhibition 2023" which I was honored to participate in & co-hosted as one of the 13 artists in Hochiminh city, Vietnam. I also personally considered this as my "art graduation ceremony" with the accomplishment of 08 silk painting artworks. The new expertise surprisingly helped me a lot in innovation works in my core marketing career & opened up various new business opportunities such as painting commissions or art & design services. Not sure if this is a pure blessing or a childhood manifestation. But one thing I know for sure "miracles do happen" & you're destined to be where you should be if you have strong faith in yourself. 🌟 Keep believing in your heart & making your dreams come true. 🍀 Bet if I can become super rich someday with arts? 😛🙂 ✨ 🍀 #art #design #silk #painting #sidehustle #career #Vietnam #dream #miracles #theKen #exhibition

The collector trends continue to steer towards a younger investor base as they seek to place their money into tangible assets. New investment platforms that blend art, finance and technology resonate with these more tech savvy individuals who also value the data and statistics that are now available to support what has historically been a very opaque market that relied heavily on being ‘in the know’ rather than indexed data with human interpretation to make informed and reasoned decision. The art market is going to be transformed over the next 5 years through the adoption of these new investing models that will attract more and more of the Gen Z and Millennials to the category.