Art Taipei Finds More Collectors at Lower Prices
Overall sales were down this year, but organisers claimed the portion of attendees making purchases has shot up in recent years.
Art Taipei 2023. Courtesy Art Taipei.
Art Taipei celebrated its 30th edition at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall from 20 to 23 October. Organised by the Taiwan Art Gallery Association, the fair presented 144 galleries from Taiwan and across the region, a slight increase from last year's 127 exhibitors.
Overall sales were down, according to a spokesperson for the fair, which they attributed to global economic conditions and the fact that some Taiwanese collectors who remained in Taiwan during last year's fair due to the pandemic were abroad this year.
Collectors with less than three years experience made up over 57% of visitors, with a growing portion in their 30s and 40s.
These younger collectors are eager to buy work, but mostly at lower prices. According to Oliver Chang, the Chairman of Taiwan Art Gallery Association, around 2% of attendees made purchases at the fair prior to 2016, but this figure has since risen to approximately 15%.
'In recent years, Art Taipei has faced the emergence of new collectors as the growing trend of art appreciation and collecting becoming more widespread,' he said. 'The majority of collectors are now making acquisitions at lower price points, typically averaging around U.S. $1,000 to 2,000.'
A spokesperson for the fair said the average price of works on display this year was around NT $700,000 (U.S. $21,600), though some works sold at significantly higher prices.
Taichung's Rich Art, for instance, sold Unmoved by Tsai Wei-Cheng for NT $4.2 million (U.S. $130,000) and Tokyo's Shinseido Gallery sold two works by Hiroki Yamamoto for more than NT $3 million (U.S. $93,000) each. Taipei's Liang Gallery sold seven works by Lo Chiao-Ling for a total exceeding NT $3 million (U.S. $93,000), and a work by Lee Chung-Chung for NT $2 million (U.S. $61,700).
Speaking on the fairgrounds during the VIP preview, Taiwanese art collector Raymond Cheng, who is also Commissioner to the Executive Committee, Art Taipei, said younger Taiwanese collectors tend to have a spending range between U.S. $30,000–100,000. If the work is more expensive, they may need to ask their parents.'
Alongside lower prices, the quantity of Japanese art is also a draw for emerging Taiwanese collectors. Of 68 foreign galleries at the fair, 35 came from Japan, including Galerie Nichido, Tomio Koyama Gallery, and Whitestone Gallery.
Young collectors often prefer art featuring anime or a cute cartoonish style such as the sculptures of tree-headed figures by Yuichi Hirako, which were prominently displayed by YIRI ARTS (Taipei).
Fair organisers stated that most of these galleries achieved notably strong sales with Japanese artists garnering more overall attention from collectors this year.
According to Cheng, works by Japanese artists make better investments because they are more likely to get international recognition.
As an example, he cited 33-year old painter Yukimasa Ida, the only artist billionaire Yusaku Maezawa chose to display on the International Space Station.
This year, Ida set a new record price at auction of U.S. $408,694, a huge leap from the just hundreds of dollars his works fetched at the Formosa Art Fair in Taipei a few years back.
Veteran art collector Patrick Sun suggested that Art Taipei would continue to succeed alongside splashier events in the country such as Taipei Dangdai.
'I believe with regional art fairs, ultimately their success depends on the support of local collectors, which apparently there is no shortage in Taiwan,' he said.
'There is a contraction in the international market and yet Taiwan seems to thrive with a plethora of art fairs,' he added. —[O]
