Taipei Connections Wraps After Great Response

Online art presentation Taipei Connections concluded on May 10 following strong engagement from galleries and collectors.

Launched by contemporary art fair Taipei Dangdai and global art platform Ocula using Ocula's new online Viewing Rooms, Taipei Connections saw hundreds of works presented by dozens of galleries.

In the lead up to the event, collector Matthew Shieh picked out five of his favourite works in the show, including Wu Chi-Tsung, Cyano-Collage 77 (2020), pictured top, at Galerie du Monde. Ocula editors Stephanie Bailey and Tessa Johnson also selected eight highlights, and members of Ocula's Advisory Team helped choose 11 of the most collectible works.

'Taipei Connections have been a surprisingly, interesting channel for us; we received several enquiries from Ocula and through our website, about 50% from new contacts which is very important in a challenging moment like this, said Nathalie Brambilla, Simon Lee Gallery. 'It's crucial for us to understand what the collectors are looking for and to see how their engagement with the online fairs and presentations is slowly changing and getting more confident. We are working on closing some sales and hopefully it will lead to future, long relationships with the new contacts.'

'For Taipei Dangdai there were two motivations to setting up Taipei Connections,' said Robin Peckham, co-director of Taipei Dangdai. 'First, we wanted to provide an opportunity for the international art world to stay in touch with the market and with the audience in Taiwan during a time when in-person contact is difficult. Second, we hoped to use this platform to help our audience familiarize themselves with the digital tools that are now proliferating in the art world. In that respect, we've had a particularly great response to our live-streaming program of activations, and I think this kind of rich, interactive content will carry over into how we approach the fair in the future.' —[O]