Chinese works sought by collectors around the world
Art as an investment vehicle is holding its own despite the global pandemic and economic turbulence — at least for those who can afford it.
Samuel Hardwick, co-founding director of Art Works, one of the leading art investment consultancies in the Asia-Pacific region, which is Australian-owned and based in Singapore, said, “Whenever there are economic downturns and the markets are volatile, it’s only natural for people to turn their attention to lower-risk tangibles.
“Art has always been considered a safe haven as one of the oldest and most stable asset classes.”
During the global financial crisis of 2008, a lot of money went into the art market, in particular the Chinese market, which boomed three years later.
“We are certainly seeing signs of that happening again,” Hardwick said.
“What is really encouraging is the growing number of under 40s who are buying — Chinese and foreign.”
The Art Market Report 2020 released by Art Basel and UBS earlier this year cites the biggest yearon-year growth rate — 19 percent — among buyers below age 40, largely fueled by the rise and rapid growth of online trading.
However, the global art market shrank by 5 percent last year, with a total of $64.1 billion in sales, according to the report. Chinese contemporary art contributed some $11.5 billion of that total.
Art Works focuses heavily on Chinese contemporary art, which has seen phenomenal growth over the past 20 years.
Hardwick said: “The reason we focus on Chinese contemporary art is simple. It is the fastest-growing art market in the world. From an almost zero base at the turn of the millennium, it briefly overtook the United Kingdom market in 2017 and was second only to the United States in terms of volume of sales.”
Since then, China’s contemporary art scene has blossomed, with works by the country’s contemporary artists highly valued by collectors.
A prime example of this is Ma Dongmin, who is known for his series of equine paintings.
“We held an exhibition in Singapore with him last year, which was a huge success,” Hardwick said.
“While we had traded his works for a couple of years, it was Ma’s gold medal at last year’s Biennale in Venice that catapulted his value up overnight.
“He went on to see his auction record broken twice — in June ($332,000) and July ($368,000) — much to the delight of our clients who invested in his earlier works.”