Interest, prices for Southeast Asian art soar

Category becomes increasingly globalised and witnesses increased buying

When “Bathing in the Shower” by the late Indonesian artist Hendra Gunawan went under the hammer at Sotheby’s autumn auction in Hong Kong in October this year, the oil painting of three female bathers was sold for HK$9.7 million (Dh4.59 million, $1.3 million).

That price was more than five times higher than the most expensive Southeast Asian painting sold at Sotheby’s first auction of the region’s work in 1996 in Singapore.

At the 1996 auction, Sotheby’s achieved S$3.77 million ($2.69 million) of sales — but prices for Southeast Asian art and sales volumes have since soared, Sotheby’s says.

“Southeast Asian art is increasingly becoming an internationalised category and sees increased buying from other parts of Asia as well as from the West,” Kim Chuan Mok, head of Southeast Asian Paintings at Sotheby’s, said in an interview.

Many of the collectors are from the region, and the rise of Southeast Asian art correlates with increased affluence, namely in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, Mok said.

He declined to give specific information on clients’ profiles but said many of them are drawn to works because of their diversity.

“You give Southeast Asian artists one theme and they all would come up with different things because of diverse influences,” Mok said. “Which is unlike, for example, Chinese artists who have similar backgrounds and experiences.” Koh Seow Chuan, an architect and avid art collector based in Singapore, said he has been acquiring Southeast Asian artworks for the last 50 years because of their unique attributes.

“They reflect the convergence of the great cultures of the world over the past 200 years”, he said.

Ryan Su, a Singapore trainee lawyer and art collector who owns the largest collection of Andy Warhol Polaroids in Asia, said collecting Southeast Asian art is a way to go back to one’s roots and can be a celebration of heritage.

“I started my art collecting by collecting Western contemporary art.”