Is Singapore threatening Hong Kong as next Asian art mecca? Wall Street Journal
Posted by artradar on November 17, 2009
SINGAPORE AND HONG KONG’S COMPETING ART MARKET
Singapore’s art scene has grown rapidly since its 1989 government mandate to recognize the “importance of culture and the art.” Thriving to a point that, according to The Wall Street Journal, Hong Kong–Asia’s epicenter of art–is beginning to take its competitor seriously.
Hong Kong’s challenging art scene
Today’s numbers would suggest that Hong Kong has nothing to worry about for competition. Hong Kong is currently the third-largest auction market in the world with both Christie’s and Sotheby’s in its territory, and has set aside close to US$3 billion in order to create a much needed world class arts and culture development known as West Kowloon Cultural District. The project, however, has been slow to start and left many frustrated.
“The Hong Kong government first hit upon the idea in 1998 of building an integrated arts and culture neighborhood on 40 hectares of reclaimed land in the West Kowloon district. After many fits and starts, planning for the project recently picked up some momentum…Nevertheless, even if it all goes as planned, the first phase won’t be open until 2016.”
One of the proposed models for the West Kowoon Cultural Centre
The West Kowloon project has been “frustrating and painful,” says Asia Art Archive’s Ms. Hsu, who is also on the advisory panel for the museum at the new West Kowloon development. “For the public it has looked like the government is stalling, but it gives me a lot of hope. The government is very concerned about getting it right.’”
Singapore makes its move
The time spent behind making Hong Kong’s “necessary cultural move” may eventually result in Singapore gaining ground in the market by the country’s pushing ahead with so many art-hub projects of their own.
“It [Singapore] invested more than US$1 billion in infrastructure, including several museums and a 4,000-seat complex of theaters, studios and concert halls called the Esplanade, which opened in 2002, and spiced up its arts programming with diversity and a regional flavor.”
The Esplanade, Singapore
The benefits of Singapore’s art initiatives are already apparent. According to Singapore’s National Arts Council “between 1997 and 2007, the ‘vibrancy’ of the local art scene, measured by the number of performances and exhibition days, quadruped to more than 26,000.”
However, Singapore is still missing a key ingredient to perhaps prosper further: a big art-auction market like Hong Kong’s.
“Some smaller art-auction houses hold sales in Singapore, but the big ones — Christie’s and Sotheby’s — have pulled out and moved their Southeast Asian art auctions to Hong Kong, the former British colony that is home to seven million people and became a Chinese territory in 1997.”
For a city, having the ingredients for a thriving art market creates a virtuous circle. The powerful marketing machines of the big auction houses, including public previews of coming sales, raises awareness and appreciation of art in the community. All this encourages local artists to create more art. And that momentum, in turn, contributes to the development of a city’s broader cultural scene, including music, theater and design.”
Singapore looks ahead
The relationship between big art-auction markets and a thriving art scene can be so entangled that it would appear difficult to navigate a new course in order to adequately compete. Singapore, it seems, is trying anyways.
“Undaunted, Singapore is diligently pushing ahead and has opened several museums and other arts venues while Hong Kong has dithered on the construction of West Kowloon. Christie’s also recently picked Singapore to be the site of a global fine-arts storage facility to open in a duty-free zone in January.”
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Art Radar Asia 
AMinSF said
Editor: it would be great if you could publish some follow ups on the smaller, regional auctions and their results. The two main houses (Christies, Sothebys) always get alot of coverage in the mainstream press, but little is said on the regional ones.
Personally, I am interested in the results of the SE Asian contemporary sales, and how they were effected by the Chinese contemporary buying juggernaut. I am also interested in more information on how contemporary Vietnamese art is developing in the auction scene. Any info on these subjects is appreciated. Cheers!
artradar said
Hello
Thanks for your useful feedback. You are quite right and we take your comments on board – Christie’s and Sotheby’s do get a lot of coverage in the mainstream press though we have found that much of it is a repeat of the post-auction press release or remote analysis. We hope that our on-the-ground reports from Hong Kong provide extra depth and cover some alternative angles.
Having said that we would like to do more coverage of the smaller regional auctions and hope that it is something that we can work towards when we have enough resources. Although growing fast, our enormously dedicated team of writers is still a bit too small. We would love to hear from writers who are based in Indonesia, Singapore, Beijing, Taiwan and Korea who would be interested in attending and writing about the auctions in those locations.