Artnet chooses Hong Kong as debut venue for new venture – Art Radar scoop interview

ART PRICE DATABASE DEALER NEWS

Artnet group, the leading art price database and online art auction company has chosen the year 2010 to branch out into a brand new venture: art dealing. And it chose a surprising venue for its debut.

 

Artnet booth at Hong Kong International Art and Antiques Fair 2010.

 

In a brief chat with Max Wolf, Modern and Contemporary Specialist in the Artnet booth at Hong Kong International Art and Antiques Fair 2010, Art Radar learned more about the ambitious plans Artnet has to break into high-priced art dealing and what has surprised the Artnet representatives about the collectors they have met on their first visit to Hong Kong.

Most people know you from your Price Database but this is a new venture?

It has spawned from our online auctions. We found a need to extend from our private treaties with dealers and collectors and a lot of the galleries on our website who perhaps don’t want to sell the work on the website, perhaps because it is a more significant work.

Yes, so this is the first time that we are showing work which we are not necessarily putting online for sale.

This is the first time you are in a fair?

Exactly.

Why did you choose this fair?

It seemed to align itself with this collection we are offering … this complete set of Warhols.… Hong Kong seemed like an ideal venue and it just serendipitously worked out with the timing that it just made sense…

Right. So how has your experience been?

Great, we have had considerable interest from a handful of collectors. We shall see; today should be pretty revealing…. We took the less-is-more approach and I think this has worked out well for us. We have this Warhol portfolio, a Haring, another Warhol and two Ashers.

What do you propose to do with this new arm? What do you hope for your new venture?

Sales! Of course. (laughs)

And apart from that (laughs) do you plan to go to more fairs in the future?

Absolutely.

Which fairs would you like to try?

Well, depending on how this works out…. But with our online auctions and our private treaty sector of the business this seems like the natural progression for us.

What is your background in art?

I am one of a handful of auction specialists with Artnet.

So you didn’t come from the art world to Artnet?

Yes, I came with an auction background and was hired by Artnet to become an online auction specialist. There are six of us specialising in photography, unique painting works and prints.

How is that going?

Our online auctions are doing really really well. It seems that we are a panacea for the economy in a downturn. We are useful to collectors who don’t want to wait six months to consign a piece to a bricks and mortar auction house and then wonder whether it will be bought in. And then they have to pay for shipping and insurance even if it is bought in. With us they send us a .jpeg and within two weeks have money in [their] pocket.

That is great, great for the art world, great for collectors.

It is great. We have really enjoyed seeing the diversity of buyers. We sell to a lot of dealers but we also sell to private collectors, new buyers [and] new young collectors from all over the world…. From Australia, Kazakhstan, from all over. You would be surprised at the breadth.

You must have a great deal of information about where new collectors are coming from, the data…

Yes, the data that our technical team can gather, where and when is pretty impressive…

Have you been to Hong Kong before?

No.

What kind of collectors have you met over the last three days?

A wide variety but we have seen a considerable number of serious collectors from Taiwan. We were surprised…. We thought we would see more Mainlanders but we have seen Taiwanese and local Hong Kong collectors, some Koreans and Brits, but we were surprised by the size of the Taiwanese presence.

About Artnet services (source: Artnet website)

In the mid 1980s Artnet developed its first product, the Price Database. Today the Price Database has a broad base of customers dominated by major auction houses, art dealers, museums, and insurance companies. Representing auction results from over 500 international auction houses, the Price Database covers more than 4 million auction results by over 188,000 artists, ranging from Old Masters to Contemporary Art.In 1995 the company transitioned the Price Database to the Internet and introduced a second product, the online Gallery Network, building and hosting websites for art dealers and galleries on its platform. In 1999, the online auction business was launched and now has 60,000 collectors visiting the site each month.

KCE/KN

Related Topics: auctions, Market watch, collectors, Hong Kong

Related Posts:

• Globalisation of contemporary art market evident in growth of art fairs – August 2010 – explains how art fairs accelerates the transnational exposure of artists
• First ever Moroccan art fair to launch October – August 2010 – discusses how Dubai faces competition from new art fairs
• A Sunday at Art Taipei – August 2010 – dealer Pearl Lam talks honestly about how auction houses really make their money and five gallerists talk about the fair
• Worlds top collectors and art professionals attend ArtHK, a testament to its growing importance – June 2010 – Ben Brown comments on the sophistication of collectors
• What did the galleries say about ART HK 10? Art Radar Asia speaks to 19 dealers – June 2010 – quotes from the ground about what collectors are buying

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Curator Tobias Berger talks about Korean contemporary art scene in 4 questions

SOUTH KOREA CONTEMPORARY ART INTERVIEW CURATOR

Art Radar Asia recently spoke with German-born curator Tobias Berger, who currently holds the position of Chief Curator at the Nam June Paik Art Center, about the Center’s exhibition “The Penguin that goes to the Mountain“. During this interview, Berger also revealed a few of his observations on living and working in the Korean art environment.

Korean art has always been in the shadow of Japanese and Chinese artistic success, often “dismissed as a mere conduit between the two mega cultures.” This may be because few of the local magazines, exhibition catalogues and other art texts produced on Korean contemporary art are available in English. As Berger states, “There are none. They’re all in Korean. There’s nothing really good in English.” And while the local art scene is perhaps not on par with what can be experienced in these neighbouring countries, Berger notes that the art that is being produced in Korea is of a very high quality, due to good art schools, a diversity of art spaces, talented pioneers and governmental support.

'Shamoralta Shamoratha' (2007) by Inbai Kim was shown at "Korean Eye: Moon Generation" in 2009. Korean Eye was founded in 2009 as a way to support emerging Korean artists by providing international exhibition opportunities.

As a European who formerly lived and worked in the Hong Kong art scene, how do you find the South Korean art scene compares?

“The Seoul art scene is probably the most sophisticated art scene in Asia. It has really good independent spaces, good commercial galleries, interesting art schools and good museums. It has this whole pyramid of different art spaces, exhibition possibilities, and it has a lot of really good and wonderful artists. That level of depth and the level of different kinds of art spaces is incomparable. Certainly in Beijing [you] have galleries, but you don’t have any independent spaces, and in Tokyo it’s also very different.”

How do you keep up to date with the Korean art scene?

That is a problem because it’s all in Korean and it’s very difficult to keep up [with]. I mean, you just go to the 10-15 [art] spaces once a month … and you talk to your friends and your colleagues that go to the big exhibitions…. You just have to look at how it is. There was a [recent] survey show called “Bright Future” but it only had twelve artists.

Tell us about the art school system in Korea? How does it differ from other places?

It’s the most sophisticated [system] because it had some good pioneers [and] a lot of governmental help. [South Korea] has some good art schools and it has a lot of good artists that have studied overseas and come back. This allowed a lot of critical discourse and [there were] a lot of magazines. That allowed the art scene to grow well and in the right way.

Korean art is becoming popular with international collectors. “Korean Eye“, for example, was shown at The Saatchi Gallery in London earlier this year. Can you tell us why you think this is happening now?

“Here in South Korea you don’t feel that there’s much happening. The Korean scene is nothing compared to what’s happening in China…. On the one side, these shows, where this is popular or that is popular, don’t really mean a thing. There is a lot of good art in South Korea and the quality of the art is really on a high level, because art education has been good for 15-20 years. A lot of people are educated in Europe and America and have very good support and certainly output good quality art…. I mean, you don’t want to buy or you don’t want to show an artist because he’s Korean, you want to show an artist because he’s a good artist.”

JAS/KN/HH

Related topics: Korean artists, interviews, Tobias Berger, curators

Related posts:

• Follow “The Penguin” to the mountain – Tobias Berger on the NJPAC Show – August, 2010 – in an earlier interview we speak with Berger about curating for NJPAC’s “The Penguin”
• Writer Steven Pettifor talks about the old and the new in Thai contemporary art – Art Radar Interview – August, 2010 – an interview with Steven Pettifor about the Thai contemporary art scene
• Busan Biennale pushes for new discoveries in contemporary Asian art  – artist list – August, 2010 – a short summary of the Busan Biennial, includes a list of participants
• Korean National Museum of Contemporary  Art Young Korean Artists retrospective spans 30 years – May, 2010 – an informative primer on this exhibition
• Collector Ciclitira, founder of Korean Eye, makes big plans for Korean art – June 2009 – a summary of a podcast from Arttactic about the Korean contemporary art
  

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on contemporary Korean art

Top 8 Art Radar search terms: contemporary art trends revealed

JAPAN KOREA ART GRAFFITI NETWORKING PROPAGANDA POSTERS ART TRENDS

What are Art Radar‘s most popular search terms? Japan tops other Asian countries with most-searched-for art, graffiti moves out from the underground and Chinese art and politics are brought once again to the fore.

Art Radar Asia has now published two lists of original data on our most searched contemporary Asian artists, one in December 2009 and the other in July 2010. With these lists, we attempted to offer some insight into which artists are currently enjoying popularity in the international and Asian art markets.

Chinese propaganda poster.

While doing this research we also noticed that a number of common search engine terms were leading people to our articles. Just as we did for our most searched artists, we have decided to publish a list of most searched terms used by readers, which could hint at current trends within the contemporary art community. This list covers searches undertaken between 30 June 2009 to 30 June 2010.

1. Contemporary art
3,164 searches

2. Japanese art
1,680 searches (including: Japanese art – 503 searches; modern Japanese art – 372 searches; Japanese contemporary art – 334 searches; Japanese artist – 471 searches)

3. Propaganda posters
863 searches (including: Propaganda posters – 546 searches; Chinese propaganda posters – 317 searches)

4. Contemporary art collectors
394 searches

5. Graffiti (Banksy)
374 searches

6.  Art networking sites
340 searches

7. Korean art
246 searches

8. Chinese propaganda
320 searches

Art Radar Asia receives over 27,000 page views in a month. Our readers come to us from numerous places across the Internet: search engines like Google, social networking sites such as Twitter or Facebook, our weekly email newsletter and word of mouth. Our readers are art collectors, gallerists and dealers, art professionals, scholars and artists. For all these people, it is important to understand current trends in art, whether they are influenced by them or not.

We can’t claim that this list is a reliable proxy for the most-searched art terms on the Internet overall (take a look at our notes at the bottom of this article). However, we do think the list throws up some fascinating data. Below, we attempt to decipher some of the standout results from the tallies in this list.

Japanese art in top search spot

Takashi Murakami

Perhaps unsurprisingly, “Japanese art” sits in second place with an overall total of 1,680 searches. In both the December 2009 artist list and the June 2010 artist list, Japanese contemporary artist Takashi Murakami held the number one spot as most searched artist on Art Radar. The desire to know more about this artist could be one of the factors driving this search result.

Propaganda posters and Chinese propaganda

With the work of contemporary Chinese artists continuing to sell for high prices and the artists themselves continuing to make headlines – as artists in China work under strong censorship laws they often create reactionary works – contemporary Chinese art has remained popular for some time. In addition, the current political situation in China drives external interest in the history of the country, ensuring propaganda posters created decades ago remain both relevant to contemporary study and highly collectable.

Art Radar Asia has published a number of stories on Chinese contemporary art and on propaganda art and Chinese propaganda posters.

Banksy, North London.

Art Radar graffiti series proves popular

In January this year, we published a two part series (Part I and Part II) explaining graffiti and street art. These articles have proven extremely popular, hinting at a desire to know more about this contradictory art form; it is one that is still often underground and sometimes even illegal (therefore inaccessible) and at the same time, with artists such as Banksy becoming known internationally, increasingly commercialised and collectible. We think this goes some way to explaining the 374 searches for “graffiti”.

Desire to connect to the international art community

We recorded 340 searches for “art networking sites”. Increasingly popular as a marketing and information tool, social networking sites tailored to art professionals can give members access to the knowledge of other art collectors and investors as well as the opportunity to view the work of artists from around the world. In March 2009, we linked to an excellent list of current social networking sites first published on Art Market Blog.

Notes

This list is not a reliable proxy for the most-searched art terms on the Internet overall. Here is why: If we have not written a story on or tagged this art term, the search engines will not bring us traffic for this search term and it won’t appear on our traffic analysis stats page. As we have only been up for just over two years it is quite possible that we have not yet covered some highly-searched art terms. And even if we have referenced an art term on our site and the art term is highly-searched, the searcher will not come to us unless we have a good page ranking for the story on the search engine.  For example if the story is, say, after page 4 of the search engine results, the searcher probably won’t find our story and will not appear in our stats. Despite these limitations the data is likely to be a reliable indicator for certain trends. Finally even if we have a story and the story is well-ranked, it may be that other stories on the same page are more alluring than ours and readers do not find their way to us.

KN/KCE

Related Topics: lists, from Art Radar, trends

Related Posts:

• Top 20 Asian artists June 2010: Art Radar Asia’s most-searched artists – July 2010 – evaluates the results with regards to artist activities
• What is street art? Top 5 street artists in the art world – Part II – March 2010 – an insightful overview of this controversial art form
• What is street art? Vandalism, graffiti or public art – Part I – January 2010 – an insightful overview of this controversial art form
• Top 17 Asian artists 2009: Art Radar Asia’s most-searched artists – December 2009 – includes some information on each artist
• Top 10 social networking sites for art – March 2009 – extremely useful, even readers’ comments left on this post point out some helpful sites

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more art-related lists and resources

What did the galleries say about ART HK 10? Art Radar Asia speaks to 19 dealers

HONG KONG ART FAIR

Art Radar Asia attended ART HK 10 on Sunday with the aim of getting a perspective on the who is selling what to whom. Below we lay out the comments from and opinions of 19 of the Asian and international galleries in attendance this year.

Nadi Gallery – Jakart

Meli Angkapradipta: ”We got more sales this year. We brought around 18 pieces and only four are unsold. Most of our buyers are from Asia, mostly Indonesia. All Gede Mahendra Yasa’s works are sold. His works are very decorative and very natural. People can accept them very easily.”

Gede Mahendra Yasa, Cannabis-Canniballis, 2010

Ota Fine Arts – Tokyo

“I think this fair is getting stronger and stronger. About half of our nine pieces are sold at the price range of $2,000 to $380,000. The buyers are from Indonesia, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong. Yayoi Kusama’s work is very popular. We sold some new artist’s work too.”

Tang Contemporary Art – Bangkok/Beijing/Hong Kong

“We sold about forty percent of our works to Mainland, European, and US buyers. The most expensive piece was Liu Xiaodong’s painting.”

LEVY – Berlin/Hamburg

Thomas Levy: “Last year we brought some young artists and we sold nothing. I think [people] are buying well-know names or Chinese art. We sold 2 of 15 pieces. It’s not a disappointment but it could be better. The buyers are from Hong Kong but they are foreign people, no Chinese. It’s a problem of education and no modern art museum in Hong Kong and things like that. We are here to find new clients.”

Greenberg Van Doren Gallery – New York

“We’ve never done any fairs in Asia before. We really just want to get to know some of the collectors in Hong Kong and other cities around here. And I think we have met a ton of people. The sales haven’t been disappointing. Most of the collectors are from Asia and Australia. It’s just a very different set of people.”

Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin, 2010

Galerie Forsblom – Helsinki

Karl-Heinz Horbert: “This year’s fair has much more people than last year. Our works have sold in the range of US$8,000 to US$400,000. Hong Kong is an international place and the buyers come from all over the place. The European fairs and the American have a long tradition, that means in the States and in Europe there are serious collectors talking about collection. People buy to keep. Where’s the public museum in Hong Kong? This is the big difference between the European and Hong Kong markets.”

The Modern Institute – Glasgow

“The fair is very well organized, very well attended and the sales have been good. I think overall it’s been very strong. We didn’t have any expectations really because we’ve never done this fair before. We have collectors in Japan and Australia. We don’t have any collectors in China, so coming to the fair we didn’t have any expectations. About eighty percent of the collectors are new. The new collectors are from Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan and some new collectors from Japan. The price ranges from 10, 000 pounds to 100,000 pounds.”

Eslite Gallery – Taipei

Hai-Ping Chang: “The quality of the fair is getting better and better. And there is [a bigger] audience. We brought the works of seven artists from China and Taiwan. The sales are pretty good. Buyers are from Hong Kong and overseas.”

Sakshi Gallery – Mumbai

Geetha Mehra, director: “It’s a very good fair. Well organized, good quality of work. In terms of the sales there’s a bit of conflict from the auction. The buyers are mainly from Asia. The fair has more Asian buyers and more works from the region but overall the quality is as good as anywhere else.”

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery – Sydney

Tony Oxley: “It’s a very good fair. It has a nice Asian flavor. The buyers are from Hong Kong and Europe. We’ve done pretty well with Tracey Moffatt. I think people prefer figurative arts rather than abstract. I think we’ll be coming more often now. The future is here.”

Bernier/Eliades Gallery – Athens

Hidy Lam Hoi Tik: “There are more Asian collectors at this fair. A buyer was from Shanghai, a friend of the artist Wang Xingwei. There’s a trend that collectors start to collect their friends’ works.”

Damien Hirst, Domine, Ne In Furore (Diamond Dust), 2010

Hakgojae – Seoul

“Last year was really bad for us. This year is really good. We sold 5 of 21 pieces. Two videos were sold to Hong Kong buyers for $30,000 each on the preview. Song Hyun-Sook’s paintings are really popular with Asian people.”

Thomas Erben Gallery – New York

“This fair is very well organized, very well attended. We don’t have any link [to] Hong Kong and very few of our collectors are from Hong Kong. We’re kind of jumping into cold water [to] see what happens, basically getting new contacts. The sales don’t quite cover the cost yet, but it’s a good start. Many of the buyers are Americans.”

Hanart TZ Gallery – Hong Kong

Marcello Kwan: “We’ve only brought Qiu Anxiong’s video The New Book of Moutains and Seas Part Ⅱ to the fair as we have our galleries in Hong Kong. Videos are a little harder to sell but there is a big audience, so it’s good publicity. Our works are more experimental than commercial. I think we bring something different to the audience.”

Marianne Boesky Gallery – New York

Adrian M. Turner: “We’ve met new people and we made some sales. It’s good. We sold about 10 of 20 pieces. The buyers are mostly from Asia. The prices range from $12,000 to $300, 000.”

Song Hyun-sook, 9brushstrokes, 2003

Galerie Zink – Berlin/Munich

“We’ve made some interesting contacts, sold mostly our Asian artists. It’s a little bit tough for young European or international artists from outside Asia to introduce them to people. Our artists are between 27 and 36 [years old]. It’s not that easy to get Asian collectors interested in their work for the first time. Collectors are mainly from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Australia. Yoshitomo Nara’s work sells the best.”

gdm – Paris

Claire Lauverier: “The opening is very social here. People are not here to buy the art works the first day. They are just here to enjoy the party. During the week it’s very low, very quiet, because I think people are working very hard. And during the weekend it’s like an explosion, everybody is coming. In other fairs it’s different. During the opening it’s like everybody is buying everything and afterwards it’s very quiet and very slow. People are much more direct here. If they are interested in buying something they’ll just say I want this, how much? Our buyers are mostly from Hong Kong and [the] mainland as well.”

Ayyam Gallery – Beirut/Damascus/Dubai

Myriam Jakiche, director: “More crowded, less interest selling wise compared to last year. Maybe because there are more galleries so there’s much more choice or something. Those bought are mainly colorful portraits. Buyers are mainly Europeans and Hong Kong people. I’m happy I know more people than last year.”

Gandhara-Art – Hong Kong/Karachi

Amna Naqvi, director: “It was more fabulous this year. We brought 13 pieces and 8 were sold. Buyers are from Asia and Europe. New buyers are from Asia. The price range of the works sold is $1,500 to $50,000.”

Overall, most participant galleries agreed that the quality of art available at ART HK is getting better and there was a much larger audience than last year. Many commented that while the fair is international, there are more Asian collectors and works than at European and US fairs. Notably, these Asian collectors tended to buy Asian works or the big names of international art. When compared with ART HK 09, the Asian galleries were more satisfied with their sales this year.

YNC/KN

Related Topics: business of art, collectors, events – fairs

Related Posts:

• Asia Art Forum 2010 meets growing demand for collector education in China – Jing Daily – May 2010
• Hong Kong hailed as art’s Promised Land by Art+Auction Magazine – April 2010
• Surprising sell-through rates for Chinese art recorded in London’s February auctions – March 2010
• Colin Chinnery, director of ShContemporary, on future of Shanghai Art Fair – interview Artron – January 2010
• Deutsche Bank signs 5 year lead sponsorship deal with ART HK – December 2009

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more on the contemporary art market in Asia

The Power 100: curators up and artists down on ArtReview’s annual list

THE POWER STRUCTURES OF THE ART WORLD

What a difference a year makes. Last month, ArtReview magazine released its annual list of the one hundred most powerful people in art (see list here). ArtReview’s introduction to the list outlines that the financial crisis of 2008 caused a lot of big shifts in the art world and the list is a reflection of these changes: a third of last year’s entries, both artists and collectors, have fallen off the list and been replaced by newcomers. For instance, Director of MoMA Glen Lowry was not even on the list last year, and this year he enters the chart at number two. The magazine praises the likes of Lowry for being part of a new generation in the art world that they describe as follows:

“…percolating up from the middle ranks is a new generation of highly networked, flexible, globetrotting curators – men and women at the very centre of a new way of working.”

Curators top the list while artists have less clout and websites have more

Overall, it was curators who had one of the strongest presence on the list, with Swiss curator and writer Hans Ulrich Obrist at the top of the list and Sir Nicholas Serto, the director of the Tate Gallery, at third. Artists, by contrast, did not have such a strong presence in the top ten: the first artist on the list was not until American Golden Lion Winner Bruce Nauman at number ten.

The Independent newspaper goes so far as to suggest it is “The Year of the Curator”, which suggests that curators have a stronger influence in shaping what we know about art than the artists who create it. A change in the system of endorsement was also reflected by the increase in webmasters included on the list. It seems that technology now also plays a significant part in disseminating notions of what “art” is.

Professions in the list: 2008 vs. 2009

Questions of power

So who gets to be on the list and how they do they get there? ArtReview explains that its entrants are ranked as follows:

” [It is] a combination of influence over the production of art internationally, sheer financial clout (although in these times that’s no longer such a big factor) and activity in the previous 12 months – criteria which encompass artists, of course, as well as collectors, gallerists and curators.”

That said, it still remains ambiguous as to what exactly it takes in order to get a mention in the Power 100. For example, how does ArtReview compare the merits of two entirely different professions? How do they rank success when success in the art world is often based solely on a system of endorsement? In other words: how is power in art defined? Perhaps future lists will provide us with more answers to such questions, or at least continue to prompt us to reflect on who really is in charge of the art world.

• Iran Inside Out review round up – 56 artist survey show in New York described as mesmerising, a privilege– September 2009
  
• Embedding the Bed in Public Space – interview Hong Kong artist and ParaSite director Tim Li– August 2009
  
• Is there a new way to sell art? Vitamin Creative Space China experiments – New York Times– May 2009
• Indian art consultancy threatens to sue US-based internet platform Ning– October 2009
• Crowd-funding – the internet stimulates new ways to raise funds for art projects– August 2009

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more market and auction house news

RM/KCE

 

Is Singapore threatening Hong Kong as next Asian art mecca? Wall Street Journal

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.”

Related Posts

• ARTSingapore 2009 Fair-new photography fair, high value sales and gallerists pick top fairs in Asia today– October 2009
• New auction houses with new strategies open in Singapore art market – October 2009
• Liquidity propels prices, Chinese Political Pop is back- Sothebys Contemporary Asian Art Auction 2009 Hong Kong– October 2009

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia

RM/KCE

Do you rank high on google? Why most art dealers don’t, why they should and what to do about it

ART MARKETING FOR FREE ON INTERNET

Getting a super-high google ranking is critical for anyone who is interested in promoting art. In this post we focus on the particular challenges facing dealers and give simple starter steps to help improve rankings massively. 

Neglected area of arts marketing

This is an area of marketing which is often neglected by gallerists who have no idea that they are missing out on engaging with valuable contacts and prospective customers. Think about it…if you learn how to harness Google, it can be your 24 hour online salesman who never goes sick and never needs to be paid. 

Google: the ideal salesman

Google attracts pre-selected interested buyers who are actively seeking information and Google provides these pre-qualified buyer with information about your gallery and artists. And what is more Google is selling to your customers wherever in the world they are day or night whenever they want the information. That is service!

Test your own keywords

Would you like to get Google selling for you? Then let’s try a test right now:

Open a new window, go to Google search and type in your gallery name and after that the names of your artists. 

How high up does your gallery name feature when you do a Google search on those terms? Does your gallery name get linked directly or is it mentioned in a press piece on the results page? Perhaps you cannot see your name at all? Take a good look at the other sites which are ranking on the first page for your artist names and other search terms – these sites are your competition so examine them carefully.

Research shows that customers increasingly seek information on big-ticket purchases from the net and this is a growing trend for art buyers too. Four or five years ago there was little art information available but today collectors go straight to the net to seek out reviews, prices and bios to help them decide who, where and what to buy. 

Now imagine…if a prospective customer is doing some pre-purchase research on an artist you represent, wouldn’t you like to be right there on the first page of google ready to help? If a museum curator or researcher is planning a show and wants information on potential artists to include and is researching one of your artists, wouldn’t you like to be their first port of call?

The next step is to take a look at how your results compare with the norm. So how did you do? Are you on the first page?

Most people do not click beyond the first page of Google’s search results – in fact many people do not take the trouble to scroll down to the bottom half of the screen. Is your gallery name listed “above the fold” for your artist names and other relevant search terms?

If it is not, then there is work to do. But don’t despair, improving your ranking is surprisingly easy and even better in many cases, completely free.

Most dealers will find that their gallery name is probably up on the first spot on the first page of Google but it will be hit and miss whether they rank for the names of their artists. Generally the artists’ own sites (if they are web-savvy) will rank top of the page for their own names and that is right and proper. However what dealers should do is take up as many spots as possible on the rest of Google’s first page for each of their artists. 

 Although this is a large topic – whole books have been written about search-engine optimisation – this post is going to give you an easy-to-implement tip and actions steps to get started. (If you would like information on several more techniques keep subscribing – we will be covering more techniques for making the most of the internet in future posts.)

TIP: Comment on high authority sites

For instant results leave comments on websites which already have a high page rank. These may include blogs, information sites, newspapers online and online forums and discussion groups.

Get into the habit of reading your newspapers online and subscribe to art-related feeds so that you can spot opportunities to comment. Sign up to google alerts so that you are alerted when your artist is mentioned.

When you find somewhere to comment, make sure that your comment is relevant and not merely promotional though.  Weave in your artist name, your gallery name and  – this bit is very important – try where possible to include the gallery link in your comment.  These words are your keywords which Google will use for indexing your comment in its database.

Three reasons why you need to leave comments

Leaving comments helps you boost your page rank and the higher your page rank the more likely you are to achieve a good position on Google search results.

Why is commenting so useful?

First,  make sure you leave a link to your website when you make a comment. Linking from other sites to your own can boost the ranking of your site. Google assigns page rankings based on a secret algorithm, part of which is concerned with how many websites of good standing link to yours. Websites with larger numbers of inbound links and with links from high authority websites are assumed to be more important and are given higher rankings. 

Second you are reaching people who will see your comment and click through your link to reach you. The more visitors you have, the higher your ranking. 

But the third reason is the most important, Google searches and indexes comments. This means that if you leave a comment on a high authority site, it is possible to achieve high visibility on the first page of google for your comment. For example recently there was an online feature in the travel section of the New York Times on the Hollywood Road district of Hong Kong which is developing into an interesting area for the arts. Readers left comments adding to the recommendations included in the piece. If you recommend a gallery in the area and if it was not already widely-written about in high authority sites (rare!) it is likely that your comment would appear on the first page of Google’s results for that gallery name. If that gallery name was yours you would be very pleased:  not only would you draw New York Times visitors, you would also have boosted your google ranking in three ways all in one go (attracting more visitors to your site, creating a high authority inbound link to your site and taking up another slot on Google’s first page for your gallery name).

Of course it is important that your comments are not blatantly self-serving; often administrators are employed to screen out pure promotion. However as long as your comment adds value to the article with extra information or by generating discussion, you will find that publishers love comments and are only too pleased to receive your input.

 

If you are interested in reading more tips on art business management and the use of the internet for art promotion, please rate this article and/or leave a comment below.

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