Call it a tale of two markets. A group of visitors to the Taipei Dangdai VIP preview on May 11 appeared to have arrived on skateboards, sports shorts and T-shirts to better show off their tattoos. The group of older visitors, including billionaire collector Maggie Tsai, CEO of the Fubon Art Foundation, and Powerchip Semiconductor chairman Frank Huang, were likely dropped off by their drivers.
Both groups have something in common: deep pockets. Although Taiwanese collectors don’t like to flaunt their wealth like their counterparts in Hong Kong, Singapore or China, there is plenty of buying power. Taipei alone has more than 1,000 families with at least $30 million, according to UBS, which sponsored the fair. And the wealth at the top is more widely distributed, Dennis Chen, head of UBS Taiwan, told Artnet News. “In Korea [the] ten large families control 70% of the wealth. In Taiwan, hundreds of families make up 50 to 60 percent.” The result is a deeper pool of potential collectors.
Taiwanese collectors have long “overshot their weight” on the international art and auction circuit, said fair co-founder Magnus Renfrew. The country has a tradition of art appreciation, and collectors like to engage more deeply with their purchases, rather than just viewing them as investments like many buyers in Hong Kong, Singapore and China, Leo said. Xu, senior manager of David Zwirner in Hong Kong. While they still appreciate their parents’ Indian ink collections and modern 20th century Chinese masters, the new generation grew up with Japanese manga and video games and is more sensitive to street art and Instagrammable works, did he declare.
Zwirner’s offerings ranged from a $2 million Giorgio Morandi oil on canvas to a Yayoi Kusama Infinity net, priced at over $4 million. Xu declined to provide details beyond that the gallery has sold 14 works to Asian, local and overseas clients.
Taipei Dangdai 2023. Photo by Frederik Balfour.
After a reduced fair with just 60 galleries in 2022 when Covid restrictions kept many international galleries and visitors away, this year Taipei Dangdei hosted 90 galleries, 30 of which are exhibiting for the first time, including Tehran’s Sarai Gallery ( which now operates out of Mahshahir, Iran), Eric Firestone Gallery (New York, East Hampton) and Nino Mier Gallery, (Los Angeles, London and New York). Fifteen galleries were local. Simmering tensions with China meant few visitors to the mainland, although a few managed to secure visas citing a need for “medical treatment” in Taiwan.
Several artists have dealt with the theme of rubbish. Ben Brown Fine Arts of Hong Kong and London sold a bronze rubbish bag painted by Gavin Turk for an asking price of £100,000 (about $125,000). Tokyo-based Yamaki Fine Art featured ceramic depictions of discarded beer and coke cans, as well as 91-year-old artist Kimiyo Mishima’s journal sheaves, selling for between $4,800 and $23,000.
Taipei-based Chini Gallery featured bronze and steel sculptures of discarded Chinese chewing gum wrappers painted in Wrigley’s Doublemint Green by Chinese artist Jiao Xing Tao priced at $68,000 for the largest piece of art. about two meters in diameter. None sold, but they were a good way to attract visitors to the booth which was selling several oil on canvas works priced at $40,000 to $150,000 by Nanjing-born geometric abstract artist Ho Kan who has lived in Italy for 60 years, and at 91 years old. , is still painting.
Ceramic Kimiyo Mishima. Photo by Frederik Balfour.
Taiwanese artist Luo Jr-shih offered a different take on solid waste, with two wall-hung pieces of cats made from cat litter, cast bronze, fiberglass-reinforced resin and acrylic. Each of the “Cat Litter Cat” series sold for $6,600 at the Michael Ku Gallery in Taipei.
Digital works did not fare well. None of the galleries displaying digital works visited by Artnet News reported sales on the last day. The Hole, which has galleries in New York and Los Angeles, brought in a state-of-the-art custom AI model of a bust that continually morphed into iterations of itself by Matthew Stone that weren’t sold for $25,000. A unique NFT video by Montreal artist Vickie Vainionpaa consisting of a four-minute, 12-second double loop that looked like a digital slinky, was also unsold. Considering that Beeple sold a digital work for $9 million less than two months ago at Art Basel Hong Kong, the market has gone downhill quickly. “NFTs have cooled off,” gallery founder Kathy Grayson stoically observed.
Taipei Dangdai 2023 installation. Courtesy of Taipei Dangdai.
Fair co-director Robin Peckham said the fair had yet to reach its potential, noting that mainland Chinese were struggling to get visas and international guests were staying home due to tensions. policies with China. “People are too tuned into CNN. Once you get here, you ignore what you saw about Taiwan being on the brink of destruction.
Just ask New York-based installation artist Petah Coyne, who has visited the island many times. “Taiwan is my North Star,” she told an audience at the fair. “You should all be grateful to live here.” Coyne, who has worked with everything from the steel of a shredded camper van to human hair, peacocks and mango tree stumps, brought two new waxworks specially made for the fair that serve as his letters of honor. love in Taiwan.
The greatest work, titled spring snow, takes its name from the novel by the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima evoking a scene from the story of a tragic love where two young lovers take a sleigh ride in front of snow-covered flowers. The work in three panels lasted 14 years. She first dipped silk peonies, black cherry trees and ranunculus in wax then shaped them with wire before being affixed to a steel frame on which she cast melted wax until to obtain the desired effect of snow that is both beautiful and funereal. Priced at $390,000, it was sold to a local collector by Nunu Fine Art, New York and Taipei.
Petah Coyne with wax work. Photo by Frederik Balfour.
On a more playful note, an installation by German conceptual artist Olaf Nicolai proved extremely popular. The interactive installation using UV light and residual paint titled How to Love the Light of a Candle After It’s Snuffed Out, drew a long line of visitors waiting for the chance to stand in front of a green screen along one wall of a darkened room that produced ghostly images lasting seconds of anything nearby . Priced at €140,000 (about $152,000), it was sold to a local collector by Eigen + Art Gallery. The gallery, with spaces in Leipzig and Berlin, also sold a painting by German artist Neo Rauch for 1.2 million euros (about $1.3 million).
Fubon’s Maggie Tsai picked up works by three different artists from Dusseldorf’s Sies + Hoke gallery, including a brightly colored abstract by Costa Rican artist Federico Herrero for $65,000.
While collectors at other fairs tend to pull the trigger on the first day, Taiwanese collectors take their time, often visiting booths multiple times before buying, says Niamh Coghlan, sales manager at Richard Saltoun Gallery in London. By the fair’s close on May 14, it had sold seven of 12 works by 20th-century Chinese artist Li Yuan-chia for between $70,000 and $250,000, including several on the last day. “We have sold to all Taiwanese collectors, that’s why we are here,” she said, adding, “We will be back next year.”
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