“Although the economic crisis is affecting the art market, professional collectors are still buying work and looking for young artists. If they see some great work they absolutely must have it. That’s why international galleries like to come to Taiwan because there are many collectors. It’s totally different from investors who will avoid purchases when the economy is poor,” she said.
It’s a sentiment echoed by Yeh Ming-hsun (葉銘勳), owner of Main Trend Gallery (大趨勢畫廊), the gallery with the largest booth this year.
“Collectors usually have money in reserve. Although they lost money [in the global financial crisis], they still have some set aside for collecting,” said Yeh, who represents some of Taiwan’s top artists, including Chen Chieh-jen (陳界仁) and Wu Tien-chang (吳天章).
Of greater concern to Art Taipei, he said, is the increased profile of and competition from art fairs in Shanghai, Beijing, Seoul and Hong Kong.
“The art environment has changed over the past three years. Every country is competing to be the largest. Every country believes they are the largest and best,” he said.
“Many galleries from abroad will participate in the fairs in Shanghai and Hong Kong ... because they are more international in scope. Beijing and Taipei are more local — they are local galleries showing off local artists both from home and Southeast Asia. International galleries probably won’t participate in Taipei’s fair because it is too local,” he said.
Although Yeh is branching out to other countries — Main Trend participated in a Beijing art fair in April and will travel to Shanghai for another in early September — Art Taipei still remains for him the most important of its ilk because his gallery is in Taipei and it promotes Taiwanese artists.
RSS