Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis
Art Stage Singapore (Shanghai Eye)
Art Stage Singapore saw the sale of works across all price categories. This includes those by superstars of the art world including David LaChapelle, Takashi Murakami, Anish Kapoor and Chu Teh-Chun.
Significant sales include
Presser: Art Stage Singapore (Shanghai Eye)
A Good Start (The Star Online)
The Wall Street Journal’s SceneAsia Blog zeroes in on Art Stage Singapore. Commenting on the confluence of art sales and luxury merchandizing, Katherine Ryder says,
The snobbiest of regulars on the art-fair circuit may be a little put-out that Singapore’s debut contemporary art fair is taking place in the basement of a giant mall. But last night, at the fair’s preview, the affair was far from subtle: Two women were wearing the same white Chanel dress, which was also hanging in the store’s display window two floors up.
Meanwhile, Ryder reports there are 50 Picassos sprinkled among the Asian and European contemporary artists on offer. But the real measure of the fair’s success will be sales. Here are the first she has to report:
- de Sarthe Fine Art, which will open a gallery in Hong Kong this year, is participating in its first art fair in more than 20 years and has already sold five LaChapelle pieces, at prices ranging from US$50,000 to US$180,000
- Michael Shultz Gallery held a large Huang He piece on reserve for an interested buyer at US$85,000
Art Stage Singapore Opens (SceneAsia/Wall Street Journal)
Bloomberg’s Adam Majendie tries to explain the secret sauce that Lorenzo Rudolf has put into Art Stage Singapore which has just opened there:
“Asia’s at the point where it has to build up its own marketplace,” he said. “It makes no sense to invite Western galleries that represent the same artists as the Asian ones.”
The key for Rudolf was to attract big collectors of Asian art from around the world. He worked with Singapore’s government to set up an exhibition running parallel with the fair at theSingapore Art Museum and other venues called “Collectors’ Stage: Asian Contemporary Art From Private Collections.”
The show includes works from artists such as China’s Ai Weiwei, India’s Shilpa Gupta,Indonesia’s Masriadi and Yoshitomo Nara from Japan. Many of the works spend most of their time in the houses and private museums of big Asian-art collectors such as Sylvain Levy, Oei Hong Djien and Deddy Kusuma.
“It’s exciting to have such a collection of contemporary art from Asia like this,” said Levy, as he walked through a preview of the museum show. His DSL Collection of Chinese contemporary art contributed two works to the exhibition.
Billionaires Reveal Treasures as Asian Painters Edge Picasso in Singapore (Bloomberg)
