Hong Kong artists: A hard sale?
Hong Kong artist Danny Lee's glossy sculptures.Hong Kong is the third largest art market in the world in terms of auction figures, and sales have continued to grow. Despite the financial downturn, Christie’s sales in Hong Kong almost doubled in five years -- from US$181 million in 2004 to US$349.5 million in 2009. Works by Hong Kong artists though, remain a relatively small share. For Sotheby’s 2009 autumn sales, Hong Kong artists totaled HK$1.26 million, only around 1 per cent of the overall sales in Hong Kong.
Some have accounted this to the general lack of support for the arts in the city. Some say high living costs stifle the growth of struggling artists who need to hold down full-time jobs to make ends meet. "Artists here are quite sophisticated," said Meg Maggio, owner of Pekin Fine Arts. "But it is not easy to succeed as an artist in Hong Kong."
It seems that the ones who do persist in selling Hong Kong art, see some success in the end. When gallery owner Henry Au-Yeung closed his booth at the four-day art fair, Art Asia Miami, with zero sales in 2007, he struggled to stay upbeat.
"People didn’t know my artists and they didn’t know me," said Henry. "But I knew it was about having a continued presence, you just have to be there year after year." He participated in the fair again the following year with works that catered more to his Latino clients in Miami, like the glossy sculptures of Hong Kong artist Danny Lee. Since then, his sales at the fair have improved year after year.
Matching the art to the market is the job of a gallery, not that of an artist — Henry Au-Yeung
Gallery pains
Henry Au-Yeung opened Grotto Fine Art in 2001, exclusively representing Hong Kong artists. Apart from Art Asia Miami, he also exhibited at The Scope Art Show in Basel. He said after 10 years of promoting Hong Kong art, a lot of times it is still about introducing these artists to his clients. “There are no inherent deficiencies with Hong Kong artists, people just do not know about the city’s art because there are not enough galleries promoting them.”
He said that once his clients become acquainted with Hong Kong art, they are often impressed by the works’ craftsmanship. The relatively affordable prices also make them an attractive buy. Over the years, he has built a strong client base in Hong Kong and has a loyal following in Switzerland and the United States.
Maggio's gallery Pekin Fine Arts represents artists from all over Asia including Hong Kong, but the gallery is based in Beijing where it has over 600 square meters of exhibition space, which allows her to present two to three solo shows at a time. She said opening a gallery in Beijing is much more affordable. "You simply do not have a 300 square meter space in the middle of Hong Kong."
High property prices in Hong Kong mean that there are fewer galleries and the ones that do operate in the city have to be a lot more conscious of their margins. It is also more difficult for artists to find inexpensive studio space.
The personal sell
Tsang Kin-wah, one of the artists she represents, uses text to form decorative patterns that often fill up a whole room. On close inspection, these texts sometimes contain violent emotions and profanities. He began this series of work as a reaction to the discrimination he experienced in London.
Mainland Chinese artists, especially those born in the 1970s, often produce works that are loud, angry and grand, said Henry Au-Yeung. Hong Kong artists though, never experienced the same level of political turmoil to warrant such emotions. Their works are therefore more personal, reflecting heartfelt emotions which a lot of people can identify with.
But far from blaming the artists' for producing work that is hard to sell, rather, both agree that local artists should continue to do what they have been doing. "Matching the art to the market is the job of a gallery, not that of an artist," said Au-Yeung.
Too soon to tell
Things are beginning to look up for local artists. Not only is there a growing number of local galleries, more international galleries are taking on Hong Kong artists as well. They are also receiving more attention abroad with group shows of Hong Kong artists in Shanghai, New York and London, including a presentation of Hong Kong art works at the Tate Modern last month.
Seeing an increasingly mature first-hand market for Hong Kong art, Sotheby’s reached out to local collectors and artists pulling together a group of nine works to launch its first Contemporary Hong Kong art session in the spring of 2009.
"Although the market for Hong Kong art is still relatively small, and the mobility of such works in the second-hand auction market is still low, things are heading towards a good direction," said Sotheby’s contemporary Asian art specialist Jonathan Wong. Meg Maggio sold pieces by Tsang Kin-wah and Movana Chen at ART HK 10.
"It just gets better every year when clients come back to the fair and remember our gallery and our artists." She has never found Hong Kong art difficult to sell. "People don’t buy art based on geography," she said. “All they care about is the quality and the sincerity of the work."
