Young, wealthy Asian shoppers are spending cash on art, according to a longtime collector and senior auction house executive.
Nicholas Chow, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, said more than 40% of the auction house’s contemporary art buyers are millennials (born between 1981 and 1996), and Generation X (1965 to 1980) are also big spenders. He said that there is a high possibility that this is the case.
“Buyers are getting younger and younger. What we’re actually seeing in 2023 is…Gen ,” Chow said on CNBC’s “The Art of Appreciation.”
Gen Z, the youngest age group for buyers, is “coming in really strong,” he said, adding that he recently witnessed a 20-year-old buyer buying goods in Shanghai for a graduation gift. Ta.
According to Art Basel and UBS’s 2023 Global Collection Survey, wealthy Asian millennials spent a median of $59,785 on art and antiques in the first half of 2023, compared to Gen Z. The amount spent was $56,000.
Research shows that buying at auction rather than from a dealer, for example, is popular among Millennial and Gen X collectors around the world. This trend appears to be occurring in Asia as well. At Christie’s Hong Kong Spring Auction, which ran from May 25 to June 1, about a quarter of buyers were new to the auction house, and 43% of them were millennials, according to an online release. Ta.
A visitor takes a selfie with Yoshitomo Nara’s work during Sotheby’s Hong Kong Spring Sale on April 2, 2024.
Chen Yongnuo | China News Service | Getty Images
According to the Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report 2024, the size of the global art market decreased by 4% last year to approximately $65 billion, but sales in China are expected to increase by 9% in 2023, surpassing the UK. He overtook it and became number 2 in the world. The largest art market. “There has been a surge in activity as post-lockdown buyers snapped up stalled auction inventory and Hong Kong’s major trade fairs and exhibitions returned to full-scale programming,” report author and founder of Arts Economics said. Claire McAndrew writes:
In Sotheby’s case, the increase in young buyers is due in part to increased online activity. “During the pandemic, we really developed our digital capabilities with live streaming…and this has really allowed us to bring art to a larger community and engage with buyers around the world. “,” Chow said.
Young collectors are enthusiastic about new art forms, with Gen Z collectors having the highest average spending of any generation on digital art, as well as prints, worldwide, according to the 2023 Global Collecting Survey.
young digital artist
According to Angel Shiyan Li, director of the Art Basel fair in Hong Kong, artists working in digital media are becoming more and more prominent. “The definition of digital art today has expanded from just photography to video art, NFTs, and AI-generated art,” she said on CNBC’s “The Art of Appreciation.”
NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are unique digital assets stored on a blockchain. According to the Art Market Report 2024, sales of art-related NFTs in 2023 were $1.2 billion, less than half of the $2.9 billion peak in 2021, but still higher than the $20 million sales in 2020. was significantly higher.
“As the younger generation becomes more and more visible in the market, digital artists will become an even more prominent artist group,” Xiang Le added.
Hong Kong-based artist Mak2 uses a variety of mediums in her work, including Instagram videos. Her 2017 piece “You Better Watch Out” featured an inflatable, transparent “snow globe” with a floating QR code that the audience could scan. Surveillance cameras filmed people scanning codes, which were linked to a web page showing the audience viewing the production.
“So you’re observing yourself being watched,” Mak2 told CNBC’s “The Art of Appreciation.” “You’re not just looking at your phone; your data is circulating, being recorded, and being analyzed within the app,” she added.
People viewing works at Art Basel Hong Kong in March 2024. In the center is artist Mak2’s “Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy,” part of the “Encounter” installation at De Sarthe Gallery.
China News Service | Li Zhihua | Getty Images
Mak2 will feature an installation called “Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy” based on the video game “The Sims” and painted by an artist she commissioned through an e-commerce site, at the March Art Festival. Exhibited at Basel Hong Kong.
Over the past decade, Sotheby’s has become more “open-minded” to modern and contemporary art, Chow said. “Fifty years ago, when we came to Asia… we brought Chinese art… and today we have all kinds of things from around the world, from dinosaurs to cars to modern art. It really opened up the market for new experiences and new materials, NFTs, sneakers, everything,” he said.
The Art Gallery Association of Hong Kong recorded a 27% increase in member galleries between 2021 and 2023, with the Hong Kong Palace Museum opening in 2022 and M+ last year. Both are contemporary art museums that promote a “greater interest” in the Asian art community. said Chou.
Sotheby’s has been holding auctions in Asia since 1973, and in July opened its flagship store, Maison, in Hong Kong, where in addition to holding regular auctions, it also sells works that are available for immediate purchase. “Our house brings together materials from the full range of Sotheby’s offerings, from distant prehistory to the digital future,” Chow said.
—CNBC’s Quek Jie Ann contributed to this report.
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