Young, wealthy shoppers in Asia are spending their money on art, a senior collector and auction house executive said.
According to Nicolas Chow, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, more than 40% of contemporary art buyers are millennials (born between 1981 and 1996), while Generation X (1965 to 1980) may also be Big spenders.
“Buyers are getting younger and younger. What we’re actually seeing in 2023 is… Gen
Gen Z – the youngest age group among buyers – is “coming in pretty strong”, he said, adding that he recently saw a 20-year-old buyer in Shanghai buy a piece to celebrate his graduate.
Asia’s wealthy millennials spent an average of $59,785 on art and antiques in the first half of 2023, compared with $56,000 for Gen Z, according to Art Basel and UBS 2023 Global Collections Survey.
Surveys show that buying at auction—rather than buying from a dealer—is popular among millennial and Gen X collectors around the world. This trend appears to be playing out in Asia. About a quarter of the buyers at Christie’s Hong Kong spring auctions, held between May 25 and June 1, were new to the auction house, with 43% of them being millennials, according to one auction house. generation. Publish online.
On April 2, 2024, at Sotheby’s spring auction in Hong Kong, a visitor took a selfie with Yoshitomo Nara’s works.
Chen Yongnuo | China News Service | Getty Images
And, while the global art market fell 4% last year to about $65 billion, according to Art Basel and UBS 2024 Art Market ReportChina’s sales will grow by 9% in 2023, surpassing the UK to become the world’s second largest art market. “The surge in activity comes as post-lockdown buyers snap up backlog of auction stock and Hong Kong’s major fairs and exhibitions resume full planning,” wrote Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics.
For Sotheby’s, growth among younger buyers is partly due to increased online activity. “During the pandemic, we have really grown our digital capabilities through live streaming… which has really brought art to the larger community and allowed us to interact with buyers around the world,” Zhou said.
Young collectors are keen on newer art forms, and according to the 2023 Global Collecting Survey, Gen Z collectors have the highest average global spend on digital art as well as prints of any generation.
young digital artist
For Art Basel Hong Kong director Angelle Siyang-Le, artists working in digital media are becoming increasingly important. “Today, the definition of digital art has expanded from simple photography to video art, to NFT, to art generated by artificial intelligence,” she told CNBC’s “Appreciating Art” program.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets stored on the blockchain. According to the 2024 Art Market Report, art-related NFT sales in 2023 will be $1.2 billion, less than half of the peak of $2.9 billion in 2021, but still significantly higher than sales in 2020 (20 million in 2020 Dollar).
“As the younger generation becomes more prominent in the market…digital artists…will become a group of artists that receive more attention,” Si Yangle added.
Hong Kong artist Mak2 uses a variety of mediums in her work, including Instagram videos. Her 2017 work “you better be careful”, an inflated, transparent “snowball” with a floating QR code that viewers can scan. CCTV cameras filmed people scanning the code, which linked to a web page showing viewers viewing the artwork .
“So you’re watching yourself being watched,” Mak2 told CNBC’s Art Appreciation. “You’re not just looking at your phone, you’re becoming the data looping within the app being recorded and analyzed,” she added.
People view works at Art Basel Hong Kong in March 2024.
China News Service | Li Zhihua | Getty Images
Mak2 exhibited an installation called “Copy of Copy of Copy” at Art Basel Hong Kong in March this year. The installation was based on the video game “The Sims” and was commissioned by an artist through her e-commerce website. draw.
Sotheby’s has been “more open” to contemporary and modern art over the past decade, Zhou said. “Fifty years ago, when we came to Asia… we brought Chinese art… and today we have really opened the market for all kinds of new experiences and new materials, from dinosaurs to cars to contemporary art, from all over the world NFTs everywhere, sneakers, you name it,” he said.
The Hong Kong Art Museum Association has recorded a 27% increase in the number of member galleries between 2021 and 2023, while the Hong Kong Palace Museum opened in 2022 and M+ opened last year – both contemporary museums making an impact on the Asian art scene “Greater interest,” Zhou said.
Sotheby’s has been holding auctions in Asia since 1973 and will open a flagship “auction house” in Hong Kong in July, which will sell collections for immediate purchase and hold regular auctions. “In our studio, we will bring a variety of materials provided by Sotheby’s, from distant prehistory all the way to the digital future,” Zhou said.
— CNBC’s Quek Jie Ann contributed to this report.
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