Just as I was about to board my flight to Hong Kong on March 23rd, my phone buzzed. It was the first anniversary of the Baer Faxt podcast. Exactly one year ago, during Hong Kong Art Week, Josh and I launched our podcast. It was Art Basel Hong Kong's first edition after the pandemic. For many people, it was an emotional reunion, and for Josh and The Baer Faxt, it was our first time covering this major artwork on site. A year has passed quickly, and we have experienced many exciting firsts.
We went back to Hong Kong this year as a supporting media partner of Art Basel Hong Kong, and the live streamed Five, the Baer Faxt live interviews on the fair's VIP opening day. We were also invited by the Upper House Hong Kong to launch the Baer Faxt talk series, where we introduced the Baer Faxt Collector's Circle program. More details to come in our show. And most importantly, our team has expanded. Josh and I were joined in Hong Kong by our two colleagues based in Asia.
On our last day there, we sat down to discuss our observations On the art market in Hong Kong and Asia in this episode of bear with me, you will hear my conversation with Josh Baer, our founder and CEO, Guo Liangsheng, our content strategist in Shanghai and Claire Huang, our business development consultant in Hong Kong.
It's great to be back in Hong Kong. I'm already an expert having been here twice.
You do look more like a, you know, local here compared to a year ago.
And I will say at the fair, I have been treated to a lot of, are you Josh Baer, which is great. And then it's like, I love your podcast. And that makes you
very happy, right? Yes.
I'm thrilled as the, uh, non executive producer.
And as the executive producer, I'm always very happy to hear that. As we're recording today, it's actually Friday, and which is the day four of the fair and opening to the public. Should we start by asking you to give the audience a little bit summary? What do you see of the fair, especially now it's your second edition of Hong Kong Basel?
I've been having a sort of running battle with another journalist about the state of the art market and how they have to understand that not getting all these big sales results in the first 30 minutes of a fair means the art market is down the toilet. And I'd like to think that Hauser and Wirth doing 30 million worth of business in the first day. It's kind of significant.
Also made me think that's probably more art than was sold during all of art Singapore, the whole fair put together one booth out of 250. So there's real business here.
Do you have anything particular you like or anything kind of surprises you? I mean, I always ask this question, but nothing surprises Josh Baer.
I was surprised at how many Western galleries bring Asian artists now, and wondering if that was just, um, cuddling up to an Asian audience, but I think not. Those are artists they work with, and I don't think you would have seen that here a long time ago. Claire, you live in Hong Kong. You've been to maybe 10 years worth of Hong Kong fairs. Do you notice that change, or is that just something I imagine?
I would say that change is noticeable. So, for the Western galleries, I think they're definitely bringing more Asian art back to Asia. And inside Asia, I can see that a lot of galleries Even the local Hong Kong galleries, who used to target, showcase more artists from China, they began to present artists from the wider region inside Asia, including Southeast Asia, Korea and Japan, and even India.
For me, that reason might be that they're no longer targeting collectors from mainland China as their, you know, main priority. They're also targeting other collectors inside Asia and
overseas. So, Bo Liang, as a writer and a curator from mainland China, what does this fair mean to you?
For me, I think Art Basel Hong Kong is an exciting platform to understand the diversity of art world in Asia, especially for the amount of participation of Southeast Asian galleries, which I don't always see other major fairs.
I think I gained a lot of insight into the issues that their artists are exploring and the preferences of their collectors and how they construct their artistic narrative to engage with the international community, which is quite different from what I learned from living and working in China and New York over the years.
I think how we define things, it's becoming more and more important about art. I was reminded of A friend of mine who was in Qatar and a senior museum director used the term post war art and the sheikah said, which war are you talking about? So terms that we've come into regular context, Southeast Asian art, contemporary art, they're actually how we define things. are much more important than we realize.
So that's why trying to understand the historic use of these terms and see to what extent we should be maybe seeing they bias us.
Let's talk about the opening hour and Josh, you know, when the fair opened on Tuesday, 12 o'clock, what happened?
Normally, I'm afraid of getting crushed in the crowd in a stampede to get into Basel Basel where, like, VIP stands for Very Irritating People, thinking that they deserve to be there 30 seconds before you, and if they don't get to that booth 20 seconds before you, that masterpiece that you're paying 4 million is going to be gone. That didn't happen. It was a little bit weird. Like whoa, what's going on?
And I've seen that at other fairs, try that in New York, the armory show 10 years ago, you could actually go in and talk to the dealers without thinking there were nine people standing there and the dealer looking over your shoulder. But it was kind of disorienting. It's like, what's going on? Is no one coming? And then it was It seemed to be a slower phase in of who VIPs are, of course we're VIPs, we're VVIPs or something like that.
So it was a different feeling and that by four or six o'clock, There was a different group. I'll add to that, that coming up, I'm not going this time, but Expo Chicago starts with a professional view at 12 and they have a big crowd at six because people in Hong Kong and people in Chicago, they work, so they're not traveling here. So local people are like, I need to put in my full day at the office. Then I'll come at six o'clock after work.
And by the way, I'm still buying things and maybe million dollar things, but I don't need to get there 10 seconds before, you know, Wendy from New Delhi is there to buy the, you know, latest Rushdie Johnson.
Yeah, because two of us entered the fair from inside the convention center already, since we're doing the Bare Baer Faxt Live. But most of the VIP visitors as the first group, when they came in, there's a something different than previous years, right? And the organizer had a team to try to direct them to go to the third floor first.
I was a little confused about first floor and third floor. So when that happened, I spent most of my time on the first day like I usually do on the ground floor thinking that's where the Gagosians the high end stuff is. And I assumed that the third floor was like younger galleries mostly. Lower price points and maybe they were trying to push people there. So I was pretty surprised on day two when I actually went upstairs. In fact, that's where Aquavela was. That's where NAMADs were.
And it's like, wait a second. There were heavy hitters on both floors. And some of the younger galleries were on both floors too. So I really didn't understand floor one versus floor three, which is maybe good. Why can't we stick a Young Gallery from Shanghai next to Pace Gallery? Would it be better for Pace and the Young Gallery to have a little more and more energy rather than Pace's across from the ocean?
One of my personal favorites, uh, in terms of the floor plan there, the Discovery section, which hosts a lot of Young Galleries, As you remember, a couple of the young gatherers in the discovery section are right next to Hauser and Davidsoner.
Well, they're in an aisle on the other side. So generally, the way I go through a fair, I wouldn't have gone through that section. Or I wouldn't go through that section to the last. Now, there's other people, that's where they head right away. So we have to remember there are many targets, many types of collectors looking at different price points, looking to find things they already know about, or to discover new things.
Because I go to art fairs in the different regions with you, I know you have your very fixed way of how you want to walk around, but particularly in Hong Kong, I do notice that people, including the experienced collectors, they sometimes they don't do the same way and then walking out. I wonder if this is why Art Basel Hong Kong have a different concept in terms of organizing the locations for different galleries. It might be a good idea. I like it personally.
And I found it's quite easy to navigate going directly in the center.
I think, in retrospect, we've been complaining for years about the crowds. And if you went into Miami at 11. 05, you'd see like 200 people in the Gagosian Gallery, can't even get in. Some people bitch about that. So this was done differently. So I think they should deserve some credit. I will say, walking around an art fair by myself, is way different than walking around an art fair with one of my clients.
I will say that is highly stressful, sweat running down my body, and not a pleasant experience. On the other hand, it has a much better chance of getting me invoices and making money, rather than walking around by myself, stress free, not sending out hardly any bills. So, also, how you're doing it matters if you're there with a client. If you're there with a friend, if you're there with a museum group, that sort of relates to different methods, too.
Tune in after the break for more of our on the ground scoop on the market and the Art Basel Hong Kong, from gallery sales reports to collector contact. Don't transact without The Bare Baer Faxt. Check out our new website and thebareBaer Faxt. com to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Featuring OpEx from Josh Baer and key art world news. And learn about our full range of products and content offerings.
I have a very interesting observation and I have interviewed many people for this. Maybe the
judge, if it's interesting, Claire, okay.
Yeah. So on the major booths. They feel like there's much less visitors, but for the discovery sector that we're talking about, they're always crowded with people and institutional collectors. I'm interested to know, especially the ones
from museums or institutions, what brought them there first?
I think for professionals, they already got, you know, PDFs in advance before even the show opens. So there's a portion of the professionals who indeed just go directly to discovery sector because many of them got already a little bit fatigued with all the, you know, kind of single, single portfolios that was brought every year by major galleries. This year for the Discoveries booth, they have put real effort into preparing the artists and the program.
For example, I know Mangrove, who brought Tanjing exhibited last year during Shanghai Art Week in Rockbound Museum, and also Tabula Rasa, who brought Li Kaichong, an artist collected by M And I do know this, There's many curators and professionals from institutions walking around for two days in this discovery sector talking with artists.
If you're an art advisor, you travel all this way, 10 percent of 8, 000 isn't going to cut it. So you're not going to be there. You might be there to buy stuff for yourself. You can do this for the last. So as an art advisor, it's like, well, Well, let me take a look at that Mark Bradford for three and a half million dollars. It's just going to be, so that's price point sensitive. Also, I think price point, as you wrote, there was a lot of action under 10, 000.
Some of it is absolutely, I can believe you that it's like better preparation. The curators weren't just wandering through in discover, to discover, they'd already discovered. And now they wanted to go deeper. So it's not a pure discovery, always. But I think it's like, you also have to see the self interest of people at the fair.
We've been hearing a rating in terms of the transactions, the deals made during the past few days. The high end transaction compared to pre COVID, it's definitely less, right? And as Josh mentioned a couple of times, you know, including our talks yesterday, we don't have those kind of PR release in the first few hours and XYZ number was a big dollar sign has been already made. So what's your general view, um, the first couple of days and then in terms of the dealmaking?
I think people came with low expectations that were by day two were exceeded. The expectation is there's going to be a flurry over the weekend of dealmaking. Some of that is like you don't really want to take that home. Can I have 20 percent instead of 10%? And there's less of a stigma to buy something on day four. And most of the other fairs last five years. If you saw something on the booth on a Friday or Saturday that was available, the assumption was, what's wrong with it?
Why does no one want it? Whereas if you did an exhibition at your gallery, you don't expect that by day three, a hundred percent of the works in an exhibition are sold. It takes weeks or a month or two months to sell everything. So I think we're talking about a slower pace, which is better for the buyer. And as long as we do well enough, it's fine for the galleries.
So I remember day one, the couple of galleries we met in the first hour, they all use the same word when you ask them, how's it going? So it's kind of mixing or confused.
Freaked out. I don't think I used that term, but it's like I could see them in the headlights a little bit.
But later after four, the second group and the second day, when you went back.
They were relieved. Most of the galleries I talked with during the second and the third day told me that it was much slower, but the results were not bad, including both Chinese and the Western galleries. I think most of them have been participating in the fair for years. But maybe for international galleries attending the fair for the first time or returning after several years of the pandemic, their situation might be relatively challenging.
I was in a gallery and I was looking at something and they had opened in the same time I did, sort of like the mid 80s. of New York City on the Lower East Side and they had a painting there. It was a good painting, it was 900, 000. I said, when we open that was more than we would sell in a year. And they said, right. And then that was one painting in one fair 30 or 40 years later. So the definition of not bad has changed. They've made the point that their expenses have gone up there.
So it's a matter of how much risk they've taken on.
Then the gallery coming from Mainland China, the travel expense is much lower and they keep their team relatively small.
And the logistics will cost much less.
Then Basel Basel tend to be super expensive and then the risk is so great, so which promotes them taking the safest shots of being the most commercial they can be, and it's kind of a vicious cycle of losing discovery or trying things out.
I actually have a question for Josh. It's purely my guess, but I noticed that maybe there's another reason for why the, you know, high price artworks sales are not coming back as expected because they're bringing some paintings that are not sold in previous private sales or fairs. I don't wanna be name calling, but I do notice three top galleries bringing some big names and their artworks were seen on last year's. Uh, BA bass, also on Fri Soul.
And also later I do identify one of them in an auction house. Yeah.
You mean exactly the same
artworks? Yeah, and you showed up this year on the first floor.
Well, I think you see over time things that were bought in at auction or the auction house guaranteed showing up at an art fair. There are people who don't like to buy at auction, who like to buy from galleries. There's also been a price correction. So at the higher end, prices are down. Twenty or thirty percent. So maybe there was an aspirational price of five million dollars in Basel and now it's priced at three. So that can be a reboot.
There's also harder to get secondary material because the market's softer. So galleries are bringing their own owned inventory. So if you didn't sell it in Miami, you might give it a try here because you own it. And you might try it at a different level. I think there's an assumption, oh, it didn't sell before, hence it's bad. And people have to get over that idea too. Some things really suck and sell right away. And some things are really great and take a while to sell.
You have to analyze them piece by piece. You can't just follow the money and think you know what's going on.
I left Hong Kong in 2017, but lived here for six to seven years, and comparing to back then, especially when the collectors were looking at the Western art, contemporary art, compared to their knowledge and their demands now, I definitely see the significantly, you know, being matured. And then another topic you hear people talk about a lot, like, if you come to this region, bring the best quality of work from whichever you're coming from, do you think that has been changed?
There's only one fair with great, great, great, it's at
Basel, Basel,
Basel, but that's my view. Claremont, to see it from a regional thing, is the quality been the same, better, higher, lower over these 10 years you've been coming? Yeah.
I feel like it's a big question that I used to ask to myself. I used to live in New York for several years and I'm very familiar with the fairs in Europe as well. I won't say that the quality of the artworks bringing to Asia has been better or worse because I always notice that, especially for Western galleries, they have, um, Label or have some pre assumptions on Asia collectors.
So they bring the artworks not classified by quality, but you know, falls into the category of what they think the art the Asian collectors will like. And that might not be, you know, the best within dec cooling, but will be the willing DeCooning that they think Asias will like.
Stay with us in a moment to hear more about Hong Kong's role in the international art market. And our take on the question everyone's asking, is Hong Kong going to be replaced as the capital of the Asian art market? Don't transact without the Baer Faxted. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms to watch the Baer Faxted live from Art Basel, Hong Kong. Where we interviewed top insiders and the VIP opening of the fair and our Hong Kong edition of the Baer Faxt Talks.
A panel was leading art advisors on the current state and future of the art market. It's not just about our Basel 'cause we talk about a lot, you know, the ecosystem for our community here. I want to switch the topic to a little bit what's happening this week. I know, especially Claire has been to lots of exhibitions. And last year, we'd mentioned the M plus opening. And this year coming back, and there was also a big conference, and M plus hosted, which I heard it's over 1000 attendees.
So maybe give our listeners a perspective of what's happening in this week.
This week, Hong Kong government also puts great efforts and a big budget, so we have, I think, over 200 of events opening, including the major culture summit organized by the Hong Kong government and the West Kowloon Cultural District, and they were inviting professionals all over the world to talk about art and the economy. And from the individual level, I think all the events and gallery shows are really doing a great job, and I heard that their sales are spectacular, actually.
And we're having a lot of events around the city in M Parasite, and Taekwoon Contemporary, and they're doing some performance art and some film screening that cannot be, in a way, shown in mainland China. But we do have a lot of visitors from mainland China, so Hong Kong, I think, still holds its very special position in a way of documenting all these important happenings.
Couldn't stop thinking the two questions. One is about being international. One is about Hong Kong's position. I'm speaking from my own experience. Um, you know, coming to the art fair in Hong Kong, the first night when we arrived in the airport, I saw a Disha Prada. It was a, you know, artist based in Berlin, and then she had a whole booth at Pace Gallery, which represents her now. She's one of my favorite artists, and I have been to her studio.
And then, when you walk in the, the ground floor of the fair. In the center is Hui Gong Yong's huge installation. Currently she's having a solo exhibition in Han Museum in Helsinki where we live. And then I keep running to galleries from Berlin and also Cologne where we used to live. To me, this is a part of being international. The same thing when I go to Basel and to Paris and New York and Miami.
What kind of troubles me is like when people, you know, we read on the press and people talking about like, okay, Hong Kong is less international now. There are not many Westerners coming. Sorry, Joshua, you mentioned that too. But my question is like, when you talk about being international, are we too narrow minded? Talking about just New Yorker collector coming here.
What international means, what does it mean international, you know, matters to the people who are based in the region when this big event happened. Second one is about Hong Kong's position. I have so many friends living in Hong Kong. Not all of them are from Hong Kong originally, but All of them are telling me, first of all, they're all buying art. They all bought something this week. They keep telling me, saying, you know, we want Hong Kong to keep going.
And we don't like what people are telling us Hong Kong is, it's over. It's not over. We love Hong Kong. I mean, for somebody like me, live here for six, seven years, Hong Kong still has a special position in my heart. So that's why it really bothers me when I hear this like, okay, XYZ is going to replace Hong Kong in terms of the art. What are your thoughts on that?
That's a very big and sentimental question for me. I will say that I love Hong Kong as much as I do, but I do see the reasons are very sound and fair for many international institutions, bankings, corporates leaving Hong Kong and relocate to other cities in Asia, including Tokyo, Singapore, or even New Delhi in India. As for the question is. Is X, Y, Z going to replace Hong Kong? The question is no, but in the same time as for the question, what's the future of Hong Kong?
Is the tomorrow going to be better? The question can still be, I don't know. The future of Hong Kong is in blur. In the same time, no other city can replace Hong Kong.
I think that when most Western galleries talking about the potential replacement of Hong Kong, they are actually considering choosing the best trading place in Asia, which for them should be both convenient and spectacular. I remember about 10 years ago, a number of Western mega galleries opened their spaces in Hong Kong and in Shanghai. But later on, other galleries started to speculating whether Seoul would be a better place.
Actually, this year, several Chinese galleries told me that the market feels much slower, but compared to the intense buying atmosphere before the pandemic, they now feel that it is more rational and healthier. But it also concerns me a bit because when the market here is no longer seen as a crazy bustling spectacle, whether it will still attract the same level of attention in the future from the international art world, that is a question.
If we are saying international as in Hong Kong's role and functionality in bridging the Eastern and Western world or as a trading harbor, then I can see as a bridge is not going to work as well as in the past. But it's not because of Hong Kong is not doing a great work as bridging the two worlds. It's because the external and the bigger questions. So the two words are dividing and are in disparity. It's not up to Hong Kong to decide whether it's being international or not.
Bridges have two sides.
Hopefully, bridge can connect and narrow gaps between the two sides. Now, speaking of narrowing gaps, I want to bring up another topic that has been on my mind lately. As you guys know, I used to work in an investment bank and have friends and former colleagues in the financial industry. They're highly educated and analytical decision makers when it comes to investment and wealth management. I'm part of the chat group with them, including bankers, venture capitalists, and economists.
It's one of my favorite alumni networks because it foster intellectual discussion on economics, policies and financial markets. Two weeks before my trip to Hong Kong, this group had a heated debate about investing in Hong Kong real estate market because there was a new policy introduced by the local government that favored the real estate market, which led to a large influx of investment. And After reading their insights, I also invited some of them to join me at the fair in Hong Kong.
And a few of them told me about their previous unpleasant experiences buying art, where they bought some artworks their friends had recommended, and later found that either the price was way too high, or the works were fake. And my first reaction was, why didn't you do your research? Or why didn't you hire a good advisor? I feel that there's a big gap between their knowledge of investment and their understanding of navigating the art world.
So my question is, how can I help this group of friends and bridge that gap?
One of the biggest things that happened in real estate in America just happened. Now, if you follow this, where the ability of people who sell real estate to all charge 6%, which was price fixing. was blown up by the courts and they settled to agree not to do that. And the notion was like, well, if I'm buying a 50 million house, why should I give that guy who spent two hours 3 million to help me find, put it on the internet and show it a few times.
It's going to completely explode the real estate business in America. Half the real estate brokers will quit. That's been, in my view, kind of the view of what art advisors in Asia are, kind of like their real estate broker. They're just sort of there, help you fill out the form, take you to the thing, and then you decide what to do. If you think that that's what art advisors do, you don't have much respect for them, and you don't pay them very well, because they're like your real estate broker.
Now, having done it for so long, I think great art advisors are way more important than your real estate broker. Besides just taking you to the open house, all the things that you need them to do about quality, about history, about passion, about price, are way more complex than an analysis of 21. So until they recognize that we as art advisors provide value, probably get you a better price, and protect you from making million dollar bonehead mistakes.
That's kind of the last step from having a really mature art market where quality rises to the top. We'll set you apart of having the best art collections. The person with the best art Art advisor is gonna wind up with the best art collection, not because the art advisor told them what to do, but because they work together to get the vision of more than a collector, but builds a collection.
I have a two words, simple answer to that question. Collector circle.
Yes, please visit our website, thebearfax. com for more information about the Bear Baer Faxt Collector's Circle. And always remember, don't transact without the Bear Baer Faxt.
Thank you for listening to Bear With Me, a mini series of the Bear Baer Faxt podcast, brought to you by the art world's leading source of breaking news, insider intelligence, and art market insights. since 1994. Head to thebearfax. com to learn more about the Bearfax Collectors Circle, our new members only group for collectors who want to learn about art and the market, and make connections with other collectors and art world experts. Through exclusive events and educational content.
If you have any art world topics you would like to hear on our show, or if you have suggestions for guests, please send us an email at info at the Baer Faxt. com or DM us on Instagram. I'm your host and executive producer Luyang Jiang. Our content strategist is Boliang Shen. Our associate editor is. Well, Griffith and our editing team is Mona productions. Check back soon for our next episode of bear with me as Josh and I share our insider take on the current state of the global art market.