ART SG exhibitors report mixed sales amid broader market slowdown

ART SG returned to Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Resort and Convention Center this week as the global art market continues to deal with a sales slump and fragmentation, and several fires in Los Angeles destroyed artists, art professionals and galleries.

By the end of Thursday’s VIP day, several galleries had reported works sold and the exhibition floor was packed with people until the 9pm closing time. But despite the large turnout and a flurry of inquiries, many galleries reported selling very few or no artworks by the end of Friday, further underscoring how different the local art market is compared to those in the US, Western Europe and Hong Kong, as well as the continued uncertainty in the market.

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Local collectors in attendance included Albert Lim and Linda Neo, Institutum founder Andreas Teoh, Tanoto Art Foundation founder Belinda Tanoto, Brewin Mesa founder Bill Cheng, Ho Bee Group chairman Chuy Thian Poh, Christine Pillsbury, Pierre Lorinet, COMO Group founder Christine Ong, Ronald Ooi & Erica Lai, as well as UOB Group CEO Wee Ee Cheong. Notable and institutional attendees included Delfina Foundation Director Aaron Cezar, Alex and Johnny Turnbull of Kim Lim Estate, Bangkok Art Biennale Artistic Director Apinan Poshyananda, Sydney Biennale Artistic Director Cosmin Costinas, Architect Kulapat Yantrasast, OHD Museum of Modern and Contemporary Indonesian Art Museum Founder Oei Hong Djien, Chairman of Museum MACAN Foundation Fenessa Adikoesoemo, Co-founders of M Art Foundation, Michael Li and Wu Meng, and artists Theaster Gates, Mandy El-Sayegh and Korakrit Arunanondchai.

ART news spoke to a dozen gallerists and art dealers from around the world about their experience at the third edition of the fair. Many of them were strategic about the price of works, with a few exceptions.

(All sales are in USD unless otherwise noted. Sales information is provided voluntarily by galleries but does not include confirmation of transactions, discounts or other fees.)

The best-selling work was Pablo Picasso’s colored pencil drawing Buste d’Homme à la pipe (1969) for $1.2 million at the Cardi Gallery, which also brought the most expensive work to the fair: George Condo’s Down in Chinatown (2010) with an asking price of $4.85 million.

“We get offers, but we have to get the right one,” Joe La Placa, senior director of Cardi Gallery’s London location and onetime writer for Artnettold ART news. “It’s a lot of money. But usually these things close, I’d say, during or after the fair. But it is a museum piece.”

“We intentionally brought more cheap material, but there were two exceptions because it’s not as if there are no major collectors here,” La Placa said. “There are people who can afford a painting of that magnitude. We wanted to bring something super high quality. The Picasso sold, so hopefully this one will too,” he added, referring to the occasion.

Cardi Gallery declined to disclose information about the buyer of the Picasso.

Lehmann Maupin reported that Teresita Fernandez’s Stella Maris (Net) 4 (2024) sold to a private collector based in Singapore for $120,000 to $125,000; Mandy El-Sayegh’s Net-Grid Study (Euro-Joy) (2024) sold to a collector based in Jakarta, Indonesia for $72,000; and Kim Yun Shin’s quebracho wooden sculpture Add Two Add One Divide Two Divide One 2013-7 (2013) was acquired for the permanent collection of the Singapore Art Museum through the inauguration SAM ART SG Foundation for an undisclosed amount.

White Cube reported that on the first and second days of the fair, the top two works it sold were Georg Baselitz’s Mettere mano a – the beginning (2019) for €650,000 and Tunji Adeniyi-Jones’s Heavenly collection (2024) for $350,000. It also sold two works by Minoru Nomata and Tiona Nekkia McClodden NEVER LET ME GO | XXII. drop (2024).

This was told by Ellen BoReum Lee, assistant director of Johyun Gallery from Busan, South Korea ART news that seven works by Lee Bae from his series “Issu de feu”, “Acrylic Medium” and “Brushstroke” were sold out, and hyperrealistic paintings by Kang Kang Hoon were also sold out. Works by Lee Bae ranged from $30,000 to $60,000, while the two paintings by Kang Kang Hoon were $25,000 each. All sold to private collectors or institutions in Asia. Lee Kwang Ho’s Without title 4699 (2024) also sold for $33,000.

The only other gallery to report six-figure sales on the VIP day was Galerie Gmurzynska for Roberto Matta’s oil painting Are you wanted? (1957), which sold for $150,000 and Wifredo Lam’s 1971 painting Staff 21/24which sold for $120,000. Both sold to private collections.

“My understanding is that people do a lot of scouting on the first day and come back between today and Sunday,” said Christian Baert ART newsand noted that his eponymous Los Angeles gallery had brought a total of 10 new works by painters Sophie Birch and Melinda Braathen; and that he had attended Frieze LA in 2023. “In LA the base is so different. People want the work, they ask you for the price; if they can afford it, they buy it. I know that when I hold a fair abroad, I know that it just takes more time.”

Several galleries with works priced under $50,000 – many of them participating for the first time and/or in the Futures section for young galleries – told ART news they had sold very few or no works on the first day. Only two of them galleries expressed optimism about sales activity for the rest of the weekend and the likelihood that they would return to Singapore for a future edition of the fair. Most gallerists and art dealers were only willing to give honest comments ART news anonymously due to the sensitive nature of the industry.

“People come in all the time, but it just hasn’t translated (into sales),” said one gallerist. “I’m not sure what it is.”

Mestre Projects, a gallery from Nassau, Bahamas, brought a solo presentation of works by established Caribbean artist Stan Burnside with no prior expectations before coming to Singapore. “You don’t know how people will react,” founder Jose Mestre told me ART news. “It’s a bit difficult to bring someone from the Caribbean to Asia, but the artist is an important historical one. He’s in his late 70s and he’s kind of the godfather of all the Caribbean and Bahamian artists. We want to bring something special for the first walk.”

Mestre laughed when asked if he would return to ART SG. “Why not?” he said. “Hopefully we can come back. We like Asia. We like Singapore. I think it’s a very strategic place, it could be like a hub connecting Indonesia, India and Asia.”

“Doing art fairs is always more like a marketing thing,” said another gallerist. “My expectations are not very high, but I expect to sell some; not everything. I am happy if I cover the costs.”

“At this rate, it will be difficult to recover our investment,” a gallerist told the Futures section ART newsconfirming that the cost of the booth was around $30,000 to $40,000 before other expenses.

One gallery pre-sold about half of its stand’s offerings to help it defray the high costs of participation, but still only sold one work by the middle of the second day. “They’ve really created a division between top galleries and this (second) tier,” said the gallerist in the Futures section. “We pay the same square meter, we enter the same application process.”

A European gallery told ART news the response on the first day of ART SG led to 30 leads, but only two sales on the first day, including one to a collector they knew before the fair.

It is often difficult to measure the benefit of showing artists and raising awareness of a gallery to a new group of collectors, a marketing aspect of art fairs that several gallerists acknowledged was part of their expectations for attending ART SG for the first time.

“I think that’s what we wanted,” the gallerist said, noting that the inquiries came from Indonesia, Australia, Sri Lanka, Singapore and other parts of Southeast Asia. “Here it’s nice to see the local audience and interact with them.”

Waddington Custot brought works by Kenia Almaraz Murillo, Peter Blake, Fernando Botero, Ian Davenport, Robert Indiana and Sean Scully; is selling two paintings by March Avery for an undisclosed amount.

Senior Director Jacob Twyford noted that there were larger economic factors affecting the global art market, not just the sales activity at this year’s edition of ART SG. A decade ago, the gallery would participate in seven or eight art fairs a year and sell artwork priced between $500,000 and $1 million at five or six of those fairs.

Waddington Custot will attend the same number of fairs each year now, but only sell a work in that price range maybe twice a year. “I don’t think people who spend a lot of money necessarily go to art fairs to spend it the way they used to,” Twyford said. “Art fairs have become difficult and difficult and difficult to predict internationally. It doesn’t matter if they are in Europe or America.

The art market has also been described as a “vibe economy“, and these moods continue to be off due to geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East, South Korea, Ukraine, the re-election of President Donald Trump, as well as the ongoing devastation of the Los Angeles fires due to climate change.

“I think when people feel uneasy, uneasy, unsure of the world, it’s hard to do things like collect art, even if you’re rich,” Twyford said. “Rich people still suffer from insecurity. It seems difficult. All those things have an impact.”