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Firstly, good evening. Welcome and thank you very much indeed for coming. This is the second Breeze Little talk in association with LSE Arts and we're very, very happy to be here. Just to introduce myself and my business partner, this is Josephine Breeze and my name is Henry Little. We're the directors of a small commercial gallery called Breeze Little. We've just moved into new permanent premises on Great Sutton street which is just up in Clerkenwell. You can find more information just here. We have some press releases and on our website which is www.breezelittle.com. firstly, Melanie Gurlis, we're very, very happy for you to be here. Thank you very much indeed for joining us. Just to introduce Melanie. Melanie has extensive experience of the behavior of international art markets. Before joining the art newspaper in 2007, she worked as a book reviewer and an art market writer for the publication. Before that she worked in investor relations and financial public relations for the City of London firm Finsbury for a decade. Melanie also has a first class degree in English Literature from Cambridge and then completed an MA with distinction in Art Business from Sotheby's Institute of Art. And I've seen some Sotheby's people here, so. So it's nice for you to be seeing an alumni. Just to give a brief introduction to the talk series, this is actually the second one. The first was an introduction to the state of the global art market given by Geoffrey Bolatin who is in the audience. There's Jeffrey. Jeffrey is the Managing director of Art Insight and I'd encourage you to talk to him afterwards. He gave a wonderful talk. There will be plenty of time for questions at the end. I would encourage you to hold them until the end but they will be about 15 minutes or so for questions. But otherwise, Melanie, whenever you're ready, thank you very much indeed.
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Thank you very much. I just noticed that our off screen has gone funny, but it's come back. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone. I've never seen so many people reading the art newspaper in one place. So that's incredibly exciting for me. And thank you Henry. Thank you Josephine for inviting me to talk. There's quite an unusual set of circumstances that mean I am here because the art market, well, last week moved to New York where there were some fairly major auctions last week and some very major auctions this week as well. And Henry basically had to find the only heavily pregnant art market expert in London to talk today. And you did it because I'm pretty sure I'm the only one. I will talk hopefully for about maximum 45 minutes, I've been told, and then there will be time at the end for questions. Obviously, if there's something burning while I'm talking, if something doesn't make sense, please just stick your hand up, I can see you. Why do emerging buyers matter? This might be an obvious question, but I think it's worth asking if we are going to spend the next hour thinking about emerging markets in the art market. And the answer is, like for every other market at the moment, that it's not a particularly strong, happy, supported art market in the countries that have been strong supported, the developed art market countries, and the fact that there are countries such as China, Russia, the Emirates and so forth is giving a little bit of an extra kick to the art market that would otherwise, I think, be in a lot more trouble than it currently is. And this, this painting is a classic example. It's by a Victorian artist that you probably haven't heard of, called Alma Tadema, who was incredibly fashionable in his time, like quite a lot of the Victorian artists, and then very quickly fell out of favor. And this work came up this time last year at auction in New York and it had three very, very active bidders, one for from Russia, one from China and one from the Middle East. In the end, China won out and spent £35.9 million on. I mean, this is the artist's record. He has never achieved such an amount in his life as something that, you know, for a very English painter has gone outside the uk. And that is exactly the sort of thing that the auction houses, the gallerists and everyone in the market is very, very keen to pursue and is investing a lot of money in finding buyers like this. A very quick look at the market in general. This is what I would call the. Well, the developed market up till now, it's not huge compared to the oil industry or most financial markets, but for a market that is fairly unregulated, it's a decent size. It peaked at nearly 50 billion in 2007. And these statistics, they come from a report that was done for the European Fine Art Fair by an economist called Claire McAndrew. And the good thing about her statistics is that she polls art dealers as well as auction houses. Whereas most of the public data I'm sure some of you are aware of, most of the public data you can get is only about auction prices. How secure her data is, we'll never know, but it's pretty good. It seems to make sense to most of us and it's the best And Art Insights data, which also has its own bespoke analysis. It's pretty good that these companies are out there doing that. And as you see, you know, 51% of the market is dealers. So only having auction statistics is not ideal. And unfortunately you can't just double them. But yes, it's a fairly sizable industry and people make a lot of money out of the art market. But as you can see, it's pretty volatile in 2009. So straight after the global market crash, the market reacted, the art market reacted quite quickly. And I think anyone who tells you that the art market doesn't react to the global economic environment is somehow involved in the art market, because it's not true. Sorry, Henry, if that's your belief, but it halved and then gradually, gradually, gradually has come back up, but it could quite easily halve again. Sotheby's and Christie's don't like us to call them a duopoly, but they, again, they are. But China is there. Really, really, really there. I think someone retweeted one of my tweets today and said, I don't know if you're here and said China is the number one market and it's actually potentially. That is true. If you look here, and this is just to show you where China has come from and where it might be going, this is in only four years, China, which is conveniently red, has gone from being 5% and this is of the whole market, again, this is dealers and auction to being 23%. And where it has taken market share is from the US and the uk, which according to this data, again from Arts Economics, puts China ahead of the UK and the others. The section that says others, that doesn't have other emerging markets in it, that includes Italy, Switzerland, Germany, China, compared to the other emerging markets we will talk about is streets ahead in value terms. Just before we look at the emerging markets, we need to look at why we call them emerging and why they are not developed markets, especially for a country like China. Obviously for a market you need buyers and sellers. That is the basis of, I mean, that is why you call, I think, why you call something a market. You also need what I would call the mechanisms around that. So the galleries who are in some ways agents, the auction houses who are maybe also agents or like a stock exchange for art, and now increasingly the art fairs who do for dealers what the auction houses do for themselves. And then underpinning all that you hope in a developed market is the validation you get from museums that, that are independent or certainly meant to be independent from the market that are tastemakers, that have a much longer term view and education both of artists and of people studying art as a subject. That is the important non commercial backdrop to the commercial world. And then lack of red tape really is and you will see as we go through that there are some markets that I would almost call developed if it wasn't for the tax regime or the government support. That is a very, plays a very important part. If you were buying, if you're buying a painting from Argentina and someone tells you, well, in order to take that painting out the country, you are going to have to go to this building and that building and sign this form, and sign that form and then you'll be able to get it out. But there'll be a little tax you have to pay and blah, blah. Whereas you could go to an art fair in Miami, the gallery would probably be there and be a lot more exempt from such regulation for that week. You're probably going to buy in the US rather than in South America, I think. So what markets are emerging? I mean it's the obvious ones, it's brick for art. Also the Middle east. Here is a quote saying that it's the growth of personal income that is really important. And here I've listed Russia, China, Brazil, India, the UAE are the top five between 2000 and 2010 show the top five income growth. And they happen to be the same markets I would talk about. And twas ever thus. I mean money and bond have always gone together. Countries when they start making a lot of money, people very soon, very soon start to think about their culture and their own private culture as well as public. And Qatar actually wasn't included in this list, I don't know why. So all I could get was that last year Qatar had the fastest growing economy in the world according to the imf. And Qatar obviously benefits from a lot of the same, you know, the time zone situation as the uae. But it is a very different and much wealthier country than some of its counterparts. And in fact there are, there are differences between all these countries. And that is the point of what I'm about to, what I'm about to talk about. It's pretty general. We've got, you know, 35 minutes now to whiz through quite a lot of countries and I will be talking very, very, very broadly. There are obviously subtleties within every single zone, but I hope that all the important characteristics come out. So as we've said, we've seen China's market share of the whole market for auctions alone is China already at the top. Art price says that they took. China accounted for 33% of art sales. There's been a complete explosion of auction houses. If you think in China there were no real auction houses until the 1980s, whereas in the UK we have. Ours are 18th century, Christie is 1766. So we're talking 250 years compared to 20 years, 30 years. And they have nine auction houses in the top 20 by sale turnover. Sotheby's and Christie's for the first half of this year made just over US$3 billion. When I say dollars, by the way, I will mean US dollars, unless I say others. Sotheby's made $3 billion, just over $3 billion. But part Holly Auction House, which is China's largest, made over 1 billion. And Guardian, which is chasing it, made about 850 million pound dollars. Sorry. And they also. Guardian has said fairly explicitly that it wants to open in London, it wants to open in New York. Polly has said we're looking at an ipo, we want to be a nice big public company. They haven't said where they're going to list. But these places have proper international ambitions and they have the collectors behind them. China also has a very strong history of decent art schools. And the other thing you'll notice as we go through is what is very, very important to a developing art market is faith, is faith in your own artists, so that actually your own living artists, although it's very, very important to have your tradition and to believe in your history and to sell your artists outside and to buy art from outside, belief in your own art gives a real support mechanism and real depth. And most, if you look in history, markets that have become what we now call developed markets, they all began by nurturing their own. Although China in particular is not completely dependent on its own artists. And in fact, most of the mainland. When I say China, I'm talking about the mainland at the moment, not Hong Kong. Most of the mainland buying is of older. Is of older art. That's just There was a list of the top, again by art price, the top 10 or top hundred, I think they do contemporary artists sold at auction. And of those five of them, this is the most recent one. It was actually six the year before. Five of them were Chinese. And that gives you a sense of their sheer international appeal. This is not just a little market out east that we think is quite quaint. This work which was in. It was in the Guy Miriam Ullins Foundations. They're Very, very big. Originally Belgian collectors that had a huge and, well, huge and important collection in China that unfortunately looks like it's being sold off bit by bit. But this particular sale, you know, this work sold for $6.2 million, which is international prices. It's completely up there with a Warhol or, you know, any artist you can think of coming up for auction this week in New York. The infrastructure, again, the galleries, like the auction houses, very, very recent, relatively recent to have galleries. Dashanzi, which means 798 was established in Beijing in the 1980s. And quite a lot, not only are there Chinese galleries there, quite a lot of overseas galleries went there. So Pace Gallery, big, big New York gallery, went to Beijing. I mean, a good 10 years before coming, it's just coming to London. Hong Kong has become very, very important for a variety of reasons. It is. I mean, essentially it's Chinese, but it's not China. It has all the qualities you want, as in it is part of China. Chinese people can buy from there and sell, but it doesn't have the taxes that China has. It doesn't have the censorship. It is an international port. It's been an international port for a very long time. And it can apply what, you know, it's a financial center. It can apply what it does to finance, to art. And it's incredibly international. The art fair in Hong Kong is now part of the Art Basel franchise. So Art Basel, that is obviously in Basel and next month in Miami, now has an outpost. Its third post is Hong Kong. And a lot is happening, a lot is happening in Hong Kong. Hong Kong equals London. Beijing equals Berlin. I read something, actually. Beijing equals la, someone said the other day. So Hong Kong is like London. It's a financial trading center. Beijing is where the artists want to be. That's where the good art is. And Singapore has a nice big free port to hide your art, much like Switzerland. So it's worth thinking about. As I said, there's quite a lot of repatriating happening in China. People want objects that were once looted, especially from the. I'll talk a little bit about the Imperial Palace. The old summer palace in Beijing suffered a huge amount of looting in the 19th century, in the Second Opium War, and quite a lot of collectors. Stanley Ho, you know, the big gambling franchise, Joseph Lau, who's in property. They want to help their country get its glory back, get its treasures back. There is also a gradual move towards contemporary art, both their own and international. But what is quite important is it's not just by you know, about two years ago, everyone said, well, China isn't a proper market because they're just buying back and they're not selling. They're just sort of absorbing and then they'll stop and the rest of us will have no. Will have no goods. But they have been selling. And in fact, Yu Yi Chan, and I'm sorry about my pronunciation, very sorry, but he sold this work here very recently, having bought a much older work. So at least he's trading. He's trading and he wants to open a museum, and he's making money to open a museum. And there is still, you know, it used to be Guy Uhlens, Charles Saatchi. There are a few people who bought Uli Sig, who bought Chinese art. Now there is a huge amount, and as we saw just now, it's getting international prices. But there are problems. And that is why this is why China is still a developing or an emerging market. The data is incredibly unreliable. So having given you all those great statistics, there are all sorts of. I will point you at you. Page 99 of the Art newspaper this month has a fantastic article by a writer, Katie Hunt, who is quoted at the bottom there. But just making the point that you don't actually know that something is sold in a Chinese auction. Not for sure. Now, to be fair, you don't always know that here, but I think it's on a much larger scale than here. And they will tell you that things have sold, but you're not, not 100% sure. There's a lot of fakes that go through the market and not a huge amount of authority in. In place to deal with that or to establish what is and what isn't a fake. All sorts of, you know, when I say insider dealing, that is people bidding on their own works, which again, I'm sure happens around the world, but I think it's more prevalent where there's less regulation. Money laundering. I'm not saying it happens, but accusations are that it does. One of the biggest problems, one of the most tangible problems at the moment is this problem of getting a reputation for not paying up. And I was talking about the Summer palace earlier in Beijing and At the Yves Saint Laurent sale, which was in February 2009, two beautiful animal heads from the Zodiac fountain that was in this palace. It's a very famous 18th century artifact object, very precious to a lot of people in China because it came from this old summer palace. It was looted. It was clearly broken up into the 12 animals of the zodiac, and five of them are still missing five of these animals. But the guy who bought, he bought these two for $40 million in the auction and never paid. He was making a point. He made it very visibly. It was a lot of money. And the heads have gone back to Pierre Berger, who is Yves St. Laurent, was Yves St. Laurent's boyfriend. And there was also a very high profile case of a Ching vase that sold. And I don't know if you saw in the Pinner auction house here that made, you know, it was. I think the estimate was about £200,000 and it made 51.6 million. The auctioneer brought down the gavel, which broke because he was so excited. But this is a year ago. It's pretty much almost literally to the day, a year ago. And that still hasn't been paid for. Now, I hear that there is some. Over the next few weeks, we'll hear some news on it, but I haven't heard it yet. So we will see. And then this, you know, the arrest of AI Weiwei, I don't think can be taken lightly. I think it is one thing to, to have great art schools and to buy your own country's art, but to have a sort of campaign of terror against an artist who is arguably too expressive and making too much of a point. But he's an artist, he's a person. It's freedom of speech and what we're all. Freedom of creativity to imprison someone. And I think the latest is he has to pay $2.5 million of tax by this Friday. And so goodness knows what happens if he doesn't. These are the sort of things that don't happen in a developed art market and can completely destabilize the system. So, yes, like I said, I've edited China with a bit of a plug for our own paper, but there are lots of, you know, for a market with that much clout, there are more problems than I think it first meets the eye. Russia is fascinating. All these countries are fascinating. But Russia is fascinating because it has such an enormous amount of wealth and, you know, oil. Despite the weak economy, oil is fluctuating, but the price of oil is pretty high. And in fact, unrest in the Middle east helps oil prices go even higher. And much like in China, there is also this political. We want our country. We want our country to be the best. We want to put it top dog. And this potanin. But Malevich's Black Square was, I think it was up for auction not in Russia. And it got pulled from auctions because. Or maybe it was in Russia. But the Russian authorities said that, you know, that belongs here. You can't see sell it. But in the end, Potanen bought it privately and then for a million dollars and donated it to the Hermitage Museum to say, Russia is great. This is our artist. Rostropovich was. Tropovich was a musician. And Sotheby's won this fantastic consignment of his entire collection, which ranged from some fairly decent art to weird little puppety objects and really fun, fun things. And every single object had been priced, cataloged, estimated. And two days before the sale, Alisha Usmanov, who I think owns a little bit of Arsenal football club, if not all of it, said, I want the lot. And he bought the lot. We don't know how much for. I think it was a. It was rumored, but I think between 30 and 40 million pounds. But it was an act of, I am bringing these back to Russia. I'm going to build. He said, I'm going to build a museum for them. I'm not sure he has. That's one to follow up. What is interesting in Russia is actually, and again, whatever people in Russia department say to you, there isn't a huge amount of support for their own artists. There's a ton of Western brand name buying. And this actually, at the back, can you see the images and things with this lovely, this rather lovely large lady sue, the benefit supervisor sleeping, which was the highest price ever paid for a living artist before Freud died, was bought for 33.6 million, which is a huge amount, and by Raymond Abramovich, who the same week, if not the same sale, I'm trying to remember, bought a Francis Bacon for 60 million or so. I mean, it really was the most extraordinary. And you're thinking, why, why does a Russian want again, a very, very English artist? But there is a taste for trophies and you see it. I mean, it's not just paintings. Phillips de Pury, the auction house is owned. It was bought about three or four years ago by a Russian firm called Mercury and Football Clubs. You know, Abramovich owns Chelsea. You know, there is a need to buy the best and to show that they can buy the best. So. And yes, I think last night's sale at Philips de Pury in New York, there was quite a bit of Russian buying. So it helps as well. It helps the market. Yeah, I mentioned about that there not being a lot of support for their own artists. There isn't. The market is generally not very supported in Russia. There's a lot of individuals with a lot of Money often who aren't based in Russia and I think that's another important thing. You know, that they're living in London or living where there are tax advantages or where they can't get arrested. So that is off the record. Well, there will be podcasts, but you know, Livik, they've moved out of Russia. They have good art schools, but it's a very old fashioned way of teaching art. They don't want to be progressive, even though I think some of their artists do. There are some private spaces coming. Dasha Zukova, who is Abramovich's girlfriend, has opened a huge contemporary art museum and a magazine. The magazine is actually headquartered here. I don't know if you've, if you've seen it, but they had an art fair and it was cancelled. It's all a bit patchy. They do have a couple of art funds. Art funds? Art funds I'll mention in a few places because they are in themselves a phenomenon of recent years and they have a terribly bad reputation. But generally speaking, to have a, a country with art funds is not a bad thing. It's actually a sign of a maturer market and an art fund should be just another important collector in the market. I think the problem with art funds, and we'll talk about this a bit more, especially when we talk about India, the problem with art funds is that they were set up at a time when money could be made very quickly out of art, which is a very, very, very short amount of time. And spec art generally takes a long time to make money on. So a lot of them failed for that reason. But we will talk a little bit more about that later. I know Ukraine isn't Russia, but it's a bit of an aside because it's worth mentioning there's one incredibly important collector and I just love the cheesiness of this photo, Jeff Koons with his massive smile because he's got this guy, Victor Pinchuk, who loves him, he loves Koons, he loves Hearst, he, I mean, serious brand buying. Most of his artists are at the White Cube Gallery or the Gagosian Gallery, you know, the most big brand galleries. And it's just been the fifth anniversary of his centre. But what is really, really interesting and I think something that most museums here would be jealous of is that 60% of their visitors in the Pinschok Museum are between 8, 16 and 30. Now I'm sure you guys go to museums, but when I go everyone is sort of my age, which is, I'm afraid not 16 to 30 and female and white. Whereas I think in the Ukraine there's just a much more mixed, enthusiastic support for the arts. And I think that's going to be quite interesting in the future. Pinchuk is interested in Chinese arts and then you're getting the emerging economies supporting them. I'm not going to be rude again about Russians and Ukrainians, but there is a history of cleaning up your act through public art and through buying art. And I think Pinchuk has a few skeletons in his cupboard that are being nicely paved over. That's not too many metaphors. So India. India actually has very different dynamics, you would think, and everyone did think it would be the. It would be the next best thing after China because it has so many millionaires. I mean, it's a huge country, it has a lot of people who aren't millionaires as well. But 55 for art, as we've seen, money is very important. The thing about India, though, is it's a much more. It's not about. They don't want to buy back trophies, they don't want to buy art for its symbolism, they want to buy it for what it is. They want to make money on it. They don't mind spending money on it if it's worth something. It's much more pragmatic, practical. Let's, you know, let's see what we can do with it. And that you. Because they're so technologically advanced in India, they went straight to online auctions. Saffron.com I think, you know, very, very early on, while all the online ventures here were failing. I mean, they're a bit better now in the. For the big auction houses. But there were some terrible disasters of money spent on online selling in the UK and, well, by Sotheby's and Christie's, basically. But now in India, they did incredibly well with it. But unfortunately, as I mentioned, this sort of went hand in hand with this kind of obsession with art funds and art. I think they made the ART funds between 2006 and 2008, probably made a huge amount of money very, very quickly. And I think there was this belief that you could just keep going and just keep going. And unfortunately, as I'm sure Jeffrey spoke about last time, we were in a bubble. It really was a classic bubble, and the bubble burst and all these Ossians, which was the biggest art fund, was very. I mean, it's still in trouble. The sebi, which is the securities and Exchange Board in India, has then tightened up the regulation about art fund and art fund buying. And this quote at the bottom, I just. Oh, it's not there. Hang on there. I've got an odd thing on the right, there's a quote. There are newer investing fads now in India, for instance, wine. So they've just moved on. Fine, we tried a bit of art, but actually. And wine is a lot more. A lot easier to quantify. You know, when the bottle, you know, when the wine was made, you know what its value is. It's a lot easier than a painting in some ways, and it tastes nice. The lack of public museums is a huge factor in India. I mean, I don't know if any. I'm sure you have traveled. I don't know how many of you have been to a museum in India. I think I tried incredibly hard. I think we found one contemporary museum and that was it. I mean, I didn't look everywhere, but it's very different from what I expected. They do have an art fair and it's just been bought by the same people who started up Art Hong Kong and have turned that into a huge international beast. And the director of the fair, I met her earlier this year, we're going to be more international and they want to get all the big galleries and quite a lot of people aren't sure that that's what they want. We've got a lot of international art fairs. We've got frieze, we've got the Basel franchise. Do we need someone else to be international or do what India actually needs? And if you talk to the guy who runs the Nature Mort Gallery, Peter Nagy, he said, we don't want to be international. We need to develop our own market. We need to show how good our art is here. We need to be the place that everyone comes to buy Indian art. Because if you want a hub in Asia, people are going to go to the Hong Kong fair. It's already there. But you never know. There are. There are some important collectors. There aren't as many. They don't buy at an international level. I think for the same reason, as I was saying earlier, which is simply that they don't. Why? Why would you spend that amount of money? Why. Which isn't necessarily stupid. And yes, I've put here this stat that was out this week that the confidence, this confidence indicator, which art tactic do, which is their own, indicated their own index of taste and opinion. And I'm sure Jeffrey can say more about it if you want him to, but they found that confidence is down 28%. This is. I mean, in six months, that's a pretty Big fall. A lot of their artists have moved, A lot of the artists don't stay. A lot of our galleries are taking advantage of it. A lot of the developed galleries, you know, if you go to Hauser and Wirth gallery, I think they have the three best Indian artists actually share with them or listen gallery, you know, we are taking advantage and raping and pillaging but everything is. I mean this quote from the artist Jitesh Khalid who does actually live, I think he lives in Mumbai but we seem to be having fortnightly auctions. But I couldn't count more than a handful of arts conferences and seminars is really important. This is the infrastructure point. It's all very well having a market but it needs to have this non commercial side, this support and belief in order to be sustained. So I suspect India's going to be a bit of a disappointment. We can go back to some trophy hunters. Let's go to the Middle East. The great. I noticed actually that this week there's a talk about the here about the Gulf and the changes in the Gulf. It has been extraordinary how fast the UAE and Qatar have wanted to buy art. They are building this Saadiat island project has got a Louvre in it and a Guggenheim. And these are huge buildings designed by world famous architect John Nouvelle. Proper, proper. I mean it's, it's a fantasy land. If you had to sit and think what would be my ideal museum. They've picked the best architects, the best positions and they're buying, they hope the best art. And that's having an amazing effect. We recently ran a story about Qatar, is that Qatar is actually the biggest contemporary collector of art in the world. They're doing it quite quietly. I mean they bought this Damien hirst back in 2007 for 9.2 million. That is just one of several million pound plus works that have been going to Qatar. Dubai is still in a bit of trouble because Dubai is actually more of a financial sector than an oil resource these days, as I'm sure you know. But Christie's and Bonham still have their still headquartered or their Middle east headquarters are in Dubai. The infrastructure is pretty strong in the Middle east and I think, you know, the criticism used to be they have no museums but they're working quite hard to counter that. They have two. Oh, sorry, it's Abbot Derby. It should be Abu Dhabi. They have two fairs. Art Dubai had its fifth edition this March. So five years of an art fair that is attracting international collectors is pretty good going. And Abu Dhabi is about to have its third edition. And there are some things that have been quite surprising about the Middle east. And I think, yes, there are restrictions on the sort of art you can show, but actually we found at Frieze this year, there's a gallery there called the Third Line that is based in Dubai and they had brought the most politically challenging art at the fair. Everyone else had bought quite safe, steady artists who had been in museum retrospectives. But it was the Middle east galleries that were a bit more challenging. And I think the other thing that has surprised people is that in a region that is associated with sort of with not giving its women much freedom, it has been the women of the Middle east who have been incredibly important collectors in Qatar. The Al Thani family, which is the monarchy, basically. Sheikha Maiassa runs the qma, the Qatar Museum's authority. She is in charge of all these extraordinary museum building. Abu Dhabi again, you know, Sheikha Salama. This quote at the bottom actually was from an article rather cheesily called Movers and Shakers. S H E I K H A S But a royal lady, you know, is a role model and people want to follow her. And I think that wasn't, that wasn't expected. I think it's been quite a pleasant surprise. But of course, of course there are problems. Otherwise I'd be calling it a developed market. Maybe they did too much too fast. And maybe announcing we're going to build three of the best museums in the world in two years was a little ambitious. So they said that these two out, the Guggenheim and Louvre are part of the Saadia island complex. And the. And they've said the whole project has now been extended and we don't know for how long. Bonhams has cancelled sales there and Christie has said that they now want to push works with more quality and affordable prices. And I think obviously they'd say quality. I think it's quite unusual to hear an auction house of Christie's stature saying we need to have more affordable prices. They're looking at sort of $1,000 plus, which is not where they started at in, in the Middle East. And if you look at that, look at that graph, that's what's happened to their sales. It's just all a bit, it's all a bit patchy. It's not going quite as well as people thought it would. Qatar has been in the market. The rumor for years. The rumor for years is that Qatar is going to buy Chris. But I don't know. You know, what I have heard is that Qatar thinks it should pay A price to Christie's that is more relevant, related to the end of that graph, whereas Christie's wants a price that is more related to the top of the graph. So I'm not sure that it will happen soon. You never know. Latin America is the region that most people, if you talk to people in the market, especially people who are more the art side of the art market, Latin America is the region they get most excited by, partly because it has this strong tradition. You know, Latin America is not completely new to collecting. It's not doing what the Middle east is doing and shoving a big building there and filling it with art. They've been buying art, they've been making art, They've been thinking about art for quite a long time. Art Basel Miami beach, which was founded, well, 10 years ago this December, actually. It was meant to be in 2001, but because of 9, 11, they postponed. But the reason, the real reason that Art Basel Miami beach started was to capture that south of the South American market. And Mexico and Latin America, they. They have an art fund. Like I say, art funds are an indication that it's worth, you know, people think it's worth buying art, but it's a very, very, very, very small market. So I, you know, it seems to Brazil, Brazil is the most. Oh, hang on, have I skipped? No, Brazil is. That is the most important market within. But it seems to have all the right ingredients to have a domestic market. And as I was saying before, it's. That's almost the most important thing, a domestic market that is growing by 50%. I mean, I don't know 100% sure how people justify these numbers, but it seems to. I think a lot of it is. You can see it, I believe quite a lot of it, but up 50% per year over the last decade is pretty good going, especially during economic downturn Everywhere else, beautiful, beautiful museums, 16 billionaires, which, I mean, billionaires. That's pretty good going. And they all like their art. They have some very important art fairs. And this Adriana Varela, this again, sold in London. So it's a bit like the Chinese art that Brazilian art has an international market as well as its own market. Already this, I think that was the first Latin American work to sell for over a million pounds ever. It was 1.1 million in February. Did I put the name of the collectors? Oh, I did. Oh, sorry, this is. Yes, just talk a little bit about the collectors. So these are some of the billionaires, but in Brazil you've got Bernardo Powell, who's actually married to the artist who did. Who did that work. So it's convenient if you're an artist to marry. Marry a Brazilian billionaire. But he has a beautiful, beautiful. But I guess it's a museum, it's his own art, but it's a private. It's a private museum called Inhotim. And then. But of course, there are problems. One of the reasons why it's very difficult to put numbers on Latin American art is because a lot of it isn't sold as Latin American art. So you have to go through. So that. That Farrell work was sold in a contemporary auction in London. So you have to go through every auction and strip out the Brazilian artists. And that's, you know, that's not that straightforward. Most of the sales don't happen in South America. And that is another problem, which is that people don't particularly want to travel to South America. It's much easier to go to New York. It's not an easy place to go to. Import tax, I mean, 36%. I mean, it's just enormous. The good thing about taxes. And then this guy, this new culture secretary I mentioned, Emilio Callel, he wants to lift the tax. And the great thing about a tax is you can just lift it. It is not like some of these other structural. You know, it takes a lot longer to build a museum or a decent art school than it does to lift a tax. In fact, in Hong Kong, they lifted a tax on wine sales. And straight away after, Hong Kong is now the biggest market for wine. I mean, hands down for French wine, people buy in Hong Kong. But yes, 36% is not great. Mexico is also very important. And I mentioned Argentina. I didn't talk about Argentina here. But Mexico is also very important and is moving very much towards private, you know, private galleries and private money funding the arts. This Carlos Slim, who is the richest man in the world, has this enormous. This is his museum, which is named after his late wife, Sumaya. The word on the street is that the stuff in there isn't very tasteful. I'm afraid I haven't been. But this dealer, he doesn't look for quality. He buys what is cheap, but at least he's buying. And the Umex collection. This is Eugenio Lopez, the Juice. The Juice family. His museum is seen as a little more tasteful. There aren't many people below the billionaire level. And again, there's a huge tax. But they have a great art fair which is very well attended, actually. But I will stop there because I've run a tiny bit over. Thank you very, very, very much for listening. And are there any questions? Thanks for my question.
- [48:27]
C
Can you Talk about Japan 30 years.
- [48:30]
A
Ago is probably emerging market and parallels between China now.
- [48:35]
B
Yeah, no, Japan is really, really interesting. I'm always surprised that there isn't more in Japan because there's a. As a country, as a nation, they're quite creative. There's also a very long tradition, you know, the passion for ceramics and even, you know, clothes and the importance of the object and you know, the creator. It has again all the right ingredients. Japan, I suspect Japan was a huge, huge buyer in the 1980s and is always held completely responsible for the crash of the early 1990s. But I suspect what happened was a slight jumping too fast into the international markets before supporting their own. Whereas China has started. And this is guess because I don't have, you know, I don't know what could have been, but I think China has started, started by investing in its own heritage, its own and its own young artists and it wants to support that. I. But China has more other problems, I think. I am surprised that the Japan market isn't in this presentation. I hope it will be one day. I think you get, I mean, you know, the problem is the most famous Japanese artist is an American now and sorry, this is Murakami, he does great things and Kaikaiki is a fantastic venture, but it's tiny compared to the rest of Japan and it just doesn't seem to be a real belief in starting the market from its grassroots. But I am surprised. It's a, you know, it's a luxury goods paradise. I think it's because of the economy. I do, I think it must be. I think if you have no, you know, looking at the GDP growth chart, if you have a country that has, I mean, and this is what's going to happen to the rest of us in the west as well. If you have zero interest rate, zero percent interest rate, people aren't making money anymore. If you're not making money, you're not going to buy big paintings. So I think, but I don't know what's, what's your view, do you think?
- [51:02]
C
I'm all thinking about the way they pushed up impressionist prices and then the.
- [51:07]
A
Parallel to how Chinese artists are buying.
- [51:09]
C
20Th century Chinese art.
- [51:10]
B
Yeah, I actually, I think that's a very good point. This, this, the 20th century arts phenomenon in China. I did, I had a bullet on it, but I didn't mention it. It's a very, it's a very good point. There's this Craze. In fact, there is something in the paper as well on this, on the same page. Page 99 is your Asia page. But there is an obsession with artists who are slightly Westernized or who have trained in the west, trained in Paris and painting abstract, you know, modern art. And the prices are insane. I do. I think, because the Japanese really did shove up the prices of impression and didn't pay. I mean, there is a. There is a parallel there. Maybe. Yeah, maybe it's the same could happen. I think that's a very good point. Yes.
- [52:04]
C
Is that you talked about this freeze.
- [52:07]
B
Yes. Yes.
- [52:11]
C
You were talking about Japan and talking about. About Latin America.
- [52:14]
B
Yes.
- [52:16]
C
Only one Forest Gallery that you mentioned.
- [52:20]
B
Yep.
- [52:20]
C
But actually there were like five or six Latin American galleries, so.
- [52:25]
B
And.
- [52:26]
C
And you were saying, like, the market is not that. I mean, for me, I. As I see it in. In the freeze thing.
- [52:36]
B
Yeah.
- [52:36]
C
It's like boiling. It's like.
- [52:38]
B
No, I. I agree. No, I think. I mean, I hope, hopefully. I. Maybe I do think that Latin America is the most exciting market of all. I think, without wanting to pass too much judgment, I think the art is the best. But that's an opinion. And I'm not, you know, I'm not an art critic, but compared to some of the other emerging art, although you see some, that is great. And also I think Westerners like it because Latin America has a long tradition of Western, you know, trade and people moving. I mean, if you go to Patagonia, it's Switzerland. Do you know what I mean? So what I'm saying is with very Western eyes or very English eyes, but I think it has an appearance and I think that will win through. And that's why I say investment. And it's a very intangible thing why investment in your own artist matters, but it does. And that's one reason why you are showing the world that you have something worth putting on your walls. Therefore, your galleries do very well. And I mean, you know, Damien Hirst has a house in Mexico and so his gallery, Curie Manzutu, who I think worked for E. They're doing very well. It's just. They have an engagement with the International. No. And Matthew Slotover, the director, co director of Frieze, is probably the Brazilian art's biggest fan. So that's a good observation, but I think there are still problems. That's all I'm saying. Yes. Sorry, this man here. Gentleman here with the glasses, please. Yes. To what extent does the market in the UK validate artist working in emerging markets and drive the dynamic there.
- [54:34]
C
So, for example, let's say Richard Francis.
- [54:37]
B
Ayla's exhibit in London, all of a sudden, does that give him more credibility in his home market than he otherwise wouldn't have had? Because London is a cultural center? Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really important point. And I think that the London market and the New York market are trying very hard to be those arbiters of taste, because we don't want the markets to go anywhere else. We don't really want Hong Kong. Do you know what I mean? It's a bit of a. We do, in a way, we want the buyers, but we don't want to lose our ground. What we have here and in New York, especially for contemporary. But like you say, we have Tate Modern, we have moma, we have the Guggenheim, we can give some international recognition that the other countries can't yet do. I don't know, hand on heart how that affects people back home. I'm sure I would think people are quite proud. So, yes, I think that's a very good point there. And the galleries, you know, as I say, you look at. A lot of the work that I put up that has been sold for huge numbers, including for Latin America, for China. Their galleries are Gagosian or White Cube or Hauser and Wirth. We're moving in quickly, so we're not doing the markets any favors, I don't think, because it would be better if the regional galleries could try and build their artists before Larry Gagosian purchased them. But we need them because we're not having a good time here. Yes, at the back in black coat.
- [56:31]
C
As you said. And I really appreciated that many students said that you have to invest also and appreciate the domestic market. I'd like to ask you, as it reflects the culture and everything of the country or even the continent. So what about the African continent? I mean, as you know that they have a great history. I mean, they. Based on where they lived in the past. And I think all these things should be reflected in some way. And art is a very good way to express what they live. So you see an emerging country within the marketing market or something like that. I mean, what's the current state of.
- [57:06]
B
Yes, we had a joke in our office because my full job title is because I basically, I am the art market editor for Everywhere Apart from America. So they put in my job title. Actually, I can't even remember what it is, but I think it's European, Asia and Africa. And someone said to me, you know, like, you ever have to write about Africa. And it is one of those things that you think, goodness, why not? I mean it, really, I do. I think that there is a huge economic instability issue, but actually Africa is becoming a new. A new point on the radar. The Tate has just appointed a curator of Africa art and it is sponsored. And I can't remember the name of the bank. I think. Yes, thank you. Yes. The role is sponsored by Guarantee bank in Nigeria. Am I right? They're a Nigerian bank, which is the most amazing thing to have done. And actually to talk about starting in the right place, in a way, that's a better thing to do. Going back to this gentleman's question, better to get some validation at Tate Modern than build another museum. A gallery has just opened in Mason's Yard next to White Cube called Jack Bell Gallery. And he's starting with. I think it's African photography. And there's just a little bit of a groundswell. South African, William Kentridge. I mean, I know South Africa is a slightly different beast, but that is where the money is in Africa. Jo Burg. It's there. It's never quite taken off. But I do wonder. I do think this. This tape curator will make a very big difference. So I'm keeping my eye on it. So I tell people they can't say my job title is a joke. And then. Man, gentleman in the red.
- [59:07]
A
What about two.
- [59:09]
C
Would you suggest to Turkish young artists it's better for them to sign in.
- [59:15]
B
Their own country, as you said.
- [59:16]
C
I mean, to find support in their own countries or to find support somewhere else.
- [59:20]
A
For example, in London.
- [59:22]
B
Turkey is doing. I mean, Turkey is. Turkey and Romania actually, at the moment are doing incredibly well. And Turkey has the advantage of not being in the Euro at the moment as well. So people are quite enjoying. The EU just had the Biennale. Yeah. And my colleagues who went. I'm afraid I didn't go, but they said it was one of the best. So this may be a contender, actually. Turkey may fight Brazil, but some of the best art they have seen for a long, long time. I think Turkey is quite. Is relatively developed, actually. I'm not sure how much it is an emerging market anymore. It probably just gets swallowed a bit into Europe, but it's not the same. I agree. And there was a lady in the white and the lady in the blue. You have to struggle to get.
- [60:26]
D
So how do you think about Korean art market? The Korean art market.
- [60:31]
B
And you think that the Korean artists are still competitive compared with the other two East Asia countries? Korea are very, very important buyers. And in Asia, I think they can be slightly overlooked. I think Korea and Taiwan, which some count as China, but I don't think we should, for a lot of reasons. Korea are very important buyers, and they have some very important. Samsung, the bank was incredibly important buyer. I don't know as much about Korea, I have to admit, as I do the other markets. I don't know if that's because they're chiefly buyers and maybe they're not sellers or maybe they. I don't know. I don't know as much about the. We don't see the artists as much. I think China has sort of stamped on your feet a bit. But I would definitely recommend. There's a fantastic book just out by Ian Robertson, who teaches, for those of you who are at Sotheby's Institute, his last book. He knows everything there is to know about Asian markets, especially Korea. So I would definitely. I would definitely point you. Voila. Gosh, I should charge him. Okay. Oh, there was a lady in blue who I think has been waiting. Oh, dear.
- [62:06]
D
I have a question about. You're speaking of the emerging artists. He asked about it as well, and I believe it was in our newspaper after three, this talking about how a lot of sales for younger artists were really, really down. So I was just wondering if that was, you know, to a specific region or country or if that's an overall.
- [62:29]
B
And so the one thing I missed was the country.
- [62:31]
D
Yeah, no, I was. That's what I was wondering.
- [62:33]
B
Oh, well, generally, yeah.
- [62:35]
D
If it's in general country where you're seeing that and then kind of projections.
- [62:41]
B
For the rest of the year, I think you're making a really good connection there between younger art and emerging art. And I think, why this. And I probably should have said on my first slide, why do buyers. Why do emerging buyers matter? One of the reasons they matter is because people have gone off slightly taking big risks on younger artists. And that is the same it used to be that people would think, which market can I. You know, where's Charles Saatchi? Great. Saatchi's gonna buy in India. I'm gonna buy in India. I'm gonna make a fortune that. And when I say used to, not not that long ago, in the sort of run up to 2008, that was very much the attitude. And a lot of these art folks funds, not just the ones set up in emerging countries. A lot of the ones here did exactly that because that's the quick return, the high risk, high return. You find a young artist, you find an artist from a country that no one has been to and you back them and you watch them triple in value. Because that doesn't happen in the boring, boring, established Ibsen mods market. But I think you're exactly right. I think the taste for both has fallen. So what people are courting now is not the artists, but the buyers. They want the people with the money more than they want the art. Please come and talk to me afterwards. I think we have to stop, but please come and chat. I'm here. Okay, thank you very much, everyone. Great question.