The Collector | Singapore to get two new art fairs – can Art SG and SEA Focus succeed where others have failed?
The Lion City is perfectly placed to attract Southeast Asian art collectors, but it has proved a tough market to crack
Will Singapore’s art market get its “Hong Kong moment” next year? The city’s art community hopes so. It wants to replicate Hong Kong’s success following an announcement that the co-founders of Art HK are to launch a Singapore art fair along with Art Basel’s owner, Switzerland’s MCH Group.
It is a partnership with a formidable track record, so it is tempting to think Art SG’s arrival, in November 2019, will do for Singapore’s contemporary art market what Art HK – now Art Basel Hong Kong – did for Hong Kong’s when it began to lure international collectors in 2008.
Singapore has been a tough market to crack, however, despite a government policy to turn the city into an art hub. This year’s Art Stage Singapore saw a 26 per cent drop in participating galleries. The Singapore Contemporary Art Show closed last year and the Affordable Art Fair (AAF) has cut its two editions to one.
Tim Etchells, one of three shareholders in Art SG – together with Angus Montgomery Arts and MCH Group – is confident the partners’ experience and large network of galleries and collectors will serve them well.
Now, 10 years on, the collectors’ market has grown and the awareness of international art fairs is greater. We are now targeting people who already know about fairs
They go back a long way. Etchells and Sandy Angus, of Angus Montgomery Arts, were among the co-founders of Art HK, selling the five-year-old fair to MCH in 2013. In 2016, MCH also invested in the India Art Fair – founded by Angus and Indian businesswoman Neha Kirpal – as part of a drive to build a global network of smaller regional fairs to supplement the Art Basel brand. Art SG is its latest.