Becoming Asia’s Art Market Hub: Comparing Singapore and Hong Kong

The recent emergence of new regions in the global art market has been structured by hub cities that concentrate key actors, such as global auction houses, influential art fairs, and galleries. Both Singapore and Hong Kong have developed explicit strategies aimed at positioning themselves as Asia’s art market hub. This followed the steep rise of the Chinese art market, but also the general perception of Asia as the world’s most dynamic art market. While Hong Kong’s emergence derives from its status as gateway to the Chinese market, and has been driven by key global players, such as the auction houses Christies’ and Sotheby’s, the Art Basel fair, and mega-galleries, Singapore’s strategy has been driven by the state. At the end of the 2000s, the city identified the art market as a new growth sector, and proactively invested, by creating a cluster concentrating international galleries and supporting art fairs, art weeks, and new world-class cultural institutions. Based on comparative fieldwork, and interviews with actors of the Singapore and Hong Kong art markets, this article shows that the two cities’ distinct strategies have generated contrasted models of “cultural hubs”, and that they play complementary roles in the structuration of the region’s art market.

Testing for Bubbles in the Chinese Art Market

This article detects the existence of bubbles in the Chinese art market and investigates when the bubbles originate and crash. We utilize the generalized supremum augmented Dickey–Fuller (ADF) test to detect explosive behavior in the Chinese art market. The empirical results indicate that there are two bubbles in the Chinese art market that happened in the periods from 2004 to 2005 and 2010 to 2011. The main reasons are the financialization of artworks, the speculation of investment institution, and the fluctuation of macroeconomics in China. Our findings are in agreement with the bubble model improved by Gürkaynak considering that asset price can be decomposed to bubbles and fundamental parts. Therefore, to favor the Chinese art market price stabilization, the regulators from this market should identify bubbles to notice their evolutions. The authorities should also manage the expectations of the public and reduce speculative behavior.

Traditional opera consumption as the new game of distinction for the Chinese middle class

Utilizing theories of Becker’s art worlds, Veblen’s conspicuous consumption and Bourdieu’s capital forms, this article critically examines the formation of a new art world of the traditional Chinese opera Kunqu, with university students turned middle class as identified consumers. It argues that the art world has been developed through the innovation of artists working within the tight ideological control of the market. Only artists who support party-state ideological evolution, allowing access to ‘central bank’ capital in the forms of university curriculum, opera house resources and land use, may continue to experiment and innovate before a new audience taste is nurtured and a new art world is developed. This article suggests that the rise of Kunqu reflects the political castration of the new millennium Chinese middle class, with their value and identity resting on a fantasized historical leisure class distinction and associated conspicuous consumption. The establishment of a new Kunqu art world exemplifies the characteristics of the Chinese art market, which is developed under party-state ‘central bank’ monopoly, for continued Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideological evolution and legitimacy.