148 149 DECEMBER 2014 - FEBRUARY 2015

culturemovers&shakers

ART & NEW MONEY3 INVENTIVE MODELS OF PATRONAGE How Funds Are Flowing to Hong Kong Artists Today. By Christie Lee

T here’s a buzz in the Hong Kong cultural scene about the rise of private art patronage. The concept itself is far from novel; with roots in medieval Europe, it reached its pinnacle during the Renaissance. Private arts patronage dwindled over

the centuries due to the rise of publicly funded museums, but it has made a strong comeback in recent years. In Europe, the prolonged economic crisis has caused museums to rely on private money to underwrite top-quality shows. In Russia, the Middle East and China, arts patronage has become a gauge of one’s standing in society.

Today’s young art collectors are a savvy bunch, no longer content to throw money at artists and museums without knowing that they are getting for their dollars of patronage. Cultivated and well-padded, they demand much more, be it sitting on acquisition committees or devising a social network of private dinners organised in partnership with the world’s top museums and cultural institutions.

We profile the individuals who are changing the face of private arts patronage in Hong Kong today.

THE WELL-HEELED COLLECTORThanks to his diplomat father, museums, galleries and concert halls have always been a part of Alex Errera’s life. The founder of The New Circle group of art collectors, Errera earned a degree in international relations at the London School of Economics, and then laboured at Morgan Stanley – “like, you know, all LSE graduates,” quips the French-Bolivian, rolling his eyes in good humour. Four years later, he called it quits, starting Personal Dating Agent, a London-based online dating site. Realising that his true calling was in the arts, he sold that venture a year later, packed his bags for Asia and officially launched Artshare.com in April 2013.

“The art market is so big and – for the most part – unregulated, so there were a lot of opportunities,” says Errera, who counts Xu Qu and Wang Guangle as among his favourite Chinese contemporary artists. “I looked at how Artsy and Paddle8 were doing it, but I’d envisioned Artshare to be something between a gallery and private dealer.” Aside

from holding curated exhibitions, there are also private sales and artist interviews. With the focus on Chinese contemporary art, prices are from US$5,000 and up, though contrary to popular perception Errera confesses that the rule ‘the cheaper it is the easier it is to sell’ doesn’t apply to the online world. “The first thing that anyone will do when they see something on the site is to google it, so it’s actually easier to sell works by more established artists,” he reveals.

While Artshare is accessible to all, The New Circle, which the serial entrepreneur set up in September, is a group for art patrons targeted at the young, affluent and artistically minded. It couldn’t have come at a better time. Not only is a rising number of international cultural institutions reaching out to young collectors in Asia, there is also certain prestige conferred upon those who supports the arts. “For the super-rich, it no longer suffices to say that they’re rich, they want to be recognised for having contributed to the cultural landscape in Hong Kong,” opines Errera.

THE NEW CIRCLEWho? Founded by Artshare.com’s Alex Errera (pictured), chaired by cultural entrepreneur Adrian ChengAge 4 monthsHow does it work? Targeted at affluent collectors aged 40 or below and capped at 200, The New Circle organises exclusive dinner parties, art studio visits and private shows. No gallerists or dealers are allowed to ensure that patrons interact in the most convivial environment possible. Ultimately, The New Circle wants to extend its claws well beyond Hong Kong, and indeed the Asia-Pacific region. It is thus fitting that Cheng, in addition to the K11 Art Foundation initiative, also sits on the Centre Pompidou board and the Acquisitions Committee of Tate Modern. Errera is banking on the connections he has with major collectors and museums in Hong Kong, New York, London, Paris, Shanghai and Beijing. “The Hong Kong art circle is so small that everyone already knows everyone. What we want to do is to connect Hong Kong collectors with those in Europe and North America,” he says. Costs are kept at a minimum – “we hold a lot of our events at private homes and museums” – though Errera hopes that the society will sustain itself on revenue from private sales in the long run. Coming up The New Circle is partnering Christie’s for a VIP dinner at the China Club on December 9, where works donated by artists, gallerists and collectors will be auctioned to benefit Teach for China.

PH

OTO

GR

APH

RO

GER

LEE

150 151

AGENT PROVOCATEURSThe Ambassadors of Design is well known to anyone who has been involved, either deeply or remotely, in the Hong Kong design scene over the past eight years. What started out as a “cultural guide of sorts” in 2006 swiftly evolved into the two-week-long Detour design festival in 2009. The idea of Design Trust came about two years ago – “The design landscape is much more sophisticated when compared to eight years ago. We felt that we needed to evolve to stay relevant,” says Ambassadors chairman and co-founder Alan Lo. Fellow board member Jehan Chu offers: “I felt like there was a seven-year-itch phenomenon going on. The minute you stop learning the minute you become dead inside.”

After hours of closed-door debates and extensive research into different art funding models, the team launched Design Trust this September offering an initial two grants. “We were happy to operate on a grassroots level for a long time, but we think it’s time to raise the level of discourse,” explains Marisa Yiu, who joined the Ambassadors of Design in 2008. “Before we were activating a more programmatic approach, filling the space with things to do and whatnot, but now we want to fill the space with things to think about,” elaborates Chu. And that means picking projects that the public-at-large might consider “edgy”. “The alternative voices. That’s the legacy of creativity at its best, isn’t it?” he asserts.

Design Trust runs on a very lean – two administrators aside from the board of directors – but efficient team; the 2014 Ambassadors’ Ball, which raised $5 million for the organisation, held at PMQ in November being a testament to that.

Where do they see the trust in five years? “I think it’d be great if Design Trust can turn into something as prestigious as the Graham Foundation or the Rolex Mentor-Protegee programme,” muses Yiu. “I want people to be excited about getting this grant, because they’re getting a stamp of approval from leading scholars. Perhaps we could become a cultural brand.” “And why not?” adds Chu: “Especially since we’re so brand-conscious in Hong Kong.”

Efficient money and a stringent vetting process − Design Trust has a strong argument going for them. As Yiu poignantly points out, “People love to fund medical and stem-cell research, but what about cultural research?”

DESIGN TRUSTWho? Ambassadors of Design (pictured here: Alan Lo, Jehan Chu and Marisa Yiu)Age? One monthHow does it work? In a nutshell, Design Trust gives out grants in two categories, the Cultural Project Grant, which starts at $10,000 and is capped at $50,000, and the Research Fellowship Grant, which sees the grantee attach him- or herself to a reputable cultural institution for a three- to six-month research period. A stipend of $40,000 is provided every month. It differs from other public funds in its provision of ‘fast and flexible funding’ i.e. putting money into the hand of practitioners at the beginning of their research. “The public funding system often gets tied down by bureaucracy. Another problem with public funds is that they’re usually dished out bit by bit, which is impractical for cash-strapped creatives,” explains Lo. What else? “I think we can act as a bridge between institutions, artists and galleries,” says Lo. “Say, if a museum wanted to acquire art and design from this part of the world, we could help facilitate that.” Recent grantees The M+ Research Fellowship Grant was awarded to urban designer and educator Fan Ling out of 40 applicants from around the globe. “We wanted to pick someone who has done some work, but who is also young enough to be able to propel their research further,” explains Yiu. There have been no open calls for the Cultural Project Grant yet, though local industrial design firm MAP Project Office was selected in an “inaugural launch” of sorts.

PH

OTO

GR

APH

KEI

SO

152 153 DECEMBER 2014 - FEBRUARY 2015

THE ART INVESTOR“You know why I put this here?” challenges Hamilton Tang, as he gestures to a painting (Kim Suyoung’s Residential Housing) occupying one wall of the boardroom at Simon Murray & Company’s Hong Kong office. “It’s such a nice mirrored image of Murray Building,” he says, pointing out of the window. “This,” he gestures to Shen Yang’s A Ka A Ka No 10, “is how we all feel by the end of the week, when we all want drugs.” Laughing, he continues down the narrow, elongated hallway, arriving at Francis Ng’s Higher Ground. “And that’s basically how you approach investment. You take a dive off the deep-end without knowing what awaits down there.”

Despite the cynicism, Tang is a bright and shining example of investment banking, though given his background his chairing of the first artist pension trust in Hong Kong is a tad surprising. He was briefly involved in the entertainment industry during the 1990s, but confesses to knowing nothing about art until 2011, when he met Moti Shniberg and Dan Galai, who founded the Artist Pension Trust (APT) in New York in 2004. “As an individual you can obviously buy and collect art in the traditional way, but as a business it didn’t make much sense. APT was a breath of fresh air for me,” recalls Tang.

“From a financial perspective, I’ve always thought that art was very interesting in the sense that it’s one of the last major asset classes that has yet to be regulated.” He spent six months on the road understanding the concept further and then helped set up the APT’s Hong Kong office.

Despite APT’s lure of being a security blanket to artists, there are those who have rejected the model – “mostly galleries, especially those who are overtly protective of their artists”. It still strikes some as a foreign concept. “The pure quality of work is very important, but everyone has to pay bills.” And is Tang a collector himself? “Well,” he hesitates. “I’m a wannabe collector. We have a lot of art on our walls, but I’m only above average,” he says, cracking a smile.

ARTIST PENSION TRUST (ASIA)Who? Founded by Moti Shniberg and Dan Galai in New York in 2004; Hamilton Tang (pictured), CEO of Simon Murray & Company, established the Hong Kong office in 2011. Age Three years (Hong Kong office)Participating artists worldwide 2,163 from 81 countries Participating artists in Hong Kong Wilson Shieh, Leung Mee-ping and Morgan Wong among othersHow does it work? The Artist Pension Trust pivots on a cardinal rule in the investment banking world: diversification. “In a pool of 250 artists, you have less than one per cent chance of becoming the next big thing,” says Tang. “So why not co-mingle your work with that of other artists and get a fraction of the total value? It’s certainly less risky.”

Upon acceptance of the scheme, artists are obliged to contribute 20 artworks over 20 years. In return, they get a cut of the eventual sales values of their own work and a portion of the total monetary value of all the artworks in the fund. This second source of return ensures that the artist has an estate to fall back on, even if his or her artwork isn’t selling for much on the market.

The trust fund open now − APT Global One − is hard-capped at 628 artists − “it’s my birthday”, announces Tang nonchalantly − after which a new one will be set up. APT currently boasts 13,000 artworks, hanging on corporate walls or housed in storage facilities in Brooklyn and Leipzig. “We believe that we have the biggest curated collection of contemporary art, encompassing paintings, sculptors and digital art,” says Tang. A sharing formula thwarts anyone from taking advantage of the model − “basically, the more you contribute to the pool, the bigger your portion of the share is.” What else? APT Institute was set up in 2013 to host exhibitions. It partners reputed cultural institutions including Tate Modern and the San Francisco Institute of Art for artist residency programmes. “We’re like the Groupon of the art world,” jokes Tang, who spearheaded On Track, the first new media exhibition to be held in the Hong Kong MTR last month. “We have more leverage when it comes to seeking the best institutions around the world to partner with.”

PH

OTO

GR

APH

RO

GER

LEE