Art Prices of Young Artists in Singapore

The perennial complaint we hear is that Singaporeans are not buying art of Singapore Artists especially the young ones.

The older artists have no problem selling like your Lim Tze Peng, Ang Ah Tee, Tan Choh Tee et al. Has to do with their cultural medallions and investment potential, especially if they are in their golden years and prices go up after they unable to produce any more.

Middle aged artists are having it tough as their works are now more expensive and the investors won't consider their works unless they are superstars like Jane Lee. So at this stage they find it tough and hence there are very few full time artists, most have a second stable career.

Young artists usually sell well in their first few shows as the collectors like to support them and also lay claim of spotting the artist first and to affirm their good taste if the artist becomes very successful. (But a lot of friends support the artist's first show and buy their works, so it's not sustainable unless the friends are hard core collectors). Because of this 'success', the young artists tend to price themselves a bit high. I have noticed this trend in the past two years - the price of young artists' works have risen a lot. When I say young artists, I mean fresh spring chickens within 3-5 years of graduation, and thus they don't have any track record or we don't even know their staying power.

In the past two years, we have felt the price of the young artists' work creeping up which is counter intuitive with this poor global economic outlook. Thus whenever we attend a young artist's exhibition we are a bit put off by the price. Often we find ourselves thinking, at this price we can buy two pieces or at least a bigger work from a more famous Malaysian/ Indonesian. We can just top up a few grand and get works from more prominent mid-career/ established artists. And I don't think we are the only people thinking that way.

Also, the young artists tend to jump ship and show at multiple galleries at various prices. Thus this is killing the galleries and I am sure that's why some of the galleries selling mainly Singapore artists have to source artists from other markets. Also it is extremely confusing and frustrating for collectors.

Think in Singapore, only FOST and ChanHampe do many young Singaporean artists. Occasionally Ipreciation, Mizuma and Taksu do a show with locals. Art-2 does some younger Singapore artists but they rarely do shows/ monologues. Some of the other Gillman Barracks galleries do show young Singapore artists as part of a group show. For the older artists most galleries are clamouring to sell their works and you can find their works at most galleries, especially those that do not promote the artists or do exhibitions.

So my advice to young artists is please do not price yourselves too high. If not you will find your shows largely unsold, which is opposite to what everybody wants which is a sold out show. And collectors will be put off by the bad press. And please don't follow your lecturers, some of them price their works really high. And that doesn't mean they sell as they don't need to sell as they have a regular income, and they raise the price to give themselves prestige - "my works sell for 15K". Have seen some older artists pricing high and not sure if they are selling, maybe one or two only. Like that the artist won't be able to survive without his day job. Don't be fooled.