Pearl Lam (林明珠): Hello, I’m in London now and I’m very happy today I have Georgina Adams sitting beside me and please, Georgina, give a very brief about yourself.
Georgina Adam: Oh dear. That goes back a long way. I’ve been writing about art and the art market for many, many years. Many, well, longer than I would like to say. And I’ve known Pearl for a long time as well.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes, exactly.
Georgina Adam: So we’re old friends as well and I’m delighted to be here and really excited to discuss art, the art market with Pearl, who is of course a great expert.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Over the last two decades there is a big dramatic transformation of art market, and it’s really driven by money speculation imbalances. So you wrote four books which I. No, three books which I read. And first book, the Big Bugs is a must, must read book by everyone who enter into, into the art market. Basically you have described and how these new wealth, extreme wealth, has reshaped the art market. And then in the dark side of the boom, you, you actually revealed the hidden cost of that success which is money speculation imbalances, shifting the power, forms of power. And then you talk about the rise and the rise of private museums and that you’re talking about how private wealth now increasingly taking the space of what institution should be doing so all in all taking all these books that you’re talking about, so we are talking about one single powerful sentence, is how private wealth has now actually conquered or taken over the public culture, which is pretty frightening about it. Then you’re talking about your new book which is coming out, which is very interesting because you talk about present, you talk about the past, now we talk about the future. So we are talking about this new group of collectors who are younger, more global, more socially conscious, but then they have to inherit a whole system that based on inequality and opacity. So then all in all, now we are talking about this, this private wealth, public culture. So I want to summarise it. We are not talking about who is buying art, we are talking about who shaped the culture and who defines values and who would carry that responsibility that shaped the next step of the art market. So I’m very excited to talk with you about, to discuss all that, because now the art market really is in crisis. So let’s start from the very beginning. Georgina, how did you get so interested in the art market? You study journalism, right?
Georgina Adam: Yes, that’s right.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So why art market?
Georgina Adam: You know, I think I’ve always been fascinated by the interaction between art and money. And particularly I’m interested in the phenomena of the 21st century.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Oh, yes, 21st century. Big change.
Georgina Adam: Such a change. And because I’d been a journalist for many years, more than I would care to say, I’ve seen so much happen and I’ve seen such a transformation, and this is why I wrote the first book, is because I wanted to bear witness to what I’d seen before. Because, you know, when you’re a journalist, you just write it down, but then it’s gone the next day or it’s gone two days later. So to write a book, at least you record it. And so, I mean, that book is quite out of date now.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): That book is what I always advise anybody who wants to get into art market, please read the. I mean, the big bucks. Well, thank you. But do you think that because art collection has been democratised and that is why it becomes an asset, and even private banks, private bankers today, would ask you, oh, you have to put 10% of your wealth in and into collecting art. Is it because of that?
Georgina Adam: I think that there’s two things going on. I mean, there has always been. I mean, art has always been quite expensive, let’s face it. So it’s always been a little bit elitist. And I think it’s inevitable. If you spend quite a lot of money on something, you expect it to hold its value or possibly go up, which is fair enough. It’s not always the case, by any means. So I think there’s always been these two threads, because I think that collectors, they’ve got a number of motivations, and it’s not just, of course, one motivation, you know, that.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But do you think that, you know, before 21st century century? Because I think the big changes arrive in 21st century.
Georgina Adam: Absolutely, yes. Before then, late 20th.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes, before then, it was more, you know, art collection historically is always about elite. All right, so 21st century, especially the. I mean, the first five, six, years of the 21st century, you really see, especially the contemporary and art market grew so much that. Oh, maybe because now it’s really officially about investment.
Georgina Adam: It’s only partly about investment even today, because it’s only status quo. Yes. And that’s a very interesting aspect, actually, and very interesting aspect of my new book is to look at this question of identity and how you project your identity. And previously the older generations had projected their identity through their possessions and through naming rights in museums. Today, a younger generation, what we call the MZ generation, millennials and Gen Z, they would probably project their identity differently because they’ll project it through social media, for example.
Georgina Adam: So there is a big shift. There’s a huge shift going on as far as investment in art is concerned. I mean, you have to. There’s always been an aspect of that. If you go back to the Paul de Orc, which was an investment that was created at the beginning of the 20th century, it was liquidated at the beginning of the First World War. So there was always that interest in artisan investment. Always.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But the percentage wise has.
Georgina Adam: Percentage?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): No, I mean has it grown much more?
Georgina Adam: Grown enormously. And also the commodification of art, for example, you’ve got. Now you’ve got fractionalization of art, which is crazy.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean, the fashionization of art, actually the first one ever happened is in China. And it was before the financial crisis in 2008. I think it was in Sichuan in 2007. They were building a market that. Okay, everybody, let’s buy Picasso. So we give you this. This. You have this.
Georgina Adam: Shares.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): The shares. The shares. But that was, you know, the first time I ever was told was that of course, in 2008, completely wiped out.
Georgina Adam: Yes, yes. Or there were even before 2008, I think there were one or two initiatives. Generally they didn’t work out. It’s become more form. But it’s for sure that the banks today, they have art departments.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes, absolutely.
Georgina Adam: They advise. But it’s not the whole art market. It’s only at the very top end. It’s only the very, very expensive art. That’s if you like blue chip art. Yeah, blue chips. It’s what they call blue chip art. So it’s a very small number of artists and a very small number, which is of course driving the price higher because everyone wants to buy the same artists and the same works by the same artists. So that pushes it higher. But there is another art market as well, in which people are still buy because they love the work.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes. Of course, but that fortunately. Fortunately. But that proportion of collectors are so I mean really very rare. Very rare. Rare. Very sad, but very rare. Because I like collectors who comes very bold, very confident and they buy what they like. But it’s very rare.
Georgina Adam: Sadly, very sad. The last few, last two, three years which have seen the market drop because the market has gone through a difficult time. It’s quite interesting because I think there is a sort of return to appreciating art and not just the investment value. So perhaps this is a good correction.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I don’t know because I think people are shifting their interest, you know, instead of buying art because sometimes when you know the last, these few years, these two years, the art market is very vibrant. It’s on secondary. Okay, they’re all buying masters because it’s hold values. But then all the younger artists and all and all the unknown artists, very difficult. Especially if you have, you have younger, I mean new collectors. They don’t have, you know, they don’t have the confidence you need confidence.
Georgina Adam: And they don’t necessarily particularly new collectors, for example in China or in the Far east. They don’t necessarily come from a collecting background.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): No, not at all.
Georgina Adam: So they don’t have cultural input that you might, might have had. I think what’s terribly interesting is what’s going to happen to these collections that are now arriving on the market. Great collectors who were boomers, so just Post World War II or even the silent generation which is before. I mean will the market absorb them all? Will younger collectors resonate to that art?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean last year, last year we have Leonard Lauder’s. Yes, I mean auctions. Great collections. And it has been bought at the very, I mean very high price. Yes, but of course, I mean we never know who is buying this. But we guess who is buying this. I mean, I mean when we talk about Gen Z or the millennials, I think is unlikely. Maybe someone who’s Asians in finance sector they, they would buy because I think Asians still want to build collection. I think what is generally, I think fundamentally I need to read your new book is we all know there’s a big shift. The big shift is the taste of the Gen Z is changing. I mean if you have a very short attention span, how would they appreciate conceptual art? Each of the conceptual art you have to read, if you don’t read, you cannot appreciate. And would they actually share the same love, the passion as their parents, as their grandparents?
Georgina Adam: Well, generally people don’t like their parents taste and Their grandparents taste. They want something different and they want something of their time.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): They want something that defines their time and their self. We also know that the Gen Z like experience, this is a big issue.
Georgina Adam: This is a big thing. They like experiences, they like things that
Pearl Lam (林明珠): move, that make immersive art, immerse art.
Georgina Adam: And that’s very important.
Georgina Adam: One of the things that I wonder about, of course, is whether this younger generation, this next gen, whether they want stuff in the same way that their parents wanted stuff. When I say stuff, I mean possession of all sorts, ownership, professional responsibility, and that were two. Yet now what we don’t know now is whether this younger generation, as they grow older, their children leave home, whether they will go back to collecting the way their parents did. If their parents were collectors, we don’t know yet because.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I mean if they collect and if they make certain donations, like America, you have some tax benefit. That’s an encouragement. In France as well, they use, they use some of the artworks in settlement of, you know, of the tax liability, inheritance tax. That will be very helpful.
Georgina Adam: But, but when I wrote my book about private museums, it was very interesting that a previous generation would give their. They would donate either when they were still alive or at their death, they would donate to a local museum. But now they build their own museums, which is very different. That’s very different.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But you’re still donating to a museum, right?
Georgina Adam: Yes, but you’re giving it to your museum. And one of the things that I discovered, because I interviewed obviously a lot of museum owners, they don’t want to lose control of their collection. They built up their collection and they don’t want it to go into another museum and disappear into the reserves and perhaps, you know, never be seen again, Parts of it, not seen again. So by building their own museum, they retain control. Of course, the problem is the longevity of them.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, that’s so, so we all know about the Fisher collection.
Georgina Adam: Quite right.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, for the audience, we have to talk about the Fisher. The Fisher collection is one of the most important collection in San Francisco. When the father was alive, he actually have a whole plan of building a museum right near the harbour that. And, and of course, after the parents died, no more museum. They gave huge, they gave the whole donation to the SF MoMA. So every 10 years they have a hall, I think, with the father and the mother’s name there. So every 10 years they will have an exhibition of that collection.
Georgina Adam: Yes, but, but, but don’t forget that they have an agreement for a hundred years of that loan.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): A Hundred years. Well, hundred years.
Georgina Adam: Well, none of us will be around to see what happens, but I doubt very much that.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s very sad.
Georgina Adam: It’s very sad.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s very sad because this collector, they have so many kivirs, I mean, tens or even hundreds of kivas, so many riches. War is. Agnes Martin is breathtaking.
Georgina Adam: Yeah. Yeah. Well, there we are. That is an interesting case.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): That is a very interesting case.
Georgina Adam: It’s an exceptional case because if you look at something like the Broad, which is also in California, he left an enormous endowment and it is a beautiful museum. It’s a beautiful museum.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And the programme is great.
Georgina Adam: The programme’s great and it adds to the cultural offering of the city. So what’s not to like?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And, you know, I’m talking about the Fischer because they are. They are collectors who buys art and artists who already. They are successful, they have names versus the Rubells. Rubelle collects artists who nobody knows of, because the artists in the Rubell Museum, immediately they are recognised. So it’s another way of collecting.
Georgina Adam: So the motivation of people who have private museums vary from wanting to give back, as they will say. But there are sometimes also other motivations, because there’s no doubt that if you have your private museum and you show the artists that you’ve selected, that enhances their value. Of course.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Of course. Absolutely right. Absolutely right.
Georgina Adam: As I said at the beginning, collectors have generally more than one motive. Agree.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Absolutely agree.
Georgina Adam: And you’re well placed to know that.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah. But however, when we talk about collectors who can actually give that endorsement, they must have collected for a long time, they must have promoted their collection and their collection. Some of the artists must be so well known in order to give them that importance, that whenever they collect, immediately the price went up. But now we talk about, you know, we talk about collectors. I mean, you know, especially the big collectors, they are actually the domineering power. Do you think that these private powers can actually substitute these public museum?
Georgina Adam: So this is a very interesting question. The question is, if you spend an enormous amount of money on a clip, Klimt, for example, does it mean that Klimt is the best artist around?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): No, no, no, not necessarily. Not at all.
Georgina Adam: And I think you, when we were preparing this talk, I think you made the extremely important point is that monetary value is not necessarily aesthetic value, symbolic value, historical value.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Absolutely.
Georgina Adam: That’s a set of.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Absolutely. You have. I mean, with the art market that growing and that is so domineering. So we are talking about art market versus museums. I mean, we have the question is, who gives the best values? Because most of the collectors or most of the buyers, what I say, they follow the auction market. So actually I always say to some of the artists, I said, you want to be the best nature. Make sure that your work from ten pounds becomes a million pounds. I’m sure that the next day the art market will know about you.
Georgina Adam: So what you’re saying is that the value, the monetary value is setting the agenda.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It is. And that’s right for me, it is for the market. But is this the true value? Is this the true cultural value? The cultural value for me is still is in the museum, I always say the true value. I mean, we always talk about the artist price going higher and higher and higher. If we look at the auction, auction is only supply and demand. This supply and demand is like a stock market shares supply, demand can go down if you don’t have a future plan and of the stock. So for an artwork to have that concrete values, you have to have supply, demand plus credentials. The credentials are big collectors, collection, museum collections, museum exhibition, institutional endorsement. You have to have two things coincide together then.
Georgina Adam: Now, one of the things that was interesting that I discovered when I was doing the research for the latest book about NextGen is that they don’t have the same attitude towards institutions and they have less trust in institutions. And that is a very interesting attitude aspect. Very, very interesting. And I think when we say institutions, I think there is definitely not trust in government. Are we surprised, unfortunately, the church, are we surprised? Museums still have a much better image, you know, brand image. But even so, I think some of these scandals, like the Perdue farmer that was supporting the Sacklers.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): The Sacklers has donated to all the museums.
Georgina Adam: They donated so much. This has slightly dented the trust in institutions amongst younger people.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Because younger people is more social conscious for them. This is really very important.
Georgina Adam: Yes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So, you know, even with the museum, we talk about two different museums in America, it’s all private. And in a private museum we always felt that if you’re trustees, you can influence the agenda, you can influence a programme, while in Europe it’s always government subsidised. But then when you look in England, when you look in UK now, the government giving money is less and less to the museum. So would a museum, institutional, academic evaluation, would it be actually influenced by personal, by persons, by trustees, by all that? So where is the real value? This is my really big question.
Georgina Adam: Yes, yes. And this is a problem because there’s no also problem if you are in the financial markets that could be insider trading. Knowledge of an exhibition that’s coming up in four years time because you’re a trustee and you’re discussing an exhibition and then you could sort of corner the market in that artist’s wallet.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Absolutely.
Georgina Adam: I don’t think it happens too much, to be fair.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I don’t think it happens too much. But I mean, especially, I don’t think here, here, I mean, in Europe, I think it’s less chance of happening, especially when you go to Germany, was really funded by. And by. And by the government. So it’s less happening. In America – more complicated.
Georgina Adam: More complicated. More complicated. You have curators who are paid for entirely collectors and they have the name of the so and so curator of Latin American art. Say. And they are a collector as well. So there is a potential conflict of interest in there.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And however, America is the leading art power in the whole art market.
Georgina Adam: Yes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Whatever works, works sold in America then, or you have American collectors supporting the artist, price goes zoom up. Wherever you don’t have American market, your price will never go up. So America is really at the determined, determine. I mean, determinant of.
Georgina Adam: Yes, yes. Well, it’s almost half of the art market. So yes, America is terribly important. But there is, you know, there is another art market as well, sort of at a lower level of price. And it was quite interesting because the report that we see every year noted last year that the part of the market that grew the most was the lower end of the market.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah.
Georgina Adam: Yes. And that is not an investment market. So I think we have to always be careful of not making too general.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Sometimes the lower end of the market. Like less than 50,000.
Georgina Adam: Exactly, exactly.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And all that, I think a lot of them is these are the newcomers, they have the art consultant. The art consultant maybe, you know, was pushing and introducing to them and the art consultant may not be given a very objective point of view as well. So. So what can we say, Georgina? Art market is being. I mean, we have nothing illegal. Okay. Everything is manipulation, speculation, manipulation being very opaque. So, one of your sentences that you said secrecy is a feature.
Georgina Adam: Yes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Not flaw. So are you saying that. Would you believe this secrecy will continue for the next…
Georgina Adam: So a few years back, quite a few years back, pre Covid, there was an initiative by the Swiss to try to regulate the art market more. It didn’t work out.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It wouldn’t work.
Georgina Adam: No. None of the players were particularly interested in being more regulated. Of course not. You’re dealing with unique objects and you are dealing with things that it’s not just a question of their monetary value. These are knock stocks and shares. You cannot just sort of say, well, go has gone up because for this reason or that reason, it’s not the same with art. There are many more aspects.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): There’s a lot of emotional value to it.
Georgina Adam: Exactly. There’s the emotional, there’s the art historical, there’s the aesthetic.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You measure that.
Georgina Adam: It’s a way of projecting your own cultural values. So I don’t think that the art market, unfortunately, in a way will change that much. I don’t think it’ll be regulated, although there are more regulations on things like money laundering.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You already have aml.
Georgina Adam: It’s becoming much more complicated. And unfortunately it’s very complicated for smaller dealers because the big players have got somebody who can deal with that. But when you have a smallish gallery which is showing good artists and you know, they have to start complying with all of these new regulations, that’s a bit of a. It’s a problem for smaller companies.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Okay, how do you see, you know, is culture equal to capital?
Georgina Adam: No, I think it’s different. I hope that it’s different. I hope it is different.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But I. But I think in this world now, in this new world, I mean, in this 21st century, I mean, this world of art market, I feel that they’re pushing culture equate to money, equate to capital, more and more.
Georgina Adam: You know, there’s one thing that does worry me and that is the growing importance of the luxury goods companies.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yes.
Georgina Adam: And I think that there is now a blurring of distinction between luxury goods and art. And they are actually separate things. You know, there is a profit motive when you’re selling a handbag or whatever, glasses or whatever, your couture gowns and art is not the same. It should not be in the same pot. But unfortunately, I think that the luxury goods companies are supporting culture, which is good, but they’re supporting it. Why? Because it makes their brand look better. So I think that is a problem there.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Look at that collaboration with Kusama. Kusama market grew so much huge and the prices of a Kusama painting went up.
Georgina Adam: Yes, absolutely.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So the question is, do artists need this endorsement, collaboration with luxury?
Georgina Adam: Well, it does suit them because nobody wants artists to starve. No.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But you know, all of a sudden everybody was thinking a Kusama LV bag, a Kusama elfie shoes, scarves, Scarves. And then. And then you saw this, this. This big mannequin beside Harrods. Oh my God.
Georgina Adam: This was it was embarrassing.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): This was really embarrassing. It was embarrassing.
Georgina Adam: Almost a fortune.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Of course.
Georgina Adam: Absolutely. Apparently the amount of money they invested, I was given a figure. It’s so extraordinary that I’m not going to repeat it because I think it can’t be true, but it was an enormous amount.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): That means that with an artist collaboration, they sold more handbags.
Georgina Adam: Exactly.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And more accessories and more things. Exactly. So that is why they don’t mind to invest so much on the promotional market.
Georgina Adam: It makes a lot of money. But let’s just say as well that if you’re poor, you can now have your kusama, your Jeff Koons, because you can go to a little shop and get a balloon dog t shirt for £20 or even less. So there is an element of democratisation as well. So we should be careful of totally condemning these collaborations.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Oh, oh, oh, oh. I don’t dare to condemn, but I feel uncomfortable. But I would say, you know, is right or wrong. What am I going to say? Right or wrong? Because I feel that the new century, the new time moments are coming. I don’t know how it will evolve and I like the fact that people actually know the name of the artist. But I’ve. But sometimes it’s. I think it’s the way that they do it. I don’t know. Up to now I have no judgement about that. But it’s rather a bit too much sometimes.
Georgina Adam: I think so. But on the other hand, it’s money that’s going in to support artists. So that’s good. Something like Chanel, which has got a whole programme, Chanel Culture, and they’re creating residencies for artists, which is good. I think so. I think all.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Artist residents.
Georgina Adam: Yes. So all of these things, it’s very difficult to balance out. You can’t really say it’s black or white. There’s a huge amount of grey in the middle.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And also, so, you know, we really do not know whether today we have a problem with a structural crisis or art market structural problem. We don’t know. We don’t even know how it will evolve with the technology, with the younger generation. So it’s very, you know. And let’s talk about technology. I mean, so, I mean, we saw the. The NFT has completely collapsed. Right.
Georgina Adam: That’s gone.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So. That’s gone. So do you. What do you think about technology?
Georgina Adam: Interestingly, I was talking to somebody who collects digital works and he said to me, because I don’t collect digital works, but he said to me, you know, it is Just a new technology. In the same way that photography was a new technology, everyone screamed and shouted when photography came in and said it would kill art and it didn’t. And in the same way, I think it is just a new. It’s a new technology that artists can use and integrate into their practise and produce artworks. So I don’t. I don’t see it. And it’s also, from the point of view of climate change, very good. Because you’re not transporting physical things, you’re sending just a little key or even sending it via, through the Internet. So that’s good. There is a problem, of course, is the amount of energy that’s required to produce. So there again, it’s always the same, it’s not black and white, there’s a grey area in the middle.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I always feel that contemporary art is reflecting contemporary culture. So technology definitely should play a huge part in Contemporary art, especially 21st century is all about technology. So I’m not rejecting all that, but I want to see how it evolved to be. Because NFT was purely about speculation and investment.
Georgina Adam: Yes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So after that, gone. So what is the next thing we talk about? Digital art. So how, you know, when we talk about the. The secrecy, opacity of the art world, how does it apply to digital art? Digital art is too mass.
Georgina Adam: In theory because it’s on the blockchain. It should be more transparent, but it’s.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Transparency does not create this, which is
Georgina Adam: not what the art market likes. I’m not against democratisation. I think it would be wonderful.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): No, I think collection we have been trying to democratise and that’s why I think artworks become an asset, really important asset for status, for investment, for whatever, for whatever purposes. It’s no longer about purely passion. I think people buy from passion is really contained a very small number of collectors buying form and. And for passion. So I don’t. I mean, all this is evolving. I do not know how the art market is going to be arrived at. What do you think about art fairs by Air News and all that is all these activities?
Georgina Adam: Yes. Actually there’s an interesting phenomenon because it used to be that art was sold through auction houses, through dealers, through art fair, but now you have these sort of groups as well. The latest is the one that’s Didonna Pace Schrader. So that’s an interesting thing when they’re both advisors, but they’re also buying and selling. And I just think that the whole system has broadened and changed. What will it be like in 10 years time? What do you think?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I actually, you know, I felt that today is a crisis point. Right. So it makes me question whether this is a systematic problem that affects the global art world. If this is a systematic problem, is it because of technology? Is it because. Because what we see is during the COVID time everybody is building a room within our website so you can view few, few paintings. So is gallery still important? I know that when I open a gallery it’s not necessarily is for the collectors, it’s actually is for the artist. The artist can show the work because collectors, I can, I can sell to collectors easily with a jpeg, a JPEG to certain prices. So it’s not such so complicated. But for artists, they want big space, they want important space, they want big space. So and art fairs is. We want to have art fairs because we want to meet new clients. That is what the art fairs is about. But now when you go to art fairs, majority of the people, they come for parties.
Georgina Adam: Yes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Right. And they want to do Instagram.
Georgina Adam: Yes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s not really for collecting art.
Georgina Adam: Yes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Sometimes you get confused, what are we doing here? And the shipping cost is getting more and more expensive. The art fair is so expensive now. So the question is, why bother?
Georgina Adam: Well, art fairs are being cancelled. I mean, I’ve just heard about two that were just cancelled yesterday. So that is too many art fairs. Yes, too many art fairs.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And you know, when you go, I haven’t seen you in Hong Kong for a long time.
Georgina Adam: Georgina, where are you? I went to Hong Kong in November, so in November.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But you did come, you did come for artbas. I usually have Georgina at my dinner and now I don’t see Georgina.
Georgina Adam: Sorry.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So really, you know, the question is, I fear now there’s so many people going there just for partying, just for the Instagram.
Georgina Adam: And what about Art Basel Miami Beach?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Oh, Miami.
Georgina Adam: Oh my God. Oh my. Not only the parties, but also everything else.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Else? Yeah, last year we were there. There is, I don’t want to complain but I think most of the art people, the art collectors, they stop going to Miami. So I think Miami, Basel, they have do a big thing to encourage, to bring people back because they’re so comfortable with New York. Right. They have a New York art fair and then everybody is in New York.
Georgina Adam: But I’m really interested in this phenomenon of the Middle East. What do you think about that?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Oh, I think Middle east is great, actually.
Georgina Adam: Basel and fries.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I really believe that there will be a geographic shift, it will be shifting back. You know, when we talk about the Gen Z We talk about the Gen C who prefers experience. When they inherit a big collection, they’re most likely to sell the collection because who wants to pay the insurance? Who wants to manage it?
Georgina Adam: And it’s not their taste.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Not their taste.
Georgina Adam: Absolutely.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And then for really generations or decades or generations that in Asia or in Middle East, I think Africa is coming up with their own collectors as well. They can never be able to buy a grade paintings because a grade work are usually sold to America or sold to Europeans. So for the first time the Asians will have the opportunity to buy a grape works. And also Middle east and Middle east now they look at the culture they’re building. You know, Saudi, they’re building museums, numbers of museums, numbers of museums. And Abu Dhabi, they also want to. I mean they have been building museums and now I think they are no longer to continue with the Louvre. They are building their own collections. So I’m not surprised because I think Middle east somewhat is like China, China the people started to collect, to look at the collection, to build collection is because of the government propaganda machine. It only happened in 2010. All of a sudden all the state owned enterprises private, they start to build collections. They start from antiquities to whatever is. So they go in and when you see Middle east when all the kings, when the royal family start talking about art was collecting, so everybody start collecting.
Georgina Adam: But I have one objection to that, which is that China has a huge population and the Middle east doesn’t have a huge population. So I do think that that is going to be. It’ll be very interesting to see whether they can develop on a much smaller base of the number of collectors.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You are right, because like Team Lab. Right. Whenever you go to Team Lab there’s always queues of people and when you go in it’s just jam packed. So I was in Jeddah, so I went to Team Lab. Nobody was there.
Georgina Adam: Oh really?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Nobody? Because you know, I went there not during the opening. I was there. I think it’s either April or May, which is very quiet time. I was there. No one, no one was visiting.
Georgina Adam: That’s interesting.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So I have the whole Team Lab to myself.
Georgina Adam: I still think they have to develop a collecting. You know, there’s an art ecosystem that needs to develop. They need the museums, they need the schools. So I think they’re still building that.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, I actually saw and actually find there are collectors there. There are beginning collectors. You know they already have establishment like Basma.
Georgina Adam: Yes.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And you know they have the group but then they have the up and coming one and they’re not so confident. So I think with the art there in Qatar, maybe it gives them the confidence.
Georgina Adam: Perhaps. Yeah, perhaps.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): And the freezing.
Georgina Adam: You need a driving. A driving force.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, yeah.
Georgina Adam: Somebody who pulls all the others along that they emulate.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): I think it’s good if you have Qatar and then people will be going there at least to see it. And then you have Frieze in Abu Dhabi. It’s not bad, you know.
Georgina Adam: We shall see. That’ll be.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Shall see.
Georgina Adam: Very interesting.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But you’re right. In. In Middle east is not enough population.
Georgina Adam: No, that is not. That is my problem.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s not enough.
Georgina Adam: The populations of those countries are actually the actual people who are from that country who are not guest workers. It’s very similar. Small.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): It’s very small. So they actually need to get people coming in. So they have all the Indians, which is very near to Dubai.
Georgina Adam: That’s very promising.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You have Indians and then you have the Russians.
Georgina Adam: Yes, the Russians have stopped buying. They’re not buying so much art at the moment.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): So I think geographical. There’s a big shift. This is what I believe.
Georgina Adam: Well, we are in very unstable times. Somebody like me, who’s. I’m a baby boomer, lived through a great period of prosperity and peace, but now we’re moving into unstable times. Geopolitically, it’s unstable. We’re talking as the Davos meeting is happening at the moment.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Oh, but someone. This is the best thing. I just received a message, an email that a gallery is promoting and was asking me whether I would take an artist from Greenland.
Georgina Adam: You’re a Greenland artist?
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, Greenland artists. I just got an email last. Yesterday. Yeah, it will be interesting to see.
Georgina Adam: That’s great.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, that would be very.
Georgina Adam: Well, that’s a very famous Icelandic artist, so why not.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): But you’re right, geopolitical situation.
Georgina Adam: And this has of course also had an impact on the art market because it’s a market and this instability.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Stock market.
Georgina Adam: Yeah. Well, it’s pretty.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah. Yesterday they were just saying that because of the Greenland impact, the stock market went right down.
Georgina Adam: We shall see. Yeah.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): The last question I want to ask you is over the last century, this is the first time that the art market is not correlated with the stock market. So we are always discussing that. There is. How would I say, we always been discussing why would this happen. And then the next thing then you see some major Western galleries. They’re all closing down and people are saying that they cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel. So. So I need your comments, I need your thoughts about that.
Georgina Adam: Well, I think what I would say is that the art market is different from other markets in the sense that you are not dealing with a very liquid market. One of the things, a stock exchange, you can sell, okay, you’ve got, I don’t know, Esso shares. You can sell half of your Esso shares, and you can sell them tomorrow or today. You just press button. The art market is not like that. And so it is a little bit, bit dangerous to draw conclusions when the art market goes down, because it may well be that people with expensive art have just decided not to sell. It’s not a liquid investment. The transaction costs are very high. If you sell at auction, you spend.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Yeah, 30%.
Georgina Adam: 30%, yes. Yeah, that’s. Well, that’s for a buyer, but even for a vendor, it’s expensive. So I think that the art market, which is not, in the greater scheme of things, it’s not a huge market, one must always remember that it’s a third of the luxury goods market, if that. So I think it’s always dangerous to draw conclusions comparing to other markets because it’s not a market like other markets. And particularly this question of liquidity. People just don’t sell. Don’t sell. So we shall see. I still think that there will always be a market for art and that there will always be collectors who love art because of its aesthetic value and not just as its financial value.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): Raffle. Thank you. Oh, thank you.
