A landmark inaugural sale of Singapore art at Christie’s is slated to take place later this month on November 29, as part of the autumn auction week in Hong Kong.Showcasing a selection of some 40 artworks by leading modern and contemporary Singapore artists, “Convergences: A Special Sale of Singapore Art” is the first such sale by an international auction house dedicated to this category. Anchored by Cheong Soo Pieng’s “Balinese Dance” (1953), an exemplary early oil painting created after Cheong’s famous trip to Bali in 1952 that marked a stylistic turning point in modern Singapore art, the sale will also feature names like Chen Wen Hsi, Sun Yee, Ruben Pang, Chua Ek Kay, and Tan Swie Hian.Head of sale Wang Zineng, a specialist in Southeast Asian Art at Christie’s, notes that the sale is being organized as part of a larger effort to showcase emerging talents that are more under-the-radar, away from the blue-chip names that tend to dominate the evening sales in Hong Kong. “The idea to put together this sale was tabled late last year, as part of a larger discussion about how to make our auctions more interesting. These days, the headline-grabbers are the evening sales: they’re very glitzy events on the art calendar. But these sales don’t do a very good job of showcasing art in more developing categories,” says Wang.Although the sale does shine a spotlight on Singapore art, “Convergences” is ultimately not just about attempting to define a national category. “We want to introduce people to a wider variety of art, to work with developing markets that go beyond the headline-making artists,” Wang explains. “For this particular sale, one of the main objectives is to revisit the period in the early 1950s, when becoming a modern painter in Singapore involved a transformation into some kind of creative, liberated individual.”“There will be oil paintings and a sizable collection of ink on paper. Broadly speaking, the oil paintings lean towards depictions of Malayan life, an effort to reconnect with a sense of the primitive, or native cultures. With ink, conversely, I think that you see a tendency towards modernization, and a bid to break away from traditions,” Wang notes.According to Wang, the market for first-generation Singapore artists such as Chen Wen Hsi and Cheong Soo Pieng has been growing at a considerable pace, and not just in terms of Singaporean artists and Singaporean collectors. “In the last few years, we’ve seen a broadening of our client base to include private collectors from places like China, Taiwan, Indonesia, Korea, and Hong Kong,” he reveals. “So far, Singaporean art has been attracting mainly private collectors and private museums in China: a logical connection, perhaps, given that so many of the artists in the sale are those with Chinese heritage. In that sense, I expect that they should be keenly watched by those tracking the artistic contributions of the Chinese diaspora.”In the end, Christie’s hopes to strike a delicate balance between established names and emerging categories that might find a receptive audience in a smaller, more focused sale like this one. “Even as we are trying to promote younger, second-generation artists, we still need to anchor the sale with established names that already have a certain market traction, like Cheong Soo Pieng,” says Wang.“Cheong’s works from the 1970s have an established, consistent following, whereas second-generation artists who developed practices influenced by Cheong, and which are centered around the female figure, have found it harder to become recognized,” he continues. “Teng Nee Cheong is a good example: he looked at the region and found a lot of inspiration in Bali, where the pioneers went 30 to 40 years before him. During the 1990s, Teng was working prolifically in Bali, creating an interesting body of works with Balinese colors, and an overflowing eye for lush detail.”“Convergences” comes at a time when interest in Southeast Asian art is peaking, with the official opening of the National Gallery of Singapore also scheduled later this month. “We were happy to find out that the National Gallery would be opening around the same time as the sale. It’s a nice coincidence, although the sale was really put together on its own schedule, given the several months of lead time that we needed, and with its own considerations. Of course, in the context of the Golden Jubilee celebrations in Singapore this year, there seems to be a greater attention paid to Singaporean artworks in general of late.”Follow @ARTINFO_SEA
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