黑料不打烊

With a plethora of Asian art fairs that have mushroomed over the recent years such as Art Dubai, Art Fair Tokyo, SHContemporary, Art Singapore, Art Taipei and Korean International Art Fair (KIAF), the pursuit of high-net-worth art collectors continues and is decidedly keen to tap on the collector bases within Asia with generous spending power. New kids on the block like Art HK and Showcase Singapore are set to position themselves in the global art market to capitalize on the fact that art is relatively insulated from global economic trends. This makes one wonder if there would be the imminent art fair fatigue. The first Asian biennale in Tokyo debuted in 1952. Since then, we have seen a slow and steady rise through the 1960s and 70s (e.g. Seoul Biennale, 1974), an explosion in the 1990s, and its persistent proliferation that has carried the past into the present with Asia-Pacific Triennale, Yokohama Triennale, Gwangju, Sydney, Shanghai and Seoul biennales, with Singapore鈥檚 second installment of its biennale to be held in September this year. As the art world continues to evolve, it is clear that the line between art fairs and biennales is blurring, making both inextricably linked. One will concede that both are relatively big-scale events that are meant to target the international market, where each participant is probably a global nomad, not exactly filled with wanderlust, but rather, with the curiosity of what each event has to offer in return for their time and money. Art fairs and biennales originally had boundaries that organizers adhered to. While art fairs always had clear commercial interests, biennales served their purposes as cultural grounds for art practitioners to exchange ideas, both scholarly and creative. Art Basel, the grandfather of art fairs, was first conceived in 1970 and has consistently produced successful shows for almost 40 years. Its secret lies in its ability to select quality works over quantity and rework the traditional art fair model into one that is trendy with posh opening parties, educational programs and curated elements into the new model, but above all else, to maintain and even raise the commercial outputs that the fair collects so that it continues to boast a who鈥檚 who list of galleries and artists. But fairly unknown is the fact that the Venice Biennale was a selling art fair from 1942 to 1968. The commercial arm of it was retired not because of the fear that it would lose its reputation of a biennale to being an art fair, but because there were strong objections from regular dealers. As rumors have surfaced once again that the Venice Biennale is considering having a commercial component again, one starts to seriously question if art needs commercialism as a vital necessity to survive. Are biennales slowly being subsumed into the commercial side of the art world, as visitors increasingly use biennales as a preview ground for artists, artworks and the spaces that have been created for each exposition? However, having to remain attractive to audiences with the intention of raising attendance numbers and the shelflife of these events, organizers are kept on their toes having to continuously think of a winning formula for the survival of these individual events. The fact that there has appeared at Art Basel a section named Art Unlimited which displays large scale curated exhibits such as sculptures and installations indicates that art fairs are morphing into biennales. Art Dubai too had outdoor installations where eminent collector-dealer Charles Saatchi bought one such exhibit - a stuffed camel squashed into a suitcase. According to Art Basel director Marc Spiegler, who clearly supports the notion of art intellectualization, 鈥渁 fair is more than just a place to sell art; it鈥檚 a site for exchanging ideas and concepts鈥�. Works are not only under the direction of a curatorial team, many have also been conceptualized that is site specific to the Art Unlimited platform. There are educational elements introduced at art fairs i.e. talks and dialog sessions, to groom new collectors and dealers. All of these are apparent signs that the globalization of the art world is well present, where clear lines that differentiates art fairs from biennales are being erased. Lured by the attractive notion of art fairs being held in neighboring regions, collectors go trigger happy in buying artworks and investing in what is seen as the new asset class. Just this year alone, there have been more than eight Asian art fairs. An astounding number which certainly puts one to question whether the art market is fast becoming over saturated with art fairs! Asian art fairs have to contend with established players with a bigger share in the art fair pie. Art Basel and Frieze have long been established as go-to fairs and if serious art collectors with a stratospheric spending allowance had only one fair to attend, would they choose an Asian art fair or wait out for the grand masters of art fairs? However local art fairs help art collectors who hardly have time and budget to travel round the world for previews and buying trips, and who choose to stay on home ground to visit the local art fairs instead, sieving through quality works over quantity exhibited. Very often too, collectors visit smaller art fairs with the purpose to discover emerging artists rather than showing interest in the expensive artworks of established artists. One would have assumed that the Asian biennales would have stopped multiplying after the influx of biennales sprouting from neighboring countries. However, it is exactly the success of its predecessors that Asian biennales are growing 鈥� to admit themselves into such an international institution, and attempt to gain a foothold in this global art world. The question still remains, does one start to question the intentions of each country when a biennale is born? John Clark wrote that Asian biennales are vital to the development of contemporary art in the region because it serves its purpose of being an agent in spreading the wealth of contemporary art - 鈥淭he Asian biennales are important not only because of the increasing number of such exhibitions during the 1980s and 1990s but because they would appear to be functioning for contemporary art in as yet not fully understood ways as arbiters of taste, as consecrators of esteemed practice and works, and as the mediators and distributors of artworks, artists, and curators.鈥� Entering the biennale game as a latecomer, Singapore has finally given in to the burgeoning demand for biennales after at least a few years of hints given by the government. The inaugural Singapore Biennale, which created as much media hype as major cultural events do in Singapore, collected a commendable attendance. One pull factor was public access to the old City Hall, where the historical Japanese surrender of Singapore at the end of World War II took place. The aim was to introduce international and local artists to local audiences and vice-versa. The inception of the Singapore Biennale in 2006 was deliberately planned to coincide with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meeting held that year in Singapore, drawing much hasty speculation that Singapore was trying to portray a very all-rounded (and opportunistic) front - 4 million smiles, pretty flowers and hedges along the IMF and art route. When Fumio Nanjo, the artistic director of the 2006 as well as this year鈥檚 biennale was interviewed, he maintained that the biennale caters for local and new audiences without a clue to contemporary art. Needless to say, thematic exhibitions such as Singapore Biennale helps to steer those unfamiliar or uncomfortable in the contemporary art territory to greater understanding. On the other hand, such thematic exhibitions can also constrain the seasoned audiences who might be reined by their thematic boundaries. As the contemporary art market continues to grow, Asian biennales help to introduce performances, installation art and many other forms of art that require audience participation. Biennales try to introduce non-art collectors into the world of contemporary art. The public is encouraged and educated with the wide selection of works produced by a stable of international artists. Serving as an educational ground to budding collectors and dealers, biennales are a service to the art market where artists are promoted. Be it in the international or regional art market, what clearly defines art is that it challenges the imagination. With contemporary art, it allows audiences to interpret and relate to what the artist is attempting to portray. Whether it serves as a preview ground before an art fair is up for speculation, but what is clear is that artists who show potential breaking into the commercial art market can be discovered through such significant events that highlight the importance of the globalization of the art market where art market professionals are working worldwide. Evidently, Art Compass (www.artcompass2008. com) has been organized by five biennales shown this year to facilitate an 鈥榓rt tour鈥� to participating countries in the Asia-Pacific region. As Showcase Singapore will be held later this year in September in conjunction with the second edition of the Singapore Biennale, one starts to wonder (pardon the pun) what the function of having a commercial element together with a cultural operation is? According to Howard Rutkowski, organizer of Showcase Singapore, 鈥渦nderstanding that contemporary art is the international visual and cultural language of our time, it is important that projects like Showcase Singapore take root. Our target audience is two-fold: Foreign collectors and art professionals who want to see cutting-edge work from Asia and Asian collectors looking for blue-chip international contemporary art. We want to show our visitors that the global contemporary art community has a lot to offer.鈥� Showcase Singapore will be exhibited at the ground floor of City Hall with 23 international alpha galleries showcasing conceptual works with an international context. What is presented will closely reflect what is seen in the biennale. Three Singaporean artists 鈥� Ho Tzu-Nyen, Francis Ng and Ian Woo 鈥� have been invited to exhibit works on site. Showcase Singapore is officially tied to the National Arts Council, supporter of the collaborative effort that Showcase Singapore has with Singapore Biennale 2008. As an independent event, it will however be shown annually and has plans to increase participating artist and gallery numbers exponentially. As art fairs and biennales proliferate, it has to be accepted that both are integral in keeping the art market alive. Art fairs are no doubt evolving to having biennale-like components and the presence may possibly be threatening the survival of biennales, but with biennales fighting back with accompanied art fairs and fresh 鈥榖usiness models鈥�, both types of events are toeing the line into each other鈥檚 territory. As they increasingly mirror each other, one wonders if it might just be a matter of time when both type of events join forces to become a super art event.