A month after Tokyo Hyundai ended its third edition of the show with a new time slot in September, the head of Pace Japan offered some cheers for the local market after achieving solid, if unspectacular, sales.
“I want Tokyo to become the art center of Asia,” Kyoko Hattori, vice president of Pace Japan, told the media japan times Tuesday. “I want to see it happen.”
Pace’s arrival last year was seen, at least locally, as evidence of Tokyo’s arrival. There’s some truth to that: Pace is now the only major gallery with a presence in the city—except for Galerie Perrotin, which operates three galleries in the city and has a long history of working with Japan and its artists. The opening of Pace Gallery in the luxury $4 billion Azabudaiyama development, like the opening of a contemporary gallery in Tokyo in 2023, is treated as a major event, with journalists and international collectors flying in to promote it.
As New York dealer Sundaram Tagore puts it Nikkei Index In September, Pace Gallery was seen as a “beacon for other galleries” looking to expand into the Japanese market.
The expansions come against a backdrop of cautiously optimistic data. UBS Art Basel’s latest Basel Art Market Report shows that Japan still grew at 2% last year, even as the overall art market shrank by 12%. Japan’s main competitors – China (including Hong Kong) and South Korea – declined by 31% and 15% respectively. Still, Japan operates on a different scale than Asia’s leading market, China, which accounts for 15% of global art sales by value; Japan accounts for just 1%, as does South Korea.
For decades, Japan’s art scene was considered indigenous and largely inward-looking. This may be changing. Mark Glimcher told Nikkei Index At Tokyo Modern, Robert Longo’s works “fly off the walls” and are sold mainly to Japanese collectors. “I don’t know who these people are, but they’re coming in droves,” he said. Tagore, who also exhibited at the fair, described the gallery’s “strong reaction” to the “very global” programming.
“I think this shows that Japanese audiences are increasingly connected to the international art world,” Tagore said.
This is not the first time the market has turned its attention to Tokyo. During the boom years of the 1980s, Japanese collectors paid record prices for Western art. What’s different this time around, however, is that the new wave appears to be arriving amid a broader market slowdown. Today’s collectors are synonymous with slowness, thoughtfulness and restraint – a pace both Glimcher and Hattori believe suits Japanese buyers.
“Tokyo is not in this state of excess,” Glimcher told reporters. japan timesreferring to the speculative frenzy in the market after the epidemic.
“I find that Japanese collectors don’t pay much attention to investment value,” Hattori told the newspaper. “It’s less transactional, which I think is good. They don’t hire consultants… If you visit a Japanese collector’s home, each collection is very different.”
“If we bring them global, high-quality work, they will be very enthusiastic about buying it,” she added. “They’re not interested in partying, but they really want to enjoy art.”
Still, Tokyo’s ambitions face structural challenges. Taxation remains a persistent issue, although according to Nikkei Indexinternational galleries and fairs can now avoid a 10% withholding tax on art sold by applying for free port status. Taxes still have to be paid – but only after the work is sold. At the same time, the government appears to recognize the need for reform: a Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry report released last year called for “increased investment in and demand for art” to “help promote industrial restructuring.”
The moves appear to have boosted Glimcher’s optimism. “if [Japan] More galleries can continue to be recruited and if the government makes it easier to do business in terms of taxes and art moving in and out of the country, they are poised to become a major arts city,” he said.
However, the expansion of the global art world has recently turned its sights elsewhere. Art Basel and Frieze recently announced new fairs in Qatar and Abu Dhabi respectively – the former hosting major gallery exhibitors. Despite its commitment to the Asian market, Pace closed its Hong Kong office earlier this month. (Perrotin also just closed its Hong Kong gallery.)
exist japan times In the interview, Hattori acknowledged one question facing Tokyo’s rise: whether international galleries have the ability — or appetite — to operate in Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo simultaneously.
“Are they going to open three locations in Asia? I think that’s also a challenge,” she said.
