Art

I was amused to read of the taste in art of a rich man from China yesterday. I quote: '... Wang says he shifted more assets from his Hong Kong family office to a new Singapore family office set up in 2021. The art collector and investor, who lives in China but visits Singapore frequently and owns property in the city, has more than 300 pieces from Czech artist Alphonse Mucha that he wants to set up for viewing in the metaverse.

“Singapore is a choice globally, not just Chinese,” he says over a Zoom interview, with work by US artist KAWS, Japanese painter Yayoi Kusama and a Ming dynasty antique in the background. “The politics are stable, the economy is stable and finally, it is a finance centre so capital can flow easily in and out.” Singapore has not had to confront the sort of mass street protests that were seen in Hong Kong, he says...'.

Mucha was a Czech artist, active at the end of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, was a specialist in theatrical, promotional and advertising posters, one of which is included above. To my untutored eye, all very much of muchness and I am not sure I would want 300 of them, be my house ever so big. He devoted the second half of his working life to an epic series of paintings of the Slav epic, presently housed, according to reference 3, in a castle in the town of Moravský Krumlov in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic.

An important series of paintings which obviously belong in the capital of the Slav world, that is to say Moscow. Perhaps President Putin, when he has finished trashing the Ukraine, will turn his attention to the Czech Republic and demand that the Czechs return this invaluable, inalienable icon of Slav history to its proper home.

Yoyoi Kusama is a lady of Japan, to be found at reference 4. Clever background in the piece snapped above, but not sure that she is really my thing either.

While KAWS, aka Brian Donnelly of Brooklyn, seems to be a successful exponent of junk art. Part of the menagerie occupied by the likes of our own Damien Hirst (rich) and Tracy Emin (relatively poor), Dame Trace to readers of these pages. Perhaps it helps that he is controversial in China, and so very collectable in Singapore. See reference 5, from which the snap above is taken.

But I suppose the supply of famous art works from the past is, necessarily, limited, and a lot of it is locked up in museums in the US. Aspiring collectors have to be prepared to look further afield. I dare say this is all very healthy for the world of art, but one would have to spend a lot of time sorting the wheat from the chaff. And, even then, a very speculative venture: one could not be at all sure that one's collection would stand the test of time.

References

Reference 1: The lure of Singapore: Chinese flock to ‘Asia’s Switzerland’: Geopolitical tension has increased the city-state’s attraction as a financial outpost and safe haven. But can it maintain its neutrality? - Mercedes Ruehl, Leo Lewis, Financial Times - 2023.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonse_Mucha.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Slav_Epic.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama.

Reference 5: KAWS Hit With Criticism in China for Mao-Based Artwork—Artist Responds [Updated] - Annie Armstrong, ARTnews - 2019.