One month after Tokyo Gendai closed its third version—and its first in a brand new September slot—with solid, if unspectacular, gross sales, the pinnacle of Tempo Japan did a little bit of cheerleading for the native market.
“I would like Tokyo to be the middle of artwork in Asia,” Kyoko Hattori, vice chairman of Tempo Japan, told the Japan Occasions on Tuesday. “I wish to see it occur.”
The arrival of Tempo final yr has been considered, not less than domestically, as proof that Tokyo has arrived. With some justification: Tempo is now the one mega-gallery with a location within the metropolis—except one counts Perrotin, which operates three areas there and has an extended engagement with Japan and its artists. The opening of Tempo’s gallery within the ritzy $4 billion Azabudai Hills development, just like the launch of Tokyo Gendai in 2023, was handled as a significant occasion, with journalists and worldwide collectors flying in for the fanfare.
Associated Articles
As New York–primarily based seller Sundaram Tagore told Nikkei in September, Tempo is seen as “a guidepost for different galleries” trying to broaden into the Japanese market.
These expansions come amid cautiously optimistic information. The latest UBS Artwork Basel Artwork Market Report discovered that Japan noticed 2 p.c progress final yr, whilst the broader artwork market contracted by 12 p.c. Japan’s major rivals—China (together with Hong Kong) and Korea—noticed drops of 31 p.c and 15 p.c, respectively. Nonetheless, Japan operates on a special scale than Asia’s main market, China, which accounts for 15 p.c of worldwide artwork gross sales by worth; Japan has a mere 1 p.c, as does Korea.
For many years, Japan’s artwork scene was considered as native and largely inward-looking. That could be altering. Marc Glimcher advised Nikkei that at Tokyo Gendai, works by Robert Longo “flew off the partitions,” promoting primarily to Japanese collectors. “I don’t know who these individuals have been, however they flooded in,” he stated. Tagore, who additionally exhibited on the truthful, described “a sturdy response” to the gallery’s programming, which skews “very international.”
“I take that as a sign that the viewers in Japan is changing into extra related to the worldwide artwork world,” Tagore stated.
This isn’t the primary time the market has turned its sights towards Tokyo. In the course of the increase years of the Nineteen Eighties, Japanese collectors have been paying file costs for Western artwork. What’s totally different this time, nevertheless, is that this new wave seems to be arriving amid a broader market slowdown. The byword for collectors as we speak is slowness, deliberation, and restraint—a tempo that Glimcher and Hattori each advised fits Japanese consumers.
“Tokyo has not been a part of that overexcess,” Glimcher advised the Japan Occasions, referring to the speculative frenzy of the post-pandemic market.
“I discover Japanese collectors are much less targeted on funding worth,” Hattori advised the paper. “It’s much less transactional, which I feel is nice. They don’t rent advisers … When you go to a Japanese collector’s house, every assortment could be very totally different.”
“If we carry them international, high-quality works, they’re very enthusiastic to purchase,” she added. “They’re not fascinated by events, however they actually wish to get pleasure from artwork.”
Nonetheless, there are structural challenges to Tokyo’s ambitions. Taxes stay a persistent problem, although based on Nikkei, worldwide galleries and gala’s can now keep away from a ten p.c upfront tax on artworks introduced in on the market by making use of for free-port standing. The tax nonetheless have to be paid—however solely as soon as the work is offered. The federal government, in the meantime, appears to acknowledge the necessity for reform: a Ministry of Financial system, Commerce, and Business report printed final yr known as for “rising funding in and demand of artwork” to “assist promote industrial restructuring.”
These strikes appeared to buoy Glimcher’s optimism. “If [Japan] can proceed to recruit extra galleries, and if the federal government makes it simpler to do enterprise when it comes to taxes and transferring artwork in and in another country, they’re primed to develop into an essential metropolis for artwork,” he stated.
But the worldwide artwork world’s growth has currently shifted its gaze elsewhere. Artwork Basel and Frieze lately introduced new gala’s in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, respectively—the previous stacked with mega-gallery exhibitors. And Tempo, for all its engagement with the Asian market, closed its Hong Kong location earlier this month. (Perrotin additionally simply closed its Hong Kong gallery.)
Within the Japan Occasions interview, Hattori acknowledged the query looming over Tokyo’s ascent: whether or not worldwide galleries have the capability—or urge for food—to function in Hong Kong, Seoul, and Tokyo concurrently.
“Would they open three places in Asia? I feel that’s additionally the problem,” she stated.
