Is There a Southeast Asian Art Market, Now?

The recording of this talk has been uploaded online for viewing. 

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This conversation departs from last year’s roundtable, asking if a Southeast Asia art market exists, which drew on the research of offshoreart.co in a discussion with gallerists from across the region. This year, with recent developments in Singapore and beyond pointing to an art market momentum in Southeast Asia, from the first Sotheby’s sale in 15 years staged in Singapore in August 2022, to the expansion of Silverlens Gallery from Manila and Singapore to New York City.

With these movements in mind, this panel brings together specialists in the Southeast Asian and international art markets, to explore the conditions by which a Southeast Asian art market might operate.

Curated by Stephanie Bailey, Conversations Curator for Art Basel Hong Kong

Speakers

Jasmine Prasetio, Managing Director, Southeast Asia, Sotheby’s

Jasmine Prasetio is Managing Director of Sotheby’s, Southeast Asia, bringing to this role her 18 years of experience and knowledge in the art, luxury (jewellery, watches, wine & spirits) and auction business.

Based in Jakarta, Jasmine oversees the development and growth of Sotheby’s in Southeast Asia. She was involved in developing the Southeast Asian Art category as a Specialist and contributed to its curation and expansion. Most recently, Jasmine spearheaded an educational, non-selling exhibition of Vietnam’s modern masters in Ho Chi Minh City, which was attended by an audience of around 4,000, in July 2022, as well as the successful first auction in Singapore in 15 years in August 2022, which exceeded expectations. In her spare time she is a contributing writer for Forbes Indonesia. She was also involved in an independent non-profit project as Guest Curator of the semi-retrospective exhibition “Christine Ay Tjoe : Perfect Imperfection”, at Song Eun Art Center from April 28th to June 20th, 2015. The exhibition marked the leading contemporary artist’s first solo exhibition in Korea and was also the first time a comprehensive survey of Indonesian visual art was held at a non-commercial space in Korea.

Jasmine is a member of YPO in Indonesia, (PAN Indonesia Chapter).

Can Yavuz, Founder & Director, Yavuz Gallery

Can Yavuz is the founder and Director of Yavuz Gallery. Born in 1972 in Turkey, Yavuz grew up in Germany and obtained a degree in Development Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. His first corporate job relocated him to Asia in 1999. Fascinated by the artistic voices in the region, he started collecting Southeast Asian Art. In 2010 he opened his first commercial gallery space in Singapore followed by a second gallery in Sydney, Australia in 2019.

Beverly Yong, Co-Founder & Director, Rogue Art

Beverly Yong is a writer, editor and curator based in Kuala Lumpur. After reading English and art history at Cambridge and a masters in Asian Art and Archaeology at SOAS, London University, she returned to Kuala Lumpur and joined Valentine Willie Fine Art as a curator from 1996 to 1998, and took on the role of the gallery’s managing partner from the end of 1999 until 2008 when she left to co-found RogueArt, a partnership specialising in Malaysian and Southeast Asian contemporary art, working on exhibitions, publications, projects and collections.

Moderator

Nadya Wang, Founder/Editor, Art & Market

Nadya Wang is Founder and Editor of Art & Market (A&M) and Fashion & Market (FAM). Through these pioneering platforms that strike a balance between the journalistic and the academic, she creates content together with a dedicated team that features practices and processes within the Southeast Asian art and fashion communities respectively. She is also the host of From A to Zig-Zag, a podcast spotlighting creative practices in the region. Nadya has been a full-time lecturer at LASALLE College of the Arts since 2014. In 2022, she was awarded a PhD in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art.