Trade week paints a positive outlook

Art021, another important fair for the art week, received more than 60,000 visitors from Nov 7 to Sunday at the Shanghai Exhibition Center, where 131 galleries and institutions presented exhibitions from 43 cities in 20 countries and regions. About half the participants were domestic galleries, with 30 percent making their debut.

ART021 sees Shanghai's art market picking up momentum, with new galleries participating and art enthusiasts buying original work.

Zhou Dawei, co-founder of ART021, says that aside from Western art institutions, this year the fair invited galleries from countries involved with the Belt and Road Initiative, presenting a "real international outlook of the art world", he says.

Compared to established art fairs such as Art Basel in Switzerland, "we are still young, and our core mission is to promote contemporary Chinese art. We are going to establish a distinctive identity centered in the global art scene", Zhou says.

The Hive Center for Contemporary Art from Beijing has been a regular participant in all 12 sessions of Art021.

Xia Jifeng, director of the center, says: "We had the largest booth this year and presented a series of the most sought-after artists. We achieved very good sales, more than we expected, though the art market is still going through a turbulent period of adjustment."

Swiss bank UBS shared its findings regarding China's art market at West Bund Art and Design. According to the Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting 2024, which was authored by Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics, high-net-worth individuals from the Chinese mainland had the highest expenditure on art and antiques in 2023, as well as the first half of 2024, with a median of $97,000, more than double of that of any other region.

This suggests that the strong return of post-pandemic spending has been sustained, says Marina Lui, head of Wealth Management China, UBS Global Wealth Management.