Taiwan’s first ‘art week’ dawns as Taipei Dangdai art fair’s success prompts art museums to coordinate exhibitions

The island has a long tradition of art collecting, including by Taiwanese families that have supported domestic artists since the late 19th century.

There are also Chinese immigrant families who arrived in the late 1940s – bringing with them imperial treasures from Beijing’s Forbidden City – following the exodus of Nationalists from mainland China after their defeat in the civil war.

This cohort of collectors, most of whom preferred to remain in the shadows, largely focused on acquiring the works of regional modern artists, and antiquities, as a way to assert their cultural heritage and identity.

But the dynamic has begun to change in the past few years with the rise of a new generation of collectors – either self-made or of second- or third-generation wealth – who are “altering the flavour of the ecology of Taipei”, according to Robin Peckham, co-director of the Taipei Dangdai Art & Ideas fair.

“There are many younger collectors now who are interested in having a more public face and an experience with international contemporary art.

“For instance, we have Vicky Chen, who founded Tao Art, Jenny Yeh, who has Winsing Art Place, and Ping Tao Lee, who runs [Taipei art and retail space] Lightwell” he says.

In Taiwan, connoisseurship is paired with considerable buying power; Taiwan boasts one of the highest concentrations of wealth in the world, with over 765,000 millionaires in a population of 24 million as of 2022, according to the latest Global Wealth Report by Swiss bank UBS-Credit Suisse.

It is these deep-pocketed, well-travelled local buyers with cosmopolitan tastes that Taipei Dangdai has come to serve since its launch in Taipei in 2019.

The art fair, in its fifth edition this year, will host 78 galleries from 19 countries and territories at the Nangang Exhibition Center from May 9 to 12.

The returnees range from blue-chip marquee dealers like David Zwirner, Perrotin and Galleria Continua, to leading Asian names such as Tang Contemporary Art, Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Ota Fine Arts and Taipei-based Tina Keng Gallery.

In addition to the gallery programme, the fair will host the Ideas Forum under the theme of “Collecting as Culture” to highlight collecting as an intellectual pursuit that remains in dialogue with history and heritage – a quality Peckham believes makes Taiwan’s art scene unique.

“I think many cities are either artist-led or gallery-led. Beijing and, to some extent, Seoul has very artist-led art scenes. Shanghai is gallery-driven. Taipei is neither of those things. It’s very much collector-driven. It’s the collectors who are pushing the landscape in a certain direction,” he says.

There are several “first-time highlights” outside the fair venue, as Taipei Dangdai’s strategy involves more than just sales.

“When people travel for art, they’re in a different mentality. It’s not just about seeing art in a convention centre, but also about getting together and enjoying the city. So this year we’ve pushed really hard on creating [all-round] experiences for collectors travelling to Taiwan,” Peckham says.

Debuting this year is a series of exclusive cultural expeditions that will take VIP fair-goers to historical and natural landmarks across four Taiwanese cities: Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.

These visits will be sprinkled with encounters with the oeuvre of late Taiwanese masters, from sculptor Ju Ming to painter Yu Peng.

And, for the first time, museums and public entities on the island are aligning their major programming to coincide with Taipei Dangdai, staging a more coordinated “art week”.

Running concurrently with such internationally focused shows, “Before Thunders”, co-organised by the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture and Taipei Dangdai, will be a survey of a dozen mid-career local creatives.

Some have expressed concerns about the apparent saturation of the region’s art calendar, suggesting that the proliferation of these events may intensify competition for a limited pool of collectors.

However, Peckham says that the expansion of the region’s art market is not so much about platforms competing to replace one another as it is about each serving their local scenes in a more fine-tuned way.

“The entire Asian art market has become so complex, with so many players involved from different sides of the region, that it was no longer being efficiently served by Hong Kong alone.

“It’s about [understanding] the fragmentation of the market; collectors, artists and arts professionals in every place have their own internal conversations, and that can’t always be 100 per cent reflected in one large hub,” he says.

“By having fairs in different cities, we can go deeper into these markets and really serve the new collectors emerging from them. And Taipei is meant to play a role in parallel with all those other art destinations.”

Additional reporting by Staff Reporter.