Asia Society Ready to Shop

Asia Society in New York has plans to join the fold:

It is starting a collection of contemporary Asian and Asian-American art, Robin Pogrebin reports in the New York Times this morning.

Since it was founded five decades ago by John D. Rockefeller 3rd and his wife, the society's permanent collection has skewed towards traditional Asian art. Its decision to acquire contemporary pieces reflects the growing interest in 21st-century Asian art and seems a logical outgrowth of the exhibitions that have gone up at the society: Shirin Neshat, Cai Guo-Qiang, and, currently, Zhang Huan: Altered States (read this). The society plans to raise an initial $10 million endowment with which to build and maintain its collection, and, so far, it's got 28 video and new-media works that were gifted by two of its trustees, Harold and Ruth Newman.

The question is: Can Asia Society compete with the wealthy collectors buying Asian art? By now, it's a well documented reality that museums are losing out to the Steve Cohens of the art world as far as acquisitions of modern and contemporary art go; their budgets just aren't big enough to make them players in the overheated art market. And the society will have to contend with public institutions, as well: Contemporary Asian dealer Deepak Talwar told Pogrebin, "Most of the American museums are starting now too, so they'd better have their purses full." If the market for contemporary Asian works continues its rise, $10 million probably won't go very far. Last September, Ai Weiwei's colored pots brought $150,000 at Sotheby's, and a piece by Cai Guo-Qiang in the auction house's upcoming sale of contemporary Asian art carries an estimate of $500,000 - $700,000. But if an art market correction happens sooner rather than later, the society might have its pick of works at bargain prices.