Sotheby’s Singapore Hits Plateau
By Louis Lu
MARK BRADFORD, L.A, 2019, mixed media on canvas, 304.8 × 304.8 cm. Courtesy Sotheby’s Hong Kong.
Amid the buzz of Singapore Art Week (January 17–26), Sotheby’s kicked off its 2025 Asian auction calendar on January 18 in Singapore. The Modern & Contemporary Art auction brought together 57 works from across Asia, Europe, and the United States, and concluded with total sales of SGD 12.3 million (USD 9.06 million).
The evening proved challenging for big international names. American artist Mark Bradford’s large-scale canvas of the fire-ravaged city L.A (2019) and Marc Chagall’s colorful oil painting La danse autour de la corbeille (1975), with high estimates of SGD 4.7 million (USD 3.5 million) and SGD 2.7 million (USD 2 million), respectively, both failed to find buyers. An all-black version of Takashi Murakami’s signature motif, Flower: Soul to Soul (2018), estimated at up to SGD 170,000 (USD 126,000), similarly did not attract a new owner.
CHRISTINE AY TJOE, Lights for the Layer, 2011, oil on canvas, 180 × 200 cm. Courtesy Sotheby’s Hong Kong.
In contrast, Southeast Asian artists commanded the spotlight. Indonesian abstractionist Christine Ay Tjoe continued her market momentum with two successful sales: Lights for the Layer (2011) achieved SGD 2.94 million (USD 2.16 million), just below the high estimate of SGD 3 million (USD 2.2 million), while her Horizontal Yoyo (2008) exceeded expectations and reached SGD 576,000 (USD 424,000), above the high estimate of SGD 360,000 (USD 265,000). RONIN (1963), a bronze sculptural work by Singapore-born British artist Kim Lim, whose major retrospective is currently on view at the National Gallery Singapore, fetched SGD 168,000 (USD 124,000), setting a new record for the artist.
RADEN SYARIF BUSTAMAN SALEH, Javanese Landscape: View of Merbabu and Merapi, 1862, oil on canvas, 77 × 102 cm. Courtesy Sotheby’s Hong Kong.
The evening’s highlight came from 19th-century Indonesian Romantic painter
Raden Syarif Bustaman Saleh, whose landscape works depict the mountains and
volcanoes of Indonesia. Raden Saleh’s Javanese Landscape: View of Merbabu and
Merapi (1862) realized SGD 2.04 million (USD 1.5 million), and his Javanese
Landscape: View of Talagabodas sold for SGD 648,000 (USD 477,000), more
than double its high estimate of SGD 280,000 (USD 206,000).
Despite Singapore Art Week’s enthusiastic campaign slogan of “Art Takes
Over,” the auction results revealed mixed sentiments. With 45 of the 57
artworks finding buyers, yielding a sell-through rate of 79 percent, the total
haul of SGD 12.3 million dipped just below last year’s SGD 12.4 million (USD 9.2
million). The results have plateaued at roughly half of Sotheby’s Singapore
debut sale in 2022 when the auction house tallied up SGD 24.5 million (USD 18 million).
However, unlike January 2024, when several Southeast Asian favorites failed to
attract bidders, the evening saw renewed enthusiasm for regional artist among
local collectors. The tepid response to international heavyweights might
indicate strategic restraint from collectors, with the upcoming Art
Basel Hong Kong and major auctions in Hong Kong on the horizon for March and
April.
Louis Lu is associate editor at ArtAsiaPacific.
