“I find that talking to people is often what convinces them to buy it,” said Layla Nami, one of the numerous artists selling her wares at a recent Parkmart meet. 

Walking from Myrtle Ave to Melrose, it’s hard not to be drawn into the monthly market that has been running that street since 2021. The energy of the warehouse-turned-art meet is quintessentially Bushwick, where it feels like art explodes out of every crack in the pavement.

Nami’s work, which she sells in the form of prints and clothes, is inspired by her own father’s tales of Iranian folklore, demons she spied at the Met Cloisters and her own looming feeling of being watched. She’s been selling since 2021 and often pops by as many markets as possible.

One of the more recent ones is “Parkmart,” a self-described artist market-after party that’s regularly populated by over 60 vendors and animated by five hours of DJ sets and meets at 40 Melrose Street. Taking a lap around the market, there’s collaged photography, dainty lace chokers, zines and crocheted balaclavas. 

Unlike most art markets, which mingle artists with resellers, Parkmart is pointedly aimed at people who make their own things. No vintage.

“The thing with flea markets in New York is that most of it is a mix of vintage and art,” organizer Nico Bonacquist said recently in an interview with VICE’s i-D vertical. “But we [knew] if we only did artists it would set us apart from everything else,” he added.

Amani Starks, who draws comics, says she fell in love with the drawing as a way to channel her own artistic feelings. 

“Art on its own is often up for interpretation but comics allow for little to be misunderstood,” she said, showing me her latest, and first, edition of a zine she’s made titled “Stygian.” The zine features a collection of oil and digitally-drawn comics that followed along characters she’s created, like Pluto the Great, a green haired, devil eared assailant who is on a quest for blood. 

The zine explores Starks’ feelings about the grip of depression and the power of female rage. The comics are both a great outlet for her and the feel practical. Coming here from from Philadelphia, she needs her art to be moveable as she goes from market to market. 

This sort of “moveable art,” ranging from clothing to zines to jewelry was a common motif at every booth, seemed to be the mark of a traveling artist. 

Follow Parkmart on Instagram to find dates of future art meets.

Images taken by Molly Healy for Bushwick Daily.

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The View From is excerpted from The Asia Pivot, Artnet Pro’s biweekly members-only newsletter providing mission-critical analysis, insights, and exclusive intelligence on developments in Asia’s art markets, with a focus on business opportunities and challenges. Subscribe here to receive it directly to your inbox. 

Having some 20 telephones ringing to bid on an ultra-contemporary work was not unusual at auctions in Asia a year or two ago. There was heated demand that resulted in off-the-chart prices. The art industry’s swift adaptation of digital initiatives during Covid opened new doors to art collecting, making it more accessible and enticing to newcomers. The enthusiasm was unparalleled.

This is no longer the case. Now that Asia has returned to some degree of normalcy after stringent Covid quarantine and travel restrictions were lifted after nearly three years, much later than that in the west, people are traveling again—profusely. What Asian “revenge tourism” means for the art market is that collectors are distracted. Whereas buying art became a primary pastime during Covid, it has reverted to being just one of many.

Also, people who took on a lot of leverage in the last few years are now keen to repay their loans as soon as possible as interest rates continue to spike. High interest rates have certainly had a significant psychological impact. When interest rates were low, cash was almost free and people were less likely to keep money in the bank. But now, you can get a high return from, say, a timed deposit. So when it comes to buying art, the sense of urgency is greatly reduced, unless it’s a specific piece you’ve wanted for some time. This shift has resulted in a mismatch between the expectations of sellers and buyers.

The overall pace has slowed down, for primary galleries, secondary dealers, and particularly young emerging galleries whose shows sold out instantly during Covid.

In my opinion this is a healthy phenomenon. For a good while, there was a huge amount of speculative money being poured into the market. But the frenzy is over. A cautious, leveled approach to art buying and collecting is now in place. Collectors are questioning—rightfully so—the value of certain kinds of art, and are a lot more selective. It was not healthy for freshly painted works from within the last five years to sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’ve never met a single artist who has been excited or happy about seeing their work selling for such high prices at auctions when they are as young as in their 20s or early 30s. So the correction in this particular segment is reassuring in terms of the long-term health of the art market.

This is actually a global phenomenon, not Asia-specific, but we feel it more acutely in light of the Asia market’s accelerated expansion over the past few years. And indeed, despite the market slowdown, Asia’s place as a key player in the global market remains evident, especially at the top end. For instance, Klimt’s last painting, Lady with a Fan, which set a European record at Sotheby’s in London, was sold to an Asian collector. The results of the sale of the collection from Long Museum’s founders earlier were the talk of town—globally—also demonstrating Asia’s influence within international-market dynamics.

– As told to Vivienne Chow, originally published in The Asia Pivot on October 18, 2023.

Yuki Terase is a founding partner of art advisory firm Art Intelligence Global (AIG). In addition to offering bespoke advisory service to private clients, AIG also stages exhibitions around the world. This year it staged “Voice of a Generation: Works from the Collezione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo,” curated by Eugenio Re Rebaudengo, at its Hong Kong space. It also opened “A Force of Colour,” a solo exhibition of Seoul-born, New York-based, 1992-born artist S.H. Kim at Tiger Gallery at Onitsuka Tiger’s Regent Street shop in London during Frieze week.

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Rather than capture a single moment, Jason Chen (previously) weaves together photographs taken just seconds apart, creating disjointed portraits that convey movement and the passage of time. The Philadelphia-based artist often splices snapshots of the same setting and subject with slight differences in the tilt of the head, gesture, or gaze. Laced into a grid or hypnotizing circle like a photographic tapestry, the resulting images are uncanny and disorienting, nodding to fragmented identities and skewed perceptions of the self and others.

In a note to Colossal, Chen shares that the process and outcome of each piece depend on the subject. “When I work with professionals, the initial photoshoots tend to be an exploration of movement whereas with my close friends, there is often an exploration of more subtle emotion in the process. Sometimes I’m most excited about the pieces that end up only having a subtle shift,” he says.

While Chen sometimes plans portraits, the weaving process is entirely intuitive. He often narrows his materials to two images, although he’s currently experimenting with adding more to the mix. “Unlike the initial act of photographing, the photoweaving process involves a lot of unknowns. I usually like to dive in without preplanning the effect the weaving is going to have on the two photos, and sometimes this leads to weavings that don’t quite work out, but it makes it that much more exciting when they do.”

Find more of Chen’s recent works at Paradigm Gallery + Studio in Philadelphia.

“Familiar”

“He Stayed”

“La Éimi II”

“Like Nobody’s Watching”

Detail of “Coming to an End”

“La Éimi III”

“Disguised Confidence”

Detail of “Disguised Confidence”

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Uncanny Woven Portraits by Jason Chen Splice Two Moments in Time appeared first on Colossal.

In Animals from the streets, photographer Ashraful Arefin takes a moment to greet the furry creatures that join the hustle and bustle of the city. Taken during the last few years in cities like Kolkata, Delhi, Jaisalmer, Kathmandu, Dubai, and Dhaka, where Arefin is based, the portraits are dreamlike and neighborly, glimpsing the mundane goings on of cats, rhesus monkeys, and cows sunbathing or lumbering through small thoroughfares. Arefin takes a friendly approach to documenting his subjects, framing them like any other passerby wandering through the streets.

View the entire series on Behance, and follow Arefin on Instagram to keep up with his latest projects.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article In a Neighborly Portrait Series, Ashraful Arefin Turns His Gaze Toward Four-Legged Passersby appeared first on Colossal.

The Gist

• Emotions in marketing. Emotional elements in marketing resonate deeply with consumers.
• Emotions in marketing strategy. Emotion-driven anticipation in marketing can boost engagement.
• Looking back. Nostalgia as a powerful tool in emotional marketing strategies.

The holidays are here, so let’s take a trip down my own personal memory lane and take a look at emotions in marketing.

One of the most exciting times of my life was when I was 9 years old.

It was 1996, and I had just turned 9. This era of my life was primarily spent outside, playing and kicking up dirt. We didn’t have smart phones and TikTok in the 90s, we just had plain ol’ sunshine and summer nights.

The allure of spending the day outdoors, coupled with the mystery of what it might bring, struck me each weekend morning with an intoxicating effect, like the scent of freshly brewed coffee under my nose.

One day my father and I were out for a drive, and we drove past a local outdoor vehicle dealership that had go-karts out front. As we passed, eyes and gaze locked, I knew this go-kart was meant for me. A few days later my father asked as fathers do, “What do you want for Christmas this year?” I barley let him finish his question before I replied, forthrightness and gumption oozing out of my mouth: “I want a 50cc, gas powered go-kart with a roll cage, bucketed seats and knobby dirt tires!”

Immediately he could sense I had been thinking of this every second of every day. My Red Ryder BB gun moment was hard to not smile over — short of my father saying, “you’ll shoot your eye out,” he grinned and said, “Well, that’s quite a Christmas gift — I guess we will have to wait and see…”

This go-kart obsession heightened as Christmas was in sight. There’s nothing more exciting than being a kid, asking your parents for something crazy for Christmas — and the palatable yearning to see if it would be under the tree when you wake up on that most special morning.

As it happens each year, Christmas morning came. I awoke from by slumber, popped out of bed and ran into the living room. I don’t know why, but I actually thought there would be a massive gas powered go-kart under the tree — and to my unfortunate surprise, there wasn’t.

I opened my presents and proceeded on, attempting to purge the disappointment out of my consciousness — but right as I finished, my father said, “So, did you get everything you wanted?” I paused momentarily and said, “Yeah, I did.” He then smiled knowingly and said, “Well good, before you play with your toys — I need your help for a second out back.”

With disappointment planted all over my face, I agreed and walked with him to his tool shed. As we approached he said, “Here, it’s time you learn how to use the padlock and open the shed.” I followed his instructions and unlocked the door — grabbed both sides and flung the doors open and as I did, I could not believe my eyes — there parked in the shed — A 50cc, GAS POWERED GO KART WITH A ROLL CAGE, BUCKETED SEATS AND KNOBBY DIRT TIRES!

This story is always special to me, and I think of it often around the holiday season as we typically do when nostalgic memories are tied to special holidays like Christmas — but this story holds a deeper meaning that applies to the world of digital commerce and the anticipatory nature of buying online.

Here’s why. The same feeling and emotions I had around anticipating this gift occurs on a daily basis when we as consumers shop through digitally enabled commerce experiences. After we place our order, we wait — anxious with anticipation for updates around simple things like the label being printed, the order being shipped and it being on a truck for delivery. For consumers, this is our own adult version of Christmas morning.

Though mostly subconscious, brands have a unique opportunity to help consumers feel these emotions. If done correctly, the brand can evoke the inner child of all of us in a way that inspire lifetime value and affinity.

Here are three ways brands should leverage the art of anticipation:

1. Emotions in Marketing: Product Placement

Like the example of me driving past the go-kart store, brands need to enable and embrace placement of their products in a way that inspires excitement. Every product means something different to each consumer. The idea is to understand these differences and curate content, media and placement that’s in the channel that your customer is most active on. Anticipation can’t be built without awareness and knowledge of what makes your product so special to the consumers that desire it.

Related Article: The Emotional Drivers of Customer Experience

2. Emotions in Marketing: Emotion-Driven Anticipation

Part two of this formula requires all the mechanics to inspire anticipation amongst your consumer. After an order is placed, it’s critical to leverage messaging and content that reminds the consumer about what led to their conscious decision to purchase in the first place.

Let’s say you’re a retailer that sells skis — if a consumer orders these through your digital store front, you could look at sending them emails and content with messaging like “It’s almost time to ride!” or “Your ski adventure starts tomorrow — be on the lookout for your delivery.” These small, but important, moments and messages evoke anticipation and excitement with your consumers which allows them to fully embrace and attach their emotions to your brand.

Related Article: The Importance of Positive Emotional Connections With Customers

3. Emotions in Marketing: Walking Down Memory Lane

The final step requires your brand to walk your customer down memory lane from time to time. Sure, you may not be ready to buy skis again anytime soon, but the feeling, the emotion, the anticipation you felt when you first purchased can be repurposed into other cross sell items like ski goggles, boots or even content showing the skis you purchased being used by a professional. Walking your customer down memory lane reminds them why they made the conscious decision to buy from you — and allows your brand opportunities to continue to dialogue and converse.

Ultimately, this should lead to increased brand affinity, loyalty and the likelihood that your customer will come back and buy again, and again.

Creating a customer for life isn’t done through promotional activities or pricing strategies. It’s done by activating and evoking emotions in marketing. A loyal customer yearns for interaction, connection and engagement with your brand and your products. They want to feel the anticipation they felt as a kid when they told their parents what they wanted for Christmas — if you’re able to replicate this emotion through curated buying experiences, you’ll be well on your way to creating customers for life.

So go ahead, what are you waiting for? I dare you, in fact — I triple-dog-dare-ya!

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Austin-based gallery Sebastian Foster continues its 2023 Fall Print Set, marking the 11th anniversary of the collection since it launched in 2012. The new release features 30 works by well-established illustrators, printmakers, and painters from across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, and Europe. Half of the artists have worked with the gallery for years, while the other half are guests who joined just for this collection.

This set features 30 works all published as relatively small editions, hand-signed and numbered by the artists. Encompassing an eclectic array of mediums and themes, the collection showcases work from artists previously featured on Colossal, including Jeremy Miranda’s vibrant oil paintings, Jay Ryan’s playful illustrations, and Mia Bergeron’s dreamy dualism.

Now online-only, Sebastian Foster focuses on original works and prints, publishing over 1,000 editions since opening in the late 2000s. Whether you’re looking for the next piece to add to your collection or for meaningful holiday gifts, head to the gallery’s site to shop the Fall Print Set today.

Graham Franciose

Grant Haffner

Left: Caroline Ji. Right: Hiroki Kawanabe

Heather Sundquist Hall

Jeremy Miranda

Kevin Yaun

Michelle Morin

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Sebastian Foster Announces 30 Artists for Their Eclectic Fall Print Set appeared first on Colossal.

“All these hint at a great potential, and the local audience are studious and well-mannered,” says Sophia Wang of Beijing’s Pifo Gallery, who brought work by eight artists to sell at the fair, the prices for which ranged from 40,000 yuan (US$5,600) to 900,000 yuan.

This was not the first Moordn Art Fair. It was first staged online in 2022, when Covid-19 pandemic social-distancing precautions were still in effect.

Moordn is a four-year-old art-industry consulting and marketing business whose quirky spelling comes from its Chinese name – a pun on the words for magic lantern and modern, which are homophones in Mandarin.

The company’s founder Tim Lee, a graduate of the Academy of Art in Guangzhou, set up a collectors’ club in collaboration with high-end lifestyle brand K11 in Guangzhou in 2020, followed by an art space in the nearby city of Foshan in 2022.

Lee says the art fair is his latest venture to engage with the thriving art scene in China’s Greater Bay Area, which comprises nine cities in southern China plus Hong Kong and Macau.

But does the Greater Bay Area need another art fair?

Guangzhou itself isn’t without art fairs, but their impact remains limited.

The Guangzhou International Art Fair focuses primarily on traditional Lingnan-style ink paintings, while the fourth staging of the Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair was reduced to just 10 exhibitors this year, compared to over 30 galleries before.

Lee says the time is ripe for an art fair that caters to local collectors’ tastes, and that his experience in organising gallery and artist studio visits for members of his collectors’ club gives Moordn Art Fair a competitive edge.

First solo exhibition in Hong Kong of ‘rainbow artist’ Ay-O’s work

Forty-five galleries took part in the fair, which ended on December 11. They ranged from established names like Tang Contemporary Art and Galerie Urs Meile to emerging galleries from beyond the major art hubs of Beijing and Shanghai.

The works exhibited by the galleries were largely at the affordable end of the spectrum, with prices starting from thousands of yuan. Arario Gallery and Tang Contemporary were exceptions, both offering works in the 1 million to 6 million yuan range.

Kenna Xu’s eponymous art gallery attended the fair with works by artists from America, Africa and elsewhere at prices ranging from 45,000 yuan to 800,000 yuan. The Shenzhen gallerist says he was drawn to the high quality of the fair and the potential of Guangzhou.

“There is not only young but also old money here [compared to Shenzhen],” he says.

Despite the potential of Guangzhou’s art market it remains small, a fact which limited the success of the fair.

Representatives of many of the galleries the Post spoke to, including Arario, Tokyo Gallery + BTAP and Tang Contemporary, said they had not closed any deals at the time of writing.

Christie’s Hong Kong auctions see strong demand for Asian masterpieces

Galerie Urs Meile sold an abstract painting by Zhang Xuerui for 300,000 yuan, as well as a few other paintings. The gallery said it sold to existing clients rather than new ones at the fair.

So will galleries come back next year?

“We believe that the art market in Guangdong will develop rapidly and therefore we are willing to come back with works more attuned to the local taste,” said Zhang Yong, the director of Arario Gallery in Shanghai.

But others are not so sure.

“We will focus on fairs outside Guangdong,” said Aaron Chen, the owner of ATTN Gallery, a Guangzhou gallery with a second space in Guizhou province, southwest China. There simply wasn’t any “home advantage” that warranted his gallery’s return, he said.

Rembrandt proved the success story of the Old Masters season in London, though not, as expected, for his rediscovered “Adoration of the Kings” (c1628); that sold for below its £10mn-£15mn estimate with just one bid at £9.5mn (£11mn with fees) at Sotheby’s on December 6. While still the highest price of the season, demand for Rembrandt was more marked for Christie’s dedicated sale of 69 prints, from the collection of the mail-order businessman and broad-ranging collector Sam Josefowitz.

These all sold on December 7 for a total £6.3mn (£7.9mn with fees, est £3.1mn-£4.7mn), with bidding online coming from as far afield as China and Australia, as well as in the saleroom and over the phone. Top lot of the sale — and the last conducted by Christie’s star auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen — was St Jerome (c1653), which sold for £1.25mn (£1.6mn with fees, est £500,000-£700,000).

Josefowitz, who died in 2015, was introduced to Rembrandt’s engravings by a chance meeting on a flight with the American art dealer Ira Gale in 1969. His provenance, associated with scholarly quality, helped keep prices for the prints high, though an “Ecce Homo” from 1655, with the highest estimate put on the Josefowitz Rembrandts (£1mn-£1.5mn), failed to sell earlier in the day. A print from the same etching state at Sotheby’s sold from the estate of the Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos for £400,000 (£508,000 with fees).

Overall, Sotheby’s mixed-owner evening sale came in just under its low estimate at £16.2mn (£19.4mn with fees) while Christie’s nudged within estimates at £17.9mn (£21.9mn with fees).

There are only 25 recorded Pop period (1962-66) paintings by Pauline Boty, who encapsulated London’s Swinging Sixties with her blonde bob, black eyeliner and colourful, politically attuned art — and five of them are in a show at Gazelli Art House (until February 24). These include her 1962 work of the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, which sold at Sotheby’s last year for an artist record of £1.2mn. While this is not back on the market, says the gallery’s George Lionel Barker, archival photographs of Boty taken by Michael Ward and also on show are £3,000.

Boty died in 1966 aged only 28, of a tumour for which she refused chemotherapy as she was pregnant, and much of the work to bring her back into the limelight has been done by her sister-in-law, Bridget Boty, and the curator and art historian Sue Tate. Both are among the talking heads in a documentary about the artist, due to be screened at the gallery next year. The film’s writer and co-producer, Vinny Rawding, says that while there is much hardship associated with Boty — her widower and daughter both also died in tragic circumstances — his film is “a celebration of her life, bringing her back in the conversation as a Pop pioneer, standing shoulder to shoulder with [David] Hockney and [Peter] Blake”.

Greece’s Eurobank Asset Management has bought a minority stake in Mintus, a platform that fractionalises art for private individuals which launched last year. “It is a real confidence boost for us and for the art market, this was not done on a whim,” says Ben Clark, who became president of Mintus this year. The level of investment from Eurobank, which manages €5bn of assets, has not been disclosed.

Mintus was founded by Tamer Ozmen, previously a senior executive at Microsoft; investors buy into the regulated funds with a minimum $3,000, enabling private wealth banks “to offer a diversification play to their high-net-worth clients”, Clark says. Mintus launched with paintings by Andy Warhol and George Condo, initially valued at £3.8mn and £2.1mn respectively.

The art market has softened this year, particularly at the higher end. Clark says that this is likely to have an impact on the works they offer, which will be at more “accessible” values. (There are no updated valuations for the already purchased works.) The Eurobank investment enables Mintus to be “more active” in the art market next year, while its strategy could include other alternative assets, Clark says. Investment in these is expected nearly to double to $24.5tn by 2028, according to a recent report by industry data provider Preqin.

There’s never a dull moment at the Cromwell Place gallery hub these days. Having appointed curator and Turner Prize judge Helen Nisbet as its first chief executive and artistic director in August, and having recently announced an £2mn revamp of its buildings, the latest news is that chief operating officer Kathryn Waring and chief business development officer Elizabeth Dellert are leaving at the end of this year.

“We are going through a transformation and had to reassess the scale of our senior team,” Nisbet says. She promises more details of the new-look Cromwell Place early next year, saying that this “will include a curated programme that supports experimental art and more focused national and international partnerships, alongside the commercial galleries, who are very much a part of this”.

For anyone looking for a last-minute Christmas present that benefits a charitable cause, South London Gallery has a set of five prints by some of today’s most in-demand artists for £12,000 (edition of 45). All proceeds for the signed works — by Alvaro Barrington, Rashid Johnson, Gabriel Orozco, Christina Quarles and Haegue Yang — will go to the institution, which, like many, has been looking for new ways to raise money as public funding cuts loom. The price might be a little higher than for the average gift but, notes art adviser and SLG patron Janna Lang, the Johnson print alone (“Seascape”, 2021) can retail at £50,000 — so, for once, everyone could be a winner.

The Art Market column is taking a seasonal break and will be back in January

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