It Takes A Village… (July 2024)

The year was 2010.

In an auction house’s marketing communication emails to clients (actually to all and sundry on their mailing list), one sometimes finds interesting tidbits on aspects of the art market. More often than not, I would delete these emails without reading any articles using the active links. On this occasion, there was an article on new collectors making waves, snapping up Monets and Picassos. And they did take care to specify this was neither a younger member from a collecting dynasty nor a long time collector moving from one genre to a bigger ticket centre-court genre. They were getting a big fish diving head on into the most conspicuous, if not the largest-ticket space. Bizarre, I thought. I remember it was a rather brief write up to convince readers this was a hot area and totally “doable” for rookies new to this hobby. It sounded so counterintuitive. I had to scroll back to the top and re-read slowly. It was the head of the relevant department at this auction house supposedly writing about his subject matter expertise, not an anti establishment teenager writing for a school underground newspaper to drum up support for a rebellion (which I must say sometimes offers infinitely better logic and literary flair.) I mentally wrote it off as supreme MarCom garbage from the auction house, or worse still, plain money laundering. Auction houses had attracted money launderers since time immemorial so I concluded that new collectors were not entering this space as suggested by this expert.  

***

My interest in art goes way back. And in college, I majored in art history. I noticed that as a breed, art history professors tended to shield students from the commercial aspects of the art world. And for good reason. Value and cost are entirely different concepts and they aren’t necessarily a function of each other. On the rare occasions my professor Jaroslaw Leshko pointed out the price tags on Impressionist paintings, he would add that hammer prices at auctions were getting out of hand. These were the observations of someone who studied and taught this particular genre for decades. 

One of the Eskenazis wrote a column in the FT on collecting in the early 2000s. He talked about how collecting was about studying works in phases and shared the various phases of his collecting journey; from his beloved holey rocks (rocks with holes - they grew moss and were disgusting) which his mother purged while he was away at boarding school; to English furniture he and his wife collected together and other subsequent interests. What struck me most was his candour about resources. No one has a bottomless trust fund so the best collectors would / should build a collection and study / learn from it in the process and disperse it to start fresh in another genre / area. No doubt not all collectors would agree on dispersion; because most ardent collectors have Stockholm Syndrome! But he makes a poignant observation about this fascinating human activity - the economics of collecting. His is one of the most revered dealer / collector families; and even with his ample financial, social and cultural capital, he has to make the most of what he considered limited resources.  

I came across (in an auction catalogue) a piece about a major collector’s collecting career and told of how a dealer had shown him and his wife a painting. They fell in love with it right there and then; but had to walk away as he considered it too expensive. The next day, he realised he couldn’t live without it but as fate would have it, found out that the painting had already been sold. While he was sleeping (or rather not sleeping at all well) on it, someone had written a cheque. The painting later appeared, accompanied by a message from his wife. His memory and description of that episode evoked an amount of emotion far surpassing wealthy people accumulating stuff - he painted a story of finding eternal love and of a devoted wife who knew what he needed before he even realised it. She couldn’t bear to see him moping all day. He told of the weight of the decision; the delight of beholding great beauty; the hesitation of writing a cheque; the reluctance of taking on a financial burden; the sadness of passing up a rare gem; the regret of loss and the joy of being reunited with his one true love. He and his wife both came from American banking dynasties and had developed the collecting hobby courtesy of their families’ vast resources. Even then, paying for big ticket trophies was difficult and stressful; financially, spiritually and emotionally.  

A friend and I once heard a renowned Taiwanese collector talk about his lifelong passion in collecting Chinese art, and the partnership he forged with auction houses. He was the archetypal connoisseur collector - a hard working businessman who cultivated a hobby that blossomed and curated a collection that eventually replaced the listed company as his personal identity. He spoke of parting with pieces in his collection, of how sometimes he would sell items to raise cash for another he desperately wanted; and of how he sometimes bought back items he had sold long ago at much higher prices just because he realised how much he had missed them. He only answered to his heart, not the P&L a dealer-collector might feel compelled to justify. He had no money tree, so sometimes he would have to make these decisions; knowing he could potentially buy back his treasures alleviated the pain. He also spoke of “traditional” collectors who were obsessed with their privacy and of anonymity. He himself was less concerned and had a practical philosophy about it: he sometimes felt compelled to part with some of his treasures to raise money for victims of natural disasters in the Greater China region; putting his name on the collection gave the pieces the best provenance for fetching higher prices. And there was no reason to think bad things would happen to a man who put his name out there for helping those in need. Couple of days later, my friend and I met up for coffee. As we walked into an unassuming joint raving about the authentic and heart-warming stories we heard just days earlier, we were shown the only empty table. So we sat ourselves down, still chirping away excitedly, and noticed the lone diner at the next table. He looked just like the Taiwanese collector who so impressed us 2 days ago. We both stared and he looked up. The universe had heard us - we clearly hadn’t heard enough so the universe decided to plonk the man right in front of us. Naturally we started chatting with him and to my profound dismay, a huge plate soon arrived on his table. What a bummer we had to cut short our private session - and how inconsiderate of his lunch to arrive just after we sat down! My friend and I whispered in Cantonese, wondering if we could snatch 10 minutes when he was ready to dismiss his lunch.  It was not to be. He ate rather quickly; asked for the bill and said he was catching a flight out. We lamented our rotten luck. Anti-climax of the year. My friend remarked how odd it was that the auction house did not entertain a client who just did them a huge favour. Surely even a veteran expert would benefit from the insight of a seasoned collector? I said I expected they must have offered to host him but collectors might decline - (1) they got better things to do with their time (2) many collectors are introverts, they might not want to socialise (3) collectors might just want to relax over unremarkable food while young and impressionable girls try to get them to talk about their collections. 

Collectors are careful about how they spend on their collections. By extension they are also careful about how they spend on everything else - as money spent elsewhere could have boosted their collections. And that image of the Taiwanese collector sitting down to lunch at an unlikely joint, alone, at a rather unusual hour, after pulling an advertising stunt for a major auction house, stayed with me all these years. Collectors are frugal about their time: careful about how they spend it and with whom. Time is the most egalitarian asset of all; unless you own a Time-Turner, the gadget that got Hermione into 2 classes at the same time. Those who fork out big money on serious art aren’t falling for free corporate hospitality.  

***

That summer, a friend from a South East Asian country (SEA) was getting ready for grad school in Massachusetts and I jokingly said he might want to hang with hard-core partying Koreans given there were so few students from SEA. While we were bantering, I googled “most famous SEA person in the US.” I had expected a shortish list of business people, artists, and possibly designers or researchers. Instead, all the search results from the first few pages came back with a young dude, Fatty, picking up Monets and Picassos at record prices and partying with A-list celebrities. It rang a bell. I searched my email inbox for the auction house MarCom garbage, the email I had received a few months before was still there but the article in the link had been changed; so I couldn’t check if Fatty was named in the article.  

***

SEA boasts some serious business conglomerates: huge families with generations of hard working people who devoted their lives building up world class commercial empires. These were not miracles, far from it; these sprawling company groups were forged over many decades. The younger members of these families tend to be low-key, serious and diligent; unless they have given up the hope of climbing the family business corporate ladder. No one wants to be written off as unfit-to-lead. Making headlines as a Big Spender rather than a Savvy Businessman is not going to make you a promising candidate for that CEO job your siblings / cousins also covet. 

And the celebrities in entourage? It’s not even a Hong Kong or SEA thing, Asian families everywhere would frown. I’m not judgemental but I would be lying if I told you Asian families didn’t consider it a distraction, rather than a distinction. Asians tend not to consider acting a respectable career so young people from nice families rarely become “celebrities.” British actors and actresses, in contrast, have a long tradition of putting on serious drama projects and / or reading English at Oxbridge before heading to the stage. Over time, the theatre has attracted plenty of well-educated people and reinforced the image. Asia has no vibrant theatre scene. We leap-frogged into movies and TV. The option of stopping and restarting every time an actor forgets his lines apparently makes it less prestigious! Having an entourage is not perceived to be what a CEO apprentice needs, much less celebrities in the entourage. 

***

I urged my friend to investigate Fatty. I told him SEA people collecting Monets and Picassos, even for and on behalf of their families, was unrealistic. SEA business people are down to earth and practical. Besides, there was just not enough idle cash for that kind of shopping spree. After all they were not in the same league as Hong Kong collectors. 

The second I said that, I realised it sounded racist. Well, it wasn’t the opinion of a racist, it was merely observations of a perceptive private banker. Hong Kong has produced some serious collectors. Hong Kong’s economic engine accelerated each and every time we had a crisis, and we had more than our fair share of them. Hong Kong collectors were either old money who benefitted from the insane real estate booms time and again and/or corporate raiders who added easy money to their “safety net” family businesses. SEA had neither the real estate (and real economy) boom nor the financial markets liquidity and depth to create deep pockets for art enthusiasts. 

And Fatty had no source of wealth to speak of. The journalistic style generally covers people’s background. I remembered how The Times would refer to Mrs Thatcher as “The Prime Minister Mrs. Thatcher” while tabloids would save ink with just “Maggie”. If Mrs. Thatcher needed the introduction, surely a fascinating foreigner making a splash and showering money would justify some ink? Yet there was no mention of Fatty’s claim to fame. No “Fatty the heir of xxx the family business back in SEA”; no “Fatty the founder of xxx in SEA”; no “Fatty of xxx art gallery / bank art collection”. He was not related to any CEO; not employed by any company; not responsible for any glamourous deal. He was just reportedly associated with (but not working at!) a sovereign wealth fund and occasionally seen hanging out with some investment bankers (while not working there). My friend had worked at another, the legit, SEA sovereign wealth fund but he had never heard of Fatty, or the sovereign fund Fatty was supposedly representing. We googled a bit more and found out Fatty had an investment company with an office in Hong Kong but no deal to put him on the world map of high finance. The banking and finance world had by then adopted the Silicone Valley way of laying claim to another’s success through association. If any company was remotely successful, the people who had a part to play in their early days would all jump out and monetise their reflected glory. Not only were private equity funds relying on such targeted marketing ploys; even the real estate sector was bragging about being the landlord of startups literally when they started to rent space. Not being associated with anything fishy didn’t make Fatty unfishy - it just meant he covered his tracks well or had no tracks to cover. I urged my friend to investigate fishy Fatty but in vain…

***

In a harrowing documentary on the Catholic Church harbouring child molesters, the most heart-rending observation was this: it takes a village to raise a child; and it takes a village to abuse a child. For every wicked perpetrator of abuse, there were dozens of onlookers willing to turn a blind eye - and willing to acquiesce the appalling crimes. Had they made an effort to talk to the children and the parents; had they mustered up enough courage to call out the unspeakable conduct; had they intervened; they would have prevented many tragedies. 

When Fatty’s colourful story eventually began to unfold, it made James Bond movies look shabby as if they were shot on a shoestring budget. I learned something new: it takes a global village to raise a world class money launderer. Fatty had too much money to spend in any one country! While common criminals are a dime a dozen, the kind that fires your imagination are few and far between. What they have in common is their glamour; their sparkle that dazzles you for a brief moment; their proximity to power and their absurdity. Yes, absurdity. I lost count of the number of times I read about it in the news and laughed out loud. I never understood why (honest) people even gave him time of day. I can appreciate that most people just wanted to keep their head down and mind their own businesses. My guess is all the people who had direct contact with him (auction house specialists, bankers, entertainment people, and to a lesser extent luxury retail sales associates) realised that he was up to no good (if not aware of the precise nature of what he was doing). They all made the conscious decision to take advantage of the precious opportunity to make some easy money in their own respective professional context. It was “Go Big or Go Home.” And most of these professionals were not his countrymen; it wasn’t their tax dollars that paid for champagne for the whole of Hollywood. And times like these were feast or famine for the aforementioned professionals. While some made the most of the boom, those who didn’t (either because they were not “privileged” enough to benefit from exceptional business or they smelled something funky and avoided it like the plague) struggled. They probably never realised what drove the income inequality within their sector. 

***

Now scroll back to the beginning of this article; and go google the year this scandal was thrusted on the world…