Southeast Asia Art on the rise

This is what I read in the Sunday times yesterday. According to Ms Tang Wen Li, the Singapore representative for auction house Christie’ s, the view that art can be a good investment, like equity and fixed income issues, has become popular in recent years.

It was mentioned that in the long run, returns from art are comparable to those from stocks and bonds. The art market is very weakly correlated witht the equilies market, making art useful and valuable if you wish for portfolio diversification.

It was also reported that experts claimed that South east Asian art is fast becoming ‘ the next big thing’, because of the growing interest in modern and contemporary art from this region. (Singapore art included?)

In a Singapore auction in April, Indonesian artist 1 Nyonman Masriadi’ s Me and My Coke sold for $240000 which is more than 5 times its estimated price!!!! That ’s a lot if you ask me. Well, it just goes to tell you that keeping artwork especially those from Southeast Asia might be the way to go.