Taiwan's Pierre Chen Asia's control In Global Art Market

Rich mainland Chinese investors like China’s wealthiest man, Wanda Group Chairman Wang Jianlin of Beijing, have regularly been grabbing headlines in recent years for paying top dollar at global art auctions. Wang, for instance, bought a Picasso for $28 million two years ago; Liu Yiqian paid a record $36 million for a Ming dynasty porcelain cup and then drank from it. Liu’s brashness underscores the raw spirit that has made China the world’s biggest source of new billionaires in the past decade and a big disruptor in the global art market.

Yet flashy mainlanders aren’t the only Chinese that shaking up the global art market. Taiwan and Hong Kong individuals have building up their collections a lot longer, and have plenty of money to spend, too. On the 2015 Forbes Billionaires List, for instance, Taiwan and Hong Kong were home to a combined 88 billionaires, compared with 213 for the mainland. The rich from those latter two spots helped to lift the contribution of Asia auctions to Sotheby’s worldwide sales from 5% of the auction house’s total in 2004 to about 15% last year, according to Kevin Ching, CEO of Sotheby’s Asia.

“It is wrong to assume that 2-3 collectors that are highly visible from the mainland are primarily responsible for that outstanding result,” Ching said. “There are an equivalent number of other buyers that are not visible. They are regularly active in sales. You can safely assume that you need these counterparts in Taiwan and Hong Kong have either purchases something of equivalent value or contributed to the bidding.” Greater China clients spent more than a record $1 billion on art – including paintings, jewelry and other categories — at Sotheby’s worldwide auctions last year, and, over the years, growth in their numbers has helped to boost the company’s employment in Asia to the current 217 from 83 a decade ago, Chin said.

Taiwan’s Pierre Chen is among the rich yet powerful business elite propelling Asia’s importance upward. Chen made his early money in electronics components, and his flagship Yageo today is a supplier to Apple AAPL -0.53% and boasts a market cap of $1 billion. Yet it’s a stressful business. “The electronic business for me is tough. It changes very quickly. You need to compete with Samsung and most of the leading companies in the world,” said Chen, who ranks No. 14 on the new Forbes Taiwan Rich list with an estimated fortune worth $1.9 billion.

In addition to tech, Chen found rewards in art. “When I study art, or listen to music, it cools down my spirit and my mind.” he said in a sunset interview in a guesthouse atop Yangmingshan in Taipei that overlooks a wall of mountains around Taiwan’s capital and the Keelung River running through it. Nearby, a $8 million sculpture, La Riviere by Aristed Maillol, strides an outdoor swimming pool, and inside, the living room walls bear Peter Doig’s “Road House,” Georg Baselitz’s “Igor,” Daniel Richter’s “Those Who Are Here Again,” Budi Kustarto’s “Pulling Down the Wrapped Cart,” underscore how he made ARTNews magazine’s list of the world’s 200 influential collectors twice in the past four years. In 2013, Chen was in the publication’s top 10 with fellow billionaires Francois Pinault, Alice Walton and Helene and Bernard Arnault.

Still at it this year, Chen paid $26 million in May for “Swamped” by Scottish painter Peter Doig, a work that he said made him excited. “Exciting that means I can feel what is it that the artist is trying to explain. You can cool down, then your mind calms down.” That Doig purchase – the most ever paid for one his works – didn’t come in time to join a collection of Chen-owned works that toured Japanese government museums in Tokyo, Nagoya, Hiroshima and Kyoto in the past year; one of the first exhibits of its kind by a Taiwan collector in the country.

That art will rejoin the rest of a Chen collection that is mostly kept in his six homes – in Taipei, Hong Kong and Tokyo, where he says he derives the greatest pleasure of the purchases. The way Chen sees it, art is an extension of home design. “Architecture is a kind of art, and the beauty of the house, the function of the house, and the inside the house are all a mixture of art work,” he enthused, sounding little like a man who sells capacitors for a living. “I always select artwork to hang on different space,” be it in a study, bedroom, living room or, he said, even a bathroom.” The new Doig work, he said, is for daughter Joy’s apartment.
Chen’s personal, individualistic view of collection underscores some of the big differences between mainland China’s nouveau riche, “tuhao” buyers and other Chinese. For Taiwan and Hong Kong collectors, “collecting is a private affair. It’s a passion. It’s something that you develop yourself,” Sotheby’s Ching said. Their collections developed gradually compared with the mainland, and at a time when the global media limelight wasn’t so focused on Asian collectors. Taiwanese and Hong Kong buyers don’t necessarily own a museum, whereas Liu’s theatrics help promote his Long Museum in Shanghai. Other prominent Taiwan buyers such as tech billionaire Barry Lam, chatty about electronics, turned down an interview with Forbes about his art collection.

Chen wasn’t in a position to drop millions of dollars on art when he was young. He grew up in working-class Kaohsiung, a one-time manufacturing hub that in its trade heyday boasted one of the world’s 10 busy ports. His childhood apartment, located in a part of town where buildings these days have drab concrete exteriors and barred windows, is next to the Love River, a waterway so polluted by industry that you can’t drink the local tap water.

Some eight family members packed into the family’s 80 square meter Chen home. Through the coziness, young Chen was exposed to ideas about design and art by an independent-minded grandmother that had left from a philandering husband, as well as his mother, who taught design. When Chen was young, “a gallery was just like a bookstore to me,” both opening up room for the imagination. “When I had time to go out, I would go out to two places: a book store and a gallery.”

Chen spent $375, or the equivalent of a year and a half of his savings at the time, on his first art purchase — a sculpture – during his sophomore year as an engineering student in college. “It was big money for me,” but he didn’t think of it as an investment. “I knew who was the artist, but I don’t know if he was famous, or where he came from. I didn’t care. I just loved it,” he recalled. He shared his views and interest in collecting back then with older brother Wood Chen, which who he runs Yageo today.

Profit from Yageo has helped pay for his expensive hobby. “I led the company from a very domestic company, to gradually become a regional company, and finally, a global company. I had more and more chances to go to the Western world.” Though Chen said his approach to business and collecting differ, his path in both has some similarities. As in his business, Chen started out locally before expanding his interest abroad. “My major collection was made up of local artists” early on, he said. “It was easier for me to know the people, their concept and their background.

“But,” he continued, “I’m a very curious person I like something new and something exciting. After about two years, only buying local art “wasn’t so exciting anymore.” His overseas trips on business stirred his interest in Western art. “Almost 50% of the time, I traveled to different countries in Europe or in North America. Since people don’t work on the weekends, I had time to see museums and some really super galleries. That really opened my eyes. Before, I could see collecting like the view from a small pond, and then find another pond. When we went to the Western world, we found it’s an ocean. I am not going to say I’m not going to collect Asia art any more. If something new inspires me, I’m willing to acquire again. But most of what inspires me is Western artists.”

The billionaire uses international auction houses when he buys art because he can ask a lot of questions and get answers. “If you have enough financial resource, I think the auction houses are quite a good way to get into art work,” he advised. “My logic is very simple. They have so many experts,” as well has a large number of top works. “ I get to see some of the most important artists and important artist works. When you see the best one, you are not going to want to see the second one. Once they show you the best, it’s hard to use anyone else.” Now that he has such a large collection – including works by Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, Mark Tansey, Marc Quinn, Andreas Gursky and Mark Rothko — he has full-time staff to help.

Chen isn’t ignoring the mainland, where he expects collectors to eventually follow his own odyssey in the world of art purchases. “I feel there will be a ‘hometown’ approach” that leads new investors to buy local contemporary art, before going overseas. “Contemporary is boundless” because buyers can feel excited when they purchase it
Page 1 / 3. Besides enjoying his own art at home, he enjoys having friends over to discuss collecting and the art market, too. “The passion is from the heart. It’s quite difficult to formulate it,” he said. “The better way is to invite a friend come to my house and see (the art) with your own eyes, because I believe an artwork is important with the space.” When buying art, Chen said, “One thing is important: I have to like it. I don’t care who’s the artist or where it comes from.”

Chen has more time and money than ever to pursue collecting. He stepped down as CEO at Yageo last year, and is currently just the chairman. “Before I stepped down from the CEO, I was almost involved in its operation 90% of my time. Now I’m just involved in strategy and key decisions that take up two days a week. I have more time to enjoy my collecting and travel. I’m still busy with the collecting the new,” he said. And thrill of excitement that goes with it, too.

–Follow me on Twitter @rflannerychina