Start-ups a boost to local art

Two home-grown platforms are making it easier to buy and sell Singapore works

- Clement Yong

One of the main complaints of Singapore's art market is that there are too few transactions. Works, once bought by private individuals, rarely change hands.

In the past two years, two ground-up Singapore platforms have been created to fix this, aiming to make reselling and buying art easier, less intimidating and more fun.

The earlier mover is Art Again, co-founded by lawyer Milon Goh and art broker and gallerist Chingyi Chua. They noticed their start-up gaining traction almost immediately after it launched on Instagram in 2023.

The first sales were unsigned, undated pieces in the style of Chinese farmer folk art, Mr Goh recalls. Therein lay a lesson: Any artwork can find a home if it is placed before the right viewers.

Recently marking their two-year anniversary with Pasar — a curated display of works by Singaporean artists like Lin Hsin Hsin and Teng Nee Cheong in an industrial unit in Tannery Lane, loosely connected to the theme of the market — Art Again today lists nearly 800 artworks on its website, with excess in reserve.

The beauty is the ease with which transactions can be made, without sellers having to ship works to a third location for official auctions, as is the norm for larger houses like Christie's and Sotheby's. Instead, it operates much like online marketplace Carousell. Sellers keep their listed works until there is interest and negotiations begin.

Upon transaction, Art Again tries to be a one-stop shop for conservation, transport and installation. Its fee is tiered according to the price of the work.

Sellers pay a 20 per cent fee on works priced below $10,000, 18 per cent on those between $10,000 and $30,000 and 15 per cent for anything above $30,000.