Manager Update - Q3 2016

26.10.2016

The summer months were well spent dealing with a myriad of personal matters while in parallel planning for the commencement of the fall season. In between moving apartments, having my son's bar-mitzvah and hosting two resident artists from Mexico and the Philippines, I was busy making several auction consignments, planning the move of our residency program to a new location and coordinating multiple trips in September and October: Vienna for Viennafair, London for Frieze and 1-54, Gibraltar for the fund's annual board meeting, Paris for FIAC, Singapore for participation in 2 talks at the inaugural Art World Forum conference and finally Seoul for multiple reasons, but primarily to be a keynote speaker at the first international art market conference to be held there on the occasion of Seoul Gallery Week; Guangzhou, Busan and Sema Biennales and Korea International Art Fair (KIAF).

 

Serge Tiroche with Ruben Pang at Art World Forum in Singapore, October 2016

Feb 28, 2017 will be the fund's 5 year anniversary. It is an important milestone date as it is the last day the fund can accept additional investment into this collection. It is also the first time certain minority investors can request to liquidate their holdings. In preparation, we decided a few months ago to start raising liquidity in the fund. I have therefore been busy over the summer planning some auction sales primarily in the more robust parts of the market, Asia & Africa. We placed a few works at the Sotheby's HK auctions in early October with mixed results and one in the Christie's HK evening sale in November. We also placed a number of works with PIASA auction house in Paris for their 2nd African sale in November. This follows on the heels of a very successful first African auction they held in June.

On the acquisition front, we are reducing new acquisitions to a bare minimum and are principally concluding some transactions that have been in the works for some time. This quarter, we concluded the acquisitions of a Li Ming work and a Liu Shiyuan series of 8 small collages, both emerging Chinese artists. All other works added to the collection where via our artist residency program. 

For a full picture on fund stats and performance, please review the Q3 Factsheet.  

This summer we hosted 2 strong residencies for Morris and Winner Jumalon and had two final exhibitions with some new works entering the collection. The joint residency proved highly beneficial for both artists. As a result, we worked on a new joint venture for the residency that will make it even more enticing to international artists. We are pleased to have partnered with the Red House to welcome renowned photographer Mario Macilau from Mozambique and enormously talented young sculptor, Terrence Musekiwa from Zimbabwe, for a parallel residency between October and December 2016 in the heart of Tel-Aviv's upcoming Shapira neighborhood. 

 

Winner Jumalon with Philippine Ambassador Nathanial G. Imperial at his residency exhibition, September 2016

In early October, I visited Seoul and Singapore, where I spoke on a few panels. I also attended Frieze and FIAC. The talks were primarily about the innovative structure and objectives of the Tiroche DeLeon Collection, and the execution of the vision over the past 5 years. The talks were very well received by participants as well as media and we received some press coverage.

In addition, I publicly discussed ArtRunners for the first time. ArtRunners is a revolutionary online marketplace for art logistics that was born out of our own frustrations with running the logistics for the Tiroche DeLeon Collection. A few of us have been working on this initiative since early 2015 and plan to launch our shipping solution early in 2017. The ArtRunners shipping marketplace will speed up the process and enhance efficiency throughout the industry, resulting in significant cost savings for all art market participants. Pre-registration is available on the ArtRunners website and is free. 

Following the recent Jewish New Year, I wish you all a happy, healthy, prosperous and creative year ahead.