Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.
It may not command the same international spotlight as Art Basel Paris, but the second edition of Taipei Art Week is drawing a big crowd of art enthusiasts. Anchored by Art Taipei—Asia’s longest-running art fair, which opened its VIP preview Thursday—and the 14th Taipei Biennale, the city has once again become a hub for regional art activity this fall.
“Last year, galleries weren’t sure how to align their programs with the art week,” Claudia Chen, chairwoman of the Taiwan Art Gallery Association (TAGA), which organizes Art Taipei, told ARTnews. “But this year, everyone knows this is the moment to pull out their best shows for greater exposure.”
The result, Chen added, is a noticeable leap in both the quality and ambition of exhibitions across the city, accompanied by a fuller calendar of pop-up shows, talks, and collectors’ parties.
A vibrant art scene, the growing international profile of a new generation of Taiwanese artists, and a blend of diverse culture with modern appeal have made Taipei attractive to both collectors and gallerists across the region.
Yurika Shiraishi, director of the Tokyo gallery Scai the Bathhouse, who now lives in Taiwan, told ARTnews she finds local collectors “warm and genuinely engaged,” adding that Taiwan’s historical and cultural ties with Japan have fostered a strong appreciation for Japanese aesthetics.
She noted that the mix of public institutions and private collections on the island has helped Scai diversify its activities amid a challenging global market. This year, the gallery is staging two pop-up shows of Tatsuo Miyajima, one at Tao Space, a private space run by young collector Vicky Chen, and another at the Asia University Museum of Modern Art in Taichung, to coincide with the fair.
However, despite all the buzz, Taiwan’s art market has been on a roller coaster this year—and the numbers tell a harsh story.
According to a report from the Ministry of Culture, the import of artworks (including antiquities) fell by 15.2 percent in 2024 compared to the previous year.
The auction market has taken a hit. Sales at the spring auction of modern and contemporary art held by Ravenel, Taiwan’s leading auction house, dropped from roughly $14.6 million in 2020 to $3.6 million in 2025.
“Its secondary market had a peak during the pandemic, but now it’s increasingly looking inward,” Xiu Lee, former business director of Ravenel, told ARTnews. “While some Taiwanese collectors still chase top-tier artworks through international auction houses, local auction houses have reduced efforts in international marketing and cross-border relationship building, and they now handle fewer categories of art.”
In July, Taipei Dangdai announced it would cease operations after wrapping up its sixth edition in May.
This downturn comes at a time when geopolitical tensions between China and Taiwan are at their worst in recent decades, prompting both sides of the strait to impose travel restrictions on the other.
When that fair launched in 2019, expectations were sky-high. Steven Lee, director of Asia Art Center, which operates spaces in both Beijing and Taipei, recalled the first edition as “unprecedented.” “But because after 2019 many Chinese collectors couldn’t come,” Lee told ARTnews, “the number of blue-chip galleries participating in Dangdai gradually dwindled.”
Dangdai wasn’t the only victim of souring ties. Earlier this year, the National Palace Museum in Taipei also reported a steep decline in visitors. According to the Taiwan Times, museum director Hsiao Tsung-huang said there were only 50,000 visitors from China, Hong Kong, and Macau last year, down from 3.32 million in 2016.
Last year, Art Taipei managed to invite around 200 collectors, journalists, and curators from mainland China. This year, that number dropped to almost none, TAGA’s Chen said. Citing fears of “influence operations” from Beijing, Taiwan’s ruling party has severely limited visitors from China, even though most visitors were merely there to see the art and sightsee.
Out of the 127 participating galleries at Art Taipei this year, seven had to withdraw after failing to secure visas or resolve logistics. Many China-born curators and dealers living in Hong Kong or farther afield overseas told ARTnews that they also were unable to obtain visas, including Pi Li, head of art at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong.
An installation view of Each Modern’s space in Taipei.
Some leading local galleries also chose to sit out. “Fall is the busiest season for European art fairs, and we want to focus on the international market,” Yaji Huang, founder of Each Modern, told ARTnews, explaining why she has no immediate plans to rejoin the fair.
Galerie du Monde, based in Hong Kong, also skipped the fair despite opening a Taipei space last year. Director Kelvin Yang said the decision stemmed from limited capacity and the need to better understand local demand. “Having a space here allows us to better support the young Taiwanese artists we represent,” he told ARTnews. “But for now, we’re focused on cultivating the market rather than participating in the fair.”
While many Chinese collectors opted to skip Taipei and head to Art Basel Paris instead, TAGA has turned its attention to the rest of the region to fill the gap.
“We’ve been focusing on outreach and partnership-building efforts with our regional counterparts since last year,” said Claudia Chen.
To boost regional engagement, Chen initiated The Collector Circle, a collaboration with the gallery associations behind Kiaf in Seoul and Art Jakarta in Indonesia, through which each group brings around 20 collectors to visit one another’s fairs.
Thanks to these exchanges with Korea, Southeast Asia, and Japan, VIP registrations have grown 1.5 times compared to last year, Chen added.
Sales were steady but cautious on the fair’s opening day, with most transactions taking place at the lower end of the market. De Sarthe sold a painting by American abstract expressionist Jack Tworkov for $75,000, while Scai the Bathhouse placed three works by Kohei Nawa and Daisuke Ohba, each priced up to $50,000.
The results highlight a broader challenge for art fairs in Taipei: while a handful of big-ticket works do find buyers, the real question, as Huang noted, is whether the market can sustainably support sales in the $50,000 to $500,000 range—the level many galleries need to justify the high cost of participation.
Still, it may be too soon to write off Taiwan’s market or Art Taipei itself. Demand from both the public and private sectors continues to grow.
“Every municipal government is eager to build art museums as aesthetic landmarks, to elevate their city’s image while supporting the growing local cultural scene,” said Nichole Lai, director of the forthcoming Taichung Art Museum.
A view of the facade of the upcoming Taichung Green Museumbrary, which combines the Taichung Art Museum with a municipal library.
SANAA
Designed by Pritzker Prize–winning, Tokyo-based architectural firm SANAA, the Taichung Art Museum is slated to open later this year, becoming the second major contemporary art institution to debut in Taiwan in 2025, following the New Taipei Art Museum, which opened in May.
Lai noted that another Frank Gehry–designed museum is already planned for Taichung, while new institutions are also underway in cities like Hsinchu, Taiwan’s so-called Silicon Valley.
Claudia Chen pointed out that the rapid growth of the semiconductor industry, which has propelled Taiwan’s economy to surpass Japan’s in GDP per capita, has also given rise to a new generation of collectors. “Because our economy is tied to tech, all these new collectors have a very international perspective. That’s why almost all the blue chips have a representative in Taiwan,” she said.
That sentiment is echoed by gallerists. “Many of them genuinely want to broaden Taiwan’s cultural horizons,” said Yaji Huang. “There’s a certain idealism among this generation—they’re not just collecting, but also thinking about how to help the local art ecosystem grow.”
