Art: "Why Do Asian Collectors Buy Impressionists? Because You Can Sell Them When You Have To"

From Art Market Monitor:

The New York Times profiles the founder of Jakarta’s Museum Macan which is built upon Haryanto Adikoesoemo’s personal collection but with the state of the art facilities that will allow it to borrow from any museum in the world. Adikoesoemo typifies the new collectors emerging in Asia in that his tastes and interest in art are not bound by his national culture or regional identity.

Adikoesoemo collects Kusama and Koons, Basquiat and Affandi but his first encounter with buying art was more oriented toward European masters which turned out to be a very sound way to store some of the value generated by his family chemicals business.

During the 1997 Asian currency crisis, Indonesia was hit very hard. Adikoesoemo had levered up the family business to expand leaving them exposed to a downturn.

“I needed money, so I had to sell all of my Impressionists,” he said with a smile. “The crisis was very tough.” […]

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