Hello, Qiao Zhibing ,hello friends of Qiao Zhibing. I'm so sorry that I can't be with you in shanghai today, it was a trip that I was especially looking forward to, but mother nature kept me from traveling, are we had a big snowstorm here and all the airplanes were stranded. So I’m talking to you, via video and I hope I can address some of the issues, that you might find interesting, about the gallery in the profession of a galleries.

I would like to talk about you Qiao Zhibing for a second, you were the very first, mainland Chinese collector that I met, I met you I want to say seven years ago, maybe even longer, at Art Basel Hong Kong where you bought a work of art from the gallery, I think the first purchase that you made with us was Adel Abdessemed

But I’m not totally sure, you've been an incredible loyal collector to the gallery, and you've been a real champion of western art, across your region, and I know you respected in china as a leader when it comes to the collecting and the presentation of art. I'm so excited that you now have your own space, to present the work and again I’m so sorry I can't be there to celebrate with you, but I promise you I’ll be in shanghai soon, and I look forward, to seeing what you have created.

I've had the great fortune of living of growing up in a place where art was all around me, my father had an art gallery in Cologne Germany that he started in 1960, and had to most of my youth my formative years. so I remember seeing, Roy Lichtenstein’s painting, Donald Judd’s sculpture, Sigmar Polka’s painting,  Georg Baselitz’s painting, right in my living room. Things would come and go, he was an art dealer so you would own and then sell, but i remember really looking at these works and how some of these words made a profound impact on me, have a wonderful child of memory, at one point my father came back from the United States and he bought, a big big group of Andy Warhol Brillo boxes, It's one of the great works of pop sculpture and this group that he brought back was probably the largest ever put together, and they were hard to sell so they were stated in our house, for many years and what happened is that was my favorite hiding place, so when we played hide and go seek, I would find my little my way behind the Brillo boxes and nobody could find me there, now if you go to the Museum Ludwig, one of the most important museums for especially pop art in Europe, Museum Ludwig in Cologne you see the Brillo boxes, and maybe you think of me standing behind them as a little boy.

Let me start at the beginning. Twenty five years ago , pretty much to the month I open my gallery here in New York, in the SoHo section. SoHo was in the hub for most galleries here in New York, it had the famous Castelli Gallery, the Sonnabend Gallery, so we were the young guns, on greene street, and we opened in a very very modest space that was not much bigger, than the office that I’m in right now. We had the good fortune, of being able to grow our gallery in these last twenty five years, first in SoHo by doubling our space, and then in Chelsea, where we were able, to inhabit a group of buildings on 19 street, Chelsea of course is now world famous, as the highest density of art galleries, I hope that all of you will find the time, at some point in the future to visit New York, and see the gallery at seeing in Chelsea, it is absolutely unique in the world, and an incredible gift to the city because of course all art galleries, are completely free to their audience, and their server great weight of service, to the community they educate. But of course, they are also fantastic place, we can meet people and waking interact with art. We are so happy that we were able to expand or big business from new york first to London, and now this year, to Asia with our new gallery in Hong Kong. I very much hope that all of you will come and visit us in Hong Kong, both that the art fair and our new gallery on Queen's Road.

We now work with 55 artists, and estates, that's an important distinction right off to go. Working with living artist is a different skill set than working with the state, where you work with historic material. You will find if you visit us at Hong Kong Basel, that you'll see works, by artists that are alive and well such as the great Jeff Koons who is our features artists at the gallery at the booth, of course Wolfgang Tillmans, an artist that Qiao Zhibing knows well and has collected, but also works by Josef Albers, i'm standing in front of a great painting. Donald Judd, Dan Flavin,  artists that are no longer with us and where we represent the estate.

Let me tell you some basics about what it means to be an art gallery. The single most important thing you do as an art gallery is to pick talent, if you can’t pick artist that then enchant and capture an audience, you will not be successful as an art galleries. We've been very fortunate that we early started working with artists whose careers have matured over the years. Very early on we started working with the great Luc Tuymans, who is now one of the most celebrated painters, living and working today. If you can’t identify promising talent you're going to have a problem. Once you have identified the talent, you have to work extremely hard, to further their career. It is really artist first all the time, that's why I call my gallery artist-centric. You really want to understand what is important for an artist, to get their work and the message across, mostly it's excellent shows in the gallery itself, but it's equally important, to place an artist work in major museums and international institutions, it is also extremely important to publish catalogues and books, so the artists work, can be seen by many not just those that can visit and see the galleries in the museums but also those that want to learn and read. When I speak about learning and reading, I think, I’m getting to one of the key elements, that is important, when you want to engage with the visual arts. The visual arts, are not just the product they're not just a thing, they also a way of thinking in a way of life, and unless you deeply understand and engage, with some of the strategies and the ideas and the thinking, behind the works of art that the artist are presenting, you will not get to the place where hopefully we'll get as an art lover as a collector where as a curator for that matter.

I feel very fortunate, that I keep finding young artists that excite me endlessly, the last two artists that have joined the gallery, Jordan Wolfson and Oscar Murillo, both in their thirties both endlessly talented. I'm often asked how do you find a new artist, and the interesting thing is there is no clear answer, but the one thing I know is when I see something that I really like I know instantaneously, and if I analyze that feeling very often, it is, something that, I can't file properly, it is something that looks new to me. I've seen so much art in my life, from an early age on, and most art will sort of, fit into a certain kind of pocket or certain kind of draw, but sometimes you come across something, that you just can't place, it just doesn't seem to be part of any particular thinking other than itself, and that is usually when my alarm bells go up, and I want to make sure I look very very carefully, and that certainly happened when I first saw Jordan Wolfson’s work, and I first saw Oscar Murillo’s work.

A lot of people asked me whether I think of myself as a collector. I don't, I think that would be a problem if I was a collector I would be competing, with my clients. However it is impossible to do what I do or not end up with the whole bunch of art over the years, in the early days of my gallery I tried to make it, a little bit of a mission to try to keep one work, from each of my exhibitions, that of course of a time was no longer possible, but if you come to my home you'll see artwork from all different periods, by the artists that I represent, and for me that is an enormous joy that I live and with the work, of those artists, but with the gallery and many of whom are now close personal friends.

Let me talk a little bit about collectors, and again I want to use Qiao Zhibing as a model. We like collectors that are well informed, we like the collectors at the present, we like collectors that follow artist, over a long period of time, and collecting them in depth, there is a strategy that you are doing fine if you buy one work by each of the hot artists that are being talked about right now. I don't agree with that. I think the strongest collections are built, when you identify the most important artists of a generation, and try to put together different works, from different periods of this particular artist. Again Qiao Zhibing I love that I see you in Basel, in Hong Kong, in London, even in New York, to follow the artists that you love and you collect. If you have the ability to travel you will also find it easy to get to know the artist that you're interested in that you collect, and if you can get to know the artist, it is amazing how much you can learn, how impressive that can be and how that will ultimately stimulate, and drive your collecting, for that purpose, this year we brought one of the most famous living artists if not the most famous living artist to Hong Kong , Jeff Koons, one of the ideas that collectors that come to the art fair can say hi to Jeff, he'll be there and he introduced his own work, of course when you come to the galleries, for an opening you will always see the artist present, and that's another fantastic way to get to know the artist himself, or herself.

I'm always asked about whether art is a good investment, and I have an interesting answer to give you, it is both good and bad, how can that be possible. I tell you why, it is good if you buy it, with passion, and at that point of purchase you don't think about selling it, I've seen unbelievable value created by passionate collectors that have bought great art over the years without thinking of selling them, when finally the moment comes where they have to sell or their children's sell, they find extraordinary value, in what they have done. Those that collect strictly for investment, very often prone to what I would call taste cycles, so they will buy something that's extremely hot, and off the moment, but very often at an inflated price apprise that will ultimately not sustain itself, so be careful if you are collecting, to try to make money, get yourself an advisor, be smart or get yourself a friend like Qiao Zhibing who can point you in the right direction, I also want to say something somewhat self serving, I think the best art, is in this point in time, really kind of concentrated, on just a handful of great galleries, I think it's important to pick those galleries that you want to work with well, because the more art you buy from a gallery, the more you have a relationship with the gallery the better access you will get to the best works. Because trust me, for the best work, the work that are most in demand the competition is relentless and is actually very hard, to get exactly what you would like to have, unless we know you well. And of course, having a gallery in the region makes it much easier for us to get to know all of you, and of course again I wish I could have been there in person, to get to know you.

I am often asked by collectors, how to sell? It's easy to buy art, but sometimes selling can be difficult. Of course in Asia, what's best known for as a selling alternative are the auction houses. Christie’s,Sotheby’s and now Phillips are doing a great job, promoting Western art, and are certainly a great place to sell art. However one has to be very careful, the auction houses market and focuses are ultimately very narrow, while they can sell certain artists very well, they have a very hard time selling the broad market, so my advice is there if you've bought a work of art, first go back to the place where you sold it engage the gallery that you bought it from in a conversation about its value and its marketability, for resale. If that's not fruitful then auction is a good option, but we have done very very well for our collectors we're selling works for them that they bought, over the years.

So there's a big difference between the United States ,Europe, and Mainland china at present, the big differences, that in Europe and in the United States we have a very very dense network, of major international museums, that are usually funded to a large extent by patrons, by collectors that live in the particular city where they support the museum. These museums are fantastic because they give, the larger audience, a barometer, a benchmark of what is important, they create what we call the canon, the canon to western art, that informs us, on where we should take our collecting or when we should take our gallery for that matter, this type of museum landscape or network does not exist yet in China, at least not one that's funded by public money and is endorsed, by the government I would say, so this has fallen onto the hands of collectors and it's incredible what has happened in the last ten maybe even five years, when it comes to private museums, in private spaces to show art both Asian, and western. I must commend, you Qiao Zhibing, and your friends like Wang Wei, that have done amazing work, in Mainland China, to promote art through private museums.

So I hope I’ve addressed a few of the questions that you would ask me in person, however I will be absolutely available to ask to answer further questions, should you find time to come to Hong Kong, especially next week, when we will be opening our great great exhibition with Wolfgang Tillmans. Wolfgang Tillmans, a photographer from Germany is one of the most celebrated, artist working today and I’m especially excited that he has agreed, to show during this important time of the fair, and of course if you come to the fair, you'll see the work of many gallery artists but of course featured this time is the great Jeff Koons, and i would be very delighted, if I can share some of this work with you, get to know you there, and talk to you, and again Qiao Zhibing, so sorry I couldn't be there but I know I’ll see you in Hong Kong.