Daniel Komala says that he has a knack for plucking young Asian artists, such as Nyoman Masriadi, from obscurity and turning them into auction stars. The chief executive of Jakarta-based Larasati Auctioneers says many of the top names in Asian contemporary art whose works now fetch millions at sales in New York and Hong Kong got their start at the company he founded 10 years ago.
Europeans and Americans began buying Chinese contemporary art a few years back and are only just waking to Southeast Asian culture, says Sandra Walters, a collector who runs a namesake Hong Kong art consulting company. Masriadiís works donít receive as much exposure as those of Damien Hirst and therefore they fetch less money, she says.
Masriadi and Agus Suwage made their auction debut at Komalaís company a few years back and their works were going for a pittance before Larasatiís bigger rivals Sotheby's and Christie's International began selling them, says Komala, 47.
Look at the icons in the Asian contemporary-art market today, they all started at my place,î says Komala, a fourth- generation Indonesian Chinese, in an interview in Hong Kong. ìI want to be the Citigroup of the art world, where those who graduate go on to bigger things.î
Collectors hunting for the next crop of top Asian artists should take a look at Larasati auction catalogs and buy their works while they are still affordable, says Komala. To make his case, Komala flipped through Sothebyís brochure of its sale of Southeast Asian art in Hong Kong starting today and pointed at Suwageís 1997 oil-on-canvas Charity thatís expected to fetch as much as HK$250,000 ($32,200).
Charity Sale: That was one of ours,he says, referring to a charity event he organized in 1999 when the same painting sold for 9 million rupiahs, about $980 then.
Now is a good time to buy the works of rising artists such as Hadi Masoed and Ristyo Eeko Hartanto because they are still cheap, he says. Like established painters such as Masriadi and Chinaís Yue Minjun, their works address universal themes such as fear with an eloquence that cuts across cultures and are cheap relative to their merit, Komala says.
He pointed at a Hartanto work in the Sothebyís catalog called ìPost-North Korea Nuclear Test #1,î featuring a kimono- clad woman with her mouth agape. It will be offered with a top estimate of $19,000; that same painting was sold by Larasati in Singapore 1 Ω years ago for about $17,000, Komala says.
Masriadiís Record
Such comparisons are meaningless, says Mok Kim Chuan, Sothebyís Singapore-based head of Southeast Asian painting. The auction house decides which pieces to sell based on market demand and the worksí merits, not what rivals are doing, he says. Sothebyís held the October 2008 sale that set the auction record for a Southeast Asian painting with the sale of Masriadiís ìThe Man From Bantulî for about $1 million.
We donít go around tooting our own horn,î says Mok, in a phone interview. ìBeing the first to auction certain pieces has nothing to do with trendsetting.î
Sothebyís had pioneered the public sale of contemporary Southeast Asian works with a Singapore auction in 1996, Mok says. Christieís took Southeast Asian art global by offering the regionís paintings alongside multimillion-dollar Chinese and Indian artworks for the first time in 2005, says Ruoh-Ling Keong, head of Christieís Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art department.
At Christieís, Southeast Asian art tallied $7 million in sales last year, less than 1 percent of the companyís total. 
Artist Exposure
Auction exposure is just one factor that goes into the making of successful artists like Masriadi, says Jasdeep Sandhu, director of Singapore-based Gajah Gallery, which has been representing Masriadi since late 2007.
Whether someone is first to auction an artistís works isnít that important,î he says. ìWhat ultimately determines an artistís worth is the quality of his works.î
Komala started collecting 16 years ago and now owns about 40 paintings. His chance at selling art came during the 1997- 1998 Asian financial crisis, marked by a drop in the regionís currencies. The turmoil ravaged companies with dollar debts and earned local money. At the height of the crisis in mid-1998, the Indonesian currency was trading at 17,000 rupiahs to a dollar, compared with 2,500 a year ago before the rout.
Currency Cost
Yet, to a small group of middle-class Indonesian professionals still drawing payment in dollars, rupiah-priced assets -- including top-flight Indonesian art -- suddenly became cheap, Komala says.
He quit his job, set up Larasati and in 2000 organized the companyís first auction at Jakartaís Aryaduta Hotel, offering 140 lots with a presale estimate of $250,000. The sale raised $400,000, with three out of four works sold.
Larasati now holds biannual auctions in Hong Kong and Singapore. The closely held company had $10 million in sales last year, up from $1 million in 2000, Komala says. He plans to form a Singapore-based company this year to offer non-auction services such as art education and exhibitions.
It will give more exposure to Asian artworks,s ays Komala. That has got to be a good thing.
Le-Min Lim in Hong Kong at lmlim
bloomberg [dot] net.
