Shared audience
The collector who reads the scholarship is the collector who cares about the work. Two brands would split one audience and pay twice to reach it.
Orchid Way Exchange rests on one idea: that ownership of significant East and Southeast Asian art can be shared. The people who hold a work can release value from it without letting it go, and the people who care about the category can take part in it without owning a whole masterpiece.
This page sets out the case for custodians, collectors, curators and partners who want to understand why the Collective is building the Exchange, and why it belongs inside a curatorial house rather than beside one.
One house, not two
Provenance compounds
Curatorial research, the open call and the archive are the roots behind every work. Housed together, every exhibition strengthens the record.
Credibility flows down
A curatorial institution that also offers shared ownership is trusted. A marketplace that bolts on curation is marketing.
The house structure
The three pillars already on this site, Curate, Preserve Heritage and Empower the Future, become working arms. The Exchange is a fourth, designed to support the other three.
Curatorial
Exhibitions, the open call, scholarship and artist relationships. In place today.
Heritage
Archive, authentication, and a lineage and provenance registry. Being built.
Exchange
Shared ownership of significant works, with custodians keeping possession. In development.
Futures
Grants, residencies, tools and support for living makers. Being built.
A heritage contribution flows outward to institutions custodians nominate, and the Curatorial and Heritage arms produce the roots behind every work. The loop is the point.
The market
Global art sales reached USD 59.6 billion in 2025, up 4 percent. The United States, the United Kingdom and China together account for 76 percent of it.
$59.6B
Global art sales, 2025
Up 4 percent
76%
Share held by the US, UK and China
$1.8B
Fractional art, industry estimate
About 3 percent of the market
View as table
| Market | Share of global sales | Hubs |
|---|---|---|
| United States | 44% | New York |
| United Kingdom | 18% | London |
| China | 14% | Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai |
| France | 8% | Paris |
View as table
| Channel | 2025 value |
|---|---|
| Dealer sales, up 2% | $34.8B |
| Public auction sales, up 9% | $20.7B |
| Online sales | $9.2B |
Source: The Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report 2026, Arts Economics. Figures are for the 2025 calendar year.
Made here, sold there
14%
China’s share of global sales
Art Basel and UBS, 2025
Made here, sold there
3B toMade here, sold there
4BArt by East and Southeast Asian makers, per year
Orchid Way estimate
NY and London
Where many Asian records are set
Measured by where sales happen, Asia is a minority of the market. Measured by who made the work, the category is larger, because much of the strongest Asian art sells in New York and London. Zao Wou-Ki, Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara and Takashi Murakami have set records in Western evening sales, and a collector in Hong Kong and a collector in New York now compete for the same work in the same room.
By our estimate, art by East and Southeast Asian makers trades at roughly 13 to 14 billion dollars a year worldwide, combining sales inside Asia with results for Asian artists sold elsewhere. The category travels. The institutions around it have not followed.
What the top of the category looks like
The ceiling of this category is set at nine figures. These public auction results frame everything beneath them.
View as table
| Work | Maker and period | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Twelve Landscape Screens | Qi Baishi, 1925 | $140.8M, Poly Auction Beijing, 2017 |
| Twelve Views of Landscape | Wang Meng, Yuan dynasty | About $62M, Poly Auction Beijing, 2011 |
| Six Dragons | Chen Rong, Song dynasty | $48.9M, Christie’s New York, 2017 |
| Chicken Cup | Chenghua reign, Ming dynasty | $36.0M, Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 2014 |
| My Lonely Cowboy | Takashi Murakami, 1998 | $15.2M, Sotheby’s New York, 2008 |
| Untitled (Nets) | Yayoi Kusama, 1959 | $10.5M, Christie’s New York, 2022 |
Results as reported at the time of sale, including buyer’s premium. Past results say nothing about the value of any other work.
The priceless tier
The most important East Asian masterpieces are held by the state and will never be sold. Along the River During the Qingming Festival, by Zhang Zeduan, is held at the Palace Museum in Beijing and shown only in short windows. Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains, by Huang Gongwang, is divided between the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou and the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Impressions of Hokusai’s Great Wave rotate through the Tokyo National Museum, the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
When the top of a category is locked away, attention moves to the works that can still be held. Shared ownership is one way to meet that attention without breaking up collections.
How shared ownership works today
Fractional ownership of art is a young field. Industry estimates put it at about 1.8 billion dollars, around 3 percent of global art sales.
Fractional art, about
How shared ownership works today
Fractional ownership of art is a young field. Industry estimates put it at about 1.8 billion dollars, around 3 percent of global art sales.
.8BGlobal art market, $59.6BTwo structures
Most platforms hold each work in its own legal entity and offer interests in that entity under securities rules. A smaller group records ownership on a distributed ledger.
Where it concentrates
Almost entirely on Western modern and contemporary names, chosen for long auction histories and easy comparisons.
What constrains it
Liquidity. Holding periods run for years, and costs are meaningful. Any credible house has to be honest about both.
The gap
In our review of the leading platforms and their stated mandates, none is built around East and Southeast Asian art as its category. They compete for the same Western supply, against each other and against the auction houses.
Adding a few Asian works to a calendar is easy. Knowing what a work is, where it came from, and whether it can lawfully move is not. That takes scholarship, relationships and an archive, which take years to build, and which the Collective has been building from the start.
Why this house
Category focus
Entirely East and Southeast Asian, historic and living, rather than a generalist calendar.
Direct relationships
The open call and the curatorial network reach artists, families and estates directly.
Provenance first
Authentication and title are the hard problems here. The Roots standard is published before any work is considered.
Aligned with custodians
A heritage contribution gives museums, temples and families a reason to work with a curatorial house rather than consign to auction.
Regional and diaspora reach
Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei and Manila, and Asian communities across North America and Europe.
Keeping the work
Custodians keep possession, display and care of the work. Nothing about shared ownership requires a work to leave home.
Before anything is offered
The Exchange is in development. Before any work is considered, the Collective will seat an independent curatorial board, publish its governance policies, obtain an independent legal opinion on structure and cultural property, and work only through appropriately licensed partners. The first works considered will be modern and contemporary, where title and export questions are clearest.
Start a conversation Read the standard
Curate · Preserve Heritage · Empower the Future
Return to the work
Orchids remain on every path. Keep walking through the Collective, or write to us.
