Art Market Monitor

Georgina Adam mentions a new Chinese art fund in her weekly Financial Times column:

Beijing’s Minsheng Bank, the nation’s first privately owned bank, has just launched its “No 2 Product, Works of Art Investment Scheme”, which was fully subscribed in a week. The fund will purchase a wide range of art, from ancient to contemporary. The success of the No 2 fund is no doubt due to the performance of China’s first art fund, launched by Minsheng in 2007, and which, according to the bank, produced returns of up to 25 per cent.

Nevertheless, the art data site Artprice.com reports that prices for Chinese contemporary art have nosedived in the last year. Its index, starting from a base of 100 in 1998, hit its top on January 1 2008 at 347 but slid to 244 on January 1 2010. Also significant is the slip in the number of Chinese artists with the highest sales at auction. In 2007 nine Chinese artists figured among the top 15, with Zheng Xiaogang, painter of the repetitive “Bloodline” series, in the number three spot. Provisional figures for 2009 show only six Chinese in the top 15, with the late Chen Yifei at number five.

The Art Market (Financial Times)

Also of Interest:

• Fine Art Fund Postpones India Fund
  They’ve already got funds for Chinese Contemporary and Middle Eastern art but they’re not speculators. At the risk of beating...
  
• Art Fund Emerges as Market Confidence Rises
  Katya Kazakina writes on Bloomberg about art funds. At the top of the market one firm tracked 50 art funds....
  
• Fine Art Fund Pursues Two Corporate Collections
  Over the weekend, both the FT and the Guardian report on Phillip Hoffman’s intention to bid on the art assets...
  
• Indian Art Fund Redeems in Black
  Here’s a classic glass half full/half empty story about art funds. India has aggressively opened art funds in a way...
  
• Chinese Art Market Likes Its Options
  China Daily looks at what’s driving the Chinese art market where some see a serious bubble forming: A survey on...