Asian Contemporary Art Market Gravitates Toward Hong Kong

Sotheby’s announced this week (pdf) that it will be consolidating its Asian Contemporary art auctions in Hong Kong next year. The news will not surprise anyone who saw the dramatic difference in results between the sales of Chinese Contemporary art in New York and Hong Kong last Spring. Hong Kong is clearly the center of market.

And Quick Way to Bone Up on Contemporary Chinese Art

Meanwhile, Bloomberg runs this interview with Karen Smith, author of the now-updated Nine Lives profiling nine of China’s most influential contemporary artists. Though Smith doesn’t seem to share the auction houses’ enthusiasm for price as a measure of artistic merit:

Fang Lijun is not selling for millions. He deserves to be there, though I wouldn’t wish that league upon anybody really. He has to mature. He has 20-30 years of his career in front of him. If you are selling at millions now, it’s dangerous. I don’t see where they are going to go; Zeng Fanzhi, he’s a really good painter, but his works are already going for millions. Of course that’s through no fault of his own.