Art Market Monitor

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China Guardian’s $50m Beijing Sale Reveals Shift in Market

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Enid Tsui follows up on China Guardian’s coup last month when it made a massive sale in Beijing of Huang Binhong’s Yellow Mountain (1955) for 345 million yuan (HK$396 million.) Huang hasn’t been among the platinum-plated names in Chinese classical ink painting like Zhang Daqian and Qi Baishi until now. But Tsui suggests there’s a bit more going on behind the scenes with this sale than simply the emergence of a new name in Chinese Classical painting.

First of all, the sale marks the arrival of China Guardian’s Guo Tong as powerful force in Mainland sales. Second, the Mainland is showing strength again after years of sales migrating to Hong Kong. Finally, the return of big prices in art in China itself may be a signal that other asset sectors are too clogged with government controls. The spillover is coming back to the art market.

Controls on capital leaving the country mean cash has to be stored in China at a time when there are fewer assets that can be accessed. The Huang was bought be a company, not an individual, adding to the speculation.

Here’s Tsui speaking to Guo: Continue Reading

Dreams of Chinese Mass Market in Art

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Gonkar Gyatso

The dream of a Chinese mass market in art is an alluring fantasy to artists and art dealers. Here Gonkar Gyatso, a Tibetan artists who has returned to China recently returned to China after 20 years in London, salivates at the thought of Chinese middle-class families buying one or two works of art for their homes:

He recalls a recent art auction held at a shopping mall in the city of Chengdu, where he’s based. “People were very enthusiastically buying all the paintings. But I’m not even sure if they were original works,” he says. Gyatso’s excited about the prospect of great art trickling down to China’s 1.3 billion people. “Could you imagine if each Chinese family hung two pieces of art in their home?,” he says. “It’s a huge potential even if it takes some time to get there.”

Art Basel: Chinese Show the Color of Their Money (Barron’s)

What Do Chinese Collector’s Want? Not Bacon

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Liu-YiqianJiayang Fan has a profile of Liu Yiqian in the New Yorker. The story has some bonus observations, including a trip to a K11 art mall. There’s also this background on what Chinese collectors want:

Early in my visit to Shanghai, I met Leo Xu, a young gallerist, who took me to the Jin Jiang Hotel, in the heart of the old French Concession. […] As we ate, Xu told me about Shanghai’s gallery scene and its collectors. Francis Bacon, for instance, doesn’t sell. “The Chinese don’t see themselves in the work,” he said. “Chinese collectors need to be able to relate to it and to feel that it has at least a little relevance to how they live or what they know.” They prefer either traditional Chinese ink paintings or works by current art-world stars such as Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, and Olafur Eliasson. Name recognition is paramount. “If buyers are putting down such a large sum, they want blue-chip artists, someone everyone knows,” Xu said

The Emperor’s New Museum (The New Yorker)

The New Xin-sation

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Xin Li close up

Kenny Schachter isn’t the only one captivated by Christie’s Xin Li. But he’s the only one to have written about her:

Hailing from the Asian office and stretched longer than a thin sheet of taffy was the inimitable former supermodel Xin Li. The ravishing, dark-haired beauty could be cast as a Bond girl, a Bond villain and Bond himself at the same time in the same movie and save a fortune for the producers in the process.

How can anyone read fiction, once you’ve witnessed Xin somehow handle four phones, with what appear to be only two hands? The auctioneer addressed her on just about every lot: “Xin, you are in?” Her name happens to rhyme with “in.” No one seemed able to resist her, to the tune of $215 million in sales. […]

One prestigious, high-profile young gallerist I visited, rather than celebrating that a sale was filled with some of his stuff, blurted out: “Did you see Xin, did you see her? I am in love with Xin.” Not too sure how much she (or that dealer) knows about art, but she’s become an instant artistic sensation.

A Frieze Week Play-by-Play: Kenny Schachter on the Fair and Auctions (Gallerist)

Mainland Buyer’s Enjoy Fruits of their Wealth at Sotheby’s

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Wang Xingwei, Golfer and Watermelons No. 1 (800-1.2m RMB) 3.6m RMB
Wang Xingwei, Golfer and Watermelons No. 1 (800-1.2m RMB) 3.6m RMB

Bloomberg’s Frederik Balfour was on the scene at Sotheby’s mainland China sale:

The 1958 oil-on-canvas painting titled “Abstraction” by Zao sold to a mainlander in the room for 89.68 million yuan ($14.7 million) smashing the previous auction record of $11 million set on Oct. 5 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

“This shows that there are strong buyers on the mainland,” said Pascal de Sarthe, a Hong Kong-based dealer. “Five years ago, they wouldn’t have been buying at the top end.’’”

China is the fastest growing source of clients for international auction houses as increasing affluence is driving demand for art and collectibles as alternative investments.

The auction was held in conjunction with three private sales of western old masters, modern paintings, furniture and jewelry offered by the New York-based auction house, with an estimated combined value of $212 million.

Sotheby’s First Mainland China Auction Raises $37 Million (Bloomberg)

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