Art Market Monitor

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Zhang Xiaogang and Key Chinese Contemporary Artists from Storied Johnson Chang Collection Come to Auction

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Zhang Xiaogang, Amnesia and Memory 2008 No.1. Courtesy Sotheby’s.

As summer ends and the new global market calendar takes shape, auction houses are gearing up for the fall sales. Sotheby’s has secured a selection of works by Chinese Contemporary artists from the holdings of Hong Kong-based collector and dealer Johnson Chang. Works by Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi, Liu Wei, Fang Lijun, and Yu Youhan will be sold in the private collection sale segment titled ‘The First Avant-Garde” during the house’s Asia-based contemporary art day and evening sales at the Hong Kong Convention Center on October 6 to 7.

Chang, who is known as the founder of the Hanart TZ Gallery in 1983 amassed his collection in the 1980s to 1990s as artists such as Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Xiaogang and Liu Wei featured in his holdings entered the beginning of their careers. Chang’s influence in the contemporary art scene in Asia was led by pioneering curatorial projects including the watershed showcase The Stars: 10 Years (1989), New Art from China: Post-1989 (1993), as well as the 1994 Chinese Contemporary art exhibition at São Paulo’s Art Biennial (1994), and the 1995 Chinese Exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Chang also co-curated Paris-Pekin, an exhibition of select works from the private collection of Contemporary Chinese art patron, Guy Ullens. In 2011, Sotheby’s sold Ullens’ private collection for more than HKD 132 million ($16 million.) It was a crucial milestone in the Asian art market as the highest grossing single-owner sale of Contemporary Chinese Art at the time.Continue Reading

Bacon, Picasso, Lichtenstein Top 2020 Global Modern & Contemporary Auctions: Analysis

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Francis Bacon, Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, oil on canvas, 1981.

This report on the Summer auctions is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.) 

After a period of uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic — which was only resolved by a wholesale restructuring of the international auction calendar — the top three houses finally presented hybrid live auctions of their most valuable works early this Summer.

Houses merged the modern and contemporary art categories and updated virtual platforms to draw global audience and bidding clients to a week of live-streamed marquee sales held around the world. Sotheby’s offered the first market test on June 29th;  it yielded $363.2 million. Phillips held a modest $41 million sale comprising mostly works by female and non-white artists. Finally, Christie’s staged a complex, four-auctioneer sale spanning their international sales centers that brought in $420.9 million.

The series of sales were successful enough to encourage Sotheby's to quickly turn around a second sale, Rembrandt to Richter, to capitalize on the demand. That auction combined a smattering of Old Master works with modern and contemporary art to make $193 million in sales.

Each session proved global demand undiminished by the economic lag. The leading lots of the auctions staged in June and July were by Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, Joan Mitchell, Joan Miró and Jean-Michel Basquiat. The results from 2019 to 2020 is not a direct comparison due to the reformatted sales but key trends in artists' markets are still apparent. In Spring 2019, more than $1.2 billion in contemporary art was sold in the New York day and evening sales. That was a rise of 6.7% over the previous year.

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Van Rysselberghe, Klee, Magritte Lead June 2020 Paris Impressionist and Modern Sales: Analysis

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Moise Kisling. Femme au corsage blanc. Courtesy Christie's.

This report on the Paris Impressionist and Modern Art market by Angelica Villa with data from Live Art Auction is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

Without the force of FIAC and La Bienniale Paris this season to attract global collectors, Christie's and Sotheby's faced a new challenge staging their Impressionist & Modern Art auctions in their French headquarters. The sales were lead this June by Van Rysselberghe, Klee, Magritte, Picabia and Picasso, placing works with buyers for prices as high €5.6 million to as low as €625,000.

The summer sales of Impressionist and Modern art in Paris saw an increase from the previous year—the two sessions, which came to €22.6 million total (excluding works on paper offered in a separate session) were up 23% from the €18.4 million total across the March 2019 auctions. The season’s top lots were by Belgian Neo-Impressionist, Theo van Rysselberghe and Swiss artist, Paul Klee.

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As Coronavirus Escalates, Sotheby’s Relocates Modern and Contemporary Hong Kong Sales to New York

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The Sotheby’s salesroom in New York. PETER FOLEY/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Amid increasingly turbulent conditions in Hong Kong around the spread of coronavirus, Sotheby’s has relocated its major April Hong Kong Modern and Contemporary sales to New York. The announcement coincides with an increase in travel restrictions as the impact of the epidemic continues to grow in severity, reaching the Middle East and Europe. This follows initial concerns around the city’s stability as a trade site after the outbreak was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization in January.

The firm’s Modern Art Evening Sale, and its Contemporary Evening and Day Sales will be held the week of April 16th at the house’s headquarters on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The venue change in the leading category sales requires a heavy lift for specialists, not only in terms of managing consignors’ expectations, but also in pivoting attention towards the U.S. base of potential buyers. Sotheby’s has seen success in Asia in the last four years and the news comes with an imperative goal of matching last year’s robust regional sale results. In a statement, CEO of Sotheby’s Asia, Kevin Ching said the “strategic decision” came “[a]fter careful consideration and reflection on nearly 50 years of working with our clients in Asia.” The remaining series of Hong Kong sales, which include offerings in the categories of Chinese Works of Art, Classical & Modern Chinese Paintings Modern Art, Southeast Asian Art, Jewels, and Luxury will be postponed until the first week of July. Sotheby’s top competitor, Christie’s, has scheduled the Hong Kong 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening and Day sales for the end of May.

The relocated Hong Kong sales, which come on the heels of the New York Contemporary Mid-season auctions slated for early March—Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated, Christie’s Post-war to Present and Phillips’ New Now sales focused on the core market offering works by emerging artists— are not the first coronavirus-related disruptions to the international art market. Earlier this month, the top auction houses confirmed that the regular Spring Asia Week sales in New York would be postponed until June. And Art Basel has cancelled its annual Hong Kong edition. Each announcement has been a serious signal to the global art industry of the current trade limitations in the region.

In a release regarding these sale changes, the representative for Sotheby’s Asia noted the arrangements would “make it easy for our clients in Asia to participate,” adding that the “global team stands ready to activate the international market” around the upcoming consignments.

As previously reported, among the highlights in the upcoming April Contemporary Evening sale revealed during the London auctions earlier this month is David Hockney’s 30 Sunflowers (1996). A large square painting reminiscent of Van Gogh’s still life work, it is unofficially estimated around $10.3 million. Leading the Modern Art Evening sale will be the highly anticipated modern Chinese master Sanyu’s Quatre nus (1950), a figurative work depicting four female nudes. In November 2019, a similar work titled Five Nudes (1950) by the artist set a new record in the Christie’s Hong Kong Modern Art Evening auction, selling for $38.8m. The release did not mention any changes to the property tour scheduled throughout the U.S. and Asia until April.

 

Sotheby’s Unveils Plans for New Galleries at York Ave.

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Sotheby’s released more details on their ambitious plans to remake the building on York Ave. The new galleries set to open in may will have more than 90,000 square feet of gallery space across 4 floors. That will include 40 public galleries and 9 private sales galleries with 3,000 light fixtures and 7,228 linear feet of lighting tracks. The galleries will have an incomparable amount of wall space, 5,435 linear feet with one as large as 1,200 square feet and one as long as 106-feet-long. The space will also include two new ‘flexible’ auction spaces.

Designed in collaboration with Sotheby’s by Shohei Shigematsu, of the internationally-acclaimed architecture firm OMA New York, the redesign features vast new exhibition galleries that will distinguish Sotheby’s as the world’s premier commercial space for viewing and acquiring fine art, precious objects, luxury goods and more.

Opening with Sotheby’s marquee May exhibitions and auctions of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art, the new galleries increase Sotheby’s exhibition space from 67,000 to more than 90,000 square feet – the equivalent of two acres.  Comprising 40 galleries of varying sizes spread across four entirely transformed floors, the new space rivals major museums around the world in scope, scale, quality and flexibility.

Sotheby’s galleries were designed to provide the optimal exhibition space for everything from single objects to expansive collections, and can accommodate works of art of any scale – the tallest gallery measures more than 20 feet in height, while the smallest gallery is 350 square feet.  New public exhibition spaces include:

  • Three two-story spaces that can accommodate the largest-scale works;
  • The Grand Gallery, a 150-foot-long space ideal for exhibiting full collections;
  • The Octagon Gallery, a temple-like space ideal for jewelry, watches and other intimately-scaled objects, as well as for commanding displays of paintings;
  • The Enfilade Galleries, a suite of four cascading spaces whose entryways align to create a stunning perspective;
  • A number of domestically-scaled galleries ideal for furniture, design and collections;
  • A series of L-shaped galleries for small-scale works and works on paper;
  • Nine galleries dedicated to discreet, private sale opportunities;
  • And two new flexible auction spaces.

Upon entering, visitors to Sotheby’s will be greeted by state-of-the-art digital signage designed by 2×4, and a new double-height ground-floor gallery that can hold exhibitions as well as auctions.  A new Sant Ambroeus Coffee Bar will open next to a dedicated space for collecting purchased items, joining Sotheby’s retail Wine store to complete the lobby experience.

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