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Marion Maneker0June 13, 2013

Chinese Contemporary Sales Return to the West

Zhang Xiaogang, Boy (Bloodline Series) (£350-450k)

Late in the last decade, the auction houses made a conscious decision to relocate Chinese Contemporary art sales to Hong Kong in both an offensive and defensive move. The goal was to generate more domestic interest in the artists of Asia among the newly wealthy collectors of China. But the defensive side of the move seemed to recognize a slowing interest among Western collectors in living Chinese artists. Some prominent collections amassed by Westerners were sold.

Curiously, works by Chinese Contemporary artists have begun to seep back into sales in New York and London. Jing Daily points out that London’s upcoming Contemporary art sales contain a number of important Chinese works. The Zhang Xiaogang above will be offered in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening sale. The auction houses anticipate strong competition from Western and Chinese buyers; and they’re coming into London with momentum built in Hong Kong a few weeks ago:

Christie’s Hong Kong did particularly well in the spring sales, coming within a hair of its high estimate of $22,866,350 with a total take of $22,628,450. Christie’s also sold the highest-priced lot of the season, Zeng Fanzhi’s Society, which went for $3.38 million. In all, 14 of the artist’s works were sold, generating $10 million, accounting for 13 percent of the overall Chinese contemporary art sales for the season, and creating high expectations for the work now coming on the block in London.

The prominence of Chinese artists at the upcoming sale reflects London’s position as a growing global hub for Chinese contemporary art, as European collectors continue to gain interest and wealthy Chinese buyers travel abroad in ever-increasing numbers. It’s a trend that will be augmented in coming years by the continued mobility of China’s wealthy, and the construction of the recently announced new Chinese financial district at London’s Royal Albert Dock.

Contemporary Chinese Art Looms Large In Sotheby’s London Lineup (Jing Daily)

Emerging Markets, General
Marion Maneker0July 19, 2012

Frahm: Beijing No. 2 in Contemporary Art

The Chinese auction house China Guardian will be holding sales in Hong Kong this October, according to ArtInfo. British art advisor Michael Frahm points out this week on ArtDaily.org that Beijing has become the second center for Contemporary art sales:

If we drill down further into China ’s regional markets, we can see that Beijing in particular is performing incredibly well. The city is now second in the global market for contemporary art and is competing with New York, particularly at the highest end of the market, where the level of quality and prices have exploded over the last decade. Hong Kong , meanwhile, has emerged as the new epicenter of the global arts market. […] Works by Chinese artists are now contributing more heavily than ever before to the overall economic growth in the art market. Today, five Chinese artists feature in the world’s top 10 contemporary artists by revenue. Zeng Fanzhi (€39.2m), Zhang Xiaogang (€30m), Chen Yifei (€283m), Wang Yidong (€16.2m) and Zhou Chunya (€14.5m) now each feature, ahead of the likes of Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami. […]

The Chinese art market relies too heavily on the major auction houses that I have already touched upon. The dominance of the auction houses in China is far greater than that in Europe or in America . Their power and influence means that the market can, at times, lack diversity, as they are able to control much of what is brought to market. This is partly driven by a powerful culture of ‘trophy buying’ that exists amongst many Chinese buyers, which leaves a lack of enthusiasm for dealing privately. Buyers here like to be seen to be spending large sums of money, particularly for the most iconic works, and the best way to do so is to buy in person at auction. […]

This culture of trophy buying also highlights a somewhat misplaced focus in China on the lucrative investment that buying art might represent. In 2011 art was in fact China ’s hottest investment. With a far more favourable rate of return on investment than the unstable stock or housing markets, more and more of the country’s wealthiest continue to explore alternative forms of investment and art is, it seems, becoming more attractive by the day. In 2011 China ’s two largest auction houses, China Guardian Auction Co and Poly International Auction Co recorded a 49% and 20% rise in turnover respectively year-on-year.

The Chinese contemporary art market has achieved a great deal, what’s next? (ArtDaily)

Auction Results
Marion Maneker1June 22, 2012

Bonham’s Single Owner Sale in Hong Kong = $11.6m

In all the hubbub last month, Bonham’s noteworthy single owner sale in Hong Kong got lost in the mix. The auciton house sold HK$90.6m ($11.6m) worth of art, besting the estimates by 50%. All but one of the works was sold.

With that in mind, we’re posting the results here. All the Contemporary art lots sold, evidence of the strength in the market for Chinese masters of 20th Century abstract art. 

15 works by Chu Teh-Chun and Zao Wou-Ki total realized: HKD 63.3 million / 8.1 million USD (estimate: HKD 26.45- 37.3 million / 3.4 -4.8 million USD) 

12 Imperial Chinese works of art total realized: HKD 27.75 million / 3.5 million USD

Auction Results
Marion Maneker0May 28, 2012

Christie’s HK Cont Day =HK$97m ($12.5m)

  1. Shang Yang, Hearth (HK$800-1.2m) HK$6.38m ($825k)
  2. Zeng Fanzhi, Mask (HK$2.5-3.5m) HK$5m ($655k)
  3. Fang Lijun, 1998.3.1 HK$2.5-3.5m) HK$4.22m ($546k)
  4. Zeng Fanzhi, Mask Series No. 11 (HK$2-3m) HK$3.62m ($468k)
  5. Liu Ye, Angels in Flight (HK$1-1.5m) HK$3.38m ($437k)
  6. Ding Yi, Apperance of Crosses (HK$800-1.2m) HK$1.82m ($235k)
  7. Shang Yang, H Land-13 (HK$300-500k) HK$1.46m ($189k)
  8. Yan Ping, Spring Flavour & Rabbit (HK$800-1m) HK$2.66m ($344k)
  9. Lia Dahong, The Honeymoon (HK$180-260k) HK$2.54m ($328k)
Auction Results
Marion Maneker0April 02, 2012

Sotheby’s HK Cont Asia = $211m ($27.3m)

  1. Zhang Xaiogang, Bloodline, Big Family— Family No. 2 (HK$25-35m) HK$52m
  2. Fang Lijun, 1993.4 (HK$18-25m) HK$28.6m
  3. Liu Wei, A Good Dog (HK$12-15m) HK$14m
  4. Wang Guangyi, Mao Zedong AO (HK$4-6m) HK$8.42m
  5. Jai Aili, It’s Not Only You Who is Pale (HK$2.5-3.8m)HK$6.6m
  6. Fang Lijun, 1998 No. 2 (HK$2.5-3.5m) HK$4.46m
  7. Wang Guangyi, Post-Classical Series, After Mona Lisa (HK$2-3m) HK$4.22m
  8. Fang Lijun, 1997 No. 11 (HK$3-4m) HK$4.1m
  9. Fang Lijun, Dream of Peace (HK$2.8-3.5m) HK$4.1m
  10. Wenda Gu, Drama of Two Culture Formats Merge (HK$1.9-2.5m) HK$3.98m
Auction Results
Marion Maneker0December 13, 2011

Ravenel HK Autumn Sale = HK$137.1 (US$17.6m)

Auction Results
Marion Maneker0November 26, 2011

Christie’s HK Asian 20th C = HK$397m (US$51.3m)

Tough night for the big names in Chinese Contemporary art as Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Xiaogang, Liu Ye and Cai Guo-Qiang all saw top lots fail to find buyers or sell for below the estimate range. Clearly the appetite in Hong Kong is neither limitless nor undiscriminating in its taste. Nonetheless, there were a number of works that sold well by many of these names as well as the return of Yue Minjun through a single-owner sale and big prices for lower level Zao Wou-ki works. Zao continues his ascent toward becoming the Gerhard Richter of China (or France depending on how you keep score.)

Auction Results
Marion Maneker0October 05, 2011

Big Buyers in Hong Kong Cont & Mod Sales

Jason Chow covers Sotheby’s Hong Kong sales for the Wall Street Journal’s SceneAsia blog. Though he makes the common mistake of thinking that last Spring’s frenzied sales represented either a normal or healthy art market (for some reason health sell-through rates of 70% or more are being used as evidence of weak market rather than a fully-functioning one,) Chow tracked down a few of the buyers from the beginning of the week’s Contemporary and Modern sales, including one woman who bought several of the top lots

  • “Blue chip art is the new gold,” said Dutch entrepreneur and collector Herman Heinsbroek. The former politician has around 70 works of Chinese modern art that he’s collected since 2006. “These are relatively young contemporary artists, only in their 50s. Eventually, they’ll all go through the roof.”
  • Among the big sales: Zao Wou-Ki’s “10.1.68,” which fetched 69 million Hong Kong dollars (US$8.9 million) on Monday. It was a new record for Mr. Zao, a Chinese-born painter who moved to France in 1948 and is known for his abstract style. (All final prices include the buyer’s premium.) The winning bidder, through the representatives who flanked her, declined to comment. She quickly snapped up two works by Wu Guanzhong, another contemporary painter who trained in France, spending some HK$114 million on three works—in less than 20 minutes.
Auction Results
Marion Maneker1October 04, 2011

In Contemporary Art, Chinese Stay Strong as Koreans and Japanese Fade

Jing Daily goes after the meme of the week that Chinese buyers have abandoned Chinese Contemporary art based upon the results of Sotheby’s Contemporary Asian Art sale on Oct. 3rd that made US$29m, just slightly above the low estimate. Their take, it was the Japanese and the Koreans who failed at auction:

Despite disappointing bidding for works by Japanese and Korean artists, Chinese buying pushed this auction to the highest total for a various-owner sale in this category for Sotheby’s Hong Kong. Driven primarily by Chinese demand for blue-chip works by top Chinese artists, [...] a quick glance at the breakdown of works sold in the auction shows a significant progression in the buying habits of Hong Kong and mainland Chinese buyers. With unexpectedly low interest among bidders for the contemporary Japanese and Korean works up for auction, Chinese lots had to hold up the entire sale. Taking that into consideration, and breaking Chinese lots up between top-quality pieces and those by lesser-known artists, blue-chip Chinese artists — those preferred and actively sought after by new Chinese collectors — were 92 percent sold by value. This hardly indicates any cracks in demand among wealthy Chinese collectors.

Chinese Artists Soar, Japanese & Korean Artists Sag, At Sotheby’s Contemporary Asian Art Auction In Hong Kong (Jing Daily)

General
Marion Maneker0October 04, 2011

Are Western Buyers the Source of Weakness in Chinese Contemporary?

Several news outlets have jumped to conclusions about the Asian art market based upon Sotheby’s Contemporary Chinese sale in Hong Kong just making its low estimate earlier this week. But as Artinfo points out, Chinese Contemporary is a category still very Western-facing when it looks for buyers. The weakness in Sotheby’s non-Ullens sale may have been signal that European and American buyers are not willing to bid on anything but the best works

Here’s Artinfo:

50 percent of the top ten lots [...] were secured by non-Asian collectors, including the top lot, Zhang Xiaogang‘s “Bloodline: Big Family No.1″ (1994), which went to a European private collector for a total of HK$65.6 million ($8.4 million) including buyers premium, above its low estimate of HK$58 million. In recent times it has been speculated that non-Asian collectors were retreating from Chinese contemporary art, leaving the sector to Asian — and primarily Chinese mainland collectors — to dominate. But this sale showed that non-Asian (and particularly European) collectors are still pursuing key Chinese contemporary works and that, where the auction is less hotly contested, they have the wherewithal to secure them too.

Contemporary Asian Art Sale Disappoints at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in Wake of Stock-Market Dip (Artinfo)

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