Chinese Contemporary Art Market - Cultural revelation [Jun 07]
Speculation is showing no signs of slowing and auction sales are ever stronger, and prices ever higher. The price appreciation has been staggering for the generation of young Chinese artists and the number of investors continues to grow. It often takes only a few years for a Chinese artist to see a tenfold price increase, as with Xiaogang ZHANG or Guoqiang CAI to cite just a couple of examples. Symbolic of the price increases: the ten most successful auctions of contemporary Chinese art have been recorded over the past twelve months. In the end, in 2006, 31.3% of the Chinese contemporary artworks sold at auction achieved more than $100,000. Given such price levels, the proceeds on Chinese contemporary art sales increased by a factor of ten in 2006.
The most successful sales took place in New York or China. The major auction houses have established offices there to be closer to supply and demand. To date, Xiaodong LIU is achieving the highest valuations of the Chinese contemporary artists. His work was offered at auction for the first time in 1991 in Hong Kong. Back then, Christie’s-Swire brought the hammer down at 7,851 euros. Last November, his work New Displaced Population was sold for 20,000,000 CNY (1,982,600 euros) by Poly International Auction Co, Ltd in Beijing. Yifei CHEN was also introduced at auction in 1991 with Lingering Melodies from the Xunyang River already selling for 150,925 euros at Christie’s-Swire. On 27 June 2006, the Shangai Hosane auction house achieved 11,000,000 CNY (1,097,470 euros) for Warm Spring in the Jade Pavillon.
Attracted by the amazing results being achieved by the New York or Chinese auction houses, numerous European auctioneers have recently been organising sales dedicated to Chinese contemporary art. The prices reached are not yet up with the leaders in the market; the opportunity to open this market to a wider public.
In France, Artcurial now dedicates whole catalogues to this sector. No less than 109 lots will be up for sale on 5 June. Once again Xiaogang ZHANG has top billing. Two small canvases measuring 40x30 cm, created in 1999, are estimated at between 150,000 and 200,000 euros apiece. Wuji ZHAO will see one of his 1998 canvases offered for sale at an estimate of between 170,000 and 200,000 euros. His price index shows an increase of +406 over the last decade. For less than 10,000 euros the choice is wide: not less than 59 works offered for sale at under this estimate, including pieces by AN HONG, Fengzhi LIU, Xiaofan RU, Lizi MAO, HaiWen TANG, Yan HUANG or Desheng MA. Worthy of mention: an untitled, 100cmx100cm oil on canvas by LI SHUANG, with an estimate of 5,000 to 7,000 euros. The artist made his auction debut in 1996 in Beijing with China Guardian. At that time, he achieved 22,000 CNY (2,300 euros) for an oil on canvas with collage, measuring 150x100cm. In 2005, he saw his work sold for 230,000 HKD (24,863 euros) by Sotheby’s Hong Kong followed by 350,000 CNY (34,738 euros) in 2006 in Beijing by China Guardian.
Switzerland will also see its own auction dedicated to contemporary Chinese art with the Galerie Koller sale in Zurich on 23 June 2007. Snowy Landscape by Lake Geneva, a 1967 canvas by Teh-Chun CHU measuring 160x129cm and estimated at 300,000 to 400,000 CHF (188,000 – 251,000 euros) is worth noting. The prices being achieved by the artist have increased by +390 over the past decade. Also Minjun YUE whose 40x40cm oil on canvas, Corner, has an estimate of 115,000 to 140,000 CHF (72,320 – 88,000 euros). Amongst the artists whose works have estimates at under 10,000 euros, we would mention Guangyi WANG, Minjun YUE, Tiehai ZHOU, WU GUANZHONG and Bo HOU.
Contemporary Russia - An emerging market [May 07]
After Sotheby’s sale of contemporary Russian art in February and the second edition of the Moscow biennial art fair in March, contemporary Russian art is enjoying considerable effervescence. In historical terms, Russian artists’ freedom to express themselves is a relatively recent phenomenon. For example, in 1974 an exhibition of non-conformists in Moscow was demolished by a State bulldozer. Over recent years the cultural face of the Russian capital has changed radically with the opening of contemporary art centres. Although much of the contemporary work is focused on social and political critiques of the old communist regime, a broad diversification of artistic languages is beginning to emerge. Contemporary Russian art is attracting more and more amateur art collectors; however, for the time being, the majority of professional collectors are still of Russian origin.
Ilya KABAKOV, a Ukrainian born in 1933, is an unavoidable figure in contemporary Russian creativity. He is familiar with auction exposure and has sold more than 60 lots in public sales of which a majority have been drawings that sell for between EUR 4,000 and 8,000 on average. On 31 May 2006 at Sotheby’s London, a lot of 31 drawings from the 1970s entitled Where are
they? far outstripped its estimate by selling for GBP 220,000 (more than EUR 320,000!) Indeed, the whole generation of artists surrounding Kabakov – born
between the mid-1920s and the 1940s – is currently enjoying strong market effervescence. The inflation in value of the works of these artists accelerated in February of this year when Sotheby’s of London held its annual contemporary Russian art sale, an event it has been hosting since 1988. Among the artists presented there were Grisha BRUSKIN, Vitalii KOMAR, Boris ORLOV, Vladimir OVCHINNIKOV, Oskar RABINE, Viktor PIVOVAROV, Edvard Arkadievich STEINBERG, Natalia NESTEROVA and Mikhail CHEMIAKIN. The sale was a major success with 80% of the lots being sold. The highest bid during the sale was for an untitled work by Evgeny CHUBAROV which brought to mind Jackson POLLOCK’s dripping paintings. Estimated at between GBP 40,000 and 60,000, the piece fetched GBP 240,000 (over EUR 358,000), a particularly spectacular figure considering it was
Chubarov first ever auction sale! The second highest bid was for Révolution-Perestroika, a painting by Eric BULATOV from a private American collection which went under the hammer for GBP 165,000 (EUR 246,000) setting a new record for the artist. A third record was also set when a painting entitled Avid Eye by Mikhail Matveevich SHVARTSMAN (1926-97) more than tripled its estimate by selling for GBP 160,000 (close to EUR 230,000); yet another surprise considering the infancy of the market for Mikhail Matveevich SHVARTSMAN’s works. In effect, that was only the second piece by the artist to sell at a public auction; the first, Morning Road fetched GBP 40,000 (just under EUR 60,000) in November 2006. Aside from these lofty bids, some works were offered for less than GBP 5,000 such as a still life by Dmitri PRIGOV entitled Evening in Koktebel that sold for pour GBP 3,000 (EUR 4,481).
The younger generation of Russian artists born in the 50s and 60s has not yet acceded to a developed auction market. Nevertheless, French art collectors are already active in this field and are following young artists like Alexander & Vladimir VINOGRADOV & DUBOSSARSKY. For example, on 1 April last the Parisian auction house Cornette de Saint-Cyr Paris handled this artistic duo’s third auction appearance, the Landscape, which doubled its estimate selling for EUR 27,000! The presence in Paris of galleries specialised in Russian art has boosted the Russian creative scene. Moreover, the French auction house Calmels-Cohen actively supports the digital prints of the AES group founded in 1987. The three works submitted for auction by Calmels-Cohen all found buyers for prices between EUR 800 and 2,200 (9 June, 2005). A number of other Russian artists are also beginning to be mentioned at exhibitions and in the specialised art media such as Vladislav Mamyshev-Monroe, Viatcheslav Mizine, Alexandre Chabourov, Constantin Batynkov, Alexandre Ponomarev and Avdei Ter-Oganyan; but they are still unknown (or almost) at public auctions… however, the excellent results at Sotheby’s this year prove that things can change very quickly!
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