Hong Kong Art Auction: A Year after the Crash

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Oct 3rd 2009 at 9:05AM

Hong Kong will come to life with the sound of a gavel on Tuesday, October 6, 2009. Sotheby's will be holding its Modern and Contemporary Asian Art auction, which will consist of three sessions: 20th Century Chinese Art, Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings and Contemporary Asian Art. More than 380 works by Asian artists will come to auction, and the house expects close to $25 million in sales. Beyond bringing some new cash into Sotheby's, the auction is likely to give a sign as to the strength of the market, particularly with the November sales following shortly. Christie's will be holding its Hong Kong auctions on November 29 and 30.

In a sense, this is the one-year point for the art auction market. It was a year ago – in Hong Kong – that the world saw the effects of the financial crisis unfold in the art market. So, this bit of trivia will be front-of-mind as bidders make tough decisions on which pieces to acquire.

Sotheby's is betting big on the Contemporary Asian Art category, hoping that 190 lots will bring in $12.5 million in sales. High-profile artists are represented, including Guogiang Cai, Minjn Yue and Zhengjie Feng. There will be 130 lots in the Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings auction, including I Nyoman Masriadi's The man from Bantul, The Monster, which is estimated at $100,000. The 20th Century Chinese Art category has a mix of safe and speculative pieces.

Tags: art, art auction, art auctions, art market, ArtAuction, ArtAuctions, artist, ArtMarket, artwork, asian art, AsianArt, auction house, auction houses, AuctionHouse, AuctionHouses, china, chinese, chinese art, chinese arts, ChineseArt, ChineseArts, christies, hong kong, HongKong, sothebys

Filed under: Auctions, Art

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Yan Oct 6th 2009 10:05AM

Looks like they took in nearly USD$15 million, Chinese contemporary artists did exceptionally well. Yue Minjun sold for $823,000 ($372,000 over hi estimate), Zhang Xiaogang went for $1.1 million ($405,000 over hi estimate), Liu Ye, Zeng Fanzhi, Huang Yongping all went far beyond estimates.

Buyers from mainland China are seriously changing the game over there.