Chinese Art

The Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) knew how to live. Today, we could say they had a talent for "living large," enjoying all the arts in this life and the next. If there is a message in the Met's new show, "The World of Khubilai Khan, Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty," it is that during the roughly 100 years of the Yuan, there was a new artistic awakening and a flourishing of all the arts including architecture, textiles, calligraphy, painting, and porcelain. According to the curators, the Yuan world laid the foundation of what today we think of as traditional Chinese art.

Would you spend over $3 million in a few clicks? One eager collector did. Christie's announced that the top lot in Thursday's sale of The Sze Yuan Tang Archaic Bronzes from the Anthony Hardy Collection went to an online bidder who paid $3,330,500 for a bronze wine vessel and cover, Fangyi late Shang dynasty, Anyang. The winning bidder was an American collector who competed against bidders in the saleroom and on the phone. The object is believed to have been a prized ritual vessel at the time of its creation in 12th-11th century BC and is marked with the names of the clan of the artisans who created it and the ancestors to whom it is dedicated.

The sale set a new house record, blowing away the previous Christie's online sales record of $1.27 million, set in April 2008 for a Stradavari violin. There have been several lots that have sold for over $1 million throughout the Christie's LIVE™ application and the number of online bidders has continued to rise.

When viewed from a distance, the striking Buddhas of New-York based Taiwanese artist, Long-Bin Chen, look like marble or wood sculpture. They have stony expressions, but they are soft and so pliable you can actually flip through them. Award-winning Chen joins other artists like Vik Muniz who would agree that "one man's trash is another man's treasure." Muniz assembles his leftovers, creates a painting, photographs his work, and then destroys the original. Chen assembles but doesn't discard. He uses primarily trashed paper for sculpture believing that nothing should go to waste--- not out-of-print phone books, magazines, newspapers, or computer printouts.

Seven lots fetched more than $1 million at the last Sotheby's auctions in Hong Kong, led by Liu Ye's acrylic and oil "Bright Road," which sold for more than $2.5 million. This was the top take for a Chinese contemporary artist in two years, indicating that Chinese art is on its way back to levels we haven't seen since the financial crisis. Last year, similar pieces were moving for only a third of this year's pricing.

According to Eric Huang, an art dealer based in Taipei, "Demand for the best Chinese contemporary artworks is back." Huang continued in his interview with Bloomberg News, "Don't be surprised to see prices match or even beat pre-crisis levels very soon."

Chinese contemporary art prices plunged 70 percent from May 2008 highs, due in large part to the financial catastrophe that rocked every financial center around the world. Already, the Sotheby's action has been good for HK$316.8 million and another HK$50 million from its wine auction.

More hotels are getting into showcasing art but the Langham Place hotel in Hong Kong is now the first hotel in the world to offer their guests museum-style guided tours of their collection of contemporary Chinese art.The hotel owns more than 1,500 pieces of contemporary Chinese art worth more than HK$20 million. The collection includes pieces by Chinese artists including Wang Guangyi, Yue Minjun and Jiang Shuo. The iPod art tour takes guests from the ground level to the 41st floor to check out the hotel's top 21 pieces. Via the iPod, Angela Li, Langham Place's art consultant explains the philosophy and history of the art and artist and the key contributors guiding the artist. The tours are conducted in English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese and are free for all guests. The tour comes with a free take-home petite box-set guide with image prints and written explanations in English and Traditional Chinese.

Despite an early sign of success with the February 2009 Yves Saint Laurent auction, France wasn't able to knock China from the #3 spot among the world's art markets. According to Artprice, China finished the year behind the usual leaders (New York and London), making considerable progress in a severe year for the art market. Fine art sales in China hit $830 million, taking a 17.33 percent share of the global market. In 2008, China had only a 7.83% share. Nearly half the 2009 fine art result in China came from three auction houses: Poly International, China Guardian and Beijing Council. The Hong Kong branches of Christie's and Sotheby's were good for another $200 million.

Because of the strength the Chinese art market showed last year, 15 Chinese hammer prices, including a contemporary sale, forced their way into the top 100 results worldwide ... and ever.

A year from now, we'll look back on the art market 2009 as that last slither though the gutter before picking itself back up in 2010. But, we're not there yet: 2009 is in the rearview mirror, so it will remain our baseline for the next 12 months. When looking at the top performers at auction last year, there's a pretty consistent story – revenue declines ranged from 55 percent to 77 percent relative to 2008. Top 10 mainstays – such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Alberto Giacometti, Edgar Degas and Claude Monet – got thrashed. These conditions led to some changes, as well, with a Chinese artist making the top 10 for the first time. In fact, he pushed into the top three.

1. Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso is back on top, after giving up the #1 position in 2008. And, it took only $121 million in auction sales to get him there. From 1998 to 2008, total sales for Picasso gained 96 percent, before falling by 54 percent last year, with pricing off 15 percent. The number of sales pushing past the $1 million mark declined precipitously, from 39 in 2008 to only 15 last year, and his top sale was for "Mousquetaire a la pipe," which moved for $13 million on May 6, 2009, at Christie's. This year could be a bit tough for Picasso collectors, as Artprice believes certain paintings were still overpriced.

One bidder spent more than $146 million this year and dropped a boatload of cash at the Christie's Hong Kong art auction on Monday, pushing prices higher and smashing records. Wang Wei, with her husband, investor Liu Yiqian, ranks 176th among the wealthiest in China, with a net worth of $740 million ... and she wouldn't say how much she's spent on art this year.

Wang waved Paddle 960 aggressively on Monday, sometimes tossing bids up HK$1 million at a time to distance herself from competitors for particular pieces. A few times, she didn't bother lowering her paddle, instead just holding it up until her rivals quit.

At Sotheby's Hong Kong in October, Wang's husband shelled out $11 million for a Qing Dynasty imperial throne, complete with carved dragons, setting a record. And, this month, he payd $25 million for a Ming Dynasty scroll by Wu Bin at Beijing's Poly auction -- it was the most paid for a Chinese painting.

At Monday's Christie's sale, HK$126.7 million in art sold, and the house wouldn't reveal how much of it went to Wang. Speaking for herself, the collector reveals why she made the purchases she did. According to Bloomberg News: "I just bought those for fun."

[Photo courtesy of Christie's]

What a difference a year makes!

Buyers brought their wallets to the Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong Monday, shelling out plenty of cash for pieces by Chinese masters. Sanyu's "Lotus et Poissons Rouge" fetched $4.7 million – beating the presale estimate soundly. But, the price was still considered low for Sanyu. In fact, the success of the auction is tainted by the fact that estimates aren't reflective of past sales levels. A painting by abstract artist Zao Wou-ki pulled in $2 million for the house.

Of course, there was plenty of optimism, fostered by both the performance relative to estimates and a burning desire to be out of the art market slump. Hua Yuzhou, who owns a gallery in Shanghai, says in Bloomberg News, "Give it a few months and these pieces may run beyond our reach again."

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.

When you're close to the floor, you don't have far to fall.

That was the sentiment at the seventh Arteamericas event, which ran from March 27 – 30 at the Miami Beach Convention Center. This year, the fair drew 52 exhibitors, down from 70 last year. Collectors and dealers alike see this as positive in a generally harsh art market.

The Latin American art space, which is the focus of Arteamericas, did not grow as aggressively as the Chinese art sector, which has protected collectors. Since prices did not rise to absurd proportions (by art market standards, at least), the art crash of 2008 and 2009 won't impact these collectors as severely. Sitting on the panel, "Latin American Art in Today's Global and Local Art Markets," Vivian Pfeiffer, a regional director for Christie's in South Florida, said, "We don't have that much distance to crash." Further, collectors of Latin American art tend to be unwilling to sell their holdings even when times are tough.

The largest sale at the event was the 1945 painting Sorcerer, by René Portocarrero of Cuba. It fetched $135,000 on the first night of the event. Another Portocarrero, Woman with Birds (1982) sold for $40,000.

[Photo: "The Smoker" by Julio Aguilera"]

When you have a jade cong as your base you pretty much can't go wrong with your lamp. This luminous lamp from Spaltana is made from a solid jade cong, a Chinese jade artifact which is square on the outside and circular on the interior. The four corners of the cong represent the four elements of water, fire, metal and wood and the four directions. The circular interior represents the connection to the sky. The Spaltana lamps are made of veined dark green jade and each pillar has a decorative motif carved in each of the four corners. The jade cong sits on a poplar base and the lamp shade is made from pongee silk. These rare table lamps sell for $1800.