For Art's Sake?
On April 7 this year, a painting by prominent Chinese artist Xu Beihong, Put Down Your Whip, sold for HK$72 million at a Sotheby's Hong Kong auction. The sale not only smashed the artist's own auction record, but set a new world auction record for a Chinese painting.
With the boom in the contemporary Chinese art market, these results are no surprise.
'We break records for many artists every sale we hold,' says Henry Howard-Sneyd, managing director of Sotheby's Asia and worldwide head of Asian art departments.
Xu's painting of an anti-Japanese street play was expected to fetch less than HK$4 million, but with both Sotheby's and Christie's experiencing record sales at their respective auctions of contemporary Chinese art, it seems the sky is the limit.
China's modern art movement arose in the 1980s, when artists began to express their views on traditional values and culture in the wake of the Cultural Revolution and the country's rapid modernisation. While Xu died in 1953, decades before the official movement began, Sotheby's Contemporary Chinese Art auctions cover the entire 20th century, giving collectors a wider perspective on the development of Chinese art.
Of the true contemporary Chinese artists, Zhang Xiaogang (born in 1958) is stealing most of the headlines with his giant family portraits and split-focus images from the Cultural Revolution era. One of his works, Tiananmen Square, set the world auction record for a contemporary Chinese painting when it sold for HK$18 million at Christie's Asian Contemporary Art auction last November.
There are many factors driving the boom, including the establishment three years ago of the Dashanzi artists' community (often called Factory 798) in Beijing, but the central themes of the contemporary Chinese art movement - reflections on materialism and China's consumer culture (represented by Yue Minjun's garishly coloured laughing men), the loss of traditional values and the legacy of Mao Zedong - lie at the heart of its international appeal.
'Most of the buyers are successful people who have made a lot of money, and this is art that speaks of their own experience, what money they made and what is happening now,' says Howard-Sneyd. 'China is in the press every day and is at the forefront of current events. [Chinese art] has an immediate appeal and is very approachable.'
Sotheby's started its Contemporary Chinese Art auctions in Hong Kong in 2004 and, says Howard-Sneyd, the auction house was surprised at not just the local interest but also the international interest that followed.
'For a long time, Chinese artists were not seen as comparable to those in the west; now they have equal status in the market,' says Vinci Chang, head of sales for 20th-Century Chinese Art and Asian Contemporary Art at Christie's Hong Kong. 'A contemporary artwork by a western artist such as Damien Hirst goes for around HK$18 million so you can see how comparable the prices are.'
According to the art-market information website, artprice.com, Zhang outsold top artists such as Jeff Koons and Hirst at auctions last year, ranking 38th out of a list of 500.
But not everyone is convinced contemporary Chinese art is as good as the prices it fetches at auction. Richard Dorment, a British art critic and journalist, calls it the 'great Chinese art swindle'. Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Dorment attributes the record sales to there not being enough good art available to 'feed a voracious market led by speculators willing to buy virtually anything on offer'.
Dorment compares the boom to the late 1980s, 'just before the great crash that made junk art as worthless as the junk bonds that paid for it'. The catalyst for his remarks was a review of an exhibition, 'The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China', at the Tate gallery in Liverpool. The exhibition's title, he says, is an appropriation of the Coca-Cola slogan, which reduces the status of art in modern China to 'another product in the rapidly expanding economy, subject to the same laws of supply and demand and marketed with the same energy as a fizzy drink. The title also sneers (there is no other word) at the Chinese art that westerners see and buy so indiscriminately.'
Harsh words, but given the market dynamic, ones that hold a grain of truth. Amid concerns about a speculative bubble, insiders say that while the boom is making a lot of money for some, other artists and galleries are painting and selling solely to cash in on the market.
Claire Hsu is co-founder and executive director of Asia Art Archive (www.aaa.org.hk), an independent organisation that aims to foster a deeper understanding of the Chinese art market. She says: 'While some artists have succumbed to the irresistible pressures of creating formulaic works that pander to the taste of a group of collectors/investors, there are artists who have succeeded in creating original and important works that make art production in China one of the most interesting phenomena in the cultural fields.
'One needs to look beyond the auction houses and the many commercial galleries that are jumping on the China bandwagon to get a complete picture of what contemporary art production in China is all about,' suggests Hsu. 'Easier said than done, considering the lack of a cohesive museum strategy in China, which currently stifles the production of experimental art rather than encourages it.'
According to the two big auction houses, there is still plenty of life left in the market. 'The energy of the contemporary Chinese art market will continue in 2007 with more record-breaking sales,' says Chang from Christie's, which at the time of going to press was getting ready to stage its first Asian Contemporary Art auction of 2007 where Zhang's La Vie Continue - Love is expected to fetch as much as HK$2.5 million and Yue's Portrait of the Artist and His Friends is estimated to go for up to HK$5.5 million.
'It was and still is attracting investors at a faster rate than any other area - it's an upward trend,' agrees Howard-Sneyd. 'London, for example, is an extremely diverse and wealthy city and there's not enough good quality art to fill the demand - it is basic economics, if demand outstrips supply, the price will go up. It's good to buy from a shrinking supply in a growing market.'
So how do you separate the world-class from the kitsch to find that elusive needle in a haystack? Like any investment, experts advise you do your due diligence. Go to auctions, galleries, museums, do your research at the Asia Art Archive and track market value and auction prices on sites such as artnet.com, artindex.com or artprice.com.
'Solo shows will give you more in-depth insight into one artist (potentially helping you choose that most representative or pivotal work), whereas an auction can give you access to a wide variety of artists and works by giving you a macro view,' suggests Chang.
'Like all collectibles, art is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it and it's hard to pay too much for a painting at an auction since at least one other person thinks it is worth almost as much as you do - the one bidding before you,' says Howard-Sneyd. 'Buying from a reputable source may cost more but at a public auction the work has been vetted by public opinion.'
And, finally, like all asset allocation, diversification is key. Don't stick to one artist - hedge your bets and spread your investment.
Galleries and dealers
Hong Kong
Anna Ning Fine Art
Room 101, St George's Building, 2 Ice House Street, Central,
tel: 2521 3193; e-mail: [email protected]
Connoisseur Art Gallery
Shop G3, Chinachem Hollywood Road, 1 Hollywood Road, Central,
tel: 2868 5358; www.connoisseur-art.com
Schoeni Art Gallery
27 Hollywood Road, Central, tel: 2542 3143; e-mail: [email protected]
China
Art Scene Beijing
798-Dashanzi, 2 Jui Xianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, tel: 86 10 6431 6962;
email: [email protected];
Wan Fung Art Gallery
136 Nanchizi Dajie, Dong Cheng District, Beijing, tel: 86 10 6523 3320;