Flurry of art news
As the ‘Asia Week’ of art auctions rumbles to a close a flurry of articles about Chinese art have been written by the gentlemen of the press.
Top news is another of Zhang Xiaogang’s went for over $2 million. All the gen is here.
Quote: “Top lot was Zhang Xiaogang’s Bloodline: Three Comrades (1994), a pensive portrait of three Communist Party cadres, which sold for $2,112,000, just above the presale high estimate. Yue Minjun’s Goldfish (1993), which features a row of the artist’s trademark laughing men looking over a balustrade at a single fish, sold for $1,384,000 to an anonymous buyer. Leng Jun’s “Neorealist” Five Pointed Star (1999), a rendering of the Chinese emblem as a battered and blackened object, went for $1,215,000 to a private Chinese buyer. Both prices were new auction records for the artists.
The new hunger for Chinese contemporary seems to be single-handedly reviving the market for realist and figurative art, with new auction records set for Jiang Guo Fang ($420,000), Shi Xinning ($372,000), Tang Zhigang ($360,000), Yu Youhan ($126,000), Jiang Shuo ($126,000) and several others.
One abstractionist who set a new record at Sotheby’s was New York painter Emily Cheng, whose Lotus Rising (2003) sold for $14,400, in the mid-range of its presale estimate of $12,000-$18,000.”
In other news (and there is rather a lot of it)
A geezer is coming over to buy around $20 million of contemporary Chinese art, read about it here.
As the Tate is holding a big Chinese show the British press are busy too, the Telegraph comments on the “Rampant Market- rising fatigue” here.
There are also a series of articles in the guardian/Observer here, here and here.
Quote from the Telegraph (nb. shouldn’t it change its name to the e-mail?): “Tate’s Simon Groom believes that the rampant market may have produced what he calls “China fatigue”, encouraging artists to make saleable pastiches rather than “genuinely good, creatively interesting art”.
Barbara Pollack, an American artist and critic who is writing a book on contemporary art in China, concurs. “There are a lot of very positive things happening in China, but much of the money pouring into the market there is total speculation. There are more than 200 salerooms in China. Some of them sell contemporary art and they are all completely unregulated. Artists and dealers put works in for sale and encourage their friends to bid the prices up. The problem is that there is no developed practice of art criticism, no independent art press, and therefore no notion of quality. The worst artists are making the most money.”
Blah blah, and a NYt piece here on the ‘new artistic hotbed in Beijing.’ The IHT, not to be outdone, also gets a piece in here.
A hotbed. art channel as you like. Actually Shanghai Eye just recently visited the 798 Dashanzi art area. I asked why they are only mostly showing experimental pieces by recent art graduates. “Because all the paintings have been sold,” a Beijing based Taiwanese dealer said.
A bit of an exclusive for you Shanghai Eye readers- Eastlink is organising an art auction this coming Sunday, 8th April. I think it is invitation only.
But of course you will be too busy attending the Weihai Road 696 party/ open workshop event, 22 artists and some french expereimental people, starts around 5pm at 696 Weihai Road, april 8th. There is also a show at Doulun Art Gallery at 3pm. April 8th is apparently auspicious as it is the day after the tomb sweeping getting rid of ghosts day.