Chinese Contemporary Art - Selling Fast

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The Chinese art market continues to roll along setting new records and advancing prices. I know, we have heard it before, but the longevity of the strong market is impressive, to say the least.

The Financial Times has an update on some of the Hong Kong sales now going on. This report is from single owner Ullens Collection, consisting of 105 lots of Chinese Contemporary art. According to the FT, all 105 lots sold (there were 106 but one lot was pulled), and the sale tripled the pre sale estimates. This included several record prices for Chinese contemporary art, including a world record for a Chinese Contemporary artwork at auction, Zhang Xiaogang's Forever Lasting Love, selling for $10.14 million including buyers premium (see image). The sale totaled $25.5 million including buyers premium.

The FT reports

Zhang Xiaogang’s 1988 triptytch “Forever Lasting Love” was sold to a buyer over the telephone for HK$79 (US$10.1m; £6.3m), more than doubling its pre-sale estimate of HK$25-30m. It broke the previous record of HK$75m, set by Zeng Fanzhi’s canvas “Mask Series 1996 No 6”, auctioned in Hong Kong in 2008.

The sale – which has been described as “furious” – tripled its expected total of up to US$17m; and all 105 works were sold (one of the original 106 was withdrawn). The works came from the collection of Baron Guy Ullens, the retired businessman turned art collector who set up the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing in 2007.

The auction also set records for the Chinese artists Zhang Peili, whose “Series ‘X?’ No 3” went for HK$23m, and Geng Jianyi, whose canvas “Two People Under a Light” fetched HK$18.6m.

Kevin Ching, chief executive of Sotheby’s Asia, said the works on sale represented “the entire spectrum of contemporary Chinese art”.

Magnus Renfrew, head of the contemporary art fair Art HK (whose fourth edition takes place in May), told Reuters: “It’s great to see collectors in Asia engaging with modern and contemporary art. In the early phase of the market in around 2006, the majority of collectors were from the West. It’s very much switched now. Chinese buying and Indonesian buying.”

Ullens said in a statement that the auction of these works does not signal the end of his commitment to contemporary Chinese art.