Hong Kong hailed as art’s Promised Land by Art+Auction Magazine

HONG KONG ART MARKET

Sanyu, Lotus et poissons rouges, 1955

The state of the arts in Hong Kong are strong and flourishing, earning Hong Kong the high praise of being touted as Asia’s arts ‘promised land’ by Art +Auction Magazine in the March 2010 issue.

The article entitled ‘Promised Land’ describes the active art market in the city, which has recently expanded financially and creatively.

David Spalding writes for Art +Auction that:

‘Hong Kong is rising as a major art center, thanks to its thriving auction market and rapidly growing contemporary-art scene.’

‘The Hong Kong art scene has evolved rapidly, overcoming its regional myopia to become a key continentwide player and gaining prominence within the local cultural landscape.’

Auction Market

Hong Kong achieved the distinction as the 3rd largest auction market in the world in 2007, after the U.S. and U.K, and has maintained this positioning through 2009. A March 2010 article in The Economist titled How China Bucked the Trend: What Really Happened in 2009, states:

In 2009, when the global art market shrunk by more than a third to $43.5 billion, compared with $63.9 billion at its peak two years earlier, the Chinese art market bucked the trend. Sales in mainland China and Hong Kong reached a record high of $5.5 billion, up from $5 billion in 2008, boosting China’s share of the world art market that year to 14%, its highest share ever.

Indeed money freely flowed at Hong Kong’s various art auctions in late 2009, which set records and continually surpassed expectations. The following Fall 2009 Hong Kong auctions caught the attention of art world:

Zeng Fanzhi’s Untitled (Hospital Series), 1994

Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s October 6th sale of 20th-Century Chinese Art was estimated to generate $10.4 million USD in sales, but instead produced an impressive $14 million USD. This successful sale included Sanyu’s Lotus et poissons rouges, 1955,  which sold for $4.7 million, 31% higher than its greatest estimated price.  This is the artist’s 2nd highest auction price to date, and solely accounted for a third of the show’s total revenue.

The Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings sale yielded $6.4 million, more than double its estimated yield and 76% more than the spring sale in this category.

The sale’s standout work was Indonesian painter Lee Man Fong’s Magnificent Horses, 1966, which was estimated to sell for approximately $200,000–$320,000 USD, but raked in an artist-record of $1 million USD.

Christie’s

Christie’s also experienced successful sales in November that produced $213 million USD over 5 days. A reported 47% of the buyers of contemporary Asian works were from mainland China, and favored pieces by more-established artists.

In the November 29th sale of Asian Contemporary Art and Chinese 20th-Century Art, Zeng Fanzhi’s Untitled (Hospital Series), 1994, surpassed its expected high of $1.5 million to attain $2.5 million. The November 30th Southeast Asian Modern and Contemporary sale featured Indonesian painter I Nyoman Masriadi’s Master Yoga, 2009, which also exceeded its high estimate of $130,000 to realize $467,102.

Socially active gallery scene, international flavor

Hong Kong has also earned the designation as Asia’s visual contemporary arts ‘promised land’ due to its vibrant and growing gallery scene, which features fine art not only from Asia, but the entire world. In addition, many of these socially responsible Hong Kong galleries have taken it as their mission to connect to and nurture the larger creative community. Hong Kong’s 10th annual ArtWalk, which was held on March 17th,  included 62 participating galleries that opened their doors to the public for this charity event that supported Hong Kong’s Society for Community Organization (SoCo).

Notable galleries featuring Asian artworks include:

Hanart TZ, founded in 1983 by the local critic and curator Johnson Chang Tsong-zung, has helped bring international exposure to mainland Chinese artists throughout the 1990s. This work has continued most recently with a solo exhibition of new paintings and mixed-media work by the young Fo Tan artist Lam Tung-pang (who is also represented in a concurrent group show at the Hong Kong Museum of Art through April 25).

The Osage Gallery focuses on East and Southeast Asian art, while 10 Chancery Lane Gallery holds exhibitions of Vietnamese and Cambodian contemporary art. The Thai gallery Tang Contemporary Art — which has become significant here since opening a space on Hollywood Road in 2008 — offers an eclectic mix. The artists represented in its booth at last year’s Hong Kong art fair included the Thai-Indian Navin Rawanchaikul, the Beijing-based Yan Lei and longtime Paris resident Wang Du.

Western art represented in Asia

There is also a growing local Hong Kong market for Western art, and numerous galleries have risen to meet this need.

The London gallery Ben Brown Fine Arts opened a Hong Kong space last November showing works by leading Western artists Gerhard Richter, Thomas Ruff and Jeff Wall, alongside those of established Asian artists like the Japanese Yayoi Kusama and the Calcutta-born, Brooklyn-based Rina Banerjee.

The Schoeni Art Gallery, which opened in 1993 with an exhibition of works by Chinese, Russian and Swiss artists, is boldly mixing things up, with the 2008 launch of Adapta, a collaboration with the U.K.-based Web magazine UKAdapta on projects involving urban and  graffiti artists like Banksy.

Additional galleries facilitating the introduction of Western art to Asia include: the Cat Street Gallery, Art Statements, and the Fabrik Gallery.

EW/KCE

Related Posts:

• Fotan 2010 – a growing cluster of art studios in Hong Kong– Feb 10
• More art, better art, riskier art at Art HK 09– May 09
• Is Singapore threatening Hong Kong as next Asian art mecca? Wall Street Journal– Nov 09
• Luck for Sothebys at Southeast Asian auction 2009 in Hong Kong– Apr 09

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Which artists from Asia are in the Pompidou Centre’s collection?

Cai Guoqiang

 

 

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Helpful sources of objective and rigorous judgement, museums  provide an independent voice in an art world populated by more unscrupulous personalities and poor research than is ideal.  But how can we find out what the top museums are acquiring and what they are holding in their storage rooms?

Public institutions are often happy to share this information if you give them a call though of course this is not necessarily the case with private museums. Some institutions are now giving the public digital access to their entire collections and the Pompidou Centre is one of these. Its collection comprises over 61,000 works by more than 5,500 artist around the world making it the largest collection in Europe of modern and contemporary art.

The collection is dominated by French works (24,000) and there is a substantial group of US works (9,000) with the bulk of the remainder coming from Europe. It seems that the Pompidou has been active in acquiring Chinese, Indian and Iranian works recently. We have made a list of links to some Asian artists’s works in its holdings:

Chinese modern: Zou Wou-ki, Walasse Ting, Xu Beihong and a number of other 1930s born artists

Chinese contemporary: Cai Guo-qiang, Kai Cui, Georgette Chen, Chen Zhen, Cui Xiuwen, Fang Lijun, Huang Yong Ping, Li Yongbin, Liu Wei, Wang Du, Wang Jian Wei, Wang Jin, Weng Fen, Yan Lei, Yan Peiming, Yang Fudong, Yang Jun, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhang Huan, Zhang Peili, Ming Zhu.

Hong Kong: Man Ip

Yuki Onodera

Shadi Ghadirian

Indian: Subodh Gupta, Ansih Kapoor, Sonia Khurana, Satyendra Pakhale, N Pushpmala, Raghu Rai, Amar Sehgal, Tejal Shah, Bethea Shore, Velu Viswanadhan

Indonesia, Cambodia catogories contain works by Europeans rather than by native artists

Iraq: Jananne Al-Ani, Abraham Habbah, Jamil Hamoudi

Iran: Jalai Abbas, Nasser Assar, Shadi Ghadirian, Ghazel, Abbas Kiarostami, Nathalie Melikian, Shirin Neshat, Serge Rezvani

Shirin Neshat

Israel: Most works Ron Arad furniture design

Japan: 16 pages of works including 1960s photography and architectural works and furniture from 1960s to 1980s, Yayoi Kusama, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Rika Noguchi, Yoko Ono, Yuki Onodero, Hiroshi Sugimoto

 

Thailand: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

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Book: Chinese Contemporary Art 7 Things You Should Know

BOOK OVERVIEW CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART

Chinese Contemporary Art: 7 Things You Should Know – Melissa Chiu

In China today, contemporary art is readily available in public museums and private galleries in burgeoning gallery districts, and in three new art fairs in Beijing and Shanghai. Abroad, Chinese artists are the subject of museum retrospective exhibitions and grace the covers of international art magazines.

Chinese contemporary art has come of age; yet there are few reference books for the reader who wants a quick but precise history of the field. This book aims to fill that gap. Short and to the point, it is arranged into seven sections outlining the rudiments of Chinese contemporary art: what you need to know about the artists, the art market, and what can legitimately be called a new art movement, perhaps the first great art movement of the 21st century.

Sections:

• Contemporary art in China began decades ago
• Chinese contemporary art is more diverse than you might think
• Museums and galleries have promoted Chinese contemporary art since the 1990s
• Government censorship has been an influence on Chinese artists, and sometimes still is
• The Chinese artists’ diaspora is returning to China
• Contemporary art museums in China are on the rise
• The world is collecting Chinese contemporary art

 Artists:

Weiwei AI(艾未未), Guoqiang CAI(蔡國強), Xin CANG(蒼鑫), Fei CAO(曹斐 b.1978), Danqing CHEN(陳丹青 b.1953), Zhen CHEN(陳箴), Xiuwen CUI(崔岫聞 b.1970), Lijun FANG(方力鈞), Mengbo FENG(馮夢波), Jianyi GENG(耿建翌), Dexin GU(顧德新), Wenda GU(谷文達), Bo HAI(海波), Duoling HE(何多苓 b.1948), Hao HONG(洪浩), Lei HONG(洪磊), Rui HUANG(黃銳), Yan HUANG(黃岩 b.1966), Yongping HUANG(黃永砅), Shan LI(李山 b.1942), Shuang LI(李爽), Tianmiao LIN(林天苗), Yilin LIN(林一林 b.1964), Wei LIU(劉煒 b.1965), Xiaodong LIU(劉小東), Desheng MA(馬德升), Liuming MA(馬六明), Zhilong QI(祁志龍 b.1962), Zhijie QIU(邱志傑 b.1969), Rong RONG(榮榮), Dong SONG(宋冬), Jianguo SUI(隨建國), Du WANG(王度), Gongxin WANG(王功新), Guangyi WANG(王廣義), Jianwei WANG(汪建偉), Jin WANG(王晉 b.1962), Jinsong WANG(王勁松), Keping WANG(王克平 b.1949), Qingsong WANG(王慶松), Shanzhuan WU(吳山專), Lu XIAO(肖魯 b.1962), Danwen XING(邢丹文), Bing XU(徐冰), Lei YAN(顏磊), Peiming YAN(嚴培明), Fudong YANG(楊福東 b.1971), Jiechang YANG(楊詰蒼 b.1956), Shaobin YANG(楊少斌), Xiuzhen YIN(尹秀珍 b.1963), Minjun YUE(岳敏君 b.1962), Fanzhi ZENG(曾梵志), Wang ZHAN(展望), Dali ZHANG(張大力), Huan ZHANG(張洹), Peili ZHANG(張培力), Xiaogang ZHANG(張曉剛 b.1958), Chunya ZHOU(周春芽), Ming ZHU(朱冥 b.1972)

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Chinese urban art exhibition in London shows new art medium laser tagging

Laser tagging in Hong Kong

URBAN CHINESE ART SHOW LONDON to 21 November 2008

Organised by Red Mansion Foundation, DOWN TOWN PRODUCTION is an exhibition of Chinese Urban Art
curated by Yan Lei 23rd September – 21st November 2008.

The artists will give us a taste of China’s emerging popular culture, with works such as ground-breaking L.A.S.E.R. graffiti by conceptual artist, DJ and rapper, MC Yan. L.A.S.E.R. tagging is the very newest form of graffiti art developed only a year ago and currently cropping up in cities all over the world. There will be a laser-tagging event and music performance by Chinese punk band Brain Failure on 17 October attached to the exhibition. 

Check out some laser tagging on video at: graffiti research lab

Down Town Production is a dynamic group show bringing cutting-edge, urban Chinese art to the UK. Curated by one of China’s leading artists, Yan Lei, the exhibition brings together eight rising stars of contemporary Chinese art whose work reflects the recent dramatic social and economic transformation of China. It is anticipated that 70% of China’s 1.3 billion population will live in urban areas by 2035. At the end of 2002, records showed that China’s urban population totalled 502 million, living in over 21,000 towns and cities. Down Town Production is a selection of art that reflects and explores this dramatic shift.

Artists include:

• MC Yan, conceptual artist, graffiti artist and rapper
• Liu Ding, installation and multimedia artist, part of Complete Art Experience Project group
• Hong Hao, photographer and graphic artist
• Meng Liuding, leading abstract painter
• Liu Zhenchen, photographer and video artist based in Paris
• Lao Liu, musician turned photographer with interest in North Korea
• Zhao Shaoruo, Finland and Beijing based photographer, exhibited V&A
• Wang Hui, avant garde architect and designer

Find more information on artists at Red Mansion Foundation website here

Hong Hao

Down Town Production is being staged by The Red Mansion Foundation, which has been working to bring China’s contemporary art scene to the UK for almost a decade, discovering new talent and establishing an exchange program between London and China for some of the biggest names in contemporary art. Many of the works in the exhibition will be for sale.

The Down Town Production show will take place both inside and outside the Red Mansion Foundation’s gallery space, which will be completely transformed for the purpose of this exhibition. Curator, Yan Lei, will distort the traditional “white cube” concept and create a totally new environment for the show that will be particularly striking in the context of the Red Mansion, a listed Robert Adam building.

The exhibition will include a one-off special performance by Brain Failure, trailblazers in China’s burgeoning punk scene, who will play at the ICA on 17th October. Formed in 1997, the band were the first to emerge from the People’s Republic of China, embracing Western punk ideals and now enjoying commercial success at home and in the US. This will be their first UK performance, and offers an insight into a youth movement that is gathering force. The bill also includes Stanley Kubrick Goes Shopping, a new collaboration between Youth of Killing Joke and Dennis Morris, lead vocalist of Basement 5 and music photographer, famed for his seminal images of the Sex Pistols and Bob Marley.

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• new media art,
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Survey of Chinese contemporary art at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

CHINESE ART SURVEY MUSEUM to 5 October 2008

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: Half-Life of a Dream: Contemporary Chinese Art

This selection of contemporary Chinese art from the Logan Collection reveals a spectrum of individual responses to the utopian dreams that have been driving Chinese society since 1949. Approximately 50 paintings, sculptures, and installations spanning 1988 to 2008 convey a sense of the shadows, masks, and monsters that have haunted the nation’s collective psyche during its process of modernization. The exhibition offers insight into the post-Tiananmen Square art and cultural scene, and features a diverse range of artists.

Artists include: Zheng Li, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhang Huan, Zhang Dali, Zeng Fanzhi, Yue Minjun, Yu Youhan, Yu Hong, Yin Chaoyang, Yang Shaobin, Yan Lei, Xu Bing, Wang Gongxin, Sui Jianguo, Sheng Qi, Liu Xiaodong, Liu Wei, Liu Hung, Lin Tianmiao, Li Songsong, Li Dafang, Gu Wenda, Fang Lijun, Cui Guotai, Ai Weiwei

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• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art website
• latest news on survey exhibitions
• more posts on Chinese contemporary art
• latest posts events on now
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Two decade survey of Chinese contemporary art ‘Our Future’ at Ullens Center Beijing to 12 October 2008

 SURVEY EXHIBITION CHINESESE CONTEMPORARY ART BEIJING to 12 Oct 2008

This series of exhibitions, site commissions and educational projects entitled “Our Future” aims at opening its door to the future of art in China.

The exhibition will give wide-angle view of the work and artistic practice of several generations of artists. Through special commissions and new acquisitions, work rarely seen before will be viewable to the public.

Featuring around 60 Chinese artists, the exhibition will present no less than 92 works by such prominent names as Chen Zhen, Gu Wenda, Huang Yong Ping, Wang Guangyi, Wang Du, Zhang Xiaogang.

New projects, performances and educational works from Cao Fei, He Yunchang, Qiu Zhijie and Yang Jiechang have been especially created for the Our Future exhibition.

“Our Future: Site Commissions” is a long-term project and has commissioned installations, murals, paintings and sculptures especially designed for the exhibition site by artists such as Ai Wei Wei, Michael Lin, Wang Du, Wang Jianwei, Wen Fang, Yan Lei and Yan Peiming.
Throughout the interior and exterior of the building, the organizer will pay tribute to the work these artists have accomplished over the past two decades in bringing Chinese contemporary art onto the international art scene by devoting its entire 8,000 square meters space to sustain their artistic creations, beyond the exhibition halls.

“Our Future: The Guy & Myriam Ullens Foundation Collection”
Exhibition Date: 19 Jul 2008 – 12 Oct 2008

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• exhibition details at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art site
• more on surveys of Asian art
• more on Chinese contemporary art

If you are interested in this post, you might also be interested to read more about the UBS four decade survey of contemporary art on show in Beijing to November 7 2008.

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