Market Review
There is no sign of any loss of confidence in the contemporary art market, but away from the headline-grabbing sales, classic Chinese art performed strongly.
Susan Moore, Sunday, 22nd June 2008
Hong Kong also saw its first top-level international contemporary art fair, art HK 08 (14-18 May). Its director, Magnus Renfrew, had set out to offer a taste of the diversity of contemporary artistic practice and pulled together a highly professional event embracing an impressive roll-call of galleries from across the globe. There were big-buck pieces – a HK$35m Bacon from Marlborough, for instance, and museum-quality works too, such as Nam June Paik’s HK$750,000 TV is Kitsch of 1996 from Hyundai (the Korean galleries were a particular strength).
According to the organisers, most galleries made sales – some within minutes of the fair’s opening, including Hong Kong dealer 10 Chancery Lane, who sold Cai Guo Qiang’s $260,000 Gunpowderbook. At least three – Gandhara Art (Pakistan), the Drawing Room (Philippines) and Hong Kong gallery Grotto Fine Art – reported a sell-out, and others, such as Rossi & Rossi, could have sold certain pieces several times over. Although the largest reported sale was of a Yue Min June offered from the Gana Art Gallery of Seoul at HK$1.5m, most sales seemed to be of Asian pieces in the tens or hundreds of thousands. As to the big question of whether Asian collectors would take the opportunity of buying Western art, the answer was that some did, as did the Asian art trade. The London dealer Bernard Jacobsen, for instance, found a home for his enamel on stainless steel Lichtenstein, Water Lilies: Blue Lily Pad, priced at $125,000 (Fig. 7s), and Hong Kong Chinese collectors bought Massimo Vitali photographs and works by Brigitte Waldach from M+B in Los Angeles.
1 Vessel and cover, Guang Qianlong (1736-95). Jade, ht. 20.5 cm, Christie’s, London, Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art (13 May) £1.36m
2 My Lonesome Cowboy by Takashi Murakami (b. 1963) 1998. Oil, acrylic, fibreglass, and iron, ht 254 cm. Sotheby’s, New York, Contemporary Art (14 May), $15.16m
3 Mask Series 1996 No. 6 by Zeng Fanzhi (b. 1964), 1996. Oil on canvas, 360 x 200 cm. Christie’s, Hong Kong, Asian Contemporary Art Evening Sale (24 May), HK$75.4m
4 Water Lilies: Blue Lily Pad by Roy Lichtenstein (1923-97), 1992. Enamel on stainless steel with painted wood frame, 110.5 x 97.8 cms. Bernard Jacobson Gallery at art HK 08 (14-18 May) 5 Grande femme debout II by Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), conceived in 1959-60 and cast in 1961. Bronze, ht 274 cm. Christie’s, New York, Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale (6 May), $27.48m
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