Fanning the fashion for Chinese art
Isabel Andrews, Friday, 2nd May 2008
As part of this month’s China-themed issue, Apollo interviewed Baron Guy Ullens about his newly-opened Ullens Contemporary Art Centre in Beijing, which houses part of his 1,300-strong collection of contemporary Chinese art. To fund the project, Ullens and his wife sold their collection of 14 Turner watercolours at Sotheby’s in 2007 for a hefty £10.4m – the biggest group to come on the market for 50 years – and thus relinquished a highly covetable collection and market-assured investment.
For private collectors to sell up and change direction is not unprecedented – Charles Saatchi sold his major collection of postwar American art put together in the 1980s to buy up YBAs in the nineties. Saatchi is also now one of many European collectors snapping up contemporary Chinese art including artist Zhang Xiaogang, who tops the red-hot market.
But while the western art world is sprinting to enter China – Sotheby’s opened an office in Beijing last year and Christie’s licensed it’s name there in 2005 – the 20-30 known Chinese collectors of contemporary are more cautious – or discriminating – with works by Zhang Xiaogang failing to sell in Beijing’s Poly Auction House sale in 2007. In New York however, during Asia Week auctions, the record for Xiaogang was smashed twice in one sale.
The current appetite for contemporary Chinese art has divided the Western art world. Is the boom justified by the quality of the art emerging from this new market or a case of the emperor’s new clothes?
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Comments
Art Nouveau
May 2nd, 2008 1:51pmpersonally, i only collect chinese contemporary art, i think its fresh and exciting, much more interesting than dusty old turner.
Fredrick Page
May 5th, 2008 11:48pmNouveau, indeed. It is a plain fact that Turner is old. Though it also clear that most of his works are now in dust-free environments called museums.
Lucian Meades
May 6th, 2008 10:52amMichael Hall broached the interesting question in his February leader that enjoying the BM's First Emperor show might make it more difficult to condemn China's human rights record. I wonder if those buying new chinese art are also in agreement with the Olympic torch protests?
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