Heeding Hong Kong

12 décembre 2008

Le boom que connait le marché chinois de l'art contemporain fait couler beaucoup d'encre : spéculation dont le retournement est proche ? ou vrai marché prometteur ?

Cet article d'Alexandra Peers revient sur les différents discours tenus... Apr 8 2008
Is the Chinese contemporary art market teetering on the brink? Major auctions in Hong Kong this week will tell.

Detail of Liu Xiaodong’s 'Battlefield Realism.'

Detail of Liu Xiaodong’s "Battlefield Realism."

Photograph courtesy of: Sotheby's

There are two schools of thought about the roaring Chinese art market. The first holds that China is just awakening to its vast wealth and that the bidding war for its cultural treasures has barely begun. The second is that Chinese contemporary art, in particular, is the frothiest segment of an already-frothy art market, and that it’s headed for a fall.

If so, that fall will likely come in the next few days.

In a four-day series of auctions beginning today in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s will put more than 1,400 works of Asian art on the block, including a leading collection of contemporary Chinese paintings by some of the fastest-rising artists in the field. The sales come on the heels of a first-quarter correction in the Chinese stock market and amid international protests regarding the nation’s actions in Tibet. Given that some of the art for sale is political in nature, and that these are Sotheby’s largest and most ambitious sales ever in the region, art-world eyes are focused on Hong Kong.

It’s a trend art watchers have seen boom in recent years: In fall 2000, Sotheby’s raised $14.9 million at its Asia Week auctions of antiques and contemporary art; in fall 2007, it raised about $200 million. One vase sold for four times as much as the entire week of sales had raised just seven years earlier. The sales that begin today are expected to raise more than $185 million.

Meanwhile, institutions like New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim have begun to show Chinese contemporary art. At the opening of the Guggenheim’s Cai Guo-Qiang show last month, Thomas Krens, then president of the museum’s foundation, argued that Cai is “just the tip of an iceberg coming toward us…there’s a whole cadre of artists [in China] the world needs to pay attention to.” Influential galleries PaceWildenstein and Barry Friedman, Ltd. now represent contemporary Chinese artists. Collectors like real estate developer Aby Rosen and Charles Saatchi, better known for their Warhols and Hirsts, have bought Chinese art in the past two to three years.

Fueling the market is not only speculative fever but also China’s own economic growth—eight of the 10 buyers of Christie’s Asian art “top lots” last fall were believed to be Chinese. Globally, there is a widespread belief that this collecting field is one of the few in which masterpieces, both new and old, are still available for sale.

But the smart money may already be exiting the market. Eight collections of Asian art go up for the bid in the next few days. Highlights of the week include a jewel-encrusted bowl from the Ming Dynasty. Etched with dragons, it is expected to fetch more than $7.7 million. Liu Xiaodong’s Battlefield Realism is the priciest painting. A comment on China’s relations with its neighbors, it depicts 18 Taiwanese and Chinese soldiers and is estimated at $7 million. (Rival Christie’s won’t hold its Hong Kong sales until next month, when it inaugurates black-tie evening sales in the city.)

No collection is being watched more closely than William Acquavella’s. A longtime art dealer and business partner of Sotheby’s, he counts powerhouses such as Steven Cohen and Steve Wynn among his clients. On April 9, he parts with his 108-piece collection of contemporary Chinese art.

Sotheby’s calls the Estella Collection, as it is called, “the most important collection of Chinese contemporary art to ever come to market.” But it may have to brag loudly: At smaller sales of Chinese contemporary art last month in New York, nearly a third of the pieces went unsold.

“I’ve been saying this market is going to crash, and it is,” says Iain Robertson, head of the art-business division of the Sotheby’s Institute, which gives classes on the art market to novice collectors. (Sotheby’s shares a name, but not management, with the Institute.) But Barbara Pollock, an artist and writer who is researching a book on Chinese contemporary art, says at the Hong Kong auctions, it’s impossible not to believe the market’s continued climb is inevitable. “It’s 5,000 people, stadium seating, every phone going. It’s just the beginning of their market.”

Maybe both perspectives are true. Many of the hot, young, overly prolific artists may fade from popularity. But China’s buying power is here to stay, and, historically, most wealthy nations begin by bidding up their own art. Moreover, whatever happens with the economy, notes one dealer active in the Chinese contemporary art market, buying art “is still the quickest way to move $100,000 in or out of the country.”