As I mentioned in a blog post back in June, one of the big stories of the Spring Auctions held in Beijing and Hong Kong was the $65,399,350 paid for a painting by Qi Baishi, “Eagle Standing on a Pine Tree with Four-character couplet in Seal Script” at China Guardian Auctions on May 22nd. A truly astounding price and frankly, hard to understand. True, its provenance was impressive. Qi Baishi intended it as a gift for Chiang Kai-shek’s 60th birthday, and the seller was well-known Shanghai billionaire collector Liu Yiqian. But who was the buyer?? Much has been made of the China’s booming economy and rapidly expanding class of millionaires and billionaires. However, there is another explanation that has less to do with passion for art or even conspicuous consumption. As it turns out the buyer was a corporation, not an individual collector. Artron.net has reported that the Hunan TV & Broadcast Intermediary Co. Ltd. purchased the painting, adding it to a collection of hundreds of ink and oil paintings by modern masters. That the buyer is a corporation lends support to the idea that the current Chinese art market is speculative, and that it is investment groups and corporations that are driving the Chinese art market into the stratosphere. According to a recent article “investing” cash in the Chinese art market is looking even more attractive to Chinese tycoons and corporations due to an overheated real estate market. This along with growing inflation and low interest rates leaves few investment options in China.
After driving for about 45 minutes away from the center of Beijing we arrived at what first appears to be a rather non-descript suburb with roads lined with small stores selling paint, pipes and vegetables. However, as our driving tour continued we were astounded to see a series of imposing, architecturally striking museums and galleries under construction. Those that were completed were mostly empty or closed.
Equally anomalous was a massive sculpture created by Fang Lijun set in the middle of a round-about. At first it struck me as looking like an over-sized Hersey’s Kiss. But, as Shao Qi explained, the different colored and textured layers represent the hierarchy of Chinese society with the wide thick base made of earth identified with the peasant class supporting six more ever-diminishing layers up to the golden pinnacle representing China’s political and business elite – a wry commentary on the disparity of wealth and power in China today.
Besides visiting the comfortable and well-appointed studios of Liu Liguo and Chen Qing Qing, we also stopped in to visit the condo of a middle-aged, amateur painter, and the wife of a wealthy businessman. Her current digs were modern and pleasant but temporary, and she was in the throes of designing and beginning construction on a brand-new, permanent home to be built on land leased from the local government. With China’s newly affluent class taking up residence, the life-style of the majority of artists living and working in Song Zhuang is threatened by rising rents and plans by the government to develop Tongzhou, the district where Song Zhuang is located, into a commercial center by 2015.
Not surprisingly, the auctions at Beijing Poly International went off great with many records set in various categories including traditional and contemporary Chinese painting. Setting the record for the most ever paid for a painting by a contemporary artist, a large horizontal abstract painting “Lion Woods” by master ink painter Wu Guanzhong who died a year ago (1919-2010) sold for 115 million RMB or more than US$17 million. Altogether twenty-five works by the artist were sold at Poly for over 500 million RMB or more that US$77 million.
Hazy and hot in Beijing, and the same might be said about the Chinese auction market where backroom dealing may be driving the extraordinary high prices paid at auction. On Monday and Tuesday I attended the preview of Beijing Poly’s Spring sales and was astonished at the volume and quality of Chinese art available.
There will be sales of everything from fine Chinese wine to antique automobiles and jewelry to more traditional categories of porcelains, jades, lacquer, furniture, ink painting and works by contemporary Chinese artists. I felt like a kid in a candy store having the opportunity to handle exquisite and rare Ming and Qing porcelains like this imperial washbasin which sold for close to $US4 million, lacquers, jades etc…
The modern ink painting exhibit was wonderful with masterful works by artists very familiar to Western collector such as Lin Fengmian, Zhang Daqi, Wu Guanzhong, Qi Baishi, as well as with works by artists famous in China but less known in the West, such as Zhang Ding, Fan Zeng and Zhou Sicong (1939-1995) whose painting, “Miners”, sold for around US$2.5 millon. What really drew me to Beijing Poly’s Spring Auctions was the sale of part of the Ullens Collection of contemporary Chinese art. The Ullens are Belgian collectors who established the Ullens Center at 798 Art District and are in the process of shifting their focus from Chinese art to contemporary Indian art for reasons that would be a good subject for a future blog post.