New York art dealers might need to pull out marker pens and add zeros to their price tags during Asia Week sales starting this week in auction houses and galleries across the city.
Once a backwater of the international market, Asian art -- particularly Chinese -- has boomed in popularity.
Asia Week, which opened Friday and runs through March 24, will see leading rivals Sotheby's and Christie's, as well as smaller houses and individual galleries, focusing on everything from bold contemporary Indian paintings to classical Chinese ceramics.
"Our last five years we've seen an astonishing boom, a push into a new price level," Henry Howard-Sneyd, vice chairman for Asian art at Sotheby's, told AFP.
He pointed out that in 2011 the highest grossing artists at auction in the world were not the long-predictable top dogs Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol, but Zhang Daqian, with nearly $507 million in sales, and Qi Bashi, with $445 million -- far ahead of their Western rivals.
That two Chinese painters barely known to the Western public should outperform artists synonymous with modern art does not surprise Sotheby's, which in this year's Asia Week is for the first time dedicating a distinct sale to classical Chinese works.
Among those works is a Qi Bashi painting of an eagle, somewhat similar to another of his paintings that last year sold for $65.5 million -- the most expensive painting at any auction in 2011.
The version offered by Sotheby's has an estimate of a modest $1.2-1.5 million. But Howard-Sneyd doesn't think estimates will survive once the red hot Chinese collectors take their seats.
Gesturing at galleries filled with Chinese ceramics, paintings, fans, and furniture, he said: "I think there'll be fireworks."
The head of Asian art at Christie's, Hugo Weihe, also has strong hopes for Asia Week.
Last year, sales of Asian art at Christie's saw a double-digit percent increase and are now the second place category behind overall contemporary art, but ahead of impressionist and modern.
Weihe pointed to wealthy, patriotic Chinese looking to their pre-revolutionary past for the ultimate status symbol.
"Chinese buyers are very interested in their heritage -- anything that has imperial marks. You've truly arrived in China if you can have something that belonged to an emperor," Weihe said.
Better known, but entirely different, is the Indian art market.
India has produced a string of top-notch modern and contemporary artists like Subodh Gupta, whose works are still considered relatively cheap.
"Indian art is underpriced, particularly contemporary," Weihe said. But that market will change as increasingly well educated Indian collectors think beyond simply decorating their living rooms and instead start building great national museums and collections.
"It's going to be private individuals and enterprises, rather like it was in America 100 years ago," Weihe said.
And the next artistic goldmine in Asia?
Pakistan is only just beginning to stir, says Deepanjana Klein, at Christie's.
"In Southeast Asia it's not yet that cool to be an artist, in Pakistan especially. In India, it's taken off, but in Pakistan it's still in its nascent phase," she said.
Then there's Bangladesh. The country "is having its first international art show next month, which is a huge step," Klein said.
Ironically, many of the available classical Asian works have long been in the hands of elite, private collectors in the West, such as the recently deceased Doris Weiner.
2012年3月18日星期日
2011年11月20日星期日
CAL holiday show supplies works of beauty for the art lover
In this edition of the Columbia Art League’s annual “Give a Gift of Art” holiday exhibit, the oils have it.
Each winner of the member’s open show were oil painters: JD King, CAL newcomer Kate Klingensmith and Jane Mudd placed first, second and third, respectively. All of the works of art — winners, honorable mentions, and others — are for sale during the holiday season, offering another chance to patrons to purchase art for their friends and loved ones.
Not only did oil paints take the spoils in this exhibit, but nature in its various forms is prominent as well. Landscapes depicting all seasons dominate the gallery walls; Executive Director Diana Moxon and her colleagues even began grouping some seasons together for presentation. An inner wall shows black-and-white images fringed by winter scenes, and the art on the wall facing the front windows collectively echo the last fiery vestiges of autumn colors. Tucked in right by the window is a fall-weather tribute to The Blue Note by Stephanie Jenkins. The artist represented the venerated music venue standing stately and surrounded by a thick glory of fall leaves from the trees lining the sidewalk on Ninth Street.
King’s first-place painting, “Hey Mack,” also testifies to the burning brilliance of fall colors; an imposing classic Mack truck, nearly the same bold colors as the landscape surrounding it, fills most of the canvas as leaves drop over and around it. The truck’s bumper lackadaisically reads, “Move It On Over.” King painted from an old photograph he had taken of a truck on the side of the road three miles west of Ashland, he said in an email. The massive tree behind the truck had begun to grow into the Mack’s back bed. Old trucks, he said, “embody a male aesthetic that has to do with responsibility, tradition and purpose, and they are also kind of sad in an almost romantic way. It’s kind of like a photo of that beloved old dog on the front porch. Seen a lot and wishes he could tell you about it.”
Jane Mudd, who earned third place, switches seasons with “Spring Thaw,” an oil-based kaleidoscope of color all worked into a slightly abstract, fluid rendering of a creek thawing into a slight waterfall. A bare tree is just budding in the foreground; the entire spectrum of smears fit together to create a beautifully wrought whole.
The storm dramas of summer have a presence as well: George Tutt’s large painting in the back corner, “Storm’s Comin’,” depicts a ramshackle shed in the foreground, painted in boldly opaque watercolors. A lamp-lit farmhouse rests in the background, reflecting gold glow into a small pond. Over the hills in the background, clouds rise, and a sky deepens purple with oncoming rain. Eric Seat’s painting, “After the Storm,” reflects the aftermath of such a gathering rain: A wall of dark clouds disperses and breaks into fingers of sunset-thrashed orange.
Nature is reflected in surreal and hyper-idealized forms in addition to the more straightforward landscapes. Amy Jerke’s photograph “Dream Worlds,” shows a stunning close-up of a dewdrop-studded feather, almost a Mother-Nature-forged Swarovski. Across from the photograph, Megan Henley, a Rock Bridge High School student who won this show’s Emerging Artist award, created a checkered paper-and-ink representation of a fish with a bulbous eye and a mass of stylized scales. Kate Passis, who often creates artistic studies in polymer clay, has returned with a small jewel of a mosaic that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a reflection of a tree line under moonlight; leaves drop everywhere and land on the “water” portrayed as less vivid, more grayish stones. Even the moon, at the top left of the mosaic, has a water reflection in the bottom half of the mosaic, a slightly duller but still glistening bit of pearl.
Tending toward the mammalian side of nature is Kate Klingensmith’s second-place work, “Pinto in the Sun,” a painting showing the muscular sunlit flank of a pinto horse. Klingensmith, who moved to Moberly from Colorado this year, frequently used to drive past a farm named The Paint Factory that bred painted horses.
Klingensmith finally called the owners and asked if she could photograph their horses, she said in an email. “Pinto in the Sun” was one of the horses she photographed. “In addition to thinking about the overall design of the image,” she said, “I photograph what it is that fascinates me about a horse at that moment. … For ‘Pinto in the Sun,’ it was his mane and back, with the sun on him and a slight breeze in the air.” The artist, who paints horses on commission, also has expressed other natural themes in big-sky landscapes and highway scenes from Montana.
Near the front of the gallery is a collection of sculptures and functional objects that nearly look as if they had been plotted together or fashioned from the same channels of imagination. Ahmed Ithman, who is new to CAL, has created the self-describing “White & Green Vase,” a porcelain work with a sandy-colored rim and clouds of green and turquoise merging with creamy colors around the basin. Mike Seat and Ray Almeida also have contributed similarly colored functional sculptures; the three play together well while retaining their own artistic distinctions. Elsewhere in the sculptural offerings is a fluid, twisting lamp sculpture made out of “cone 6” translucent porcelain, sculpted by Fadra Hepner sculpted. The effect is almost that of a wizard’s hat. To create small divots reminiscent of constellations, which let light to the outside of the sculpture, Hepner rolled grains of rice into the porcelain, Moxon said. Each grain of rice burned up when she fired the sculpture, leaving the tiny dents behind.
Each winner of the member’s open show were oil painters: JD King, CAL newcomer Kate Klingensmith and Jane Mudd placed first, second and third, respectively. All of the works of art — winners, honorable mentions, and others — are for sale during the holiday season, offering another chance to patrons to purchase art for their friends and loved ones.
Not only did oil paints take the spoils in this exhibit, but nature in its various forms is prominent as well. Landscapes depicting all seasons dominate the gallery walls; Executive Director Diana Moxon and her colleagues even began grouping some seasons together for presentation. An inner wall shows black-and-white images fringed by winter scenes, and the art on the wall facing the front windows collectively echo the last fiery vestiges of autumn colors. Tucked in right by the window is a fall-weather tribute to The Blue Note by Stephanie Jenkins. The artist represented the venerated music venue standing stately and surrounded by a thick glory of fall leaves from the trees lining the sidewalk on Ninth Street.
King’s first-place painting, “Hey Mack,” also testifies to the burning brilliance of fall colors; an imposing classic Mack truck, nearly the same bold colors as the landscape surrounding it, fills most of the canvas as leaves drop over and around it. The truck’s bumper lackadaisically reads, “Move It On Over.” King painted from an old photograph he had taken of a truck on the side of the road three miles west of Ashland, he said in an email. The massive tree behind the truck had begun to grow into the Mack’s back bed. Old trucks, he said, “embody a male aesthetic that has to do with responsibility, tradition and purpose, and they are also kind of sad in an almost romantic way. It’s kind of like a photo of that beloved old dog on the front porch. Seen a lot and wishes he could tell you about it.”
Jane Mudd, who earned third place, switches seasons with “Spring Thaw,” an oil-based kaleidoscope of color all worked into a slightly abstract, fluid rendering of a creek thawing into a slight waterfall. A bare tree is just budding in the foreground; the entire spectrum of smears fit together to create a beautifully wrought whole.
The storm dramas of summer have a presence as well: George Tutt’s large painting in the back corner, “Storm’s Comin’,” depicts a ramshackle shed in the foreground, painted in boldly opaque watercolors. A lamp-lit farmhouse rests in the background, reflecting gold glow into a small pond. Over the hills in the background, clouds rise, and a sky deepens purple with oncoming rain. Eric Seat’s painting, “After the Storm,” reflects the aftermath of such a gathering rain: A wall of dark clouds disperses and breaks into fingers of sunset-thrashed orange.
Nature is reflected in surreal and hyper-idealized forms in addition to the more straightforward landscapes. Amy Jerke’s photograph “Dream Worlds,” shows a stunning close-up of a dewdrop-studded feather, almost a Mother-Nature-forged Swarovski. Across from the photograph, Megan Henley, a Rock Bridge High School student who won this show’s Emerging Artist award, created a checkered paper-and-ink representation of a fish with a bulbous eye and a mass of stylized scales. Kate Passis, who often creates artistic studies in polymer clay, has returned with a small jewel of a mosaic that, upon closer inspection, turns out to be a reflection of a tree line under moonlight; leaves drop everywhere and land on the “water” portrayed as less vivid, more grayish stones. Even the moon, at the top left of the mosaic, has a water reflection in the bottom half of the mosaic, a slightly duller but still glistening bit of pearl.
Tending toward the mammalian side of nature is Kate Klingensmith’s second-place work, “Pinto in the Sun,” a painting showing the muscular sunlit flank of a pinto horse. Klingensmith, who moved to Moberly from Colorado this year, frequently used to drive past a farm named The Paint Factory that bred painted horses.
Klingensmith finally called the owners and asked if she could photograph their horses, she said in an email. “Pinto in the Sun” was one of the horses she photographed. “In addition to thinking about the overall design of the image,” she said, “I photograph what it is that fascinates me about a horse at that moment. … For ‘Pinto in the Sun,’ it was his mane and back, with the sun on him and a slight breeze in the air.” The artist, who paints horses on commission, also has expressed other natural themes in big-sky landscapes and highway scenes from Montana.
Near the front of the gallery is a collection of sculptures and functional objects that nearly look as if they had been plotted together or fashioned from the same channels of imagination. Ahmed Ithman, who is new to CAL, has created the self-describing “White & Green Vase,” a porcelain work with a sandy-colored rim and clouds of green and turquoise merging with creamy colors around the basin. Mike Seat and Ray Almeida also have contributed similarly colored functional sculptures; the three play together well while retaining their own artistic distinctions. Elsewhere in the sculptural offerings is a fluid, twisting lamp sculpture made out of “cone 6” translucent porcelain, sculpted by Fadra Hepner sculpted. The effect is almost that of a wizard’s hat. To create small divots reminiscent of constellations, which let light to the outside of the sculpture, Hepner rolled grains of rice into the porcelain, Moxon said. Each grain of rice burned up when she fired the sculpture, leaving the tiny dents behind.
2011年10月25日星期二
Artists Paint the Town in Suwanee -- Again
Vickie Johnson needs her "old lady eyes" to paint, so she whipped out her glasses Saturday morning in the Old Town area of Suwanee as she and other artists began the Plein Air Event.
Johnson, chairman of the North Gwinnett Arts Association and a Central Gwinnett High teacher, had some younger company. Students Grace Kim and Gabriel Campoy-Gonzalez were nearby to record the structures and landscape with oils and acrylics.
Others artists such as Adrienne Kinsey of Buford and Linda Tilden of Hoschton set up in Town Center Park. And NGAA set up in a storefront at Town Center to offer information to patrons, including locations of artists. A similar event was held earlier this year.
It's another facet of Suwanee's arts community, and like the others, there's also a business angle. The works were for sale at the conclusion of the two-day event, and Johnson pointed out that she sold a couple of paintings she did last year for $300. That's about $100 per hour for her work, not a bad wage.
This year Johnson took aim at the Creative ClayHouse on Main Street in Old Town on Saturday. On Sunday she was planning to paint trees -- "my favorite." Last year she painted some dogwoods at White Street Park, as well as a couple of houses in the Old Town area.
Tilden, an "empty nester," was participating in the event for the first time. She normally uses oils, but was experimenting with acrylics for the first time. "You gotta live outside your comfort zone," she explained. "Performance kills creativity."
The chief difference is that acrylics dry faster, so artists can manipulate oil paintings longer after the initial strokes.
Kinsey has been painting for about 20 years, mostly oil pastels. She'd "like to get into" painting commercially, and she has her own studio.
At a reception Sunday evening, Johnson won first place, Carol Van Dyck won second place, and Victor Kennedy won third place.
Johnson, chairman of the North Gwinnett Arts Association and a Central Gwinnett High teacher, had some younger company. Students Grace Kim and Gabriel Campoy-Gonzalez were nearby to record the structures and landscape with oils and acrylics.
Others artists such as Adrienne Kinsey of Buford and Linda Tilden of Hoschton set up in Town Center Park. And NGAA set up in a storefront at Town Center to offer information to patrons, including locations of artists. A similar event was held earlier this year.
It's another facet of Suwanee's arts community, and like the others, there's also a business angle. The works were for sale at the conclusion of the two-day event, and Johnson pointed out that she sold a couple of paintings she did last year for $300. That's about $100 per hour for her work, not a bad wage.
This year Johnson took aim at the Creative ClayHouse on Main Street in Old Town on Saturday. On Sunday she was planning to paint trees -- "my favorite." Last year she painted some dogwoods at White Street Park, as well as a couple of houses in the Old Town area.
Tilden, an "empty nester," was participating in the event for the first time. She normally uses oils, but was experimenting with acrylics for the first time. "You gotta live outside your comfort zone," she explained. "Performance kills creativity."
The chief difference is that acrylics dry faster, so artists can manipulate oil paintings longer after the initial strokes.
Kinsey has been painting for about 20 years, mostly oil pastels. She'd "like to get into" painting commercially, and she has her own studio.
At a reception Sunday evening, Johnson won first place, Carol Van Dyck won second place, and Victor Kennedy won third place.
2011年6月8日星期三
Fionna's oil painting...with a difference
The artist had to endure the rigours of an oil industry survival course before starting a series of portraits on various people who have played leading roles in the history of North Sea exploration.
The completed collection was yesterday being installed at the Scottish Parliament, where it is it being exhibited.
Energy: North Sea Portraits is a collaboration between the artist, the National Galleries of Scotland and the oil exploration company, Total.
The 24 subjects come from a variety of countries, backgrounds, disciplines and oil companies and range from geologists and platform workers to the doctor and clergyman who provide care to workers in the industry.
Canteen lady Jean Stephen, who served coffee and tea to staff at Total's Altens of?ce near Aberdeen for 29 years, is also depicted, and her portrait hangs alongside First Minister Alex Salmond and Lord Cullen, who chaired the inquiry following the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988.
Wick-born Carlisle, who famously painted Robin Cook in the months before his death in August 2005, took more than 18 months to complete the works, some of which were painted on offshore platforms.
The collection, which has since been exhibited in Total headquarters in Paris, the European Parliament in Brussels and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, is being show at the Scottish Parliament to mark the 50th anniversary of Spinal Injuries Scotland, of which Carlisle is a patron, and to highlight the work of the Juvenile Diabetes Defence Foundation.
Carlisle said: "I had to go through a four-day survival course because I was to spend five to six days offshore. It wasn't much fun, walking through fires and being thrown into the sea in a simulated helicopter crash.
"But it was a fantastic opportunity as I had always wanted to visit offshore. I was incredibly impressed by the people I met. I made connections with these people, there is always a bond you form with a sitter.
"I have never worked so fast in my life as there is limited time offshore. Some of the portraits were completed in a long weekend.
The completed collection was yesterday being installed at the Scottish Parliament, where it is it being exhibited.
Energy: North Sea Portraits is a collaboration between the artist, the National Galleries of Scotland and the oil exploration company, Total.
The 24 subjects come from a variety of countries, backgrounds, disciplines and oil companies and range from geologists and platform workers to the doctor and clergyman who provide care to workers in the industry.
Canteen lady Jean Stephen, who served coffee and tea to staff at Total's Altens of?ce near Aberdeen for 29 years, is also depicted, and her portrait hangs alongside First Minister Alex Salmond and Lord Cullen, who chaired the inquiry following the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988.
Wick-born Carlisle, who famously painted Robin Cook in the months before his death in August 2005, took more than 18 months to complete the works, some of which were painted on offshore platforms.
The collection, which has since been exhibited in Total headquarters in Paris, the European Parliament in Brussels and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, is being show at the Scottish Parliament to mark the 50th anniversary of Spinal Injuries Scotland, of which Carlisle is a patron, and to highlight the work of the Juvenile Diabetes Defence Foundation.
Carlisle said: "I had to go through a four-day survival course because I was to spend five to six days offshore. It wasn't much fun, walking through fires and being thrown into the sea in a simulated helicopter crash.
"But it was a fantastic opportunity as I had always wanted to visit offshore. I was incredibly impressed by the people I met. I made connections with these people, there is always a bond you form with a sitter.
"I have never worked so fast in my life as there is limited time offshore. Some of the portraits were completed in a long weekend.
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