Old Masters were in the spotlight last week as the first major auctions of the year were held in New York, accompanied by some spectacular dealer exhibitions. International dealer Fabrizio Moretti presented a sumptuous display of Italian gold-ground paintings that seemed to touch a nerve.
Normally, gold-ground paintings are scarce at auction, but this year there was a bumper crop, most of which sold, led by a rare and only recently fully attributed painting of the Annunciation by the 14th-century Sienese artist Simone Martini, which sold for a record $4.1 million. The price, said Moretti, was to be expected for an example of Martini’s work in good condition, and not expensive compared with some contemporary art.
The sales included some choice Renaissance works. A drawing of a young man attributed to the Florentine Pietro Pollaiulo, which was being sold by the heirs of the British scholar and art magazine editor Denys Sutton, was snapped up by the J Paul Getty Museum for $1.4 million, double the estimate.
Private collectors seized the other two Italian Renaissance prizes – Fra Bartolommeo’s painting St Jerome in the Wilderness for $4.9 million, and a Madonna and Child tondo, which, since cleaning, is now thought to be partly by the hand of Botticelli. Cautiously estimated at $1 million, it sold for $4.6 million.
Early Northern-school masterpieces met with a more mixed reception. Lucas Cranach is riding a wave of popularity, and one of his more seductive portraits of Lucretia sold comfortably for $5.1 million. But one of the last paintings by Hans Memling in private hands was just too highly estimated at $6 million to find a buyer. A similar fate met a rare painting by the 16th-century mannerist Arcimboldo. Depending on which way up you hang it, it is either a still life of fruit, or a portrait. It sold 10 years ago for $1.4 million, and no one was prepared to meet the new $3 million estimate.
In some cases, sellers who were simply trying to get their money back were disappointed, perhaps because they had paid too much. In 2006, one had paid a record 825,000 – 10 times the estimate – for a still life by the 17th-century Dutch painter Simon Luttichuys. The next year, it appeared at the Maastricht art fair with a $4 million price tag; last week it went unsold with a $1.8 million estimate.
In what is now a very choosy market, one third of the works offered in New York were unsold, dragging the total for the week below expectations to $122 million. However, more sensibly priced masterpieces found buyers. A young lady playing a clavichord, by Dutch Golden Age painter Gerrit Dou, was covered with years of grime, but sold above estimate to dealer Johnny van Haeften for $3.3 million.
Staying with Holland, a charming family interior by Pieter de Hooch from Lady Forte’s estate doubled estimates to fetch $3.7 million; a portrait by Frans Hals from Elizabeth Taylor’s estate doubled estimates to sell for $2.1 million; and a jewel of a small portrait by the lesser known Thomas de Keyser was chased by dealers Jonathan Green and Otto Naumann before selling to the National Gallery of Art in Washington for a treble-estimate $1.5 million.
Both Sotheby’s and Christie’s heralded the success of French Rococo, a style epitomised by Fragonard and Watteau and popularised by Wildenstein in the last century. The stand-out example was an elaborately camp theatrical design for a tapestry commissioned by Louis XV from Charles-Antoine Coypel, which quadrupled estimates to sell for $3.5 million. “Most people haven’t heard of Coypel, but it’s a fantastic example of French Rococo,” said Christopher Apostle of Sotheby’s.
Similar in appeal, though less over the top, was a large decorative oil sketch, pulsating with grandeur, made by the late-Baroque artist Giambattista Tiepolo for a fresco commemorating the arrival in Venice of the French King Henry III in 1574. It says something about shifts in taste that, when this was last offered for sale in 1984, it was unsold at $1.5 million. Last week, it sold for $5.9 million.
Finally, 18th-century Italian view paintings proved their staying power. A Venetian view by Vanvitelli at Christie’s, which had been bought from London’s Richard Green gallery in 1979 for 45,000 was bought back by Green for $1.5 million (989,000), while at Sotheby’s, Lady Forte’s slightly later Venetian view by Canaletto, which she had bought at auction in 1986 for $360,000, sold for $5.7 million.
2012年1月31日星期二
2012年1月30日星期一
Art straight from the heart
The day-long exhibition-cum-sale of artworks organised for the ninth consecutive year by the Chitrakala Parishat was so big that it was impossible for any visitor to stop at each stall.
The entire stretch was transformed into an exhibition ground and nearly 1200 artists from across the country displayed their works in watercolour, acrylic, oil, pastel, charcoal and pencil arts. Budding artists, students of fine arts and amateur painters who could not afford art gallery exhibitions, utilised this one-of-its-kind opportunity to market their work.
For art-lovers, this turned out to be the best occasion to buy some beautiful art at an affordable price. So people came in large numbers to pick the best works within their budget.The event also facilitated an exchange of ideas among the artists.
A drawing and face painting competition was also organised by Deccan Herald/Prajavani for students, who competed in sub junior, junior, senior and adult categories. They drew paintings on various themes like nature, village scene, school and college campus and contemporary cities. Nearly 300 students took part and showcased their prowess on canvas.
Sindhur, a student from Chennai, had taken part in the Santhe two years back and made a brisk business. This year, he had come with a new series —‘Life Study in Watercolour’. “As the stalls are given to us free of cost, we are able to sell our works at a reasonable price. Being a student, I also get a chance to see the works of others and their design principles,” he said.
Komala Madhusoodhan, a housewife and an art-lover, had come with her family to buy some artwork for her newly-built home. “I came here to do some serious shopping while my son took part in the drawing competition. There is something for people of all age groups over here. As I wandered around the stalls with my sister, my husband and younger daughter enjoyed a live demonstration by eminent painter B K S Varma. They also learnt how to make bags, hats and pens out of waste paper at one of the stalls. My parents who cannot walk long distances took a buggy which took them around the exhibition. Later, we all tasted varied food items which were available at the venue. It was a very nice experience,” she said.
City-based professionals-cum-artists like Mohit Varma and Roopa were glad about the facilities offered to the exhibitors. “I am inspired by the works of Ravi Varma and S M Pandit. Today, I have displayed realistic works done in water colour, oil and acrylic. I have been participating in this event for the last four years. I have given a lot of emphasise on facial expressions in my paintings,” said Mohit Varma whose works were priced between Rs 3000 and Rs 50,000.
The on-the-spot portrait and caricature making was a huge hit. A lot of people were seen getting their portraits done by the artists. “We have also organised a book exhibition on Tagore’s works, which were related to art. And we have given a lot of stalls for physically disabled artists to help them. This year, around four lakh people visited the Santhe,” said C M Rudrappa, chief administrative officer, Chitrakala Parishat.
The entire stretch was transformed into an exhibition ground and nearly 1200 artists from across the country displayed their works in watercolour, acrylic, oil, pastel, charcoal and pencil arts. Budding artists, students of fine arts and amateur painters who could not afford art gallery exhibitions, utilised this one-of-its-kind opportunity to market their work.
For art-lovers, this turned out to be the best occasion to buy some beautiful art at an affordable price. So people came in large numbers to pick the best works within their budget.The event also facilitated an exchange of ideas among the artists.
A drawing and face painting competition was also organised by Deccan Herald/Prajavani for students, who competed in sub junior, junior, senior and adult categories. They drew paintings on various themes like nature, village scene, school and college campus and contemporary cities. Nearly 300 students took part and showcased their prowess on canvas.
Sindhur, a student from Chennai, had taken part in the Santhe two years back and made a brisk business. This year, he had come with a new series —‘Life Study in Watercolour’. “As the stalls are given to us free of cost, we are able to sell our works at a reasonable price. Being a student, I also get a chance to see the works of others and their design principles,” he said.
Komala Madhusoodhan, a housewife and an art-lover, had come with her family to buy some artwork for her newly-built home. “I came here to do some serious shopping while my son took part in the drawing competition. There is something for people of all age groups over here. As I wandered around the stalls with my sister, my husband and younger daughter enjoyed a live demonstration by eminent painter B K S Varma. They also learnt how to make bags, hats and pens out of waste paper at one of the stalls. My parents who cannot walk long distances took a buggy which took them around the exhibition. Later, we all tasted varied food items which were available at the venue. It was a very nice experience,” she said.
City-based professionals-cum-artists like Mohit Varma and Roopa were glad about the facilities offered to the exhibitors. “I am inspired by the works of Ravi Varma and S M Pandit. Today, I have displayed realistic works done in water colour, oil and acrylic. I have been participating in this event for the last four years. I have given a lot of emphasise on facial expressions in my paintings,” said Mohit Varma whose works were priced between Rs 3000 and Rs 50,000.
The on-the-spot portrait and caricature making was a huge hit. A lot of people were seen getting their portraits done by the artists. “We have also organised a book exhibition on Tagore’s works, which were related to art. And we have given a lot of stalls for physically disabled artists to help them. This year, around four lakh people visited the Santhe,” said C M Rudrappa, chief administrative officer, Chitrakala Parishat.
2012年1月29日星期日
Three exhibits that made me go huh
Maybe I visited the art fair too close on the heels of the Jaipur Rushdie Summit, but I seem to have culturally decomposed over the last week. The India Art Fair, which has been demoted from the status of a Summit for some reason, is wrapping up today in Delhi. I’d been there last year as well and been stunned by the sheer presence of so many art works under one roof and also by the sure scale and precision with which the art summit had been put together. This year, the scale and precision has only improved and number of art works only increased, and after the maddening crowds and massive queues at the Lit Fest, I couldn’t but be impressed by the skill with which the Fair has been organised.
But on to the art. Now I’m not a connoisseur of art, and I’m old school and prefer the masters like Raza and Souza and Gade. And I just loved the Jamini Roys and Husains at the DAG booth and the Souzas and Gades at the DMG booth, and of course Ketaki Sheth’s black and white photographs. There were some beautiful sculptures and installations by new contemporary artists.
Now while I understand that I might not have got the finer nuances of some of the art works on display, I do believe that an art work even if it is multi-layered, must appeal at least at one level to anyone viewing it. Everyone doesn’t need to get the subliminal meaning. But if you need a detailed primer or ready reckoner to explain what a book or painting or film is trying to say, for it to appeal to you at any level, I feel it somehow misses the mark.
So people who watch Apocalypse Now, appreciate it or don’t like it as a well-made war film even if they don’t get the Heart of Darkness or TS Eliot references. Or you can enjoy Animal Farm as an entertaining fantastical story and not realise the commentary on Stalin. Of course, Orwell might be turning in his grave as a result, but at least everyone gets something out of what he’s created. Or even if you didn’t get Dali’s surrealism, the sure fantastical nature of his paintings catches your eye.
But what do you make of a massive steel plate around 12 feet in diameter with strange white phallic-shaped white items each a foot in length piled onto half the plate? Now I didn’t realise my faux pas when I asked someone what it was, only to be greeted by disdain and told that it was the avant-garde Subodh Gupta’s work. That I didn’t get kicked out of the Fair for my show of ignorance is a miracle. A friend did take pity on me and explain that the white phallic pieces were magnified grains of rice. Aah, a commentary on hunger in India. Or so I hope. Anyway, it matters not because there were enough people ooh-ing and aah-ing over the piece. I seemed to be the only one who’d missed the boat.
The second piece was at Chatterjee and Lal which I might have been drawn to because of the Bengali name. On display was a slightly tattered Victorian lady’s dress which was reminiscent of Dangerous Minds with John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer. And behind the gown was a small photograph of a man wearing the same gown. A little unnerving. The picture, it was written, was of the artist wearing the gown, which he had worn while creating his work. The ‘work’ itself was not clear. Now, in an attempt to widen my horizons, I did some reading up when I came home and learnt that the artist, Nikhil Chopra is a performance artist and wears guises and places himself in theatrical settings. For example, in an earlier performance abroad, Chopra would sit in front of backdrops for four hours at a stretch in various guises. In one scene, he sat at a table eating chocolate cake while wearing white boxers, as a commentary on colonialism and identity. Now if someone had explained all this to me, while displaying a Victorian dress to me even with no Nikhil Chopra inside it, it might have all made a lot of sense to me. Or however much sense it could make. But just a Victorian gown with a picture of a man wearing it, simply made me feel like I’d walked into a seamstress shop.
The most bizarre and the one which made me most uncomfortable was the sight of six people walking around in t-shirts emblazoned with “Talk to me! Living work of art.” These poor dears were part of Mumbai-based artist, Preeti Chandrakant’s exhibit. She’s supposedly spent 6 years ‘molding’ these people and the exhibit was supposed to be a commentary on the fact that everything is for sale. According to news reports (Daily Pioneer), she has said that she has, “made their thinking more precise, their seeing more aware, their hearing more sharpened, their touch had been trained to respond to the subtlest of stimuli, whose tasting has been refined, whose smelling has been heightened, whose sensing has been awaken, whose very materiality has become aware of itself”. A veritable Lady Svengali.
The poor ‘molded’ sextet looked quite out of sorts and seemed to spend at least the hour that I was in the vicinity, speaking just to each other in a huddle. One of them was on his mobile, most probably telling a friend that life had seriously dealt him some cruel cards. Some curious people did take their pictures and chat them up a bit. Or maybe they were testing out the attributes of the sextet, because as a sign of how serious Preeti is in her artistic vision, people can buy any of the ‘living works of art’ from the ‘molder’, and they can take the person or ‘work of art’ home according to the terms of the contract. That I thought negated the entire point Preeti was claiming to make as both the artist and her gallery would be making money of contracting out a person to some slightly warped buyer.
But on to the art. Now I’m not a connoisseur of art, and I’m old school and prefer the masters like Raza and Souza and Gade. And I just loved the Jamini Roys and Husains at the DAG booth and the Souzas and Gades at the DMG booth, and of course Ketaki Sheth’s black and white photographs. There were some beautiful sculptures and installations by new contemporary artists.
Now while I understand that I might not have got the finer nuances of some of the art works on display, I do believe that an art work even if it is multi-layered, must appeal at least at one level to anyone viewing it. Everyone doesn’t need to get the subliminal meaning. But if you need a detailed primer or ready reckoner to explain what a book or painting or film is trying to say, for it to appeal to you at any level, I feel it somehow misses the mark.
So people who watch Apocalypse Now, appreciate it or don’t like it as a well-made war film even if they don’t get the Heart of Darkness or TS Eliot references. Or you can enjoy Animal Farm as an entertaining fantastical story and not realise the commentary on Stalin. Of course, Orwell might be turning in his grave as a result, but at least everyone gets something out of what he’s created. Or even if you didn’t get Dali’s surrealism, the sure fantastical nature of his paintings catches your eye.
But what do you make of a massive steel plate around 12 feet in diameter with strange white phallic-shaped white items each a foot in length piled onto half the plate? Now I didn’t realise my faux pas when I asked someone what it was, only to be greeted by disdain and told that it was the avant-garde Subodh Gupta’s work. That I didn’t get kicked out of the Fair for my show of ignorance is a miracle. A friend did take pity on me and explain that the white phallic pieces were magnified grains of rice. Aah, a commentary on hunger in India. Or so I hope. Anyway, it matters not because there were enough people ooh-ing and aah-ing over the piece. I seemed to be the only one who’d missed the boat.
The second piece was at Chatterjee and Lal which I might have been drawn to because of the Bengali name. On display was a slightly tattered Victorian lady’s dress which was reminiscent of Dangerous Minds with John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer. And behind the gown was a small photograph of a man wearing the same gown. A little unnerving. The picture, it was written, was of the artist wearing the gown, which he had worn while creating his work. The ‘work’ itself was not clear. Now, in an attempt to widen my horizons, I did some reading up when I came home and learnt that the artist, Nikhil Chopra is a performance artist and wears guises and places himself in theatrical settings. For example, in an earlier performance abroad, Chopra would sit in front of backdrops for four hours at a stretch in various guises. In one scene, he sat at a table eating chocolate cake while wearing white boxers, as a commentary on colonialism and identity. Now if someone had explained all this to me, while displaying a Victorian dress to me even with no Nikhil Chopra inside it, it might have all made a lot of sense to me. Or however much sense it could make. But just a Victorian gown with a picture of a man wearing it, simply made me feel like I’d walked into a seamstress shop.
The most bizarre and the one which made me most uncomfortable was the sight of six people walking around in t-shirts emblazoned with “Talk to me! Living work of art.” These poor dears were part of Mumbai-based artist, Preeti Chandrakant’s exhibit. She’s supposedly spent 6 years ‘molding’ these people and the exhibit was supposed to be a commentary on the fact that everything is for sale. According to news reports (Daily Pioneer), she has said that she has, “made their thinking more precise, their seeing more aware, their hearing more sharpened, their touch had been trained to respond to the subtlest of stimuli, whose tasting has been refined, whose smelling has been heightened, whose sensing has been awaken, whose very materiality has become aware of itself”. A veritable Lady Svengali.
The poor ‘molded’ sextet looked quite out of sorts and seemed to spend at least the hour that I was in the vicinity, speaking just to each other in a huddle. One of them was on his mobile, most probably telling a friend that life had seriously dealt him some cruel cards. Some curious people did take their pictures and chat them up a bit. Or maybe they were testing out the attributes of the sextet, because as a sign of how serious Preeti is in her artistic vision, people can buy any of the ‘living works of art’ from the ‘molder’, and they can take the person or ‘work of art’ home according to the terms of the contract. That I thought negated the entire point Preeti was claiming to make as both the artist and her gallery would be making money of contracting out a person to some slightly warped buyer.
2012年1月19日星期四
A Lilac-Hued Bacon at Christie’s
Have a Francis Bacon to sell? London is where many auction house experts are advising collectors to try their luck. “We’ve seen extraordinary prices paid for Bacons in London in recent years,” said Brett Gorvy, international chairman of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department. “Americans have competed as aggressively as buyers from emerging markets.” And with so many rich Russians and Middle Easterners putting down roots in London, it’s the obvious place to sell.
That explains the image on the catalog cover for Christie’s Feb. 14 London sale of postwar and contemporary art. It’s a 1963 portrait of Henrietta Moraes, the model and friend of Bacon’s, reclining naked on a white bed in a room with a deeply saturated lilac wall and a bright red floor.
Bacon generally painted his subjects from photographs rather than from life, and for this picture he commissioned his friend John Deakin to shoot Ms. Morales in 1961. Christie’s estimates the painting will sell for about $23 million to $30 million.
The record price for a Bacon painting at auction is $86.3 million, achieved in May 2008 when Sotheby’s in New York sold a 1976 triptych, supposedly to Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch. Christie’s in London sold “Triptych 1974-77” that same year for a robust $51.6 million and a year later auctioned “Three Studies for a Self-Portrait” (1975) for $34.4 million. And in June Christie’s London sold “Study for a Portrait” (1953) for $28.7 million.
Mr. Gorvy isn’t saying who is selling “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes,” but art experts familiar with Bacon’s work said it was Sheldon Solow, the New York real estate developer and a well-known collector who bought the painting from Ernst Beyeler, the Swiss dealer, in 1983.
Mr. Solow is not known as an auction seller but at 83 is re-evaluating his collection.
The Bacon portrait is not all Mr. Solow is said to be selling at Christie’s next month. Two other works from his collection are coming to auction on the evening of Feb. 7: a 1925 Miró painting, “Painting-Poem,” which is expected to fetch $9.2 million to $13.8 million; and “Reclining Figure: Festival,” a 1951 sculpture by Henry Moore, expected to bring about $5.3 million to $8.5 million.
It may seem as if the art world is in the winter doldrums, but organizers of New York City’s contemporary art fairs are gearing up for the onslaught of events in March and May.
Those putting together the 14th edition of the “Armory Show — Contemporary,” which runs from March 8 to 11 on Pier 94, are eager to make a better impression than they did last year. “Our aim is for comfort and hospitality,” said Paul Morris, the fair’s founding director. They hired the Brooklyn architects Bade Stageberg Cox to open up the space, giving it two aisles rather than three.
This year’s fair will feature 113 international exhibitors representing 31 countries, fewer participants than last year in an attempt to improve quality and give the dealers more space. Gallery Hyundai, which has not participated in the show since 2004, will be back with works by Ai Weiwei and Lee Ufan. Sprüth Magers from Berlin will be back, as will Greene Naftali from New York. There will also be a new section, Solo Projects, dedicated to single artist exhibitions.
Because the fair’s location — 55th Street and 12th Avenue in Clinton — isn’t the easiest to get to, the organizers have met with the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission and will use a text service to alert cabdrivers when they are needed. They will also offer free shuttle busses to neighborhoods in Manhattan.
Also in March is the Art Dealers Association of America’s annual Art Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, on 67th Street . Then come more fairs in May around the time of the big spring auctions.
Frieze, the London fair, will have its first iteration in New York, May 4 through 7, on Randalls Island. Those same days the New Art Dealers Alliance, otherwise known as NADA, has decided to test the New York City waters too.
“We’ve never done anything like this on our home turf,” said Heather Hubbs, director of NADA’s fair, which will occupy three floors of the former Dia Center for the Arts building at 548 West 22nd Street in Chelsea and include about 50 primarily younger dealers dedicated to new art.
That explains the image on the catalog cover for Christie’s Feb. 14 London sale of postwar and contemporary art. It’s a 1963 portrait of Henrietta Moraes, the model and friend of Bacon’s, reclining naked on a white bed in a room with a deeply saturated lilac wall and a bright red floor.
Bacon generally painted his subjects from photographs rather than from life, and for this picture he commissioned his friend John Deakin to shoot Ms. Morales in 1961. Christie’s estimates the painting will sell for about $23 million to $30 million.
The record price for a Bacon painting at auction is $86.3 million, achieved in May 2008 when Sotheby’s in New York sold a 1976 triptych, supposedly to Roman Abramovich, the Russian oligarch. Christie’s in London sold “Triptych 1974-77” that same year for a robust $51.6 million and a year later auctioned “Three Studies for a Self-Portrait” (1975) for $34.4 million. And in June Christie’s London sold “Study for a Portrait” (1953) for $28.7 million.
Mr. Gorvy isn’t saying who is selling “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes,” but art experts familiar with Bacon’s work said it was Sheldon Solow, the New York real estate developer and a well-known collector who bought the painting from Ernst Beyeler, the Swiss dealer, in 1983.
Mr. Solow is not known as an auction seller but at 83 is re-evaluating his collection.
The Bacon portrait is not all Mr. Solow is said to be selling at Christie’s next month. Two other works from his collection are coming to auction on the evening of Feb. 7: a 1925 Miró painting, “Painting-Poem,” which is expected to fetch $9.2 million to $13.8 million; and “Reclining Figure: Festival,” a 1951 sculpture by Henry Moore, expected to bring about $5.3 million to $8.5 million.
It may seem as if the art world is in the winter doldrums, but organizers of New York City’s contemporary art fairs are gearing up for the onslaught of events in March and May.
Those putting together the 14th edition of the “Armory Show — Contemporary,” which runs from March 8 to 11 on Pier 94, are eager to make a better impression than they did last year. “Our aim is for comfort and hospitality,” said Paul Morris, the fair’s founding director. They hired the Brooklyn architects Bade Stageberg Cox to open up the space, giving it two aisles rather than three.
This year’s fair will feature 113 international exhibitors representing 31 countries, fewer participants than last year in an attempt to improve quality and give the dealers more space. Gallery Hyundai, which has not participated in the show since 2004, will be back with works by Ai Weiwei and Lee Ufan. Sprüth Magers from Berlin will be back, as will Greene Naftali from New York. There will also be a new section, Solo Projects, dedicated to single artist exhibitions.
Because the fair’s location — 55th Street and 12th Avenue in Clinton — isn’t the easiest to get to, the organizers have met with the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission and will use a text service to alert cabdrivers when they are needed. They will also offer free shuttle busses to neighborhoods in Manhattan.
Also in March is the Art Dealers Association of America’s annual Art Fair at the Park Avenue Armory, on 67th Street . Then come more fairs in May around the time of the big spring auctions.
Frieze, the London fair, will have its first iteration in New York, May 4 through 7, on Randalls Island. Those same days the New Art Dealers Alliance, otherwise known as NADA, has decided to test the New York City waters too.
“We’ve never done anything like this on our home turf,” said Heather Hubbs, director of NADA’s fair, which will occupy three floors of the former Dia Center for the Arts building at 548 West 22nd Street in Chelsea and include about 50 primarily younger dealers dedicated to new art.
2012年1月18日星期三
Is Asia's Red-Hot Art Market Heading for a Slowdown?
The abandoned buffet table spoke to the allure of the art falling under the hammer next door. Drawn by paintings by modern Indonesian masters from art auctioneers Borobudur and Larasati, few bidders were distracted by glazed shrimp or sautéed beef. The Jan. 12 sale notched up a record $11.5 million in revenue, a new high for both Southeast Asian auction houses. Further evidence of the Asian art market's resilience could be found at a government-sponsored art fair held at the same time as the auction. 'Art Stage Singapore,' which attracted hundreds of high-end art galleries from across the world, sold signature works like a $1.52 million abstract painting by German artist Gerhard Richter.
The buoyancy of both events is but another example of the resiliency of the Asian art market. It has been rising steadily over the last decade, barely slowed by the 2008-09 global financial crisis and, more recently, appears to be ignoring a two-year-old European debt crisis that has otherwise stalled stock and property markets across most of Asia. In 2004, for instance, global auction house Christie's grossed $179 million from its Asia-based sales. By 2011, the auction house had grossed $904 million from sales in the region
Even so, experts say, the explosive growth of the last six to seven years appears to be slowing somewhat. "The market is not as strong as it was a year ago," says Jasdeep Sandhu, owner of Gajah Gallery in Singapore, which represents auction market darlings like Indonesian artist I. Nyoman Masriadi. At the Borobudur/Larasati auction, for example, very large paintings like Indonesian master Affandi's "Barong and Rangda," a 1960 work depicting the shadow dance between the Balinese spirits of good and evil, generated enthusiastic bidding and finally fetched $500,000 (excluding the buyer's commission), roughly double its high estimate. Yet a striking 1974 nude entitled "Nude and the Snake" by Sudjojono, a contemporary of Affandi and a pillar of Indonesian modernism, sold for far less, $107,000 (excluding commission), below the upper end of its estimated range.
"The bidding isn't as crazy as it used to be," says Dexter How, a Southeast Asian specialist with Singapore-based auctioneer 33Auction. The relatively tepid autumn sales of Sotheby's and Christie's in Hong Kong last year prove his point. For both auction houses, the 2011 autumn sales generated roughly 10 to 25 per cent less than their preceding spring sales. And though the Borobudur/Larasati sale was considered a surprise success, some experts point out that the idea of pooling buyers together and shaving marketing costs by holding a joint sale is itself a sign of lowered expectations. Plus, says How, "some of the works were priced reasonably."
So is a sudden drop around the corner? Experts say no, pointing to the broadening of the Asian art world over the last decade as a stabilizing force. Asian collectors, for example, are increasingly diversifying their collections, branching out into works from other countries. Taiwanese collectors, for instance, are buying more Indonesian art. A recent surge in new museums and galleries, particularly in China, where an average of one hundred new museums opens each year, as well as more academic art scholarship about Asian art, has also underpinned the market. All of which makes a precipitous collapse, according to Jehan Chu, director of Hong Kong-based art consultancy Vermillion Art Collections, "hard to imagine."
The buoyancy of both events is but another example of the resiliency of the Asian art market. It has been rising steadily over the last decade, barely slowed by the 2008-09 global financial crisis and, more recently, appears to be ignoring a two-year-old European debt crisis that has otherwise stalled stock and property markets across most of Asia. In 2004, for instance, global auction house Christie's grossed $179 million from its Asia-based sales. By 2011, the auction house had grossed $904 million from sales in the region
Even so, experts say, the explosive growth of the last six to seven years appears to be slowing somewhat. "The market is not as strong as it was a year ago," says Jasdeep Sandhu, owner of Gajah Gallery in Singapore, which represents auction market darlings like Indonesian artist I. Nyoman Masriadi. At the Borobudur/Larasati auction, for example, very large paintings like Indonesian master Affandi's "Barong and Rangda," a 1960 work depicting the shadow dance between the Balinese spirits of good and evil, generated enthusiastic bidding and finally fetched $500,000 (excluding the buyer's commission), roughly double its high estimate. Yet a striking 1974 nude entitled "Nude and the Snake" by Sudjojono, a contemporary of Affandi and a pillar of Indonesian modernism, sold for far less, $107,000 (excluding commission), below the upper end of its estimated range.
"The bidding isn't as crazy as it used to be," says Dexter How, a Southeast Asian specialist with Singapore-based auctioneer 33Auction. The relatively tepid autumn sales of Sotheby's and Christie's in Hong Kong last year prove his point. For both auction houses, the 2011 autumn sales generated roughly 10 to 25 per cent less than their preceding spring sales. And though the Borobudur/Larasati sale was considered a surprise success, some experts point out that the idea of pooling buyers together and shaving marketing costs by holding a joint sale is itself a sign of lowered expectations. Plus, says How, "some of the works were priced reasonably."
So is a sudden drop around the corner? Experts say no, pointing to the broadening of the Asian art world over the last decade as a stabilizing force. Asian collectors, for example, are increasingly diversifying their collections, branching out into works from other countries. Taiwanese collectors, for instance, are buying more Indonesian art. A recent surge in new museums and galleries, particularly in China, where an average of one hundred new museums opens each year, as well as more academic art scholarship about Asian art, has also underpinned the market. All of which makes a precipitous collapse, according to Jehan Chu, director of Hong Kong-based art consultancy Vermillion Art Collections, "hard to imagine."
2012年1月17日星期二
Lucian Freud drawings to go under the hammer
Many of the articles that are now coming out in anticipation of the National Portrait Gallery’s Lucian Freud exhibition next month mention the record 17.2 million that Roman Abramovich paid for the fleshy life-size portrait Benefits Supervisor Sleeping. That painting, which will be in the exhibition, made Freud the most expensive living artist in the world.
But what about his coloured chalk drawing Beach Scene with a Boat? An early work from 1945, less than 2ft square, it sold last June from the Evill Frost collection, a month before the artist’s death, for 2.6 million. This was not only a record for a work on paper by Freud, but probably a record for a drawing by a living artist. I can’t think of many modern artists other than Picasso, Matisse, or Schiele, whose drawings have sold for more.
The thought is all the more remarkable considering that Freud virtually gave up drawing in the Fifties to build his reputation as an oil painter using thicker brushes and brush strokes. His early paintings – meticulously neat, linear, and a cross between surreal neo-Romanticism and the decadent realism of George Grosz or Otto Dix – were too reliant on his drawings for his liking. And they were outnumbered. “I would have thought that I did 200 drawings to every painting in those early days,” he said of his teenage years. But still, he added, “I very much prided myself on my drawing.”
As an adjunct to the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition, with its emphasis on the post-Fifties oil paintings, there will be an exhibition entirely devoted to Freud’s drawings at the Blain/Southern gallery in Dering Street. Here, more than 100 drawings curated by Freud’s biographer, William Feaver, will show the full range of his activity, from sketch-book doodles to fully worked colour drawings dating from the Thirties, through the Sixties when he flirted briefly with watercolour washes, to the Eighties when he was concentrating mostly on etching as a form of drawing.
Arranged with Freud’s dealer since the Nineties, Acquavella of New York, the drawings are not officially for sale, though works recently on the market in the show will give an idea of current values. From the Evill Frost sale comes Boy on a Sofa, 1944, which sold for 1.5 million. Two equally early works from Kay Saatchi’s collection that were sold last summer are included – Dead Bird, which was bought by Acquavella for 481,250, and Sleeping Cat, sold to master drawings dealer Stephen Ongpin for 193,250. It is a measure of the change in the Freud drawings market that when this drawing was offered at auction in 1997, with a 15,000 estimate, it was unsold.
However, it often happens that, after high prices at auction, lesser work by an artist, in spite of its historical interest, tends to be overvalued. Four slight Freud drawings from the Forties were offered by Christie’s in November, but the 25,000 to 60,000 estimates were considered too inflated and they were unsold.
So it will be interesting to see if Sotheby’s and Christie’s have got their estimates right when they offer Freud drawings in their contemporary art sales next month. Christie’s has a previously unrecorded Irish landscape from 1948 (200,000 to 300,000), while Sotheby’s has five works from a single collection, thought to be that of Freud’s former dealer, James Kirkman.
But what about his coloured chalk drawing Beach Scene with a Boat? An early work from 1945, less than 2ft square, it sold last June from the Evill Frost collection, a month before the artist’s death, for 2.6 million. This was not only a record for a work on paper by Freud, but probably a record for a drawing by a living artist. I can’t think of many modern artists other than Picasso, Matisse, or Schiele, whose drawings have sold for more.
The thought is all the more remarkable considering that Freud virtually gave up drawing in the Fifties to build his reputation as an oil painter using thicker brushes and brush strokes. His early paintings – meticulously neat, linear, and a cross between surreal neo-Romanticism and the decadent realism of George Grosz or Otto Dix – were too reliant on his drawings for his liking. And they were outnumbered. “I would have thought that I did 200 drawings to every painting in those early days,” he said of his teenage years. But still, he added, “I very much prided myself on my drawing.”
As an adjunct to the National Portrait Gallery’s exhibition, with its emphasis on the post-Fifties oil paintings, there will be an exhibition entirely devoted to Freud’s drawings at the Blain/Southern gallery in Dering Street. Here, more than 100 drawings curated by Freud’s biographer, William Feaver, will show the full range of his activity, from sketch-book doodles to fully worked colour drawings dating from the Thirties, through the Sixties when he flirted briefly with watercolour washes, to the Eighties when he was concentrating mostly on etching as a form of drawing.
Arranged with Freud’s dealer since the Nineties, Acquavella of New York, the drawings are not officially for sale, though works recently on the market in the show will give an idea of current values. From the Evill Frost sale comes Boy on a Sofa, 1944, which sold for 1.5 million. Two equally early works from Kay Saatchi’s collection that were sold last summer are included – Dead Bird, which was bought by Acquavella for 481,250, and Sleeping Cat, sold to master drawings dealer Stephen Ongpin for 193,250. It is a measure of the change in the Freud drawings market that when this drawing was offered at auction in 1997, with a 15,000 estimate, it was unsold.
However, it often happens that, after high prices at auction, lesser work by an artist, in spite of its historical interest, tends to be overvalued. Four slight Freud drawings from the Forties were offered by Christie’s in November, but the 25,000 to 60,000 estimates were considered too inflated and they were unsold.
So it will be interesting to see if Sotheby’s and Christie’s have got their estimates right when they offer Freud drawings in their contemporary art sales next month. Christie’s has a previously unrecorded Irish landscape from 1948 (200,000 to 300,000), while Sotheby’s has five works from a single collection, thought to be that of Freud’s former dealer, James Kirkman.
2012年1月16日星期一
Art's new Peking order
"Sit down and get ready," Mr Yang recently told a few friends visiting from Taiwan. Grabbing a remote control, he turned to a set of wall panels that, with a click, began to slide apart. Each panel revealed a few of his recent acquisitions, from Chairman Mao-era portraits of revolutionaries to brightly colored abstracts by China's rising stars. As his friends applauded the slide-show, Mr Yang grinned and lit a cigar.
The art market is being transformed by Chinese collectors willing to pay top dollar for everything from Ming vases to contemporary Chinese abstracts. In some cases, these works are outstripping prices paid for blue-chip Western artists like Rene Magritte and Clyfford Still.
Three of the 10 most expensive art works sold at auction last year were by Chinese artists, according to art-market analyst Artprice. Last year's priciest painting: Eagle Standing on Pine Tree by self-taught painter Qi Baishi. This delicate scroll rocketed ahead of colorful canvases by Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol when it sold for $US65 million ($63.3m) at auction house China Guardian in May. Overall, purchases by Chinese collectors accounted for roughly a fifth of Christie's global sales during the first half of last year; Sotheby's says mainland buyers also lifted its sales in Asia to nearly $US960 million last year, up 47 per cent from 2010.
Welcome to China's rollicking art world, a marketplace flush with wealthy entrepreneurs who are amassing art at a clip to rival any Russian oligarch. From Beijing to Chongqing, collectors are building private museums, opening galleries and embracing an exuberant art scene, even as China's economy shows early signs of a slowdown and many collectors elsewhere are buying more cautiously.
Mr Yang, 54, one of Beijing's biggest car dealers, is emblematic of the new wave of Chinese collectors: Over the past decade, he has collected nearly 1000 artworks by contemporary heavyweights like Chen Yifei, who paints women in romantic interiors, and Zhang Xiaogang, known for haunting family portraits. Mr Yang's art choices are closely tracked by the region's top collectors and dealers. He has financed the opening of a pair of edgy art galleries in Beijing, one of which is managed by his wife, Yan Qing. Last year he began importing and reselling collectible wines like Bordeaux.
The collectors in his broader circle include Qiao Zhibing, a nightclub owner based in Shanghai. Mr Qiao is outfitting his four-story karaoke bar, Shanghai Night, with conceptual sculptures by Ai Weiwei, sleek photographs of Champagne-drinking partygoers by Yang Fudong and paintings of men in suits and smiling face masks by Zeng Fanzhi. Behind Mr Qiao's cashier's desk looms Beijing artist Ji Dachun's large painting of an eyeball.
Another friend, Beijing hotelier Zhang Rui, has started decorating every room in his new Gallery Hotel with pieces borrowed from a gallery called Tang. He also has an 800-piece collection of his own. The hotel hasn't opened yet, in part because Mr Zhang recently spent 18 months in detention for allegedly bribing a Party secretary. Mr Zhang denies making any bribe but says he did pay a fine as a condition of his release last June, and he's now seeking the remaining building permits.
"It's not enough in China to be wildly wealthy," says Meg Maggio, director of Pekin Fine Arts, a Beijing gallery specialising in contemporary art. "For all these guys, it's about building a beautiful way of life - they want the nice objects, the good wine, the whole package."
Alan Lee, who runs Beijing gallery Asia Art Centre, says one of his clients, a fitness-equipment manufacturer named Chang Chiu Dun, calls himself the "Cover Killer" because he "likes to buy artworks that have been on the covers of auction catalogues."
The downside, Mr Lee says, is that this influx of newly wealthy collectors is fueling risky speculation on art, leading to price swings and heavy trading volumes for younger artists like the eyeball painter, Ji Dachun, whose lasting significance is still uncertain. Art advisory firm Artvest says Chinese investors have recently started at least eight art funds, which buy artworks with the aim of reselling them at a profit later. There are only about 20 similar funds elsewhere in the world.
China's gallery scene is similarly freewheeling, with collectors such as Mr Yang sometimes serving as stakeholders or co-owners of galleries where they also shop. Such arrangements can spark potential conflicts of interest because the stakeholders might be able to leverage their position to claim the gallery's choicest pieces. Seven years ago Mr Yang paid to help his wife open her contemporary art gallery, Aye, but he says he doesn't manage her artists or get first dibs on any work she shows there. He recently stepped back as a financing partner in another contemporary art gallery he founded three years ago, Eastation, in order to focus on his wine venture. He continues to buy art from both galleries.
Dealers and artists say it's unclear whether Mr Yang is trying to build a museum-worthy collection or angling for the right moment to cash out. "China's market is still so new - it's hard for us to tell who's a collector and who's a speculator," says artist Zhang Xiaogang.
Mr Yang isn't troubled by such ambiguity. "I can't say if investing in art is good or bad," he says, "but I know that without money, you can't make a market grow."
Within China's contemporary art circles, Mr Yang is hard to miss. He's tall, with a square face and thick head of black hair. He shows acquaintances cellphone images of his art the way others pull up snapshots of their children. More often than not, he turns up at black-tie dinners dressed in a polo shirt, black corduroys, and sneakers.
In Hong Kong, he socializes with collectors like Credit Suisse banker Tony Chiu and BNP Paribas banker Daisy Cheng. Both say they've sought his advice about artists to collect. In Beijing, his penthouse apartment doubles as a lunch spot for a growing crop of young entrepreneurs and investment bankers, some of whom half-jokingly call him "President Yang."
Mr Yang has rapidly built up his collection in part by maintaining a breathless pace - he sometimes buys dozens of works at a single auction or hundreds of works from a gallery or artist he likes, he says. When he's not working in one of his six car dealerships in Beijing, he and his entourage are regulars at art fairs and auctions throughout Asia and Europe.
This year, Mr Yang's favorite prospect is Liu Wei, a Beijing artist who grew up painting portraits of Chairman Mao and later experimented with abstraction and themes like decay. Two months ago, Mr Yang flew to Hong Kong and paid boutique auctioneer Ravenel around $US123,000 for Mr Liu's 1999 canine portrait, Dog No. 2. A few days later, several works by the same artist sold for twice as much at an auction back in Beijing.
Mr Yang says the artist remains undervalued: "Liu Wei isn't a pop star" like Zeng Fanzhi, a painter represented by New York dealer Larry Gagosian, he says, "but I think he's as important."
Mr Yang has also started offloading a few older pieces by Chinese realist artists like Chen Yanning as demand for their works has climbed. Last month, Mr Yang arrived at a Beijing luxury hotel and made his way into the packed salesroom of Poly, China's biggest auction house. He stood in the back, his usual spot. Halfway through the sale, he pointed to a large painting of a boatful of people hanging on the far wall. "That's mine," he said. He had paid roughly $US60,000 for the 1984 work, New Wave, by Chen Yanning seven years earlier, and was ready to sell. Poly priced the work to sell for at least $US629,000. When the bidding began, at least five collectors took the bait and the winner paid $US1 million, a new price record for the artist.
Minutes before the bidding began, Mr Yang slipped downstairs so he could smoke while watching a live broadcast of the sale on a television in the hotel bar. After the gavel fell, he slapped the shoulder of the man beside him and laughed. Later, he heard that the winner was a "coal boss" from Shanxi province.
At the same sale, Mr Yang did some potentially strategic bidding of his own - on an artist represented by his wife's Aye Gallery. Mr Yang enlisted a taller friend to stand in front of him and bid for one of Chen Wenji's photorealistic paintings from 1990, A Piece of Glass Leaning on Wall. Mr Yang and his friend bowed out after other bidders pushed the price to more than double the work's $US125,800 high estimate. It ultimately sold to a telephone bidder for $US361,663, the artist's second-highest auction price.
Two days later, What, a show of Mr Chen's new works, opened at Aye. Mr Yang says he bid on the work in part because early works by Mr Chen are rare, and he doesn't own any, despite his wife's affiliation with the artist now. In addition, if he could help his wife's gallery by "keeping prices in a reasonable range, this would be good for the artist," he says.
Ms Maggio, the Beijing dealer, says she doesn't think Mr Yang follows any pattern intended to boost his works' values. More often, she says, he seems to bid on a whim, cajoling his friends to join in and reveling in the competition. "He'll nudge some guy with him and say, 'Buy it! You just made a lot of money!' and they'll put up their paddles," she says. "It's done in a spirit of fun - it's not calculated."
The grandson of a Shandong farmer and the son of a Beijing factory worker, Mr Yang grew up in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution. In 1978, he joined one of the first waves of students allowed into the country's reopened colleges. He studied political economics.
After college, he got a job at the Ministry of Machinery, where he formed ties with foreign banks and car manufacturers so he could help the government import cars for state use. There, he met his wife, who worked as a machinery designer in an office down the block from his communal dorm; they married in 1988.
When the government began allowing individuals to start their own companies a few years later, the couple leveraged their contacts and won a contract with General Motors to sell Buicks, Chevrolets and Cadillacs in China. In 1999, they opened Shanghai's first GM dealership, Da Shi Hang Auto. In the first year alone, they sold 1000 Buicks. Ms Yan began organising regional auto shows, and the couple bought a big empty house in Shanghai.
"That's when we realised we needed something for the walls," says Mr Yang, who sold around 11,000 cars last year through his seven showrooms in Shanghai and Beijing. He drives a black Cadillac Escalade.
In 2000, he paid a local gallery around $US120,000 to fill their home with suitable paintings, but over time he grew curious about the artists themselves. A year or two later, he spotted a roughly $US84,000 painting of a starkly lit human figure by contemporary artist Shi Chong, and something clicked: He wanted to own artworks that felt new.
By 2004, he and Ms Yan had moved back to Beijing and his compulsion had reached a point where he decided to sell his newer Toyota franchise so he could use the cash to buy art. Within weeks of closing that deal, he had spent the entire $US3.6 million in profits buying art. "When we see something we like, we can't help ourselves," said Ms Yan.
Last month in Beijing, Mr Yang threw a wine-tasting dinner for more than 100 guests at his friend Mr Rui's new hotel. Artworks were tucked into niches throughout the hotel's white lobby - including an Anne-Julie video of a horse walking on a treadmill - and the upper hallways were dotted with showstoppers like the Yangjiang Group's drippy candle wax tree. Young men and women clustered around the restaurant's tables, dining on lamb chops and vigorously swirling glasses of Chateau Beau-Sejour Becot.
Mr Yang's latest pastime is fine wine. He tried it for the first time shortly after he opened his first car dealership, and he now drinks a glass or two every day. He keeps his best 2000 bottles, including Bordeaux from Chateau Latour, in Hong Kong so that he can drink it during business trips there and avoid paying taxes to import it home. Last year, he imported 20,000 bottles of less-expensive vintages so he could try selling them to mainland friends. So far, his wine sales have topped $US3 million, which he says he uses to pay his personal wine-drinking bills.
In May, Mr Yang and Ms Yan moved into a new apartment, an 18th-floor penthouse in a Beijing neighbourhood known as the Embassy District. Throughout their home, artworks are arranged to mix East with West. In the dining room, American artist Roxy Paine's linen canvas drips with white paint near a life-size sculpture of an obese Asian man belly-flopping onto a waist-high block of faux ice. Embedded in the man's back are a group of upturned Champagne flutes, one of which accidentally snapped off during a recent party there. The work's sculptor, Mu Boyan, sent over a replacement flute straight away. He shows at Ms Yan's gallery.
The art market is being transformed by Chinese collectors willing to pay top dollar for everything from Ming vases to contemporary Chinese abstracts. In some cases, these works are outstripping prices paid for blue-chip Western artists like Rene Magritte and Clyfford Still.
Three of the 10 most expensive art works sold at auction last year were by Chinese artists, according to art-market analyst Artprice. Last year's priciest painting: Eagle Standing on Pine Tree by self-taught painter Qi Baishi. This delicate scroll rocketed ahead of colorful canvases by Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol when it sold for $US65 million ($63.3m) at auction house China Guardian in May. Overall, purchases by Chinese collectors accounted for roughly a fifth of Christie's global sales during the first half of last year; Sotheby's says mainland buyers also lifted its sales in Asia to nearly $US960 million last year, up 47 per cent from 2010.
Welcome to China's rollicking art world, a marketplace flush with wealthy entrepreneurs who are amassing art at a clip to rival any Russian oligarch. From Beijing to Chongqing, collectors are building private museums, opening galleries and embracing an exuberant art scene, even as China's economy shows early signs of a slowdown and many collectors elsewhere are buying more cautiously.
Mr Yang, 54, one of Beijing's biggest car dealers, is emblematic of the new wave of Chinese collectors: Over the past decade, he has collected nearly 1000 artworks by contemporary heavyweights like Chen Yifei, who paints women in romantic interiors, and Zhang Xiaogang, known for haunting family portraits. Mr Yang's art choices are closely tracked by the region's top collectors and dealers. He has financed the opening of a pair of edgy art galleries in Beijing, one of which is managed by his wife, Yan Qing. Last year he began importing and reselling collectible wines like Bordeaux.
The collectors in his broader circle include Qiao Zhibing, a nightclub owner based in Shanghai. Mr Qiao is outfitting his four-story karaoke bar, Shanghai Night, with conceptual sculptures by Ai Weiwei, sleek photographs of Champagne-drinking partygoers by Yang Fudong and paintings of men in suits and smiling face masks by Zeng Fanzhi. Behind Mr Qiao's cashier's desk looms Beijing artist Ji Dachun's large painting of an eyeball.
Another friend, Beijing hotelier Zhang Rui, has started decorating every room in his new Gallery Hotel with pieces borrowed from a gallery called Tang. He also has an 800-piece collection of his own. The hotel hasn't opened yet, in part because Mr Zhang recently spent 18 months in detention for allegedly bribing a Party secretary. Mr Zhang denies making any bribe but says he did pay a fine as a condition of his release last June, and he's now seeking the remaining building permits.
"It's not enough in China to be wildly wealthy," says Meg Maggio, director of Pekin Fine Arts, a Beijing gallery specialising in contemporary art. "For all these guys, it's about building a beautiful way of life - they want the nice objects, the good wine, the whole package."
Alan Lee, who runs Beijing gallery Asia Art Centre, says one of his clients, a fitness-equipment manufacturer named Chang Chiu Dun, calls himself the "Cover Killer" because he "likes to buy artworks that have been on the covers of auction catalogues."
The downside, Mr Lee says, is that this influx of newly wealthy collectors is fueling risky speculation on art, leading to price swings and heavy trading volumes for younger artists like the eyeball painter, Ji Dachun, whose lasting significance is still uncertain. Art advisory firm Artvest says Chinese investors have recently started at least eight art funds, which buy artworks with the aim of reselling them at a profit later. There are only about 20 similar funds elsewhere in the world.
China's gallery scene is similarly freewheeling, with collectors such as Mr Yang sometimes serving as stakeholders or co-owners of galleries where they also shop. Such arrangements can spark potential conflicts of interest because the stakeholders might be able to leverage their position to claim the gallery's choicest pieces. Seven years ago Mr Yang paid to help his wife open her contemporary art gallery, Aye, but he says he doesn't manage her artists or get first dibs on any work she shows there. He recently stepped back as a financing partner in another contemporary art gallery he founded three years ago, Eastation, in order to focus on his wine venture. He continues to buy art from both galleries.
Dealers and artists say it's unclear whether Mr Yang is trying to build a museum-worthy collection or angling for the right moment to cash out. "China's market is still so new - it's hard for us to tell who's a collector and who's a speculator," says artist Zhang Xiaogang.
Mr Yang isn't troubled by such ambiguity. "I can't say if investing in art is good or bad," he says, "but I know that without money, you can't make a market grow."
Within China's contemporary art circles, Mr Yang is hard to miss. He's tall, with a square face and thick head of black hair. He shows acquaintances cellphone images of his art the way others pull up snapshots of their children. More often than not, he turns up at black-tie dinners dressed in a polo shirt, black corduroys, and sneakers.
In Hong Kong, he socializes with collectors like Credit Suisse banker Tony Chiu and BNP Paribas banker Daisy Cheng. Both say they've sought his advice about artists to collect. In Beijing, his penthouse apartment doubles as a lunch spot for a growing crop of young entrepreneurs and investment bankers, some of whom half-jokingly call him "President Yang."
Mr Yang has rapidly built up his collection in part by maintaining a breathless pace - he sometimes buys dozens of works at a single auction or hundreds of works from a gallery or artist he likes, he says. When he's not working in one of his six car dealerships in Beijing, he and his entourage are regulars at art fairs and auctions throughout Asia and Europe.
This year, Mr Yang's favorite prospect is Liu Wei, a Beijing artist who grew up painting portraits of Chairman Mao and later experimented with abstraction and themes like decay. Two months ago, Mr Yang flew to Hong Kong and paid boutique auctioneer Ravenel around $US123,000 for Mr Liu's 1999 canine portrait, Dog No. 2. A few days later, several works by the same artist sold for twice as much at an auction back in Beijing.
Mr Yang says the artist remains undervalued: "Liu Wei isn't a pop star" like Zeng Fanzhi, a painter represented by New York dealer Larry Gagosian, he says, "but I think he's as important."
Mr Yang has also started offloading a few older pieces by Chinese realist artists like Chen Yanning as demand for their works has climbed. Last month, Mr Yang arrived at a Beijing luxury hotel and made his way into the packed salesroom of Poly, China's biggest auction house. He stood in the back, his usual spot. Halfway through the sale, he pointed to a large painting of a boatful of people hanging on the far wall. "That's mine," he said. He had paid roughly $US60,000 for the 1984 work, New Wave, by Chen Yanning seven years earlier, and was ready to sell. Poly priced the work to sell for at least $US629,000. When the bidding began, at least five collectors took the bait and the winner paid $US1 million, a new price record for the artist.
Minutes before the bidding began, Mr Yang slipped downstairs so he could smoke while watching a live broadcast of the sale on a television in the hotel bar. After the gavel fell, he slapped the shoulder of the man beside him and laughed. Later, he heard that the winner was a "coal boss" from Shanxi province.
At the same sale, Mr Yang did some potentially strategic bidding of his own - on an artist represented by his wife's Aye Gallery. Mr Yang enlisted a taller friend to stand in front of him and bid for one of Chen Wenji's photorealistic paintings from 1990, A Piece of Glass Leaning on Wall. Mr Yang and his friend bowed out after other bidders pushed the price to more than double the work's $US125,800 high estimate. It ultimately sold to a telephone bidder for $US361,663, the artist's second-highest auction price.
Two days later, What, a show of Mr Chen's new works, opened at Aye. Mr Yang says he bid on the work in part because early works by Mr Chen are rare, and he doesn't own any, despite his wife's affiliation with the artist now. In addition, if he could help his wife's gallery by "keeping prices in a reasonable range, this would be good for the artist," he says.
Ms Maggio, the Beijing dealer, says she doesn't think Mr Yang follows any pattern intended to boost his works' values. More often, she says, he seems to bid on a whim, cajoling his friends to join in and reveling in the competition. "He'll nudge some guy with him and say, 'Buy it! You just made a lot of money!' and they'll put up their paddles," she says. "It's done in a spirit of fun - it's not calculated."
The grandson of a Shandong farmer and the son of a Beijing factory worker, Mr Yang grew up in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution. In 1978, he joined one of the first waves of students allowed into the country's reopened colleges. He studied political economics.
After college, he got a job at the Ministry of Machinery, where he formed ties with foreign banks and car manufacturers so he could help the government import cars for state use. There, he met his wife, who worked as a machinery designer in an office down the block from his communal dorm; they married in 1988.
When the government began allowing individuals to start their own companies a few years later, the couple leveraged their contacts and won a contract with General Motors to sell Buicks, Chevrolets and Cadillacs in China. In 1999, they opened Shanghai's first GM dealership, Da Shi Hang Auto. In the first year alone, they sold 1000 Buicks. Ms Yan began organising regional auto shows, and the couple bought a big empty house in Shanghai.
"That's when we realised we needed something for the walls," says Mr Yang, who sold around 11,000 cars last year through his seven showrooms in Shanghai and Beijing. He drives a black Cadillac Escalade.
In 2000, he paid a local gallery around $US120,000 to fill their home with suitable paintings, but over time he grew curious about the artists themselves. A year or two later, he spotted a roughly $US84,000 painting of a starkly lit human figure by contemporary artist Shi Chong, and something clicked: He wanted to own artworks that felt new.
By 2004, he and Ms Yan had moved back to Beijing and his compulsion had reached a point where he decided to sell his newer Toyota franchise so he could use the cash to buy art. Within weeks of closing that deal, he had spent the entire $US3.6 million in profits buying art. "When we see something we like, we can't help ourselves," said Ms Yan.
Last month in Beijing, Mr Yang threw a wine-tasting dinner for more than 100 guests at his friend Mr Rui's new hotel. Artworks were tucked into niches throughout the hotel's white lobby - including an Anne-Julie video of a horse walking on a treadmill - and the upper hallways were dotted with showstoppers like the Yangjiang Group's drippy candle wax tree. Young men and women clustered around the restaurant's tables, dining on lamb chops and vigorously swirling glasses of Chateau Beau-Sejour Becot.
Mr Yang's latest pastime is fine wine. He tried it for the first time shortly after he opened his first car dealership, and he now drinks a glass or two every day. He keeps his best 2000 bottles, including Bordeaux from Chateau Latour, in Hong Kong so that he can drink it during business trips there and avoid paying taxes to import it home. Last year, he imported 20,000 bottles of less-expensive vintages so he could try selling them to mainland friends. So far, his wine sales have topped $US3 million, which he says he uses to pay his personal wine-drinking bills.
In May, Mr Yang and Ms Yan moved into a new apartment, an 18th-floor penthouse in a Beijing neighbourhood known as the Embassy District. Throughout their home, artworks are arranged to mix East with West. In the dining room, American artist Roxy Paine's linen canvas drips with white paint near a life-size sculpture of an obese Asian man belly-flopping onto a waist-high block of faux ice. Embedded in the man's back are a group of upturned Champagne flutes, one of which accidentally snapped off during a recent party there. The work's sculptor, Mu Boyan, sent over a replacement flute straight away. He shows at Ms Yan's gallery.
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