Merlion
01-25-2007, 09:04 PM
We raised some interest in the new China in another thread. This is a related story from the NY Times. There is a good picture there.
In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/arts/design/04arti.html?ex=1325566800&en=ba1a6b8418c78d5a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
SHANGHAI, Jan. 3 — After the peppered beef carpaccio and before the pan-fried sea bass there were raucous toasts and the clinking of wine glasses in the V.I.P. room of New Heights, a jazzy restaurant in this city’s most luxurious location, overlooking the Bund.
Wang Guangyi ...., and 20 other well-known Chinese artists and their guests, many of whom had been flown in from Beijing to celebrate the opening of a solo exhibition of new works by Zeng Hao, another rising star in China’s bubbly art scene.
In 2006 Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the world’s biggest auction houses, sold $190 million worth of Asian contemporary art, most of it Chinese, in a series of record-breaking auctions in New York, London and Hong Kong. In 2004 the two houses combined sold $22 million in Asian contemporary art.
The climax came at a Beijing auction in November when a painting by Liu Xiaodong, 43, sold to a Chinese entrepreneur for $2.7 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece by a Chinese artist ...
That price put Mr. Liu in the company of the few living artists, including Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, whose work has sold for $2 million or more at auction. ....
“What is happening in China is what happened in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century,” said Michael Goedhuis, a collector and art dealer specializing in Asian contemporary art who has galleries in London and New York. “New ground is being broken. There’s a revolution under way.”....
In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/arts/design/04arti.html?ex=1325566800&en=ba1a6b8418c78d5a&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)
SHANGHAI, Jan. 3 — After the peppered beef carpaccio and before the pan-fried sea bass there were raucous toasts and the clinking of wine glasses in the V.I.P. room of New Heights, a jazzy restaurant in this city’s most luxurious location, overlooking the Bund.
Wang Guangyi ...., and 20 other well-known Chinese artists and their guests, many of whom had been flown in from Beijing to celebrate the opening of a solo exhibition of new works by Zeng Hao, another rising star in China’s bubbly art scene.
In 2006 Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the world’s biggest auction houses, sold $190 million worth of Asian contemporary art, most of it Chinese, in a series of record-breaking auctions in New York, London and Hong Kong. In 2004 the two houses combined sold $22 million in Asian contemporary art.
The climax came at a Beijing auction in November when a painting by Liu Xiaodong, 43, sold to a Chinese entrepreneur for $2.7 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece by a Chinese artist ...
That price put Mr. Liu in the company of the few living artists, including Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, whose work has sold for $2 million or more at auction. ....
“What is happening in China is what happened in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century,” said Michael Goedhuis, a collector and art dealer specializing in Asian contemporary art who has galleries in London and New York. “New ground is being broken. There’s a revolution under way.”....