Chinese Contemporary Art Auction (Artworks)
“Two Wandering Tigers” by Cai Guo-Qiang
Sotheby’s sold $51.77 million worth of Chinese contemporary art in three auctions in Hong Kong on Wednesday, allaying concerns that the global economic slowdown would depress the prices. The highlight of the day was the highly anticipated afternoon sale of more than 100 works from the Estella Collection, which Sotheby’s has called the largest and most important collection of Chinese contemporary art ever to come to auction.
“The Living Word” by Xu Bing
That sale brought in nearly $18 million from aggressive bidders who crowded into a Hong Kong convention center and from others who called in bids.
“Bloodline: The Big Family No. 3.” by Zhang Xiaogang
The star of that auction was a 1995 painting by Zhang Xiaogang, one of China’s most prominent artists, which sold for just over $6 million, the highest price ever paid for a painting by a Chinese contemporary artist. That oil on canvas, “Bloodline: Big Family No. 3,” depicts a family of three during the tumultuous Cultural Revolution in China, when children were sometimes led to denounce their parents. Three collectors bid feverishly for the piece, which sold for far above its high estimate, about $3.4 million.
“Chairman Mao With Us” by Zeng Fanzhi
The price was a bit above the record set at Sotheby’s auction house last October, when a Yue Minjun painting called “Execution,” inspired by the 1989 crackdown on student demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, sold for about $5.9 million. Collectors also offered high bids on works by other well-known Chinese artists like Zeng Fanzhi, Cai Guo-Qiang, Ai Weiwei and Sui Jianguo.
Via N.Y. Times
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