Christie’s 20/ 21 st Century Autumn sale in Hong Kong last month (26 September) made $ 72 6 m, down 46 % from in 2014’s equivalent sale and around the same as its sale in March. The night noted the first wedding anniversary of Christie’s Asia head office in Central’s Henderson building,
Still, the auction asserted that the city’s market stays solid in spite of local and worldwide financial funks. Picasso’s 1944 Buste de Femme established his Asia record price, hammering for HK$ 196 75 m (US$ 25 4 m) after a drawn-out competition in between 2 prospective buyers.
“I think what we’ve found out throughout this year in an ever progressing market is the importance of discussion of prices, of making certain we bring fresh home to the market,” stated Christie’s president Bonnie Brennan after the sale, “and the market tonight reacted, you saw that really clearly.”
Brennan stressed that with remote prospective buyers from around Asia in addition to the US and Europe, the sale illustrates the complex circulation of interest and impact of Oriental and Western art and their buyers. Every sale worldwide currently includes Yayoi Kusama, and Zao Wou-ki now takes pleasure in international popularity as well, Brennan says.
The sale included Kusama’s paint Pumpkin [TWAQN] and Zao’s 17 3 63 , respectively selling for HK$ 34 66 mln (US$ 4 475 mln) and HK$ 85 2 mln (US$ 11 mln). The Zao and Picasso works accompanied May’s sale of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Sabado por la Noche as the most important 20 th and 21 st Century sales in Asia this year. Brennan likewise highlighted exactly how the work of Walter Spies was affected by his years in Indonesia; his Pagodenlandschaft (Landscape with a Pagoda by a Lake) sold for HK$ 26 1 m ($ 3 3 m).
Christie’s Asia Pacific head of 20 th and 21 st century art, Cristian Albu, described the sale’s make-up as “trying to narrate, and trying to give respect to the region,” with “chapters concerning Oriental art, regarding Japanese art, regarding Oriental art. However naturally, we’re trying to develop bridges in between the Western art and the Eastern Art, due to the fact that there’s no something as borders between musicians,” with “a fantastic dialogue between Picasso and Zao Wou-ki, and between Korean art and between New york city modernism and New York minimalism”.
Later that weekend in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s fall sales completed HK$ 335 7 m ($ 43 m), covered by Yoshitomo Nara’s Can not Wait ’til the Night Comes for HK$ 79 9 m ($ 10 2 m). And Phillips’s Modern and contemporary art night sale achieved HK$ 160 m ($ 20 5 m), lead by Nara’s Pinky selling for HK$ 56 6 m ($ 7 2 m).
“The art market is not down,” asserted Albu. “It’s never ever been down. The art market has lived for 1, 000 years. It’s alive currently. It’s going to live and effective for the following 1, 000 years, art is effective, and art is playing a substantial function in humankind. The marketplace has actually altered for the past two years. Yet individuals with understanding, people with passion, individuals with opportunities, they chase after a paint, and what you saw this evening, it’s real.”