Despite worries of China?s economic slowdown hitting Chinese demand for art and luxury goods, art is still serving as an alternative asset for China?s rich as they avoid the shaky domestic stock market.
Sotheby?s kicked off its Hong Kong spring auctions on April 3 with solid results at an evening sale that set major global artist price records and approached the pre-sale high estimate.
Liu Wei, The Revolutionary Family Series (triptych), 1994. The painting set an artist price record when it sold for US$5 million at the Sotheby?s Modern and Contemporary Asian Art Evening Sale in Hong Kong on April 3. (Image courtesy of Sotheby?s)
?Our Modern and Contemporary Asian Art Evening Sale provided a very strong start to our spring auction season,? says Sotheby?s Asia CEO Kevin Ching of the auction. ?The result demonstrated the market?s continued enthusiasm for high-quality art, with a robust total of HK$605 million/US$77.5 million?toward the high end of our pre-sale expectations.? The auction saw ?strength across all three categories,? says Ching, with nine global artist auction records and 87 percent of lots sold. A total of 55 percent of works were sold over their high estimate.
Chinese modern contemporary art saw especially significant demand. The top lot of the auction was Wang Huaiqing?s Feet 2 (diptych), which set an artist record with a price of US$6.9 million (HK$54.5 million), well above the high pre-sale estimate of HK$40 million. Liu Wei?s painting The Revolutionary Famil...