The Japanese section of the sale will feature a noteworthy group of paintings of beauty and the erotic
NEW YORK, NY.- ArtSpeakChina (ASC), the first online, collaboratively authored bilingual encyclopedia of Chinese contemporary art officially launched today. Now online at both www.artspeakchina.org and www.tanyishu.cn, the Wikipedia-style reference guide provides both English and Mandarin speakers with hundreds of in-depth articles on Chinese artists and the world of Chinese contemporary art. ASC’s bilingual, collaborative character helps overcome the language barrier and is already improving the global availability, exchange and quality of information about Chinese contemporary art.
With a total revenue figure up 255% compared with February 2009, Christie’s and Sotheby’s Contemporary Art sales have confirmed the recovery of the top end of the art market (combined revenue of $79,5m in February 2010 vs. £22.3m from the same sales in 2009).
CHINESE CULTURE: Artists Gao Qiang and Gao Zhen lost their father to China’s Cultural Revolution, and their work is an attempt to get China to face up to its difficult past and the truth behind its most famous leader, Mao Zedong, writes CLIFFORD COONAN in Beijing
GAO QIANG IS slightly out of breath when he arrives at the studio he shares with his older brother Zhen in Beijing’s trendy 798 art district. En route to the interview, China’s most controversial contemporary artists crashed their car, and Qiang had to stay behind to sort out the paperwork. The younger Gao apologises for being late, and then, almost casually, he takes Mao Zedong’s head out of a plastic bag and attaches it to the corpulent, kneeling body of modern China’s founding father.
With the price of Chinese contemporary art and traditional paintings way out of reach for most people today, an increasing number of young art lovers are turning to Chinese prints as a way of starting their art collection.
“A visit to the 798 art district gives travelers and art affectionados an opportunity to experience the modern Chinese art scene, really in its infancy,” says Peter Danford, owner of The China Guide. “Whether you want to buy art or just look and enjoy a coffee along the way, the 798 art district is really a window into modern China and how it is embracing yet another aspect of western culture with its own Chinese twist.”
NEW YORK – The auction market is booming and, when it comes to contemporary art, it is charging on at an accelerated pace, as it did before the financial turmoil broke out in the autumn of 2008.
This week, those attending Christie’s and Sotheby’s evening sessions traditionally reserved for the most important works might have briefly thought that there never was a recession. No awareness of it appeared to linger in the bidders’ minds as they ran up paintings, drawings and sundry three-dimensional works to three times the estimate, or more.
It all culminated with the staggering $43.76 million paid at Sotheby’s on Wednesday for Andy Warhol’s “200 One Dollar Bills,” a silkscreen and pencil work dating from 1962.
This extraordinary outburst of bullishness was the upshot of a two-part play in which Christie’s session on Tuesday served as a launching pad to Sotheby’s superior sale.
Red More at http://www.nytimes.com
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