798 District Blog

HONG KONG— In a packed Sotheby’s auction room in Hong Kong on Monday night, Zhang Xiaogang was once again proven to be the ultimate blue-chip name in Chinese contemporary art when his brooding 1992 masterpiece “Chapter of a New Century — Birth of the People’s Republic of China II” was hammered down for HK$46 million ($5.9 million), bringing in twice the painting’s high estimate in a buzzing sale that moved a total of HK$205 million ($26.4 million) in art.

The room was hushed as the price for Zhang’s work climbed slowly, by million-dollar increments, in a battle between a telephone bidder and two paddles in the room. When the gavel finally fell, boisterous applause broke out. The price is just short of the HK$47.4 million ($6.1 million) paid in April 2008 for Zhang’s “Bloodline: The Big Family No. 3,” which at the time set a record for a painting by a living Asian artist.

Zhang’s work was the headlining lot of Sotheby’s fall contemporary Asian art sale, but it was not the only one to generate excitement when changing hands. Immediately after Zhang’s piece was carried from the hall, a key work from early in Fang Lijun’s career came to the block: an untitled 1989 painting featuring a group of bald-headed youths whose averted gaze and alienated appearance, typical of Fang’s early imagery, led him to become the leading exponent of what critics dubbed Cynical Realism. The piece went for HK$9.5 million ($1.2 million), more than three times its high estimate of HK$3 million ($390,000).

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NEW YORK, NY.- The first exhibition in the United States to present a comprehensive overview of the development of woodcut prints in China over the last 70 years will be on view at China Institute Gallery from September 16 through December 5, 2010. Woodcuts in Modern China, 1937-2008: Towards a Universal Pictorial Language surveys 68 woodcuts, ranging from formative early work, when artists in China first began experimenting with western-style techniques, to the work of important artists working today such as Xu Bing and Zhang Minjie. An illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

Chronologically, the first section of the exhibition Woodcuts in Modern China, 1937-2008: Towards a Universal Pictorial Language incorporates 34 works drawn from an important collection of over 200 woodcuts dating from 1937 to 1948. Donated to the Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University by Theodore Herman, professor of geography emeritus, who acquired them from the artists in 1948, this collection is considered to be unparalleled in the United States. “As historical documents, they offer a unique perspective on World War II…and especially on the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists (1946-1949). At the same time, the prints present the mastery of a new medium at a point when western techniques had been absorbed and transformed by Chinese artists…,” notes Leslie Eliet, who contributed an essay to the catalogue and has collaborated with Dr. Herman over the past 30 years. The remaining 34 works are from 11 important contemporary artists who, after reviewing the Herman collection, selected works that “they felt expressed their reverence for the older masters, engaging them in a dialogue across time,” as Renee Covalucci, co-curator of the exhibition, writes in the catalogue.

Willow Hai Chang, director of China Institute Gallery, states, “Although woodcuts in China have a history of more than a thousand years, modern Chinese woodcuts, often inspired by political events, appeared only in the early 1930s. This unique exhibition covers nearly the entire evolution of these new woodcuts in Chinese modern and contemporary art and shows their extraordinary importance in Chinese art history.”

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People look at a series of paintings entitled ‘paint a little color, paint a little red, paint a little blue, sorrow’ by Chinese artist Ye Yongqing, hanging on a wall behind an installation by Qiu Zhijie entitled ‘The horse distant after the revolution,’ during a group exhibit entitled ‘The Constructed Dimension’ at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China, 20 August 2010. The exhibit showcases the works of twenty Chinese artists, and will run until 02 September 2010.

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Chengdu is an important city in Chinese Contemporary Art, Which nurtured a lot of famous artists and critics, but the art collection is not so active comparing to Beijing and Shanghai. How to accelerate the development of the Chengdu art market and to increase the number of local collectors, is the question to be deal with.

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LONDON. Christie’s sale of International Modern and Contemporary Art held in Dubai on 27 April proved a success, leapfrogging three times over its low estimate to total over $15m (presale $4.8m-$6.6m). This was a sharply improved result compared to last year’s sale, which made just $4.8m.

The strongest bidding in this year’s sale was for 25 modern Egyptian artworks consigned by a respected Saudi collector, Dr Mohammed Farsi. This was expected to make $1.2m-$1.7m, but racked up $8.7m, with all the lots sold.

The collection was said by trade sources to have been offered to Qatar—whose Museum of Modern Arab Art is due to be inaugurated in a temporary space this December—but finally went to auction at Christie’s.

Prominent among Christie’s staffers taking telephone bids at the sale was Isabelle de la Bruyère, glamorous director for the Middle East, who was previously Dr Farsi’s daughter-in-law. She snaffled a number of lots including the evening’s prize, the Egyptian artist Mahmoud Said’s “Les Chadoufs”, 1934, which sold for a startling $2.4m, almost ten times its high estimate (est $150,000-$200,000). Trade sources said that it was destined for Qatar.

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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.

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