Chinese Contemporary Art - Record Prices

Chinese Contemporary Art Print
by Zhou Lu, born 1973
copyright Zhou Lu

When Christie's auction house auctioned off Chinese contemporary art in October 1998, no one back then had any idea that it was starting an explosive increase of Asian art prices, especially that of Chinese paintings. Works were already sold at high prices back then.

But since then the demand has also grown enormously and therefore the prices have risen even more. Works from artists like the Chinese Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang or Zeng Fanzhi have since surpassed the million dollar mark on the auction block.

Auctions of Chinese Contemporary Art

Noon, 2006
by Zhou Lu, born 1973
copyright Zhou Lu

Contemporary Asian art has aroused worldwide interest and the prices are likely to continue rising with growing interest. As the "Asian Art" newspaper of London reports in their December 2007 issue, the increase is not due to special auctions that appeal singularly to a certain audience. Rather the auction houses Christie's Sotheby's and Phillips are all ready to offer regular auctions of Asian art with further success.

Record Series

Contemporary Art Print
by Zhou Lu, born 1973
copyright Zhou Lu

The Chinese art boom seems to be growing without checks and penetrates always larger and larger circles. Yue Minjun set a record with the auction of his painting "Execution" (1995) - inspired by the 1989 protests at Tiananmen Sqaure - sold for £2.9 million. The artist has yet again caused a stir with his eternal and readily smiling figures - in this sense, he lets actors perform, miming out an execution scene. Together with five other contemporary Chinese works, this auction at Sotheby's in London sold for a total of £6.4 million ($12.85m USD).

At a Phillips auction, a piece by Zhang Xiaogang turned heads, selling for £765,000 ($1.5m USD). His portraits, done in the manner of photographs from the period of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, always with questioning stares and slight oddities, have long since sold at high prices. Similarly Zeng Fanzhi's "No. 5" (1999) of the "Mask Series" fetched a bid at Christie's for £804,500 ($1.6m USD). The highest bid among the 10 paintings in the series, which together nearly totaled £5.3 million ($10.6m USD).

Latest Results in Contemporary Chinese Art

Contemporary Art by Zhou Lu
Grow Up, 2005
copyright Zhou Lu

On October 7, 2007 contemporary Chinese works were auctioned off at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. Record bids were set for works by artists like Cai Guo-Qiang, Yu Chen, Xu Bing, Liu Wei, Wang Guangyi and Zhan Wang. But the highest bid of 31.7 HK dollars was made for the 1994 Yue Minjun painting, "The Massacre at Chios", another cynical macabre piece aimed at the government. In the style of propaganda art a scene of wide smiling Myrmidons are staged as victims in the moment of the massacre in front of a backdrop of cranes.

The trend of record setting prices for contemporary Chinese art continued in New York November 13-14, 2007. At the Sotheby's auction works by Fang Lijun, Yan Pei Ming, Que Minjun, Zeng Fanzhi, Cai Guo-Qiang and Zhang Xiaogang again fetched the highest prices thanks to insatiable demand. Fang Lijun's "No. 6" from "Series 2" fetched a price of $4.07 million USD. The family portrait from the Bloodline series found a buyer for $3.96 million USD at a Christie's auction.

One will note that images of works from the above named artists are not featured on this page. For copyright reasons, we have instead used images of the latest works by Zhou Lu, a leading contemporary Chinese artist and member of the so-called "cynical realism" school.

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