Coinciding with the Art HK international art fair, Christie’s May 29 evening sale of Asian Contemporary and Chinese 20th Century Art achieved a rare 100 percent of lots sold. The first ever “white glove” sale for contemporary art in Asia, the night’s 36 lots hauled in an approximate USD 39 million with premium for the auction house.
The sale’s top lot was painter Chen Yifei’s String Quartet (1986), which went to a regional collector for 7.85 million dollars, and set a new world auction record for the artist. Chinese Modernists dominated the rest of the top 10, which included only two works by contemporary artists, Zeng Fanzhi’s 2.5 million dollar Mask Series (2000) and Zhang Xiaogang’s 950,000 dollar The Big Family No. 6 (1997). The latter was snapped up by a European private collector.
The sale also featured regional artists who have been making regular appearances on the Hong Kong auction block. Among Japanese artists, Yoshitomo Nara’s Girl with a Long Fuse (1996) notched 748,000 dollars, while Tomoko Konoike’s multi-panel Chapter 3, Distress (2005) hit 266,000 dollars and Akira Yamaguchi’s Four (2006) was close behind at 251,000 dollars. Two multimedia works by video art godfather Nam June Paik – the sale’s only offerings of unconventional media – brought in 375,000 and 235,500 dollars, respectively. During the sale, the crowd of collectors and spectators overflowed the auction venue, with the results easily surpassing the original high estimate.
*Quoted prices are US dollar approximations.