Signs of Life in The Art Market

Personalities like Yue Minjun, who is in his 40s, suddenly became famous for breaking auction records. In May 2008, a bidder paid $6.9 million at Christie's in Hong Kong for "Gweong-Gweong," establishing a new all-time high-price for Yue. In a way, his "cynical realism" works have become unintentional parodies of the general problem: his trademark pink, laughing face appears over and over on banal paintings and sculptures, many of which sold for millions. But after years when almost everything was snapped up, it was sobering late last year to see so many contemporary Chinese pieces, including some by Yue, going unsold—half of all lots at some sessions. After so much excitement over "new" art, dozens of galleries in Beijing and Shanghai have dramatically downsized or simply not reopened after the Lunar New Year break in February.

China is an excellent example of a contemporary-art market gone wrong. It seemed to get bigger and frothier without a corresponding curatorial and critical framework for "what makes a work interesting," says Magnus Renfrew, director of the ART HK fair and a former contemporary-art specialist at Bonhams in London. As a result, auction houses, with their marketing prowess and international reach—as opposed to academic journals, galleries and museums—became the place where careers were created. Says Renfrew: "Because the commercial value of a work became the primary way of evaluating its value, work became good because it was expensive rather than expensive because it was deemed to be good."

It's hard to determine whether collectors were the cause or the victims of the frenzy. Ninety percent of the buyers were American or European. "Many were buying with their ears, not their eyes," says Sundaram Tagore, a grandnephew of the Indian poet Rabindranath and a dealer with galleries in New York, Los Angeles and Hong Kong. Tagore has seen his revenue drop by 70 percent in the past year, but says good works by key artists— especially in the $500,000 and over range —have been moving. Among them: the textured, monochrome paintings by India's Sohan Qadri inspired by meditation, and the hypnotic waterfall images created by Japan's Hiroshi Senju with crushed-seashell pigments on rice paper.

Contemporary art from the mainland may enjoy a resurgence once the global economy gets back on track. But for now, only the bravest, savviest collectors remain. They are considering purchases more carefully and shaping the market with demands for fresh quality art. This is forcing artists and dealers to produce more than their "greatest hits," leading to more adventurous exhibitions. Rubell thinks that one of the good things that will emerge from the current slump is that "in a market that is not so active, artists tend to go back into themselves and are not afraid to work on new ideas." Serious collectors still happily pay top dollar for top works, but are also more open to less expensive, more experimental genres like photography or cutting-edge Southeast Asian art.

The less frenetic art commerce environment has also resulted in galleries staging more daring exhibits. Hong Kong dealer Katie de Tilly, who represents Julian Schnabel as well as a number of Chinese artists, decided to concentrate on showcasing Vietnamese diaspora artists and new Cambodian works. Some paintings sell for as little as $500. "I'm probably not going to make money on these shows," she says. "It is not a money-making year so I thought I might as well do this because it is important." With things slow right now, Tagore is using the time to write a book on Indian modernism and to collaborate with a German curator on a traveling show of Islamic art.

For better or worse, there are also some renewed stirrings of hype in the contemporary-art market. In June, Koons is having a solo exhibit at London's prestigious Serpentine Gallery, which is expected to draw big crowds. The law of supply and demand being what it is, many will no doubt continue to aspire to own his art (if not his new book). At the Pulse New York art fair a few weeks ago, five large photographs of Imelda Marcos by Filipino artist Steve Tirona drew plenty of attention. The volume of inquiries on the last day prompted gallery owner Isa Lorenzo, a physician, to diagnose herself with a panic attack near closing time. A museum bought a set of five (there are 15 limited-edition sets), European collectors wanted to talk, and passersby stopped to gawk at the images of the former Philippine first lady gamely posing to help her grandson's costume jewelry line. In one image, she sits regally holding her pet dog Venus by a leash, in an opulent room that has seen better days. Photo illustration exaggerates the sparkle of her bling. A picture of her with Saddam Hussein in his heyday adorns a table, a classic painting hangs askew on a silk-covered wall and the mirror in a large gilt frame is cracked. The image is a reminder that like classic art, the best contemporary works make us weigh our icons, our values and what we consider beautiful.

© 2009