Overvalued/Undervalued: The Frieze-Week Auctions

Overvalued
This Wang Guangyi is admittedly a classic image with nice provenance from New Yorker Howard Farber, the early Chinese contemporary art collector, but the expectations are overblown.

In the last six months, two other examples from this acclaimed series hyping the Coca-Cola brand against a proletariat-cast background fetched $432,000 and $358,637 at auction in New York and London. Farber acquired the 80-inch square work directly from the artist circa 1996 (and then it went straight into storage since it was too big for the collector's apartment). According to a knowledgeable source, Farber paid approximately $25,000 for the piece, so no matter what happens, as long it meets the secret reserve, he will collect a substantial capital gain.

Aesthetics aside, if there’s a leading candidate for a bubble pop, Chinese contemporary art ranks at the top of the list.



Wang Guangyi, "Great Criticism: Coca-Cola" (1991-1994)
Est. £400–600,000/$800,0000–1.2 million
Lot 509, Phillips de Pury & Company's China Avant-Garde: The Farber Collection Sale, October 13

Courtesy Phillips de Pury & Company