Chinese Contemporary Record Broken at Christie’s Hong Kong

HONG KONG—Spontaneous applause broke out at Christie’s inaugural Hong Kong evening sale on May 24 when the final hammer went down for lot 156, a bright, large, oil-on-canvas diptych titled Mask Series 1996 No. 6. An anonymous buyer, bidding by phone, paid an astonishing HK $75,367,500 (U.S. $9,703,490) for the painting by Zeng Fanzhi, creating a new world auction record for Chinese contemporary art.

Following the tradition of comparable evening events in New York, the 800 or so seats at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre hall were filled with a select group of collectors, dealers, and other art lovers who were admitted to the pre-auction cocktails and then the salesroom by invitation only. The 34 pieces in the Asian Contemporary Art session, billed by Christie’s as “a highly edited selection of standout works,” all sold for a total of HK $317,384,000 including buyer’s premium.

The 78 ¾-by-141 ¾-inch Zeng piece, which came from a private collection, features eight masked figures wearing the red bandanas identified with China’s young patriots and standing against a yellow background. It was the sixth item to go on the block for the session, which was the highest-profile of several that took place at Christie's May 24-29. The winning price was nearly the 50th bid, after a brisk and suspenseful session involving several potential buyers in the room and on the phones. After the clapping, a murmur went through the hall as keen observers noted that the work by Zeng, who was born in 1964, overtook the world record set last November at Christie’s in Hong Kong, for Cai Guo-Qiang’s Set of Fourteen Drawings for the Asia-Pacific Cooperation, which sold for U.S. $9,548,229.

Despite the iconic nature of lot 156 and the prominence of the artist, there has also been some disbelief among experts that such a price would be paid for the painting considering its condition. Like many pieces made at the time, when artists could not afford quality materials, the Zeng painting has visible damage including the appearance of cracking along the bottom and obvious patching in at least two places. Christie’s would not release the condition report after the sale, citing an internal practice.

Proving the resilience of the market for the works by big-name contemporary Asian artists, other records were also established at the May 24 auction. Gweong-Gweong, a painting done early in the career of Yue Minjun, who was born in 1962, sold for HK $54,087,500 (U.S. $6,963,712) to a phone bidder, setting a fresh world record for the Chinese artist. The previous top price for a Yue was U.S. $5,996,932. Gweong-Gweong is a roughly 72-by-99-inch work depicting the artist’s signature self-portraits flying above a Tiananmen Square crowded with cheerleaders. Subodh Gupta’s Saat Samundar Paar (10) went for HK $9,287,500 (U.S. $1,195,756), a new all-time high at auction for the Indian painter, who was born in 1964. The roughly 66-by-90-inch piece features a luggage trolley.

The evening contemporary art sale included prime works by artists from China, India, Japan, and South Korea, an awkward and somewhat artificial clumping considering the dramatic differences in the evolution of the different international styles and their collectors. This category, however, attracted an international group of bidders, many flying into Hong Kong specifically for the event. Particularly notable were the 40-some South Korean collectors in the room, who appeared particularly enthusiastic about the four art pieces from their country entered in the auction.