Most of ShContemporary’s 150 dealers agreed that its second edition, from September 10 through 13 at the Shanghai Exhibition Center, benefited from being a stop on this fall’s Grand Tour of art happenings in Asia, which included the Yokohama Triennale and the Gwangju Biennale. Some, though, felt that commercial events held at the same time, like the new Showcase Singapore, might have stolen some of the action, citing mixed sales results.

Among those reporting strong sales is Bodhi Art, of Berlin, Mumbai, New York and Singapore. The gallery parted with nearly all its featured works, priced from $75,000 to $110,000, by Indian painters such as Jitish Kallat and Rivas Komu. Chinese buyers accounted for about half the gallery’s total deals, with Indian and European collectors contributing the rest.

The Berlin-based Alexander Ochs Galleries persuaded a Chinese collector to lay out €20,000 ($29,000) for a new sculpture made from neckties by his countryman Yin Xiuzhen, whose large sculpture of an airplane was on display at the concurrent Shanghai Biennale. Even so, Ochs, who failed to sell out his booth, as he had, in short order, last year, sees the market for Chinese art cooling off a bit.

More optimistic is fellow Berlin dealer Michael Schultz, who has a new Beijing outpost. “We sold 10 pieces to collectors from Mainland China, Germany, the U.S. and Taiwan,” says Shultz. One of those works was Ma Jun’s life-size sculpture of an automobile, New China Series: Car, 2008, shown, which a German collector snagged for €80,000 ($116,000). "Fair Competition" originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's November 2008 Table of Contents.