China dominates the art collecting landscape

A news report (China’s new cultural revolution) by Robin Pogrebin in The New York Times mentions: “The auction market is clearly responding to the new rising demand. Sotheby’s held its first ever exhibition last year for the private sale of works of art specifically for the growing Asian market. It featured Monets, Chagalls and Picassos that fetched in the range of $2 million to $25 million.”

Here are the indicators and also the observations that support the proposition of a new cultural revolution that is apparently sweeping across China:

• This year Christie’s appointed Chinese representatives in both New York and London to develop new clients in Asia and manage relations with Christie’s most important private collectors from mainland China and Asia.
  
  
• The current Chinese influx is fueled by the sort of new wealth that has made the country home to the world’s largest number of billionaires, according to the Hurun Rich List 2010, China’s version of the Forbes 400. The number of Chinese billionaires is expected to increase 20 percent each year through 2014, according to Artprice.
  
  
• The surge in Chinese collecting is not just a reflection of new wealth, experts say, but also a reaction to the repressive Mao years when the country was denied culture. For the Chinese, who watched art disparaged as a frivolous exercise except when put to didactic use, the freedom to explore simple aesthetic pleasures, to repossess historical works and to show off recent affluence has been liberating.
  
  
• The tide of buying is in some ways an effort to make up for lost time. “In China, for 50 or 60 years, nothing happened,” observed Vishakha N. Desai, the president of Asia Society. “That’s a big break. The last 250 years were years of humiliation. They now feel an obligation to prize art again and bring it back.”
  
  
• To some extent, auction experts say, the Chinese regard art not only as a sound way to diversify their portfolios but also as a tested means to project status as they interact with international business executives.