East Beats West: China on Top of the Art World

TND Guest Contributor:  Anastasia Fedorova |

Chinese art market has become the world leader in sales of contemporary art, leaving behind the longstanding leader, the United States.

Ten years ago, China was nowhere to be seen on the marketplace of the art world, now it is the strongest and fastest growing art market worldwide. According to Artprice, the world leader of art market information, China currently supplies 40% of the world art market sales worth $811 million compared to $752 million for the US.

Chinese contemporary artists have earned their place at the top ranks of the most desired present-day masters. Based on the accumulated sales of works from July 2013 to July 2014 of top ten contemporary living artists, Chinese Zeng Fanzhi is the third after Jeff Koons and Christopher Wool. Fanzhi sales for last year are worth $60 million. Last year Fanzhi’s monumental work “The Last Supper” sold for a record $23 million at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong.

“The fact that Chinese art market has hit such a high position in global contemporary art sales is a huge progress for us. This major leap was made over the past five or six years. And there are reasons for this. With the rapid growth of the Chinese economy, the fast rise in the standard of living, increased income and purchasing power of the population, investments in the arts have increased. Especially investments in the domestic art. China has developed rapidly. I think we have good prospects for the expansion of the art market and sales growth,” said Sun Jie, the senior research fellow at the China Academy of Art.

Recently China welcomed Christie’s and Sotheby’s on their territory, to boost competition and sales in the region, as well as to set the benchmark for Chinese auction houses, which are entering the global art market. By the end of 2013, in the auction sector, there were 382 licensed auction houses in mainland China. Majority of the artworks of the top segment in the US sell solely in New York. Meanwhile out of top ten auction sites in the world, six of them are located in China.

It is a fantastic new generation of Chinese artists who are taking over the global art market.

“Works of contemporary Chinese artists are constantly growing in price, because they are able to accurately reflect the cultural and social phenomena of the modern world. And when the artists’ works have a hint of a political context — within the limits of permitted, of course, the price of the artworks skyrockets immediately,” says art critic and director of the Moscow Museum of Modern Art Vasily Tsereteli.

Most desirable contemporary Chinese artists have created their own niche. They were able to absorb western traditions, and jump start their own styles and aesthetics that reflect the desires of the contemporary global market. It is exactly the new aesthetic, which is glossy and trendy, that makes contemporary Chinese artists so good looking and so desirable. The right economic conditions have given an instant jump start to the contemporary artists in China.

“China is developing rapidly. I believe we have good prospects of expanding our art market and increasing the [art] sales,” says Sun Jie.

China’s presence at the top ranks of the art market has radically altered the structure of art trade in the world. In the ranking of top 100 contemporary artists on the auction turnover, almost half of the artists are Chinese (47 positions), while US artists settle for 19 places in the rankings. The movement of contemporary Chinese artists not only transformed the art market, but has already revolutionized the fabric of the global society, dictating aesthetic trends.

This article was published at Sputnik and is reprinted with permission.