"Christie's debuted at the Expo last year with masterpieces from the East and the West, which received great attention and on-site consultations, which shows the upgrading aesthetic taste of domestic collectors, especially the growing interest in cross-cultural and diverse arts." Christie's China Chairman Yang Yuancao said.
Following its first participation in the Expo last year, Christie's, an internationally renowned auction house, announced on October 24 that this year it will once again select Eastern and Western artworks to appear in the cultural relics and artworks section of the 5th CIIE. Compared with last year, this year's collection is more diverse, close to the current art trends and collectors' aesthetic tastes, including important works of Mark Chagall, Yayoi Kusama, Wu Dayu, Wu Guanzhong, Li Huayi and other well-known artists with different themes and media, and also brought for the first time emerging artists including Wang Junjie, Jin Meng, etc.
According to Chuang Jun, a senior expert in Christie's 20th and 21st Century Art Department and Head of Asian Modern Art Auctions, Christie's will present eight works at this year's CIIE, spanning from early 20th century paintings to the most cutting-edge contemporary works. Among them, the Western modernist master Chagall's "Paris Sky" has the highest valuation. This is a rare large-scale work of Chagall, derived from the artist's own collection, which has never appeared on the market before. Chagall created the work at the age of 93, depicting scenes from his Parisian studio, in the lower right corner of the painting where the artist is working on a drawing board and painting still life flowers. Chagall's first wife Bella died young, and he remembered her all his life, because Bella loved flowers, which often appeared in Chagall's works. Interestingly, in The Sky of Paris, the artist has two heads, one facing the present and one looking back to the past. The paintings depict Chagall's retrospective to the past, love, affection and life with surreal brushstrokes, bringing together many classic elements of the artist, such as lovers and flowers; Because it depicts Paris, local landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and the bridge over the Seine also appear. The colors of the work are beautiful, and the red, yellow, blue, green and purple like gemstones add to the romantic temperament.
In addition to Western artworks, Christie's also brought excellent works of Chinese masters collected from overseas, hoping that they would stay in China. For example, Wu Guanzhong's 1978 "Garden" depicts a scene of a Jiangnan water town, with blue tiles and white walls in the distance, a man and a woman swimming between boulders in the middle scene, and fish swimming freely in the nearby pond, reflecting the artist's expectations for future life.
Wu Guanzhong became famous at home and abroad as early as the 80s of the last century, and his mentor Wu Dayu was little known for a long time. Known as the "greatest forgotten" in the history of Chinese art in the 20th century, Wu Dayu was the first generation of Chinese artists to study in France and the founder of Chinese abstract art. In 1928, he assisted Lin Fengmian in establishing the Hangzhou National Art College and served as the head of the Western Painting Department. According to Wu Guanzhong's recollections before his death, among the teachers of the Western painting department who directly taught in those years, the most prestigious was Wu Dayu. "We will never forget his excitement and fiery childlike heart, and we are determined to follow him into the Garden of Art." However, unfortunately, for various reasons, many of Wu Dayu's works were destroyed. According to statistics, there are only more than 150 surviving oil paintings of Wu Dayu, and even fewer remain in the mainland. The works on display are abstract works of Wu Dayu in his later years, continuing the usual style of his works: no date, no title, rich and brilliant colors, and the picture depicts birds in the jungle.
In addition, the works of post-80s artists are also quite eye-catching. For example, Wang Junjie, who died at the age of 35, has struggled with autism and depression since he was a child, but he does not feel the melancholy in his work "Dream", the whole picture is brightly colored, and the artist uses countless lines, dots, smears and short and rich brushstrokes to create a fictional landscape.
Born in 1989, Jin Meng is a cutting-edge art that is currently "hard to find" in the market. The debut of Sunrise Within, depicting mountains, rivers, and the sun, highlights the artist's personal style, and nature is dreamlike in her paintings.
In November 2020, the country's only comprehensive reform pilot of social cultural relics management was launched in Shanghai, and a series of institutional arrangements and exploration practices promoted the prosperous, standardized and orderly development of the cultural relics and artworks market. In December of the same year, with the efforts of the Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau, the Expo Bureau, the Municipal Commission of Commerce, the Shanghai Customs and the Shanghai Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, five cultural relics exhibits that appeared at the 3rd China International Import Expo were successfully sold, cleared and settled. This is the first time that overseas cultural relics have been displayed and traded through the Expo platform. In 2021, the 4th CIIE set up the first cultural relics and artworks exhibition area, attracting 20 art institutions from 11 countries and regions to participate in the exhibition, and finally 41 exhibits from 9 exhibitors were sold, with a total value of 760 million yuan.
"Chinese buyers are very active in Christie's global market, with the largest number of new mainland buyers in the Asia-Pacific region in the first half of this year, with mainland buyers accounting for the second largest contribution to Hong Kong's spring auctions and millennial collectors accounting for 36% of mainland buyers' transactions, all of which demonstrate the potential and strength of the Chinese art market." Yang Yuancao said that as the only international art auction house licensed and continues to hold auctions in Chinese mainland, Christie's has always had confidence in the Chinese market. At the Shanghai-London Twin Cities Auction held in March this year, Western modernist master Van Dongen's 1908 "Woman with a Necklace" sold for 23.16 million yuan, which was the first time that a Western artist who died after 1949 had been auctioned in Chinese mainland and was regarded as a "milestone" by the industry. Although the pandemic and other factors have brought challenges to the transportation of artworks, the company is determined to continue to hold exhibitions, and in the second half of the year, it will continue to bring to China the Ann and Gordon Getty collections, Paul Allen's private collection, and the preview of Geneva's magnificent jewelry auction. From 11 to 13 November, Christie's will also present more than 240 selected lots from the 2022 Hong Kong Autumn Sale in Shanghai; Also on display at the same time are the best works from the collection of Lan Lijie Gallery, including the Ming Chenghua/Hongzhi Fahua Seawater Dragon Pattern Jar, the Qing Kangxi Lang Kiln Red Glazed Guanyin Zun, and the Qing Yongzheng Peacock Blue Glazed Hammer Bottle.
"I hope that in the coming November, Christie's will work together with fairs, galleries, art galleries and other institutions to actively create an artistic atmosphere full of energy, and contribute to the further development and prosperity of the domestic art ecology." Yang Yuancao said.
Author: Li Ting
Editor: Wang Xiaoli