In the domestic art market, contemporary art traditionally refers to art forms originating from the West, such as oil painting, sculpture, mixed media, and installation art, rather than traditional art content such as Chinese painting and calligraphy. As for the time covered by contemporary art, there are also differences in the division between China and abroad due to the process of art history and language expression, while in the mainland art market, the works of art created in China after the 80s of the last century are generally referred to as Chinese contemporary art.
He Duoling "Zhang Xiaowei in Black"
What is the state of the Chinese contemporary art market, and what is the rate of return on investment for collectors? The method is to compare the return on investment of contemporary art works bought around 2010 and sold in the last two years. For the sake of comparability, the data of two auctions of the same work sold many years apart are selected, and the transaction prices of several leading auction houses are selected for comparison as far as possible, and for the sake of brevity, the transaction prices are directly compared, without considering the deduction of the buyer's commission of the first auction and the seller's commission of the second auction. Therefore, the rate of return calculated in the table does not represent the exact investment income of the collector. All data are selected from the auction prices recorded by Artron.com, including China Guardian, Sotheby's Hong Kong, and Christie's Hong Kong.
Yue Minjun "Hat Series: Catwoman"
1. The return on investment of "Early Chinese Contemporary Art".
For the sake of distinction, this article refers to the period from the 80s to the early 90s as "early Chinese contemporary art", and the development stage from then to the present day as "Chinese contemporary art in the new era". Most of the artists in the first stage are post-50s and post-60s, and they are more concerned with the grand narrative and evaluation and criticism of political and social phenomena, such as "political pop" and "cynicism". Since the art market was not yet well established at the time, artists did not know how or where to sell their works, and a small number of transactions often existed in the dealings between foreign collectors and individual artists. Gradually, galleries began to appear in China to trade artworks, and the works of a very small number of artists had the opportunity to be sent overseas for exhibitions, and began to attract the attention of overseas collectors. The glory days of this generation of artists on the market came at the spring auction at Sotheby's in New York in March 2006. Sotheby's has put "Early Chinese Contemporary Art" works in the international spotlight with a dedicated Asian Contemporary Art auction, featuring works by contemporary Chinese artists. Among them, contemporary artist Zhang Xiaogang's work "Bloodline: Comrade No. 120" sold for $979,200. As a result, the market for "early Chinese contemporary art" in China soared in the following two years, and the upsurge of collecting contemporary art began to take place in China. Two years later, this wave of phased high growth came to an abrupt end, and the market began to adjust. With the fluctuation of the market, collectors' preferences for the style of works have become differentiated, and certain art genres or works of certain artists have gradually been ignored by the market, and certain types of artworks, the works of certain artists are still paid attention to by the market. In particular, artists who kept pace with the times and transformed their art styles earlier continued to be sought after by the market.
Liu Xiaodong "Son"
The following table shows the market performance of 18 works by 13 artists who were active in the "Early Chinese Contemporary Art" stage in the last decade or so.
As can be seen from the data in the table, "Early Chinese Contemporary Art" was sought after by collectors earlier, and its price increased earlier. In the past ten years, with the change of collectors' style preferences, those "pop" and "cynical" works have gradually lost attention in the market, and the price has fallen very obviously. However, although some artists are contemporaries, the social nature of the initial artistic style is not obvious, or the initial style has been changed earlier, and the artworks are more inclined to express personal perceptions and emotions, so they can still be recognized by collectors, and the market price is relatively stable. The works of art that are close to the realistic style have always been liked by collectors, and the market price is relatively stable, with few big ups and downs.
Duan Jianwei "Pagoda • Children"
2. The return on investment of "Chinese Contemporary Art in the New Era".
Since the late 90s of the last century, artists no longer pay attention to the early social "big themes", and their interests have shifted from the fate of the country and the future of the nation to the focus on consumption, culture and personal life experience, and the "New Era of Chinese Contemporary Art" came into being. In 1994, at China Guardian's auctions, oil paintings and sculptures began to appear. After 2000, a large number of galleries appeared in the mainland, and various "art exhibitions", "curators", "art fairs" and "biennials" were also created. In the dual context of the gradual maturity of the commercial society and the art market, the artist's works pay more attention to "individualism". The hot art market and the continuous rise of art institutions have significantly accelerated the iteration of artist groups and artistic styles, and art has gradually become diversified.
Liu Ye "Night"
In the table below, 14 works by 10 artists are compared over the past decade.
It can be seen that after about ten years, the works of these "Chinese contemporary art in the new era" have increased in value in the market. The reason for this is also obvious: most of the main stages of the market development of these works of art are located in this period, the market started late, the trend is steadily rising, and the investment effect is naturally good; when the gallery promotes the artist more vigorously, and the artist's work is more inclined to the market demand, the return will be better; in addition, the artist's masterpieces and representative works often have a more obvious value-added effect; while the return on investment of general goods sketches and non-mainstream works is relatively poor. In fact, most of the case works listed in the table are ordinary works of artists, so the value-added effect is not the best among the works of individual artists.
Chen Fei "Famous Paintings"
Averaging the value-added rates in the last column of the table above, the average value-added rate of the 14 works is 2.2 times. This value-added rate is higher than the average value-added rate of contemporary calligraphy and painting, modern calligraphy and painting, and modern art as measured in the author's previous article, indicating that the return on investment of the "Chinese contemporary art in the new era" market in the past ten years is the best. Due to the relative soundness of the primary and secondary art markets, the trend of the "Chinese contemporary art in the new era" market is more benign and stable.
Chen Ke "Dress"
A look at the auction market of contemporary art in China in the past two years shows that the number of works sold for "early Chinese contemporary art" has been significantly decreasing, including traditional realistic paintings that have been relatively stable in the market, perhaps due to the relatively high prices in the past. Some "post-80s" and even "post-90s" artists were sent to auction within a few years of being represented by the gallery, and the pace of this "efficient packaging" has significantly accelerated compared to ten years ago. With the continuous rise of art institutions and the increasing number of art trading occasions, the iteration speed of artist groups has also accelerated significantly: when the "post-70s" have not fully demonstrated their artistic charm, the "post-80s" and "post-90s" have begun to appear. The "efficient packaging" that continues to appear in the auction market may be a true portrayal of the accelerated iteration of contemporary art styles.
Qiu Xiaofei "The Ferris Wheel"