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The Chinese painter Zhang Daqian earned more money than any other artist at auction in 2016, with his traditional Chinese paintings generating almost 355 million US dollars, 31 million more than artworks by Picasso, according to French database Artprice, the world’s biggest database for art prices and sales.
“Some people regard it as a milestone because rarely do we see Chinese artists come to the top 10 or top 20.
It’s also noteworthy that unlike the mature markets in the US and UK, the market in China is quite fragmented and statistics collected are less reliable as it takes time to get payments settled,” said Paul Dong, co-founder of EVER-infinity Asia Limited, and Lecturer on art investment at Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, during an interview on “The Point with Liu Xin” on CGTN.
He added “this is not like buyers competing to win gold medals in the Olympics. While some wealthy Chinese people are buying western artworks, it is not happening vice versa. Westerners are trying to understand Chinese artworks, but they are not ready to compete with Chinese bidders.”
However, Katharine Burnett, Associate Professor of Chinese Art and Culture at the University of California, said Chinese artworks have become more popular in the last two to three decades.
Museums where Chinese artworks are exhibited are located across the US, and both Chinese heritage students and non-Chinese are equally fascinated by Chinese art at university.
“It’s not only the beauty of the work, but more importantly the philosophical and intellectual content that drive them to produce the works and exhibit the content that explores important aspects in the contemporary life of the artist.”
Jason Kuo, a Professor of Chinese Art History and Archaeology at the University of Maryland, said Americans have been collecting Chinese artworks for over a century.
He said the value of artworks is not inherently in the art per se, but is linked to cultural and political factors. As Chinese nationals are becoming more confident and Chinese culture more prominent in the world, there is great potential for Chinese art to be accepted outside China.
For presenter Liu Xin, the international art market has for a long time been pretty much a Western-centric experience. Chinese investors have had to learn to appreciate western style paintings in order to catch the trend.
Now the Chinese art market is thriving, as more and more Chinese are actively buying and selling art, and more Chinese masterpieces change hands.
(CGTN)
