Chinese Contemporary Art, The Obsession Unveiled: Installment 2

The world loves Chinese art right now. Besides all the Internet attention, Sotheby’s recently sold an entire Chinese contemporary art collection for much higher priced bids than anticipated. Every single Chinese piece (contemporary and traditional) exhibited was snatched up by insatiable art collectors from the mainland and abroad. Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Bonham’s have all experienced similar trends for the past two years, seeing Chinese investors, above all, buying Chinese pieces rapaciously. The Economist published a piece on this trend, saying that “dealers have come to believe that anything Chinese will sell in this market, as long as there is nothing wrong with it.” There are two interesting things to note here: first, the burgeoning Western mania over anything Chinese, as evidenced in copious talk of Chinese art in blogs, art magazines and newspapers and the trends in purchasing; second, the majority of traditional art is being bought by Chinese mainlanders, something that wasn’t monetarily and politically possible during Mao’s regime.

Chinese dealers and collectors have quickly recognized how much porcelain, jade and cloisonné is still in private French collections, “much of it unknown and uncatalogued.” These objects were probably acquired between the first and second Opium wars, in 1860, when the Anglo-French Allied Forces looted the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, a complex of palaces and gardens built in the 18th and 19th century that contained a sizable amount of the nation’s artistic and cultural treasures.

The Jing Daily, an English and Chinese daily news source focusing on the business of luxury and culture in China, wrote a piece earlier this year about why the Chinese may be so reluctant to buy anything but their own works. Essentially, Chinese buying is being driven by two motives: investment and patriotism. According to the article, Chinese investors put a particular emphasis on asset diversification, where investors put a sizable chunk of money into physical assets, such as real estate, gold, antiques, and traditional and contemporary Chinese art. Besides investment reasons, the newly powerful Chinese elite buy Chinese traditional and contemporary art to display their patriotism, which according to Jing Daily, brings status—patriotism because dealers and collectors are systematically buying and reclaiming Chinese pieces to bring them back to the mainland instead of buying trendier alternatives and status because of the display of patriotism after acquiring a fortune (that is, doing the right thing with one’s money). The two are inextricably tied in this case because the “repatriation” of paintings (both contemporary or traditional) or antiques to “Chinese soil [is] both a patriotic act and a status symbol. Though their investment value doesn’t hurt either, enthusiastic bidding at auction for Chinese works of art that have spent decades—even centuries—abroad is something we’re just not seeing from any other buyers at the moment.”