Chair

Su Baker (University of Melbourne)

Panellists

Huixian Dong (Arizona State University, Tempe); Yuka Kadoi (University of Vienna); Ana Paula Moreno (FGV - Fundação Getúlio Vargas, São Paulo); Elzbieta Sklodowska (Washington University in Saint Louis)

Selling Off: the rise and fall of the Chinese contemporary art market

Huixian Dong (Arizona State University, Tempe)

Since 2015, there have been significant shifts in the Chinese contemporary art market. The founders of UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Gay and Myriam Ullens, began a transition by not only handing over their prestigious art center but also by selling off their Chinese contemporary art collections, which they had amassed over three decades. This action presented a potential signal that some major collectors might be leaving the Chinese contemporary art market.

This sentiment was further heightened by the subsequent passing of notable collector Budi Tek, which halted the expansion of the Yuz Museum. Instead of growing its collection, the museum strategically realigned with the Los Angeles County Museum to introduce transnational projects to Shanghai. Fast forward to 2023, the founders of the Long Museum, Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, have announced their intention to auction their collection at Sotheby’s Hong Kong Autumn Sales.

In a span of just three decades, the Chinese art market evolved from a nascent state to becoming the world's second-largest market, only to 2022 drop to the third position. The journey of Chinese contemporary art is equally remarkable. It transitioned from being sold in Hong Kong dealer Johnson Chang’s garage to fetching millions of US dollars at major auction houses. However, today, during the post-pandemic era, it's an uncommon sight to witness a contemporary artist breaking auction records or collectors making significant overnight purchases.

These observations raise pertinent questions: Does this signify a decline in the performance of Chinese contemporary art? Has the price of art reached its zenith, deterring young collectors? What are the current preferences and motivations of young investors in the art space?

This paper aims to explore the rise and potential decline of the Chinese contemporary art market from a historical perspective, beginning from the 1990s. It delves into the reasons prompting recent benefactors to depart from the market. Employing interviews, data analysis, and PESTEL analysis, this paper seeks to understand and chronicle the dynamic journey of Chinese contemporary art over the past three decades. It fills a critical gap in existing literature by exploring the ebb and flow of the Chinese contemporary art market, offering fresh insights that can guide future market strategies and scholarly endeavors.

Building the Islamic Art Market after 9/11: A Heritage Economy of the 21st Century

Yuka Kadoi (University of Vienna)

This paper overviews the development of the Islamic art market in the first two decades of the 21st century, while reviewing its trends, growth and forecast. Although it already existed during the second half of the 20th century, this market rapidly rose after the September 11 attacks in 2001, which stirred not only cultural conflicts between Muslim majority societies of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region or otherwise categorically called ‘nonWestern’ world, versus Christian-majority societies of the Euro-American world, but also economic interest in the collectable genre called ‘Islamic art’. Growing in parallel with multimillion dollar projects of old gallery reconfiguration and new museum construction from New York (i.e. Metropolitan Museum of Art, aka MET; completed in November 2011) to Doha (i.e. Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, aka MIA; opened in November 2008), the Islamic art market reached its peak in the early 2010s. Its dominance in global art auction sales, from the West to the New Orient (i.e. Arab states of the Persian Gulf), however, has exerted a negative impact on ethical issues in art business, especially concerning authenticity and provenance. While recent attempts to apply scientific methods for analysing material composition and for tracing provenance records are welcome, a number of questions remain unanswered. In particular, the problem of illicit trafficking in cultural property and the impact of heritage crime on the Islamic art market need to be readdressed.

Brazilian contemporary art in the international art market

Ana Paula Moreno (FGV - Fundação Getúlio Vargas, São Paulo)

The art market has been topic of several studies. In the past, art market placement and valuation were mainly done by museums and cultural institutions, by an independent conceptual positioning of discussing art. However, according to Quemin, today art market insertion happens via agents such as galleries, collectors, and art advisors, inverting the roles and importance of museum and market agents. Also, Tomkins points out that prices now determine artists’ reputations, so curators and museums lost importance when it comes to the reception of new art styles. For Moulin, art became trade, closely related to the international network of galleries and cultural institutions. In this sense, the market became the protagonist of the art world and has main importance to a country’s cultural and economic development. In the case of the Brazilian art, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Brazilian GDP, generated by creative economy sector (where art is included), was approximately 20 billion dollars in 2011 and 45 billion dollars in 2020, exceeding GDP figures of several countries. With the importance of art for the Brazilian economy, this research analyzes the Brazilian art internationalization at its market insertion as of 1980 on, when the country took part into globalization process, till 2023. Therefore, the problematization of the research lies in presenting a historical background with main factors that placed Brazilian Contemporary art in the international market through participation at art fairs, biennials, art galleries and auction houses. It is interesting to observe the relationship of Brazilian international exposure with the country’s macroeconomy figures. The research methodology was qualitative, done in London, with interviews with a Brazilian artist living in London, professors from the University of the Arts (UAL), and gallery owner. The secondary source was scientific publications and governmental Brazilian art market reports. With this analysis, the objective is to present an opinion about the panorama of Brazilian Contemporary art and its international market insertion.

Post-Soviet (Re)collections: From artifact to artifice in Cuba of the ‘special period’

Elzbieta Sklodowska (Washington University in Saint Louis)

This paper will provide an overview of the commercialization and globalization of Cuban art in the wake of the so-called Special Period of the 1990s which followed the disintegration of the Soviet bloc. For Cuba, the impact of these epochal events was both immediate and profoundly transformational. When combing through the archives of the Special Period it becomes evident that the legacy of those years lingers in collective and individual memory to the degree that borders on obsession. Paradoxically, however, one area where the economic crisis and the scarcity of materials led to an upsurge in creativity was that of visual arts. As early as 1994, artists Ernesto Oroza, Diango Hernández, Francisco Acea and a few others went beyond the basic task of collecting the “folk” inventions and started treating them as if there were valuable archeological shards. In 1995, they founded an art collective Ordo Amoris and proceeded to (re)create these artifacts using their own expertise in artistic and industrial design. In 1996, at the Havana Center for the Development of the Visual Arts the collective mounted an exhibition “Agua con azúcar y Muestra provisional” (“Sugared Water and Provisional Show”) which showcased the original artifacts from their collection alongside the replicas created by the artists themselves. All too quickly, the unassuming everyday objects—lamps, fans, cooking devices, and tools—were elevated from the crude to the sublime and acquired the status of desirable collectibles in the international Cuban art market. As soon as the Special Period yielded to the budding market economy, everyday hunger gave way to a hunger for profit and Cuban art market became a booming business. Oroza and his colleagues were among the first to realize that Cuban “survivalism” was selling well. However, Oroza should also be recognized for the foresight, sensitivity and perseverance in his efforts to create a comprehensive inventory of the relics of the Special Period. Like many collectors across the ages, Oroza was motivated by the testimonial urge to salvage. Against this complex backdrop of a society emerging from the ravages of a profound crisis, in this paper I will explore various facets of this visual archive of the Special Period as it has expanded over the past three decades throughout the galleries and private collections and coalesced into a variety of discourses, from scholarly to anecdotal.