against Chinese rival Chinese houses take on Sotheby’s and ... · Hirst paintings The Ukrainian...

ANALYSIS

Hong Kong. Collectors found themselvesbusier than usual during the latest auc-tion season in Hong Kong, scurryingbetween competing sales as China’stwo biggest institutions went head tohead with Sotheby’s and Christie’s forthe first time.

The arrival of Beijing Poly Interna-tional and China Guardian in the for-mer British colony is a key test ofwhether the Chinese salerooms cansucceed internationally. It also comesas the competitive landscape changesinside China, with Sotheby’s planningto hold its first auction on the mainlandthis summer after forging a joint ven-ture with a state-owned art companycalled Beijing GeHua.

Packed salerooms, well-attendedpreviews and respectable sales totalssuggest that Poly and Guardian are offto a solid start in Hong Kong. Bothcompanies stress that they are in thecity for the long haul.

“We are here to learn, to reach outto a new audience,” says Wang Yannan,China Guardian’s director and president.Guardian’s sale in October of ModernChinese paintings and Chinese furniturefetched $58.6m, more than double itspresale estimate, and bidding carriedon until the small hours.

Poly’s two-day November sale, fea-turing paintings, ceramics and jew-ellery, made $67m. It has leased a10,000 sq. ft office space in Hong Kong’sfinancial district, in the same buildingas Sotheby’s, and plans to recruit adedicated team of specialists to serveAsia-based clients.

Different personalities

According to the French auction bodyConseil des Ventes, Poly and Guardianranked as the world’s third and fourthbiggest auction houses by sales in2011, after Christie’s and Sotheby’s.The two young companies and a hostof smaller rivals have grown rapidlyalongside China’s art market, which,by some estimates, is now the world’s

largest, although not for Western art. Guardian appears keenest to emu-

late its established rivals and engageda reputable international public-rela-tions agency to ensure its Hong Kongdebut was hitch-free. Wang, the daugh-ter of the late Chinese leader ZhaoZiyang, who was purged for sympa-thising with Tiananmen protesters, isat ease speaking in English, unlikePoly’s executives, who seemed fazedby reporters’ questions.

As a privately held company,Guardian is likely to be more nimblein responding to market trends. In con-trast, Poly is part of a sprawling state-backed conglomerate that has interestsspanning property and defence. Bothhouses held their first sales in Chinese,but Guardian said that future salesmay be held in English.

Tax advantages

The speed with which Poly andGuardian have set up shop in HongKong has surprised some players inthe industry. Many say a clampdownthis year by mainland Chinese customsauthorities on taxes payable on im-ported works of art and relics motivatedthe expansion. Previously, the dutywas not vigorously enforced.

Hong Kong, with its long history as

a free port, has no duties on importingor exporting works of art. Both theChina houses say consignments fortheir inaugural Hong Kong sales weresourced from outside mainland China.

“Getting consignments from over-seas is very difficult for the local [main-land] houses, because even before theybegin to sell anything, they have topay a 26% tax on imported items,” saysKevin Ching, the chief executive ofSotheby’s Asia.

Alex Chang, the managing directorof Poly Hong Kong, says the main reasonfor branching out was to be part of theinternational market. But, when pressed,he adds that China needs to have amore open attitude towards taxation.

Sotheby’s has found a solution toChina’s steep taxes in its $1.2m jointventure with state-run Beijing GeHua.The venture, in which Sotheby’s hasan 80% stake, will make use of a newtax-free trade zone near Beijing airportthat is operated by GeHua. The zone,which is currently under construction,will feature hotels, exhibition spacesand art storage, and will enable Sothe-by’s to sell to collectors on a bondedbasis (ie no customs duties or VAT willbe triggered).

Ching expects Sotheby’s first saleto take place in June and to feature

contemporary art and Modern Chinesepaintings. Beijing still bans foreign auc-tion houses from selling so-called “cul-tural relics”, such as ceramics, bronzesand antique paintings.

The jury’s out

With auction revenues down from the2011 peak at both Sotheby’s andChristie’s, Poly and Guardian may findthe initial going tough, especially giventhe high costs of operating in the city.And although the two Chinese housesare confident that they will thrive onthe international stage, their meteoricrise has taken place in an environmentthat has largely been shielded fromforeign competition and outside scruti-ny. The industry’s expansion has alsobeen dogged by questions about thereliability of Chinese auction resultsamid reports of rigged bids, fraudulentworks and other speculative practicesthat could hinder international growth.

Ching says the mainland housesface a steep learning curve in HongKong, “where things are done in a dif-ferent way”. This is recognised by themain players. “Hong Kong is a matureart market and completely differentto mainland China,” says Zhao Xu, theexecutive director of Beijing Poly.Katie Hunt

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London. Capitalising on impeccableprovenance, The Coachman, а 1923 oilpainting by Boris Kustodiev, drew arecord price for the artist of £4.4m(est £1.5m-£2m) at the auction of Russ-ian art at Christie’s in London on 26November.

Alexis de Tiesenhausen, the inter-national department head of Russianart at the auction house, said in a state-ment after the sale that offering a workby Kustodiev with such a provenance“is truly a rare honour for us”.

The painting came from the collec-tion of Peter Kapitza, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who died in 1984.

Kapitza, who was a close friend andpatron of Kustodiev, bought The Coach-man from the artist’s widow in 1936. Itdepicts a ruddy coachman in a brightblue coat, waving a fur hat against asnowy backdrop, and was the posterimage for an important 1924 exhibitionof Russian art in New York. Kustodiev,who was wheelchair-bound, is famousfor his unremittingly optimistic por-trayals of Russian scenes. He is alsoknown for being faked. Last August,the Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselbergwon a lawsuit against Christie’s to re-coup the £1.7m he paid for a paintingthat experts at Russian museums sub-sequently said was not by Kustodiev.

Meanwhile, at the auction of Russianbooks and manuscripts at Sotheby’son 28 November, a bidding war brokeout over Andrei Tarkovsky’s archive ofletters, book drafts, audio tapes andphotographs, which sold for £1.5m, 15times its estimate (£80,000-£100,000).The archive will go to a museum hon-ouring the late Soviet film director inhis native Ivanovo region.

The week did not start so well, how-ever. At MacDougall’s, London’s spe-cialist Russian auction house, only nineof the 45 lots offered on 25 Novembersold. Bought-in works included the auc-tion house’s headline lot: Mikhail Lar-ionov’s Une Journée de Mai, 1904, esti-mated at £900,000 to £2m. Sophia Kishkovsky

Records and write-offs at Russian art auctionsImpeccable provenance at Christie’s, a bidding war at Sotheby’s, but most lots bought in at MacDougall’s

Kustodiev’s work drew a record price

Christie’s wins caseagainst Chinese rivalChristie’s has won a court case in Hong Kongagainst a Chinese auction company for usinga similar name. The established auctioneerwas concerned about a new firm calledChritrs, which in Chinese is pronouncedalmost the same as Christie’s. In a judgmentdelivered in November, Judge Queeny Au-Yeung found in favour of Christie Manson &Woods Ltd and Christie’s Hong Kong Ltd andagainst Chritrs (Group) Ltd and Brian Zi HuaLee. A Christie’s spokesman in London saidthat “our clients and the public must be pro-tected from being deceived”. In a separatecase, The Art Newspaper reported onlinelast March that a company called Mayfair ArtPurveyors Ltd was advertising an auction inthe Christie Room at the Hilton Kensington,in west London. On this occasion, Christie’ssaid the name of the room was a coinci-dence, since it commemorated the detec-tive writer Agatha Christie, and no actionwas pursued. M.B.

Russian billionairelaunches art fundAndrei Filatov, a Russian billionaire and artcollector who co-owns the railway and portoperator N-Trans, has launched the FilatovFamily Art Fund, which is currently closed tooutside investment. Filatov, estimated byForbes to be worth $1.3bn, plans to buy andpromote around 12 works a year from theSoviet era (1917-91), a period that he says is“undervalued compared with other move-ments”. Outside investors might be invitedto participate in the future, says aspokesman, who would not specify howmuch Filatov intends to spend. However, hesays the billionaire has already boughtworks worth $100m in the past five years.His major purchases include a model of VeraMukhina’s landmark sculpture Worker andKolkhoz Woman, 1937, the emigré artistNicolai Fechin’s 1930 painting Daisies and aversion of Alexander Laktionov’s Letterfrom the Front, a 1951 painting originallycommissioned by the Soviet dictatorJoseph Stalin. S.K.

Pinchuk buys pannedHirst paintings

The Ukrainian steel magnate Victor Pinchukhas bought six paintings by Damien Hirst fromthe artist’s latest exhibition, “Two Weeks OneSummer”, which opened at White Cube inLondon last May. The canvases—painted byHirst without the help of assistants—showparrots, skulls, flowers, butterflies and otherobjects, and are on display in Kiev’s PinchukArt Centre, a private space funded by the col-lector. Five other works from the same cycleare also on show, on loan from White Cube(until 6 January). The paintings were univer-sally panned by critics when they were shownin London, but Pinchuk says he is not troubledby critical assessments. “In 10, 20, 30 years’time, people will change their mind,” he tellsThe Art Newspaper. Pinchuk owns one of thelargest collection of works by Hirst in theworld, having bought many of his pieces fromWhite Cube’s Jay Jopling, who has also soldhim works by Antony Gormley, Sam Taylor-Wood, Gavin Turk and Andreas Gursky, amongothers. Pinchuk is currently planning a showat the centre by the Chapman brothers (alsorepresented by White Cube), which is due totake place later this year. He also owns largegroups of work by Jeff Koons and TakashiMurakami, bought at auction and fromGagosian Gallery. C.R.

Chinese houses take on Sotheby’s and Christie’sBeijing Poly and China Guardian hold first sales in Hong Kong as battle for the mainland market heats up

In brief

Hirst, Three Parrots with Rabbit andScissors, 2010 (detail)

Beijing Poly holds its debut auction in Hong Kong

Sotheby’s is planningits first auction on themainland this summer

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