In July 2023, the first spring auction after the epidemic officially came to an end in the eyes of the public. This season's spring auction of modern and contemporary art has a market size of more than 4 billion yuan, with 2,200 auction items, of which The total turnover of Spring Auctions in the Mainland was 976 million yuan, and more than 1,000 pieces were auctioned. All auction houses forged ahead amid opportunities and challenges.

On July 11, 2023, ArtPro Talk specially invited six senior experts of modern and contemporary art from Beijing’s core auction houses to discuss the changes and trends of the Chinese art market in the spring of 2023, including China Guardian, Beijing Poly . discussion. Below, Let us focus on the wonderful views of Xie Yang, the co-founder and managing director of Kaipai International.  
 

Q: What is the overall performance of Chinese modern and contemporary artworks in the 2023 Spring Auction? Please look back at the highlight moments in your mind.

A: As a practitioner, being able to handle some very rare works is a very glorious moment for our career. There are many wonderful auctions in this season’s spring auctions, which are impressive. For example, Huang Yuxing’s magnificent "Nine Dragons" was auctioned on China Guardian, and the key auctions at Yongle Auction included Liu Ye's "Baroque" and Nara Yoshitomo's "But Nothing Lets You Go" I'm Disappointed", and Liu Wei's "Landscape 2", which I personally like very much. The large-scale work "Your Name" by Xu Bing, the backbone of Chinese contemporary art, is very shocking. Beijing Rongbao's classic painting The attention and capture of art makes the art market more diversified. In addition, I am also very envious that Huayi International can get such a representative work "Three Primary Colors in Action" by Jia Aili.  
 

In addition to continuing the collection clues of Chinese modern and contemporary art In addition, international contemporary artists have also been introduced, hoping to try to bring a more diverse look to the market from different perspectives. For example, Chiharu Shiota's triptych "Skin" sold for 4.945 million yuan, breaking the artist's personal auction record.

Q: Young artists are a popular segment in the market. Is this list stable within 3-5 years? How to mine new lists?

A: In 2006, Mr. You Yong launched the "New Wave" special session. Nearly 50% of the artists in that special session are still popular artists in the market, and continue to shine in the market Artists with more than ten years must be on our common attention list.  
 

The international auction is not a traditional auction The company is more like a technological innovation company. We hope to find out more possibilities in the market through research, research and development, and work together with colleagues to explore the potential and future of this possibility. An artist’s career is long or short. What we can do is to discover more highlights in his best career years. We cannot predict the next ten years, but we must constantly perceive the future of this world.

Q: There is a big gap between the prices of Chinese and Western young artists' works. How do you view this phenomenon?

A: Auctioning is not an industry that can be done, and there is no standard answer. Just like Liu Cixin's "Poetry Cloud" expresses, a computer can exhaust all the words in the world, and after permutation and combination, it can create the most beautiful poem in the world, but it can never write the poem of Li Bai after he was drunk.  

Art has no borders, we all hope to trade good art, but we We will face transportation, cost, taxation and many other problems. Under the complex conditions of various factors, auction houses try to find some poetic combinations as much as possible. This is the meaning of our work.

Q: In the first half of the year, there were two group exhibitions of young artists. How did you think about it?

A: We strive to create a place where customers can feel the joy of trading and appreciating artworks community. "The Wave: Rising Star Artists" special exhibition is a pre-sale preview. A collector opened a new space in Junhao Central Plaza, Beijing. The wavy interior is very unique, and We have a piece Tan Yongqing's "The Wave" this season that just echoes the space. Through this group exhibition, the perspective and energy of a new generation of young artists are displayed.  
 

The "ring container" opened on June 17 The group exhibition selects the works of many young artists from the perspective of young curators. With a perceptual structure connected with each other, the concepts of time and space are used to varying degrees. The artists even consciously combine different The creative work of the medium is shaped as a vessel for introspection.  
 

Q: Each auction house has a Multiple works of a popular artist are up for auction, how is the auction planned for the artist’s case setting?

A: In the era of fast reading, people can easily obtain information and knowledge, and the way of reading is more "fragmented". But I have some selfishness, and I hope that contemporary people can have a small space to stabilize our inner core and discover our true love for artworks. This season’s spring auction, we did the case of Mr. Zhang Enli "Zhang Enli: From "things" to "things", his art is like this, quietly creating the necessary conditions, so that we can stop Come down and think about something different from what we encounter in our daily life.
 

We I hope that in the era of fast transactions, Cases can give everyone a chance to slowly interpret an artist or a certain work. Although this is a relatively idealistic thing, we will continue to work hard to continue the Cases project.
 

Q: What is the reason for the increase in online bidding at the auction site?

A: In line with the changes of the times, in addition to telephone entrustment and on-site bidding, the current bidding channels also include professional platforms such as mini programs and ArtPro. This spring auction, online and offline buyers are bidding fiercely. The bids from the auction mini-program were very active, and the last hammer price of Chiharu Yantian’s “Skin” came from the mini-program bidding.

ArtPro APP online participating buyers participated in nearly 20 bids Auctions, of which 5 were won online, and 3 were the artist's personal records. There are many young artists in the list of the "Waves" project. The trendy and contemporary features of these works are in line with the interests of ArtPro's young collectors Choose.
 

Q: Young collectors organize exhibitions and shows Collections, what is the significance and value of this phenomenon to the market?

A: In 2019, I was at the Japanese auction house SBI’s auction site, and saw a very fashionable mother push Looking at the children, I passed by the SBI auction site and went to apply for the number plate to participate in the bidding. There were also a group of nerdy boyfriends wearing glasses who were speculating in stocks and watching the market while holding up their cards; I moved the artwork directly to my own store. In this ecology, everyone’s communication is very happy and comfortable, which also touched me a lot, thinking whether we should do some activities to let everyone feel sharing The joy of artwork.
 

Once upon a time, there was a "Qing Wan Gathering" in Taiwan , Hong Kong has "Minqiu Jingshe" and "Knowledge Collection", and Beijing has "Invitational Exhibition of Young Collectors from Cross-Strait, Three Regions". Change and the rise of young collectors.

As a participant in this era, we hope that by working hard to create scenes, record everyone's highly condensed cognition of cultural thoughts and cultural awareness, and record every beautiful moment. 
 

Q: Beijing Modern and Contemporary Art Market Where will the next market growth point be, and what is Kaipai International's future plan?  

A: The Chinese and Western art markets have different starting points and cannot be measured by the same standard. We must compare with ourselves and constantly surpass ourselves. In the future, Kaipai International will continue to try individual cases, exhibitions and private negotiations, and strive to achieve a certain increase in annual performance compared to the previous year.

For more updates on the global art market in 2023, please continue to pay attention to ArtPro.