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The Chinese Art Market In 2013

BID

Y 2012 was a complex and challenging year for major international auction houses and domestic Chinese art auction houses in Hong Kong and Mainland China, coming off a strong Y 2011 during which the Chinese art market grew to CNY 211-B (US$33.8-B).

Now, with leading collectors holding their artwork and antiques tightly due a slower macroeconomic climate, auction houses finding it more difficult to procure top-quality artwork, and Mainland Chinese collectors are put off by punitive import taxes, bidding at high-profile auctions is restrained, as Chinese collectors focused on proven works by blue-chip artists, ignoring lesser works by the same artists.

The Chinese auction houses like China Guardian and Beijing Poly kicked off their expansion efforts last year, taking on established players like Sotheby’s NYSE:BID and Christie’s in Hong Kong.

In its 1st ever sale in Hong Kong last fall, China Guardian raised an impressive HK$354-M (US$45.7-M), indicating that the new entrants to the market are not to be taken lightly.

Now, what will happen this year. The experts day that it is difficult to make predictions when Chinese art collectors are so nebulous, geographically diffuse, and motivated by so many factors.

What they are saying is they expect 5 trends to intensify in Y 2013: rising confidence; market maturation; intact motivations; more serious collectors and fewer speculators; and greater scarcity of top works to influence prices.

As Carson Chan, managing director of Bonhams Asia, said last September that the recent bidding habits of Chinese collectors are now buying more carefully and more selectively…They will only invest in pieces that have both a historical significance and art value. So you have to have extremely clean provenance and background, and this goes across the board between paintings and ceramics.”

Jing Daily noted that Chinese bidders tend to be very pragmatic, and with speculators increasingly being shaken out of the market, and the majority of purchases at auction are made by serious long-term collectors, intent on buying as a true investment rather than something turn near term profits on aka “Flip.”