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 附庸风雅系列：Contemporary Chinese on Sale in Hong Kong（转帖） |
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安普若
[博客]
[个人文集]
头衔: 海归元勋
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加入时间: 2004/02/21
文章: 26038
来自: 中国美国的飞机上
海归分: 4196257
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作者：安普若 在 海归茶馆 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
Contemporary Chinese on Sale in Hong Kong
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: March 28, 2008
CONTEMPORARY CHINESE
On Sale in Hong Kong
Sotheby’s is calling the 108 works in its April 9 sale in Hong Kong “the largest and most important collection of Chinese contemporary art ever to appear at auction.” The paintings, photographs and sculptures are by artists particularly fashionable right now, among them Cai Guo-Qiang（蔡国强）, Zeng Fanzhi, Ai Weiwei（艾未未）, Zhang Xiaogang（张晓刚） and Xu Bing. The art represents about half of what Michael Goedhuis, the Manhattan dealer who spent more than three years amassing the works for two collectors, named the Estella Collection. “I was reading Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations’ and I felt it was a name the Chinese could pronounce,” he said. “Although Estella wasn’t a pretty character, it’s a pretty name.”
Sotheby’s effusive description of the auction’s offerings is perhaps best explained by the fine print on an opening page of the sale catalog. It states that the company “owns, in whole or in part, or has economic interest equivalent to an ownership interest, in all lots in this sale.”
Sotheby’s isn’t the only stakeholder. William Acquavella, the Manhattan dealer, bought the Estella Collection through Mr. Goedhuis in August. While none of the participants would discuss the specifics of the transaction, experts in the field say the price for the entire collection — more than 200 works — was more than $25 million.
“Toward the end of the summer we were asked to get involved,” said Maarten ten Holder, Sotheby’s deputy managing director for North and South America. “But I can’t go into the details.”
This isn’t the first time Mr. Acquavella and Sotheby’s have joined forces. In 1990 they paid $143 million for the contents of the Pierre Matisse Gallery, which consisted of about 2,300 20th-century works by Joan Miró, Jean Dubuffet, Alberto Giacometti and Marc Chagall, among others.
Mr. Acquavella described the Estella Collection as “a good cross-section of well-selected material” and added that “the price seemed right.”
Like so many dealers who specialize in contemporary art, he is jumping on the Chinese bandwagon. (His East 79th Street gallery recently agreed to represent the painter Zeng Fanzhi.) But unlike some of Mr. Acquavella’s past investments in major works of art, the Estella Collection is being quickly turned around.
“It’s part of my business, buying and selling,” he said.
The Estella Collection is one of several comprehensive collections of Chinese contemporary art formed in recent years. Works put together by Guy and Myriam Ullens of Belgium are now housed in a Bauhaus-style factory building in Beijing, and pieces from a collection formed by the Swiss businessman Uli Sigg have been exhibited in Singapore.
Sotheby’s will be offering the Estella Collection in two parts: the 108 works being sold in Hong Kong are expected to bring $8 million to $12 million; a second sale is planned for New York in September.
Among the highlights of the April sale are examples of the figurative painting style often called Cynical Realism. “Bloodline: The Big Family No. 3” (1995) is from Zhang Xiaogang’s series of paintings based on family photographs. This one, in which the central figure wears a Mao badge, is estimated at $2.5 million to $3.5 million. Another example of the style is “Chairman Mao With Us,” a 2005 painting by Zeng Fanzhi that depicts Mao with two children; it’s estimated at $347,000 to $555,000.
Mr. Goedhuis formed the collection for a small group of investors, including Sacha Lainovic, a director of Weight Watchers International, and Ray Debbane, chief executive of the private-equity firm the Invus Group. The investors had wanted to make the collection the basis of a book, but instead decided to sell it.
The Estella Collection has been shown at two museums: the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark a year ago and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the exhibition closed on March 1. To accompany the shows Mr. Goedhuis produced a book published by the Louisiana Museum, “China Onward: The Estella Collection — Chinese Contemporary Art, 1966-2006.”
Despite the current economic uncertainty, Sotheby’s and Mr. Acquavella say they are not nervous about next month’s sale.
“We’re quite optimistic,” Mr. ten Holder said.
AND WESTERN MASTERS
A more established contemporary art collection — with works by European masters like Joseph Beuys, Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni, and American stars like Robert Rauschenberg and Tom Wesselmann — is coming to auction at Sotheby’s this spring. Valued at $76 million, it was formed in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Walther Lauffs, a German industrialist who died in 1981, and his wife, Helga.
The couple began buying art in 1968, after meeting Paul Wember, director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum in Krefeld, Germany. In exchange for Mr. Wember’s guidance in building a contemporary art collection, the couple agreed to lend the bulk of their purchases to the museum.
Mr. Wember, who died in the early 1990s, was something of a maverick and organized early exhibitions of Jean Tinguely, Klein and Mr. Rauschenberg.
“Their taste was ahead of their time,” said Tobias Meyer, director of Sotheby’s contemporary art department worldwide. “They bought one of the first metal sculptures” that Donald Judd “ever made and had many works by other Minimalist artists like Carl Andre, Sol Lewitt and Dan Flavin.”
Sotheby’s plans to sell 34 works from the collection in New York on May 14 and 15, then offer other pieces in London in June or October.
Among the stars of the New York sale will be several works by Klein, with whom Mr. Wember had formed a close friendship. They include “IKB 1,” a 1960 painting in the artist’s signature ultramarine blue that is expected to bring $5 million to $7 million.
There is a Rauschenberg combine (the artist invented this term to describe paintings into which he incorporated castoff objects like rubber tires, flatware or furniture): “Slug,” from 1961, estimated at $3 million to $4 million. And a large wall installation by Mr. Wesselmann, “Great American N u d e No. 48” (1963), carries an estimate of $6 million to $8 million.
https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/28/arts/design/28voge.html?ref=design
作者：安普若 在 海归茶馆 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 附庸风雅系列：Contemporary Chinese on Sale in Hong Kong（转帖） -- 安普若 - (6349 Byte) 2008-4-09 周三, 22:26 (3300 reads)
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