Week In Review: March 21-25

Jing Daily’s Top Posts for the Week In case you missed them the first time around, here are some of Jing Daily’s top posts for the week of March 21-25: Sotheby’s Contemporary Asian Art Auction In Hong Kong (April 4): Top Lots To Watch Coming on the same weekend as the much-anticipated Ullens Collection auction in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s Contemporary Asian Art auction on April 4 will likely see new Chinese collectors crowding in and jamming the telephone lines — word is that Sotheby’s is adding a record number for this auction — to secure pieces from blue-chip Chinese contemporary artists like Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi, Liu Ye and Wang Guangyi. With 153 lots up on the block estimated at over HK$121 million (US$16 million), expect to see pre-sale estimates far surpassed by collectors who were (or weren’t) also able to take home some masterpieces from the April 3 Ullens auction. With prices for some of China’s top artists continuing to march upward, approaching (or matching) established Western artists, this auction should turn out prove a good follow-up to last October’s autumn auctions. Chinese Ministry Of Commerce: China Will Resolve Luxury Price Discrepancy Held annually each spring, this week the 12th China Development Forum (2011) took place in Beijing, following on the heels of the recently concluded National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). Founded by the State Council’s Development Research Center in 2000, the forum is meant to bring business and academic leaders together to interact with China’s top political and economic decision makers. During the opening ceremony, Minister of Commerce Chen Deming said that China will solve the issue of pricing on luxury goods, roundly criticized due to prices for some high-end goods in China exceeding prices for the same items overseas. Discussing tax reform, Minister of Finance Xie Xuren told attendees that China will work to improve its consumption tax system. Products prone to pollute the environment and consume a large amount of resources, Xie said, as well as some luxury goods will see new consumption taxes levied. The unspoken focus, ostensibly, being private jets, yachts, and sports cars. China Guardian’s First Auction Of 2011 Pulls In $98 Million This week, the domestic Chinese auction house China Guardian held its first auction of the year, selling a grand total of 640 million yuan (US$98 million) worth of traditional Chinese paintings, calligraphy, antiques, rare books and porcelain to Beijing’s art-hungry collectors. And hungry they were, with the auction achieving a 90 percent sell-through rate. Broken down by category, painting and calligraphy grossed 494 million yuan ($75 million), porcelain, furniture and crafts surpassed the 100 million yuan mark for the first time, grossing 110 million yuan ($17 million), rare zisha teapots grossed 12 million yuan ($1.8 million), antique bottles of Maotai baijiu pulled in 11 million yuan ($1.7 million), and rare books grossed 828,000 yuan ($126,184). Despite good showings all around, the painting and calligraphy segment — which broke its previous record — stands out, as several high profile works saw pitched bidding by local collectors. Why Beijing’s Anti-Luxury Advertising Campaign Won’t Help The Wealth Gap Recently, the Chinese government announced a new law that, when put in effect next month, will prohibit outdoor advertisements that “promote hedonistic or high-end lifestyles” in Beijing — essentially code for luxury brand ads. This, as the AP notes, is Beijing’s latest scheme to “ease public concerns about the country’s widening wealth gap.” However, it’s not the only one. As Jing Daily has previously pointed out, in an attempt to curtail the country’s overseas shopping binge, Beijing has stepped up enforcement of its customs “Rule 54,” which imposes stiff retroactive taxes on luxury purchases, and has stood firm in its support of a high luxury tax, despite entreaties from high-profile individuals to drop it. No Clear Consensus Among Chinese Designers On “China Style” Although China now has no shortage of home-grown fashion designers, some of whom studied at the best design schools in the world, the sheer vastness of the population and dramatic differences in taste seen throughout the country mean that a clear “Chinese style” has yet to emerge. While we see pieces influenced by everything from blue porcelain to the traditional qipao (cheongsam) from domestic Chinese designers (and everything from take-away boxes to “chinoiserie-lite” from non-Chinese designers), the country still lacks, for better or worse, a “representative” national piece, akin to the Japanese kimono or Korean hanbok, writes Yang Ningshu (杨宁舒) this week in the Heilongjiang Daily.

Week In Review: March 21-25

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Published March 25, 2011

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Week In Review: March 21-25