Christie’s inaugural evening sale at its new Hong Kong headquarters on Thursday, September 26 realised a total of HK$1. The sale of 20th and 21st century art underscored the wariness of buyers to pay big prices, especially after Chinese collectors have pulled back from the market in response to global politics and domestic economic uncertainty.
Christie’s deputy chairman and head of 20th and 21st Century Art, Asia Pacific Cristian Albu specifies the auction house’s restrained approach to this sale. “Other than that, we take no risks–all things of value are third-party secured. I wanted something that was sort of safe, very new, and an upper—it’s been such a difficult year for all of us,” said Albu pre-auction.
The auction hammered at HK$883.1m (US$113.4m) not far below the low-end estimate, and with 11 third-party guarantees in place, nearly all of 46 lots found buyers for a sell-through rate of 93%. Slideshow (7 Images)Prices were also capped by the market’s current focus on safe blue-chip works as collectors look for insurance amid signs of an increasingly volatile global economy. The move to filter the focus on established artists instead of new up and comers was right for the risk averse landscape, said Yuki Terase, co-founder of advisory firm Art Intelligence Global.
The key price came for the leading lot of Vincent van Gogh’s Les canots amarrés (1887), which sold above estimate for HK$250.6m (US$32.2m) to set an artist record in Asia, according to final prices with buyer fees. The Nymphéas now from Claude Monet’s 1st Water Lilies series also did well, selling for HK$233.3m (US$29.9m), but both pieces went below their high estimates.
Albu said that new-venue heat in Hong Kong made consignments more possible than they had ever been, although it was months of knocking on doors before the works began to trickle in. Among other notable names at the sale, Zao Wou-Ki’s Triptyque (1980) sold for HK$95.3m (US$12.2m), while Kim’s Whan-Ki 9-XII-71 #216 (1971) went under the hammer for HK$56m (US$7.2m).
While the blue-chip artists dominated, contemporary hallways had their moments of excitement as well. Los Angeles artist Lucy Bull achieved a world auction record with 18:50 (2021), which thumped its $700,000 high estimate to sell for HK$18.5-million ($2.3-million). Filipino artist Ronald Ventura’s State of Bloom hammered for a record HK$36.6m (US$4.7m), just shy of doubling his previous auction record.
Although, not all later packages were such a huge success. Pieces by Hernan Bas and Christina Quarles also fell short with Quarles’s We Woke in Mourning Jus Tha Same (2017) fetching HK$1m ($154,242), under half the low estimate.
Sotheby’s, however, did not fare nearly as well with the cutting edge of contemporary art in the way that Christie’s decision to dial back on speculative ultra-contemporary did for this sale. Albu said the lesson during a difficult market is to strengthen enduring quality vs chasing high prices! The victory of one blue-chip work at auction is a sharp reminder, in the thick mud of economic and geopolitical confusion, that wealthy collectors are here to stay.
