Prevailing economic uncertainties in China continue to cast a pall over the art market in Hong Kong. Many in the art business are conservative about prospects for 2016, given the continuing fall in local auction sales and overheads that are among the most expensive in the world.
The sales at Christie’s Hong Kong (27 November-2 December) marked the finale of the autumn auction season, and their results confirmed the market’s lacklustre condition, especially compared with two years previously.
Hong Kong’s position as the centre of Asia’s art market was bolstered in 2015, however, as even more auctions took place in the city. Artcurial and Phillips were among the international houses to launch small sales in the city last year.
Rebecca Wei, the president of Christie’s Asia, said that revenues for 2015 were “solid and encouraging, despite a somewhat challenging market as buyers become more selective in their purchases”.
Numbers still down
The autumn sales figures at Christie’s, however, were 16% less than the company’s already modest pre-auction estimate—and that was with its premium added in. Paintings proved one of the better-performing categories for Christie’s last year, yet its numbers are still down.
Paintings worth HK$507.9m (US$65.42m) were sold on 28 November at the company’s high-profile evening sale of 20th-century and Asian contemporary art. The equivalent sale brought in HK$636m in 2014 and HK$935m in 2013.
Despite the more subdued business climate, even the smaller auction houses continue to bet on Hong Kong. “Economic cycles happen everywhere and the art market is no exception,” says Ando Shokei, the founder of Tokyo Chuo, a regional auction house. Although he plans to halve the number of the firm’s auctions in Japan to two a year, he also intends to maintain biannual sales in Hong Kong, where Chuo has been holding them since 2014.
There are other glimmers of hope. Christie’s says that 25% of its buyers in Hong Kong in 2015 were new to the auction house. Established big collectors from the region are also beginning to spend record-making sums in European and American sales. The Shanghai-based finance tycoon Liu Yiqian famously placed the winning $152m bid ($170.4m with fees) on a work by Amedeo Modigliani at Christie’s New York, and Hong Kong’s property billionaire Joseph Lau paid $48.4m (including fees) for a 12-carat blue diamond at Sotheby’s Geneva.