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A bull in China’s art shops
Wang Hairong
LAST year was a prosperous one for Chinese investors, who scoured the
market for investment opportunities and found them nearly everywhere.
Among the big money earners was art, which fetched record prices at
auctions. Statistics show that in 2007, 114 auction houses held more
than 771 auctions, with total sales exceeding 21.95 billion yuan ($3
billion), a 34.6-percent increase over the previous year. Among the
items sold, the single piece price for 160 artworks exceeded 10 million
yuan ($1.38 million). The recently published 2006-07 China Art Market
Research Report revealed that from the first half of 2006 to the first
half of 2007, traditional Chinese paintings accounted for 37 percent of
total sales; contemporary oil paintings and other artwork, 27 percent;
and ceramics, 36 percent. The report, edited by Zhao Li, associate
professor in the Chinese Central Academy of Fine Arts, was one of the
most comprehensive art market reports on China’s art market.
Traditional is hot
Sold at 79.52 million yuan ($10.95 million) at an auction held in 2007
by China Guardian Co. Ltd., The Red Cliff won the highest price ever
paid for a Chinese painting and scroll, while the crown of the ceramics
category went to a 14-cm tall enamel lantern, which sold for 84 million
yuan ($11.57 million). The Red Cliff was painted by Qiu Ying of the Ming
Dynasty (1368-1644). The painting depicts a boat tour made by famous
poet Su Dongpo (1037-1101) on a river running between steep cliffs, on a
moonlit autumn night. It was stored in the royal palace during the Qing
Dynasty (1644-1911). When the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty was
dethroned, he took the painting out of the palace. The picture was then
kept by a mysterious collector for 80 years until it resurfaced at the
auction and was bought by a Chinese firm.
Contemporary art wooed
While classical artwork is cherished both for its artistic value and
rarity, contemporary Chinese art is also popular at auctions. In China,
the concept of contemporary art is not well defined. Sometimes,
contemporary art refers to Chinese oil paintings from the 20th century,
while it may also refer to artwork created after 1979 that defies
established norms. It includes paintings and other forms of art such as
photography, video and multimedia. Some contemporary art fetched high
prices at auction in 2007. The China Association of Auctioneers listed
the five “most expensive” paintings. Put Down Your Whip by modern
Chinese fine art master Xu Beihong (1895-1953) topped the list at HK$64
million ($9.2 million). Xu studied Western classical realist painting in
Europe, and was the pioneer of contemporary Chinese fine art. He was
especially good at depicting galloping horses. Painted in 1939, Put Down
Your Whip portrays a girl, who has left her hometown to escape the
invading Japanese army, performing on the street to make a living.
Sunset of Tanshui fetched 50.2 million yuan ($6.9 million), making it
the second highest priced Chinese oil painting auctioned in 2007.
Painted in 1935 by Chen Chengbo (1895-1947), it captures the sunset in
Chen’s hometown Tanshui in Taiwan. In the painting, the setting sun
casts its golden shadow on the blue water. Along the waterfront, rows of
red-roofed houses line a winding country road.
Ode to the Yellow River painted by Chen Yifei (1946-2005) in 1972
fetched 40.3 million yuan ($5.6 million) at an auction hosted by China
Guardian Co. Ltd. Chen’s early works featured revolutionary themes. In
the 1980s, he resided in the United States for a decade. After returning
to Shanghai in the 1990s, Chen became entrepreneurial and dabbled in
fashion design as well as film directing. Ode to the Yellow River
features a happy and proud soldier, with a rifle in his hand, standing
on the highland overlooking the Yellow River. Wu Guanzhong’s color ink
piece, An Old Town on the Jiao River, painted in 1991 was sold for 40.7
million yuan ($5.6 million) by Beijing Poly International Auction Co.
Ltd. With yellowish gray or black colors, this painting illustrates the
broken walls in a desolated old town in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region. Wu’s other piece Hibiscus, painted in 1975 also got a good price
of 39.2 million yuan ($5.4 million). Hibiscus depicts a tall blooming
plant covered with dark green leaves and white flowers, with the gray
roof of the painter’s house in Beijing in the background. Wu, born in
1919, received his art education in China and France. He blends
traditional Chinese ink style into Western paintings. He likes to sketch
the contour of natural scenery expressing it with simple lines and
elegant style. His works were exhibited at the British Museum in 1992.
Chen Danqing’s painting Tibetan Series-Shepherd created in 1980 was sold
for 35.8 million yuan ($4.9 million). Tibetan Series-Shepherd portrays
the life of Tibetans with rich colors in a traditional European style of
painting. Chen, born in 1953, was sent to work in the countryside as a
youth during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76). In 1978, he began
studying at the top art school in China, and later spent eight years in
New York before returning to China to teach at Tsinghua University.
Western masterpieces began to enter the art auction market in China. An
auction for Western paintings and sculptures was hosted by Beijing
Huachen Auctions Co. in late 2007 in Beijing. Twenty-four pieces of art
from abroad were displayed and half were sold, with a total transaction
volume of 14.08 million yuan ($1.96 million). A piece by French
Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir fetched 11.2 million yuan
($1.64 million), the highest price offered for Western paintings
auctioned in China.
What fuels the boom?
A more liberal art market, rising living standards and a sound legal
framework brought prosperity to the art market, according to Zhang
Yanhua, President of the China Association of Auctioneers. Ancient
Chinese people produced exquisite artwork. Artists enjoyed great social
privileges. But during the “cultural revolution,” relics reflecting
backward feudal thoughts were ordered to be trashed and art collecting
was condemned as a “bourgeois” activity. After 1979, the dormant art
market gradually reawakened. The first art auction house was established
in the early 1990s. In the last two decades, hundreds of art auction
houses have emerged. The most prominent one is China Guardian Co. Ltd.
headquartered in Beijing.
Art galleries and museums have sprung up, which are primarily
concentrated in Beijing and Shanghai; some are funded with foreign
investment. In Beijing, art lovers often stroll through a number of
famous art markets, including Panjiayuan Antique Market and 798 art
gallery area. Art markets outside Beijing and Shanghai are fledgling. At
an art auction held in coastal Qingdao City, Shandong Province, in fall
2007, 460 paintings and calligraphy were displayed. The auction
registered a total trade volume of 150 million yuan ($20.7 million).
Data from Sichuan Provincial Collectors’ Association indicate that as of
the end of 2007, there were about 3 million art collectors, of whom, 80
percent collected artwork for investment purposes in the province. Most
art auction houses in the province opened one or two years ago. In
December 2007, four auctions were held in the province, each drawing
hundreds of bidders. Entrepreneurs comprise the majority of active
bidders, according to analysts of China’s art market. President of the
China Association of Collectors, Yan Zhentang, said that one fifth of
its 5,000 registered members are business owners.
Now, people are encouraged to own financial assets, which spur the
growth of art as an investment instrument. The first marriage between
investment capital and a museum in China was recently made when Minsheng
Banking Corp. Ltd. took over Yanhuang Art Museum in Beijing last year.
The banking group’s Guangzhou branch recently launched a high-end
financial product for art investors, with expected annual returns as
high as 18 percent.
In addition to economic incentives, a sound legal framework is
indispensable to the development of the art market. China has
promulgated several laws governing the auction of cultural relics. At
the end of 2004, China lifted restrictions on foreigners trading artwork
dated before 1949, as part of the country’s commitment to the World
Trade Organization. Big international auction houses such as Sotheby’s
and Christie’s have entered China’s mainland market. Despite concerns
over bubbles in the art market, art auction houses in China have stepped
into another busy year. Two weeks into 2008, mycollect.net, a website
for collectors in China, had already posted 12 auctions scheduled for
January, with four in Beijing, two in Shanghai, two in Hong Kong and
Macao, and the remaining four in other parts of China.
(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange
Item)
Embarrassment for Syria
Claude Salhani
IMAD Mughniyeh, one of the most wanted men with a bounty of US$ 5
million on his head, was killed in the Syrian capital Tuesday night by a
car bomb. Who was behind his killing may never be clear. What is clear
however is that many wanted him dead and that his death in the Syrian
capital represents a triple embarrassment for Damascus. First, his
sudden appearance in the Syrian capital will bring new pressures from
Washington on the government of President Bashar Assad who will face new
accusations in light of arrest warrants issued against Mughniyeh by
Interpol and by the United States. Mughniyeh, who figured on the US
state department’s terrorist list as well as on the FBI’s “most wanted
terrorists” list, was indicted for his role in planning and
participating in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of a TWA airliner which
resulted in the assault on various passengers and crew members, and the
murder of a US Navy diver. Mughniyeh is believed by Western intelligence
agencies to have been responsible for the attacks on the US embassy and
the US Marines compound in Beirut, respectively in April and October
1983. Following a short rapprochement during which time Syrian and US
intelligence services cooperated in the aftermath of the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,
relations between Damascus and Washington worsened with the Bush
administration accusing the Syrians of supporting anti-coalition forces
in Iraq.
As relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate,
particularly after the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister
Rafiq Hariri on February 14, 2005, Washington accused Damascus of
supporting terrorist organisations, accusations that Damascus has
consistently denied. Mughniyeh’s death in the Syrian capital on Tuesday
will no doubt be difficult for Damascus to explain, placing the
government in front of a political and diplomatic dilemma. On the one
hand should Damascus acknowledges his presence on its territory, it
justifies prior claims by the United States and Israel of Syria’s
involvement with terrorist organisations. On the other hand, a denial by
Damascus of any knowledge of Mughniyeh’s presence in Syria — still a
distinct possibility — would be awkward for Syrian intelligence services
and could be perceived as a lapse by the Syrian Mukhabarat, a service
reputed to maintain tight control on activities on its territory.
According to the FBI, Mugniyah was thought to be in Lebanon operating as
“the alleged head of the security apparatus for the terrorist
organisation, Lebanese Hezbollah.” In Lebanon, however, Hezbollah, whose
political wing participates in Lebanese politics, is considered as the
“resistance” against Israel.
It turns out Mughniyeh was in Damascus where he was killed on Tuesday
night in a car bombing — ironically, his preferred choice of weapons.
The accusations against Mughniyeh are impressive. US intelligence
believes him responsible for killing 241 American military service
personnel in 1983, in what was then described as the largest non-nuclear
explosion, when a truck loaded with explosives blew up a building
housing US Marines stationed in Beirut as part of the multinational
peacekeeping force. US intelligence services also believe Mughniyeh to
have masterminded the attack which destroyed the US embassy in Beirut.
The Beirut embassy bombing occurred while a high-level meeting of CIA
operatives in the Middle East was under way. Their deaths were a
devastating blow to US intelligence gathering efforts in the Middle East
and created a huge void in tracking terrorist activities for several
years. The United States also believe he was responsible for the
abduction of Beirut CIA chief William Buckley. Buckley is believed to
have been kidnapped by Mughniyeh in the Lebanese capital and transferred
to Teheran, where he died under torture. Mughniyeh was on the Interpol
wanted list for his alleged participation in an attack on an
Israeli-Argentine target in which 85 people were killed and close to 300
wounded. One of the most wanted men in the world, sought by several
Western and Israeli intelligence agencies, Mughniyeh remained in hiding
since the end of the 1980s, when he was linked to the abductions of a
number of Westerners during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. He is
believed to have undergone a number of identity changes, including
plastic surgeries, in order to avoid being recognised or captured.
Mughniyeh was reported to be responsible of a special unit of Hezbollah
that was particularly active in the 1980s and 90s. Israel linked him in
the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires which killed 29
people. It is widely believed by a number of Western intelligence
sources that Mughniyeh worked closely with Iranian intelligence services
and he was thought to be hiding in the Iranian capital. Hezbollah, who
in recent years tried to distance itself from Mughniyeh and his
activities, described him as “A great jihadist of the Islamic resistance
in Lebanon.” Al-Manar, Hezbollah’s television channel issued a statement
saying: “The leader Imad Mughniyeh died a martyr, assassinated by the
Zionist Israelis.
—Khaleej Times
The tragedy of Africa
Rajendra K Aneja
LOOK at Ivory Coast, the most peaceful country in West Africa, then one
little mistake and look where it is now,” the Kenyan opposition
firebrand, Odinga warned chillingly, on January 2, ‘08, as Kibaki, the
incumbent president declared victory in a divisive election, costing
over 300 lives, including 30 burnt alive in a church. True. The root
cause of intense poverty in Cote D’Ivoire, is the government, which runs
the country chaotically. President Gbagbo’s reign has overflowed with
vicious civil wars, curfews. The political upheavals, exodus of workers
from Burkina Faso, Liberia, in the last five years, have depressed the
cocoa harvest by 30 per cent. Farmers abandoned their fields. The crops
rotted.
When a new prime minister was selected, his plane could not land at
Abidjan, because the president’s followers invaded the airfield!
Helicopters with French soldiers, in battle gear, were landing on the
road in front of my house, to control swelling crowds. From the gallery
of my apartment, I could see army helicopters shooting at mobs, looting
in the streets. Every night was a curfew, windows tightly shut, doors
barricaded. It was impossible to travel to the villages for work. Local
youngsters carrying guns, rifles, checked the papers of every traveller.
These villager guards, were not uniformed soldiers, but self-appointed
vigilantes, with nimble fingers perpetually on triggers.
A Level 4 emergency was declared, which means that the normal law
machinery has collapsed and is unable to protect the citizens. The
African Development Bank, a skyscraper, disbursing funds in the
continent, shut its swanky offices and moves to Tunisia. At nights, the
empty shell of the building seems surrealistic, with the humming
generators. All foreigners were the targets of the wrath of the rulers
of the streets, brandishing machetes and iron rods. French citizens were
the principal recipients of humiliation. The evacuation of all foreign
nationals was under police/military/French troops escorts.
Every night when I slept in Abidjan, post the elections in 2002, I did
not know whether I would wake up the next morning. Every morning, in
Abidjan, I awakened to the sounds of bullets, echoing in my ears. I got
habituated to sleeping with a (licensed) pistol under my pillow and a
spare magazine touching my feet. Even now, if I wake up in the middle of
the night, my hand immediately reflex dives under the pillow, though
life is peaceful in my current habitat. A study by Oxfam International
reveals that between 1990 and 2005, wars in Africa have cost US$300
billion. This is the exact amount of aid pumped into Africa during that
period. Conflicts, rooted in tribal and ethnic loyalties, cost the
continent, around US$18 billion per annum.
Africa is abjectly poor, and will continue to be so, not due to wars,
but due to the absence of able, visionary leaders who can transcend
tribal and ethnic boundaries. So, even though Africa is a repository of
minerals, culture, art, tradition, the world perceives it as an
international natural zoo, or a “safari” to see the “simbha”, the lion,
ruling his jungles. “Carry your valuables with you,” was the advice,
each of the three times, I was evacuated from Abidjan, under armed
escort. What valuables can you carry during an evacuation within hours?
When the chips are down, you just pack your passport, cash, and vitally,
your family photographs. The family photos become the most crucial
valuables, when you leave suddenly, with no prospect of return. You work
on the basis that all your paintings and dainties, collated over the
years, could be gone forever.Then life administers, one of its toughest
lessons: to walk out alone, into the cold night. And, never look back.
—Khaleej Times
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