April of 2019 is the time for China Association of Auctioneers to release the Report at the 25th Anniversary of the Chinese Cultural Relics and Artwork Auction. The report contains six chapters which are Preface-History of Auction, Dawn-The Awakened History during the Economic Rise in 1992-2002, Victory-Standing in the Center of the Stage of the Worldwide Auction Industry, Struggle-A Torch in the Darkness in 2013-2017 (Quality-Oriented Period), Expectation-The Power of the Brand and the appendix Conclusion. After combing the history of the development of cultural relics and artwork auction since the founding of new China, the report stresses that the auction, as a form of transaction, has made enormous contributions to the Chinese cultural relics and artwork market.
In the report, Lu Jingqing, deputy director of the Art Committee of China Association of Auctioneers and general manager of Xiling Yinshe Auction Co., Ltd., received the exclusive interview on the trend of the Chinese cultural relics and artwork auction market, establishment and development of enterprise’s brand and so forth.
I. Can you talk about the expectable trend of the Chinese cultural relics and artwork auction, especially the auctioneer’s role in establishing and developing its own brand?
The auctioneer’s brand development should be consistent with the growth of the Chinese cultural relics and artwork auction market, and the entire industry should forward in the same direction as the country. As China is continuing expanding its openness and making a steady pace forward economically, the cultural industry has emerged as a strategic one of the state and the art market is also echoing the proposal of ‘Quality improvement and updating by solving key problems’ required by our top leaders. Quality improvement requires the rise of both awareness and quality of services while solving key problems requires us to find and reveal in an academic way excellent cultural relics and artworks that truly bear the culture and spirit of our nation.
II. When the auction resources are very limited without replenishment in a short term, how do you relieve the contradiction?
Lu: The art market is virtually about confidence and indeed, the cultural industry is a powerful support to the cultural confidence of a country. Such confidence should not be blind and it requires us to conceive more confidence for the resources with inherent cultural characteristics of our nation.
The market is expanding with more resources available to the public, so there is no necessity of worrying about the depletion of auction resources. If we compare the market to a cake, the cake should be by no means limited and depletable but illimitable. The pivot of how to understand the essence of the market will guide and influence people’s knowledge and understanding about art collection.
III. It is said that besides the two major auctions in spring and autumn, auction industry in western countries also includes small auctions, which are held quite frequently. Do you think this kind of auction mode can be applied in China and whether online auction will contribute more to the auction industry in the future?
Lu: Actually auction is no longer considered only to be an exciting feast held twice a year, it becomes an increasingly essential part of people’s daily life. Our goal is to create a life with arts integration and we hope that art can be identified and expected at every corner of life. To this end, Xiling Yinshe Auction presents the Lanting Calligraphy Festival and holds Shaoxing Auction in the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival at the end of September and beginning of October. What is more, the online auction of Xiling Yinshe--Yes Auction, which launched in 2016, has also been subdivided into Major Auction, Monthly Auction and Daily Auction. As a result, the public can easily get access to different kinds of online and offline auctions held all the year round. Furthermore, as auctions grow in number, especially online auctions, which eliminate the regional limit, our clients are increasing year by year.
Art auction is not just a bidding competition, it is transforming people’s lifestyle. We, as auctioneers, must do more to attract a wider group of people in this community and to create an aesthetic relation between auction and daily life.
Xiling Yinshe Auction has been invited by the Department of Publicity of Shaoxing Municipal Committee as A Partner to Build Cultural System of Shaoxing due to our efforts in the Shaoxing Auction. We will present masterpieces that relate to the history and celebrities of Shaoxing, including Lu Xun’s manuscripts and Shaoxing wine, which mirror the historical greatness of Shaoxing. As for the online auction, apart from calligraphy, paintings and refined articles in the study, contemporary ceramics and jewels, among others, are open for bidding. Yes Auction has also launched various activities such as tea ceremonies and jewelry shows for the public to enjoy.
In effort to improve the regular auction mode, we conduct auctions online and offline and in different locations. But it is not enough for us to just hold more auctions a year, we are expected to provide a platform for the public to learn about different cultures and art forms. Therefore, such auction mode dictates that we need to transform the lot mix and change the way we operate. Auction is anything but a single transaction, it opens the door to culture exchanges, academic discussions, art collection and appreciation during consignment and authentication. As auction is becoming an integral part of life, people focus more on their experience and are pursuing a life of higher taste. We can see from the rise of auction industry that the public are expecting more from the inner world, which is the result of consumption upgrading.
IV. 90% of the lots are from lower-end markets, but auction industry in China is apt to go after high-end markets with sales of more than 10 million or 100 million. Do you think the lower-end markets should be given more prominent?
Lu: The value of artworks is not determined by their prices. Our pursuit for high-end market is actually the discovery of art values of the works. It is misleading to equal price to value. A healthy and ordered art market will never be realized if we give top priority to profit. What is worse, artworks tend to be overvalued and sold at skyrocketing prices.
Artworks are believed to be a much safer investment vehicle than stock and real estate, therefore more people include artworks into their asset portfolio. However, we need to be alert in the dazzling art market that the pivot of a mature art market is not the skyrocketing prices it achieved, but the exploring of artistic value of the masterpieces.
It is often the case that some masterpieces, which are undervalued until they come to the auction market, gain the well-deserved reputation after a long, hard look at their roles in art and literary history. For example, Wu Dayu’s top-priced work Flowers in Vase at 2017 Xiling Yinshe Auction which sold at RMB 41.4 million, forced people to rediscover this pioneer of Chinese modern paintings. Besides, the ‘Mansheng’ teapot which made by Chen Mansheng, one of the eight masters of Xiling Society of Seal Arts, and broke Xiling Yinshe Auction’s record for three times also attracted the public to know more about Chen Mansheng’s artistic accomplishments. Last but not least, in 2018, Fang Cong’s Reading in the Countryside far surpassed the estimate of RMB 38,000 and sold for RMB 18.4 million. After extensive research, we found that this Reading in the Countryside is the largest work in the market recorded in Shi Qu Bao Ji. In a word, the value of these masterpieces is being manifested due to the development of the society and they are increasingly recognized by the public. Rather than focusing only on the sales price, more people begin to care about the artistic value of artworks. That is how art market can grow and prosper.
It is worth mentioning that ‘Xi Jia’ Pan, a bronze plate from Western Zhou Dynasty achieved an astounding RMB 212.75 million at Xiling Yinshe 2017 Spring Auction. However, comparing with the other 18 lots that fetched over RMB 100 million at that auction, it was quite special. Bronze wares have long been underrated since the beginning of auction industry referring to its historical and literature values. The 5000-year history and profound culture of the Chinese nation are recognized by the world thanks to the records on bronze wares. Therefore, it is believed that ‘Xi Jia’ Pan not only created an astonishing transaction price but emerged as a fact that art auction made its own contribution to the cultural development in China.
