TOP 100 ASIAN ARTISTS

Art Price, an art market analyzing firm, released the 2007/2008 Annual Report based on the auction records of 2,900 auction houses in 72 countries surveyed along with Foire Internationale d'Art Contemporain (FIAC) from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. All of Art Price's surveys considered the artworks of artists born after 1945 that were sold through auction houses. The 2007 report concentrated on analyzing the acclivity of price indexes in contemporary art market that had shown exponwestern ential growth from 1990 to 2007, the recent report is on the flow of art market until right before the second half of 2008 when prices began to fall due to the economic crisis. Art Price evaluated on the first page that "Despite the economic strike, the art markets in Asia and the Middle East showed the greatest success and the most remarkable auction records." However, it also emphasizes that "Many changes in the art market are clearly predictable for this year despite that the last 10 years of auction records proved that investments in artworks have been consistent."

Structural Changes for a New Era

Many people have predicted for a long time that the 21st century would be the Age of the Pacific due to the rapid economic growth of Asian countries since the mid-20th century. Many experts have constantly argued that the world? axis would shift from the Atlantic between Europe and America to the Pacific. The growth of Europe and Japan would be greatly blunted, but some analyzed that the gross domestic product(GDP) of China and India would surpass the GDP of every other countries on earth, except for the U.S. and Japan, by 2025 and shift the core of the world in 20 years. This issue has been widely discussed at the World Economic Forum(WEF), the gathering of global leaders and intellectuals, for a long time. The 2007 Davos Forum's discussion on the shift of power and the construction of a new international order was published as The Davos Report: Shirt of Power in Korea and was widely read. Likewise, the theme of this year's Davos Forum Annual Meeting, which will be held for five days from January 28 to February 1 as the largest Davos Forum in history, will be 'Shaping the Post-Crisis World.'

Art Price also analyzed that the world topography of the contemporary art market is changing. The art market has been led by the U.S. since the 1950s. In the early 21st century, the Christie's and Sotheby's auction houses in the U.S. and London continuously sold the artworks of the 20th century's leading artists-Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, etc-at prices exceeding USD $10million. The prices were higher than those of the most popular artworks by Van Gogh or Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Since then, the power of contemporary art market was equally pided by the U.S. and Western Europe, centered on Britain.

In 2007, however, the expansion of art markets in Asia, including Russia, China, and India, was clearly witnessed, forecasting that it would be no longer possible for the U.S. to dominate the market. From the mid-2007 to mid-2008, the total amount of contemporary artworks sold at auctions in each country indicated that the U.S. and London achieved the 1st and 2nd places with EUR 348 million and EUR 262 million, respectively, and China reached EUR 249 million to take the 3rd place. Considering that France only recorded EUR 15 million, Italy only EUR 10 million, and Germany only EUR 6 million, Taiwan's EUR 14 million and Singapore's EUR 13 million were remarkable growths. For the last 12 months, 10 artworks were sold in China's contemporary art market at over USD $1 million.

Continue reading…