Wall Street Journal Article on Chinese Art Market

The booming Chinese art market continues to make the news. See the recent Wall Street Journal article (Friday January 13, 2012), "Art's New Pecking Order."

New Publication on Later Japanese Buddhist Visual Culture

“The Visual Culture of Japanese Buddhism from the Early Modern Period to the Present,” Religious Compass 5/8 (2011): 389–411, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2011.00294x.  This is an online journal available by subscription, that publishes summaries of recent research with extensive bibliographies of the topic, mainly sources in English.

Scams Abound in the Chinese Art Auction World

Today, National Public Radio aired an insightful story about wide scale scamming by Chinese who sell and bid at auction for their country's art: In China's Red-Hot Market Fraud Abounds
Among the scams described are fakes selling for huge sums, auctions being used as conduits for bribes, and refusals to pay for high priced goods won at auction by bidders. I think it made some excellent points and closed with a great one: "One major issue is that Chinese auction houses are not responsible for the authenticity of the goods they sell, as long as they issue a disclaimer. But the problem is that the fakery is endemic. In all too many cases, the art is fake, the bids are rigged, the experts are crooked, and the bills are never settled. It's difficult to know what is real, aside from the corruption."

All this makes it hard to trust the validity of Chinese auction results, which I need to use as comps when doing appraisals. Therefore, I always check to see if objects similar to those I am appraising have sold at auctions in the West (which are also inundated by Chinese buyers, so that can be problematic too) and what prices are for these things in private galleries.

Another Record Chinese Sale!

Sotheby's Hong Kong sale of Chinese art from the renowned Meiyingtang collection on October 5, 2011 set another record for porcelain, this time for Ming blue and white wares. A beautiful meiping shaped vase from the Yongle era sold for HK$168.7 million (US$72 million). For more on this see the Oct. 7, 2011 article at Reuters: Ming Vase Smashes Record at Mixed Chinese Sale
A related article on the current Chinese art market appeared in the Wall Street Journal today: Art Market: The China Factor

This article advised readers on what are more affordable alternatives for would-be buyers of Chinese art than those that sell for record-smashing prices. But while the article accurately notes what types of art fit into these less pricey categories, buyers still need to be wary if their intention is to buy art as an investment, which really is a gamble. There is much fine quality art available for low prices because it is not the height of fashion or whose prices are in the doldrums due to economic factors and there is no telling when the situation will change -- I am thinking especially of the situation for JAPANESE ART, and in particular, most types of screens, scrolls, lacquers, and ceramics, which are all great buys today.

October 27, 2011 Lecture in Chicago

I'll be presenting a lecture to the Japan-America Society of Chicago on Thursday Oct. 27, 2011.

A VEXING PROBLEM:  THE LONG TRADITION OF COPIES AND FORGERIES IN JAPANESE AND EAST ASIAN ART

6-6:30 pm REGISTRATION
6:30-7:15 pm PRESENTATION
7:15-7:30 Q and A

Masuda Funai Eifert & Mitchell, Ltd.
203 N. LaSalle Street, 25th Floor Conference Room
Chicago, IL 60603
$15 JASC Members/$20 Non-Members

The production of copies is part of the tradition of East Asian visual culture. Not all copies are fakes and many have monetary value, sometimes more than the original. Artists from Korea and Japan were often inspired by Chinese art, and Japanese artists also copied certain types of Korean arts, such as Buddhist painting. Consequently, distinguishing the original from the copy is often challenging. Understanding the different contexts in which copies were produced helps understand how to evaluate them. Emphasizing the tradition of copying in Japanese arts, this presentation also addresses copies in Chinese and Korean arts, showing how some are copied for legitimate reasons, and others for deception.

The talk draws on Graham's experience as both a scholar and appraiser of Asian art, using examples of objects she has seen and studied over the years, including Japanese secular paintings, Chinese, Korean and Japanese Buddhist painting and sculpture, Japanese prints, ceramics, cloisonné, Peking glass, jade, and netsuke. She will compare different sorts of copies and fakes, and discuss their relative values in the marketplace. Currently, the issue of forgeries is particularly pertinent and vexing because these have increased substantially in recent years, especially in China, although the use of scientific examination techniques is often used effectively to discern them.

The tricky business of recognizing fakes

In a prior post on connoisseurship references for Chinese and Japanese arts, I cautioned about the prevalence of forgeries and the difficulties of recognizing them, even for experts. There I listed a number of useful reference works for specific types of arts. Now I want to point out a new effort that is based on science, a collaborative forensic research project being jointly undertaken by Cranfield University in the UK and Bonhams auction house. The online journal, ART RADAR ASIA, recently did a story on it.

Pat's New Publications, Spring 2011

I have two new publication out this spring.

The first is "Craftsmanship in Japanese Arts,"
chapter 6 of: Reading Asian Art and Artifacts: Windows to Asia on American College Campuses, edited by Paul K. Nietupski and Joan O'Mara. Lehigh University Press/Rowman & Littlefield, 2011, 123-148.
In this essay, I seek to define the special character of Japanese art, examining both the way Japanese artists approach art production and the appearance of the arts in general. I focus on the high value placed on exquisite craftsmanship in various arts that results from unique cultural and religious factors which encourage patience and diligence by makers, an avid embracing of new technologies, and a penchant by artists for working together in groups.

  

The second publication is an article in the May 2011 issue of Orientations magazine, 

“Compassion, Craft, and Connectedness: Shinji Turner-Yamamoto’s Cincinnati “Global Tree Project.”
It focuses on the artist's installation of an intertwined live and dead tree at Cincinnati's decommissioned historic Holy Cross Church, and his concurrent exhibition at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center.