Western contemporary art is becoming increasingly sought after by Asian collectors, as their tastes broaden. Buyers had a chance to pick up notable pieces as well as explore new and emerging artists at the Fine Art Asia exhibition, which took place in Hong Kong earlier this month and featured more Western galleries than in previous years.

While there was still huge interest in traditional Chinese pieces - the National Day holiday weekend brought in large numbers of mainland visitors, to the particular benefit of exhibitors specializing in Buddhist sculpture - the new formula seems to have been successful: the fair achieved sales of HK$320 million, 40 percent higher than last year.

"The Asian art market is buoyant, and the buying power of collectors, particularly from the mainland, remains very strong, as the robust sales figure show," said Andy Hei, founder and director of the show. "As a general phenomenon, Asian, especially Chinese, collectors are buying established names of Western art; for example, modern masters such as Renoir, Picasso, Chagall, through to contemporaries such as Warhol. It will take more time, awareness building and education for Asian collectors to appreciate other slightly lesser known Western masters such as Leger or Miro, as well as emerging artists."

While Hei believes that Asian buyers tend to consider the artists rather than the genre, some styles buck this trend. The "art animalier" sculptures being shown at the fair by Galerie Dumonteil of Paris drew plenty of interest, perhaps striking a chord with Chinese art lovers brought up on tales of the bronze animal heads of the Beijing Summer Palace.

The French gallery opened a branch two years ago in Shanghai to take advantage of a surge of serious interest in Western art. Owner Pierre Dumonteil estimates that 85 percent of prospective buyers to his booth were either from the mainland or Hong Kong. "Our first goal here is to promote our artists, many of whom come from France, but we are also happy if people spontaneously buy." By the fair's close, Galerie Dumonteil had sold a number of pieces ranging in price from HK$50,000-600,000. "The total is currently about HK$1 million, and a few more sales are still to be confirmed, so we are already satisfied," he said.

Another newcomer was Artnet.com, the industry's leading price database for auction results. "We have branched out into online auctions, and we are involved in a lot of private treaty sales," said Max Wolf. Artnet.com was attending this show in collaboration with one of its New York-based galleries, and displayed a set of four of Warhol's Mao portraits, among other pieces.

Wolf said that the demographic of collectors is getting younger, and these buyers are looking at more hip genres, including pop art, urban art and photography. "We've seen considerable uptake in buyers from Asia on our auction site. We can track people to all sorts of places, like Kazakhstan, where they are collecting really sophisticated works of art."

Bernita Mirisola of the Russeck Gallery of New York, said that Chinese collectors start off buying more traditional Chinese works of art, become interested in contemporary Chinese pieces and then segue into contemporary Western works. "The collectors are astute, and they are also very open to 'new artists and works of art', particularly if the pieces are visually very strong," she said.

"The value of our sales at this fair is into six figures," Mirisola added, noting ironically that in one instance a local collector was buying a piece of Western art to hang in his New York home. "So we'll be shipping it all the way back to the US for him!"

(HK Edition 10/16/2010 page2)