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On January 16, Zhang Wei, a pioneer of abstract painting in China, passed away at the age of 73.
Zhang is known for his experimental abstractions that reflect the instinctive approach of action painting. Through his dramatic visual vocabulary, emotive colors, and “style-as-substance” technique, his works exude a profoundly modern quality while paying tribute to traditional Chinese ink and calligraphy.
Born in 1952 in Beijing, Zhang began his artistic career as a self-taught illustrator before joining the Wuming (No Name) collective in the 1970s, one of the first underground art groups to self-organize during the Cultural Revolution. In line with the group’s mission to rebel against politically prescribed conventions of realism, Zhang developed a unique style of conceptual landscape painting.
In the early 1980s, Zhang co-hosted an experimental exhibition in his home which paved the way for Chinese Apartment Art—an underground countercultural movement during which artists created and showcased their work at private studios within public residential complexes, to bypass the authorities. In his late 30s, Zhang became inspired by Western abstract expressionism and began to strive for unrestrained self-expression through non-representational form.
After taking part in the 1986–87 landmark touring exhibition “Avant-Garde Chinese Art” in New York state alongside renowned figures such as dissident artist Ai Weiwei, Zhang continued to hold solo shows during his nearly 20-year stay in the US. He has also participated in several exhibitions in Hong Kong, including “Light before Dawn: Unofficial Chinese Art 1974–1985” at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center in 2013, and “M+ Sigg Collection: Four Decades of Chinese Contemporary Art” at ArtisTree in 2016.
Zhang’s work is held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago and Hong Kong’s M+.
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After a five-year legal battle, Chinese artist Ye Yongqing has been found guilty of plagiarizing the work of Belgian artist Christian Silvain. The Beijing Intellectual Property Court upheld a previous ruling from 2023 and ordered the artist to pay EUR 650,000 (USD 670,500) in damages—a record sum for a case relating to fine arts in China. Ye has also been ordered to issue a public apology in the Global Times, a major Chinese newspaper. The court warned the artist that failure to comply with the ruling could result in imprisonment.
Ye has been copying Silvain’s work since he visited an exhibition by the Belgian painter in Paris in 1990. In the three decades since, Ye’s paintings have sold for monumental sums—hundreds of thousands of dollars more than Silvain’s—at major auction houses such as Christie’s and Sotheby’s, and many of his works are owned by prominent collectors including American billionaire Bill Gates and media mogul Rupert Murdoch.
The case has been ongoing since November 2019, after the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsbladfirst brought attention to the similarities between Ye and Silvain’s works. Following the initial accusations, Ye was dismissed from his position as a professor at Chongqing’s prestigious Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. His damaged reputation has prevented him from having any exhibitions since 2018, and his work has been removed from several museums.
As the first foreign artist to win a plagiarism case against a Chinese artist, Silvain expressed relief at the verdict, describing it as “the end of a long battle” after years of witnessing Ye’s garnering substantial profit and success from the plagiarism of his work.
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Red is the color as global art market comes storming back after global financial crisis
-- Want to sell that masterpiece for a fortune? It might help if it's red.
That's just one trend from an art market that has come roaring back from the global financial crisis, with buyers from emerging markets such as China molding tastes and driving top-end prices ever higher.
Sotheby's put its works on public display in London, and there was a distinct scarlet hue to the star lots — Gerhard Richter's cadmium-colored abstract "Wall," expected to sell for at least 15 million pounds; an Andy Warhol portrait of Chairman Mao valued at 5 million pounds to 7 million pounds; a vivid red piece in molten plastic by Alberto Burri that could break the 3-million-pound record for the Italian artist. "When we're pricing things we're aware of the power of red," said Alex Branczik, head of Sotheby's contemporary art department in London.
"Red is a color that incites passion. It's the color of the sunset, it's the color of blood," he said. "I think it's more primal than nationality, but I do think it has a special resonance for Asian buyers," for whom red may have associations with luck and happiness. There is some evidence to support this theory — four of the five most expensive Richters ever sold are red.
Buyers from Asia, and especially China, are one reason the art market has rebounded from the global financial crisis of 2008. Newly affluent Chinese collectors began by buying works from their own country — both modern art and historic treasures — before moving into European contemporary art and other areas.
Sotheby's estimates that China now accounts for $14 billion of the $58 billion global art market. Asian buyers spent twice as much on contemporary artworks at the auction house in 2013 as they did the year before.
Art spending by Latin Americans also leapt last year, while Russian and Middle Eastern collectors continue to pay record prices.
"When I started in this industry, it was really European and American (buyers)," said Jay Vincze, head of Christie's Impressionist and modern department. "Now it is truly global. "The market is strong," he said. "The buyers are out there." That has led to a mood of quiet optimism at the auction houses.
In sales of Impressionist, modern and Surrealist art , Christie's has Pablo Picasso's "Woman in a Turkish Costume," a portrait of his wife and muse Jacqueline Roque — estimated at up to 20 million pounds — and Juan Gris' Cubist "Still Life with Checked Tablecloth," valued at up to 18 million pounds. There are also multimillion-dollar works by Piet Mondrian, Rene Magritte, Fernand Leger and Joan Miro. "When you look around these rooms, the supply we've got this season is incredibly rich and varied," Vincze said Thursday. "The quality is very, very high." A few blocks away at Sotheby's, sales include Vincent Van Gogh's "Man is at Sea," once owned by actor Errol Flynn; Lucian Freud's portrait "Head on a Green Sofa"; and works by Claude Monet, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse.
It's a far cry from the jittery years after the 2008 banking crisis, when works went unsold or reached lackluster prices.
Auctioneers are already looking to woo the next wave of wealthy art buyers. Christie's held its first sale in India last month, and Sotheby's opens soon an exhibition of Indian and international art in New Delhi.
And, said Branczik, "I think Central Asia is interesting. It's a place where a lot of wealth is being generated."