Yes, it is Red Hot. Red Hot was the title of the Contemporary Asian Art (collection from the Chaney family) exhibit at Houston's Museum of Fine Art. I was lucky to hit the exhibit on its last day with my art loving girlfriends. It was thrilling to see such a collection in one place, especially with the contemporary asian art market being extremely red hot right now. As both my friends would say, this art is ginormous in its impact and indicative of the creative cultural edge emerging out of Asia.
Just to take one example of the contemporary art that made me think of cultural changes -- idealized women in our consumer (now global) society -- Chinese artist Feng Zhengjie's 2007 portrait of a female, top right, was on exhibit at the Red Hot Houston exhibit. It is an example of the flat-style of his super-hybrid female portraits that expose "the essence of temptation, magnifying the sex appeal of fantasy lifestyle and its gulf of intangibility. Transposing these disposable sentiments through his highly refined painting technique, Feng glorifies the allure of advertising as epic, enduring, and numbingly empty," according to The Saatchi Gallery representing his portraits (Saatchi has a strong platform out of China). He has only hit the art scene in the last 10 years. His work is typical of many who repeat the same iterations and whose reputations are rising along with the price of their art.
The red hot market was on view at London's contemporary art auctions this fall. Bringing in top dollar -- the work of Chinese contemporary artists.... considered to be the forefront of the avant-garde. "Buyers are responding to the genre's political potency," writes the NY Sun in an article on London as the barometer of the global interest in the art markets. Sotheby's international auction this month included the most expensive contemporary
Chinese art at auction, a painting by the star of China's emergence,
Yue Minjun. "Execution" (1995), at left, was estimated to sell at between $2.97 million and $3.96 million. Execution exceeded all estimates and was actually sold for $5.9 million.
In it, four maniacally giggling, near-naked men face a firing squad in
front of the red wall of the Imperial Palace in Tiananmen Square.
More indications of the ginormous growth in this sector? March's sale of contemporary Chinese art in New York, "which grossed $38 million, rather than the estimated $18 million. It was the first time the house had seen buyers from China put in extravagant Russian-style bids." NY is the largest art market, with London being second. I've heard it said Santa Fe is the third. But here it is the contemporary Native American art making the waves. Back in March some said the Asian Contemporary market was reaching maturity with buyers becoming more selective. Prices have risen tenfold or more in the last year. It is an odd market, a gold rush, with people wondering who is buying.
Sotheby's supported the production of the catalogue for Houston's Red Hot exhibit and the book is an excellent resource for what is happening in this market with this art genre. MFA Houston's director, Peter Marzio, is top-notch and this exhibit is but one example of his leadership.
At the basement entry to Houston's MFA building is a continuing exhibit on Japanese Pop Art. Walking towards it, my feet stepped across this huge photo at right, lit up from below, one of a series. After seeing Red Hot, that is how I felt: pressed up close, drowning in the cultural messages, trying to take in the dynamics of this red hot art.
The eyes of the lady in red above are very interesting, considering I just heard today about how eyelid cosmetic surgery is the most requested cosmetic operation among the Asian population, both in Asia and the U.S. Such fabulous distinctive facial features, but I guess folks all over want to fit those "widely-accepted norms" whatever we perceive those to be.
Posted by: allison | October 29, 2007 at 04:34 PM