Young Artists Boost Modest Sales at Hong Kong’s 2023 Spring Auctions
Artists such as Lucy Bull and Oh de Laval helped lift sales totals at Sotheby's and Phillips despite one in ten works failing to sell.
Oh de Laval, The Theatre (2019). Acrylic on canvas. 76.1 x 60.8 cm. Courtesy Phillips.
There were no white glove sales in Hong Kong this time around.
Phillips' inaugural auctions at their new Hong Kong headquarters and Sotheby's 50th anniversary evening sales saw measured bidding as the city rebuilds after a long pandemic in the face of economic headwinds.
Sotheby's four sales on Wednesday evening realised a combined total of HK$1.52 billion (US $192.8 million) with a sell through rate of 92.4%, a notable drop off from 2021, when the auction house brought in HK $2.1 billion (US $271 million) in three white-glove sales.
Phillips' contemporary day and evening sales brought in HK $473.2 million (US$60.3 million), with 91% of lots sold. They touted a 33% increase over 2022, but the result was down significantly from their combined sales with Poly Auction in June 2021, which raised US $90.4 million.
The most notable moment's at both auction houses came from young and mid-career artists.
At Phillips, Polish painter Oh de Laval (b. 1990), set a new personal record at auction for her macabre work The Theatre (2019) which sold for US $32,360, almost triple the high estimate.
She was joined by: Indonesian pop-culture driven artists Ronald Apriyan, and Arkiv Vilmansa; French painter of airbrushed 'hyperplastic' images César Piette, and UK up-and-comer Hannah Bays; all of whom also set new records.
Meanwhile at Sotheby's, the painting The Morning Effect by Lucy Bull sold for HK $6.6 million, well above the high estimate of HK $2.5 million.
Loie Hollowell continued an upwards trajectory in prices, at Sotheby's setting a new world record at auction for Standing in Red (2019) more doubling the high estimate at close to $2.3 million.
Lots at the higher end of sales performed at or below expectations. Artnet News noted that five of the major lots at Sotheby's evening auction were backed by irrevocable bids, including Yoshitomo Nara's In the Milky Lake (2012), which made the top lot selling for $12.8 million.
Phillips, who sold four out of five lots by the dot-obsessed pop artist over the weekend, will present an exhibition dedicated to a dialogue between Kusama and contemporary Japanese installation artist Chiharu Shiota. (Re)Trace Kusama to Shiota will run from 18 to 30 April in the West Kowloon Cultural District.
Several other big artworld names did not hit the mark. In Sotheby's Contemporary Evening Sale a 1963 untitled Alexander Calder mobile went unsold while in the day sale no one bought Damien Hirst's Can't Buy Me Love (2007). —[O]
