According to ArtTactic, the Ullens Sale was the primary driver of this result. The prominent Belgian collector had consigned 106 works to Sotheby’s and 18 works of art to Poly Auction. The collection raised a total of $63.27 million and accounted for 40% of the contemporary Chinese total sales value this spring.
ArtTactic pointed that most of the sales had been done in Hong Kong, which has increase its market share of the Chinese contemporary art auction market from 44% in November 2010 to 68% in May 2011. This might be a further sign that the Mainland Chinese art buyer isn’t quite ready for contemporary art yet, and still predominantly focuses on the more established classical and modern paintings market, which has seen its market share growing from 14% in 2008 to 32% in spring 2011, it said.