Art market is a gift market

The veil of “Ya bribe” Liu Shangyong, general manager of Beijing Rongbao Auction Co., Ltd., recently encountered an anecdote: A reprint of Xu Beihong’s Ben Ma Tu, auctioned out here 10 years ago, was involved in alleged bribery and bribery. In the case. The picture has just been sold for 3 million yuan. The seller is a departmental official and is entering the police's field of vision because of economic problems. Liu Shangyong's review of the records of 10 years ago found that the value of their paintings was not high at that time. They were only 60,000 to 80,000 yuan, because the horse on the screen looked very excited. Unfortunately, Xu Beihong’s signature was the only one at the place of payment. There is no personal seal. At the time, the painting was won by 400,000 yuan by a security industry and he changed hands to the official. Now that the two have broken off, the painting as a gift has climbed nearly 10 times.

“A painting produces 10 times the original value of wealth, and consumer goods become investment products. This is unexpected for gift givers and gift collectors.” Liu Shangyong told the correspondent that whether or not bribery is involved in this matter, It is involved in the exchange of interest between the two people for the right money. It is a "other story" outside the art trade.

It is not uncommon for "another story" to deliberately use the uncertainty of the value of an artwork. The 36 pieces of modern handicrafts, 9 pieces of cultural relics, and 69 pieces of calligraphy and painting exhibited at the Wen Qiang exhibition were still talked about, especially around the piece of Zhang Daqian’s “green landscape” painting, which was once identified as worth 3.64 million yuan. Pseudo problem. In the case of Wang Tianyi, former public security chief of Lucheng District, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, the lineup was more comparable to the museum's collection: 195 paintings, including Qi Baishi, Zhang Daqian, Pan Tianshou, Wu Changshuo, Ren Bonian, Xie Zhiliu, Hong Yi, and Li Keran, etc. There are many works of calligraphy and painting; ancient porcelain 23 pieces, including the Qing Emperor Yongzheng Xiaohong Cup, blue and white flowers canned lotus cans, blue and white Ganoderma lucidum pattern melon wheat cans, clear pastel flowers over the branches of the bowl, the Qing Emperor Qianlong blue and white eight treasures pattern pot, etc. There are 4 western artworks, 5 pieces of bloodstone, 3 stamps, 457 silver rounds, 38 gold coins, 352 various other cultural relics, 220 ancient pottery, 48 precious jewellery, and 261 bottles of famous wine.

“Hidden security, arty and full of warmth.” The pumice that had fought for years in the auction industry summed up the three characteristics of art as a medium of bribery, and he described it in the novel “Celadon”. How does it play a role in lubrication between shopping malls and officialdom.

Pumice said that at the general level, "elegant bribery" and "taking falsehood seriously" are mostly. For example, if you ask a person to work, if the giftee feels that this is a one-off thing, it is very likely that you will find a fake antique, and then think of ways to get a certificate, mark it with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of yuan, and the other person will not necessarily make it. clear. In the oldest historic city in Beijing, the old side who has run a store for nearly 10 years told the reporter that optimistically, it is estimated that 10 out of 5 is real goods, and this antique city has been after several rounds of scouring. Selected high-end market. Xu Wei, an expert on porcelain identification who is currently in the opening ceremony of the antique city, told the reporter that he was often asked to “hold his eyes” for the porcelain collection, and sometimes there was a thing that was full of a warehouse, and even one item was not really, tens of millions of yuan. All played. However, this does not prevent their continued circulation.

The recipients often “take the truth”. Because there is no clear pricing standard for antique objects, once the incident occurs, it can be considered as an "imperfection". The old side said: "There is a rule in the antique world. Once things are sold, they will not be refunded, exchanged, invoiced, or recorded."

“In some cases, true and false are not so important. Antiques as gifts have long since deviated from real values ​​and become a 'medium' for liquidating or laundering money.” Pumice said that the three parties on this chain—gift givers, The antique shop and the collectors know that the recipient puts a worthless item on sale at an antique shop, usually a fake product, and the giver buys it at the price of the genuine product. Even the same thing can be bought repeatedly for many times, and finally returned to the antique shop. The difference between the genuine product and the defective product is paid to the priest, and the antique shop earns high agency fees.

At the Liulichang where the Rongbao auction company is located, similar stories have been circulating since ancient times. Liu Shangyong said that the most famous case was Hu Xueyan, a “red top businessman”. Hu Xueyan came to the capital and asked the Qing government to allow him to borrow 3 million yuan of foreign debt from the foreigners. He must first open up the joint of the Minister of Commerce and the minister of national affairs of the Prime Minister. He first inquired clearly that in the Baodi family's Living Room, he hanged a picture of “Seeing the Wind in the Wind” of Tang Dynasty, and he went to Liulichang to find a person familiar with Breguet and let him go to the Breguet House to tell him that someone liked him. The picture hanging in the living room is willing to be purchased for 30,000 yuan. Breguet's heart did not declare, naturally smoothly. Hu Xueyan immediately sent the painting, which was bought in great money, to Baodi's family. The Liulichang factory also received a handling fee from Hu Xueyan, and 3 million yuan of debt was completed.

Another way to look "righteous" is to open auctions through auction houses. Pumice said that the most common way is for a giftee to put a piece of cultural relics, usually worthless money, through an acquaintance to obtain an appraisal from an expert or appraisal agency, and then “cooperate” with the auction house to take it as an authentic product. auctions. The gift giver will determine the property right of the fake product as the recipient, and then find another person to shoot it down at the price of the genuine product. The recipient will seem to have legally obtained a large amount of auction money.

Liu Shangyong does not deny having such obscure operations at individual auction houses. He said: “The world has only opened this hole in the field of art. Information asymmetry between buyers and sellers: Art does not have to indicate origin, time, artisans, and most At the time, there were no collectors, no collections, and anonymous auctions in the catalogue.” However, he believes that current artworks have entered the era of capital pricing and gifts have turned into a marginal market.

Reconfirmation of Value "In the 90s of last century, the art market was a gift market." Liu Shangyong told the reporter that he graduated into Rong Bao Zhai in 1983. At that time, paintings and calligraphy were sold in Rong Bao Zhai, and they were unified by galleries. Determine the price, first-class painters dozens of dollars a square foot, second-rate painter ten dollars, third-rate painter a few dollars. It is not high or low, and sales are limited. Buying a picture of Qi Baishi, or a ** stamp, a white jade piece, and a teapot, was a few hundred dollars at the time, but like his monthly salary was only 46 pieces, ordinary people were more than 100 pieces high, if not for sending People usually do not spend money to solve practical problems. Liu Shangyong established the starting point of popularization of the art and gift market as a replacement for wall calendar functions. “In the beginning, I was looking for people to write some auspicious words, such as 'Peng Cheng Miles' and 'Non-Fooling' etc. At the time, the biggest hit was Mr. Qi Gong’s words. Writing the first Tang poem was very elegant, with beautiful characters and good decoration. For the leaders or parents, in addition, the flowers, flowers, and maids painted by the Sansiliu artists are also very well presented, and many unknown painters are still the major producers of gifts today. The purchasing power is becoming stronger and stronger, and it is no longer satisfied with a few hundred bucks and thousands of bucks for wording and painting. The painters valued by different regions are not the same, such as Shandong, which values ​​the works of Qilu painters; Guangdong, they value the lingnan school. In Xi'an, Shaanxi, several local famous artists are highly sought after. In Beijing as well, for example, Liu Dawei, Wang Mingming, and Feng Yuan’s works have a higher degree of attention.”

Liu Shangyong believes that the period promoted by the gift market is a consumer market. From 2003 to 2009, it turned into a speculative market. Since the SARS outbreak, the market has been sold out and the art has been sold from abroad to China, from the South to the North, from the North to the South, and forever on the road instead of in the library. But strangely, this market appears to be prosperous and the transaction volume has increased, but collectors seem to have disappeared. One of the stories he encountered was that the decorative paintings used in the luxury suites of the Hotel were authentic. This was used by criminals to remove the genuine products from the picture frames and put them in a number of hotels. To sell. When one of the pictures was traced by the police, it had already fallen 17 times in the middle, and everyone had also earned money. The profit of ** was not that much. The ** who managed the case could not help but ran to ask him, how much is the picture worth? The appreciation of art in circulation during this period is also a discovery of the value of art. After 2009, artworks entered the “investment era” and were spotted by big capital and investment institutions, with the symbol of 100 million yuan. The pricing power of the art market, from galleries to individual collectors, has now shifted to big capital and investment institutions. The mass gift market no longer has core power and is no longer the mainstream of the market.

“The current wave of art giving gifts is largely driven by the prosperity of investment in art.” Xu Wei’s observation of the market found that compared with the reciprocity in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the current art gifts have a high economic value and the arts Low value, pay attention to "surface light." Gift givers are often mine bosses who have been rich for more than ten years. They are engaged in medicine and contracting projects. They don't care about money, but only want to have a taste. However, such “grades” may be false. In fact, they are required to be bright, discouraged, and have no sense of roughness. Such things, refined, can only be regarded as crafts. This mentality has driven a huge counterfeit market. Taking high-mimicry ceramics as an example, Xu Wei said that Jingdezhen pulls out several large trucks every day, mostly to Inner Mongolia, Northeast China, Shenzhen, and Hainan. The general imitation ceramics are produced by imported machinery, mud, green compacts, glazing, and a complete set of firing kiln lines. The value identification system of imitation porcelain is also simple, mainly to see the complexity and exquisite degree of drawing. The highest price is the figure, because of the complexities of facial anger, grief and sadness; followed by animals, tigers, dragons, and phoenixes, which require vividness; once again landscapes, it is necessary to look at the distance; the flower picture is simple, and the price is relatively lowest. The deeper artistic values ​​and the characteristics of the times cannot be explained or emphasized. For example, the characters in the Kangxi era were "a line, a point," and the eyes in the imitation products were still round and round. This kind of melamine, after several links, can also sell tens of thousands of pieces, and the bank feels that "new things make money faster than old things." A higher level of handmade pottery, so-called “high imitation”, still uses old workers, old materials, and old color, it is intended to be unrealistic, expecting to make millions of dollars in auctions in Hong Kong if a leading master If you can't burn one of these things in a year, you have to leave.

Auction records have always been a benchmark on the gift market. The old side said that despite the fact that high-priced antiques do not list prices, gift givers often take similar works appearing in the recent auction atlas as a reference, and the recipients are also aware of its value. Even the counterfeit market is chasing the auction record. Xu Wei said that in 2005, the blue-and-white flowers in the market were shot at 15.868 million pounds. Recently, the official kiln in the Ming and Qing Dynasties became a hot spot in the imitation goods market.

Another goal of gifts is famous. However, without a certain amount of artistic accomplishment, most people simply cannot judge the artistic value of a painting and calligraphy. For those who want to get immediate returns, the celebrity effect and even the “officer-standard” are considered as a set of judging standards that can be quickly measured. As a hidden rule in the market. Taking the Shandong calligraphy and painting market, which accounts for 50% to 60% of contemporary painting and calligraphy market, as an example, choosing a painter's method is simple and direct. It is to see whether he is a member of the Art Association or the Book Association, whether he is famous or not, and his skill and skill in writing. Not much attention. In terms of specific operations, it is also simple and straightforward. It is to identify a person who has the potential to continue to buy his paintings underground until he pushes his painting prices to a high level. Represented by Fan Zeng, Long Rui, Fan Yang, and Tian Liming, the current average price per square foot is tens of thousands or even more than 100,000 yuan. However, in a decade or more years ago, a painting was only a few hundred yuan, and the price was so driven. Xu Hao believes that fame has become an amplifier for prices, and some less-known modern and contemporary artists and their works have long been ignored.

Sometimes the value of an artwork's uncertainties is even manifested in a more naked way. Pumice said that he once hoped to go to a Jiangsu gift company with an annual production value of several billion yuan to obtain Bible studies. He found that their business practices were very simple. No matter whether they were porcelain, bronze ware, jade or paintings, they would all be “gold affixed”. Know how much gold is used and how much money is converted into *** value. This move is very useful. The old side also said that the best-selling gift in the antique city is the gold statue of the Buddha. It means good, "The Buddha sent peace," and the other is the goldsmith. It looks precious.