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China takes French spot in world art mart

China’s art market overtook France’s for the first time last year in world rankings still dominated by New York and London auction houses

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BEIJING: China’s art market overtook France’s for the first time last year in world rankings still dominated by New York and London auction houses, according to figures released by artprice on Monday.

The global art market saw an overall rise for the seventh year running, with revenue up 43.8 per cent on the previous year, according to Artprice’s 2007 data comprising sales of fine arts works — paintings, drawings and photographs.

The rise was driven by a substantially higher number of sales above the million-dollar line — 1,254 compared with 810 in 2006. ‘2007 was therefore a veritable annus mirabilis for the art market,’ artprice said.

New York kept its position as the world’s auction leader with a 41.7 per cent market share while London generated 30 per cent of art market revenue, a two-point increase on the previous year.

France, with 6.4%, fell from its traditional third place, outdone for the first time by China, which accounted for 7.3 per cent of world sales after a whopping 78 per cent rise, including 75 sales above the million-dollar line.

‘Sustained by rapidly growing domestic demand and rising star artists commanding rocketing prices, China is capable of competing with New York and London on sales of fine art,’ the report said. ‘China’s arrival as a major player in the art world,’ it added, ‘has proved even more spectacular on the particularly buoyant and highly competitive contemporary art segment.’

World passion for contemporary works was best underlined by last year’s top-selling artist, pop-art star Andy Warhol, who for the first time in a decade outsold Picasso.
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