B4U India: Asian artist’s gunpowder work sells for record $9.5 m at Christie’s

Asian artist’s gunpowder work sells for record $9.5 m at
Christie’s
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ANI India on 27 November, 2007 06:53:00
 
With an unidentified Asian art investor paying a whopping 9.5 million dollars
for a set of 14 abstract paintings made using gunpowder, the Asian art market
surely looks that it has come of age.
The paintings made by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang have become the most
expensive works of contemporary Asian art to be sold at auction.
The paintings were auctioned at Christies.
Jonathan Stone, the international business director for Asian art at the
auction house, said that the first day of the five-day autumn sales had
achieved remarkable prices.
Christies took in 107 million dollars on the day, more than four times its
estimate, with buyers from India, China, Europe and the United States.
Stone said that Guo-Qiang was very highly respected.
Hes very highly respected. It was a great work  rare, in good condition.
There is a huge amount of worldwide interest in works of this strength, Times
Online quoted him, as saying.
Contemporary Chinese art is a window into the changes in China in the past
couple of decades, showing the country through the prism of the artists eye,
he said. (ANI)