In China, the fine art of business
Billionaire Wang Zhongjun leads the list of wealthy collectors keen on sharing their acquisitions with the public
Self-made billionaire and art collector Wang Zhongjun, 56, is an ambitious man. The chairman of Huayi Brothers Media aims to profit not only from China’s flourishing entertainment industry but also by trading in art.
Wang signed a strategic cooperation agreement on June 22 in Beijing through which Huayi Brothers Venture Capital, an affiliate of Wang’s media enterprise, will establish an art-auction house in Shanghai jointly with Beijing Poly International Auction and Tianchen Times, a Beijing-based cultural corporation that Wang co-founded.
A regular bidder at auctions, Wang says he has been collecting art for nearly 20 years, and the Shanghai auction house, which will be set up by the end of the year, will immediately stage its inaugural sale and two sales annually starting next year.
He says that the new company will also offer art-related financial services and products.
The signing ceremony was attended by high-ranking executives of state-owned China Poly Group Corp, including its chairman, Xu Niansha. It also attracted the news media, art collectors and artists such as Zeng Fanzhi and Ai Xuan, whose paintings Wang favours.
The Huayi Brothers-Poly marriage, a union of two home-grown business giants, will benefit both partners since they’ll be able to access each other’s client pools, says Zhao Xu, executive director of Poly International Auction.
“Wang’s love of art has influenced many of his entrepreneur friends, who now also buy artworks and are potential clients we hope to reach out to,” Zhao says.
Poly, which has outlets selling fine art in Beijing, Hong Kong, Weifang in Shandong province, Guangzhou in Guangdong and Xiamen in Fujian, earned US$833 million (Bt29.4 billion) in 2015, ranking third in world art sales behind Christie’s and Sotheby’s, according to a survey by Paris-based Artprice.com and Artron’s Beijing-based Art Market Monitor.
Explaining why Shanghai was chosen for the new auction house, Zhao says that, although Beijing has long been the country’s art hub, more than 30 per cent of Poly’s customers are in Shanghai and neighbouring Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.
One of China’s most developed areas, the Yangtze River Delta boasts a long tradition of collecting art, and has produced many prominent buyers over the years.
Meanwhile, Wang says he’ll build his own art space in Beijing next year. He aims to “pay back to society” by sharing his art with the public. “Opening an art gallery is the ultimate goal of a collector, and it should be for the public good,” he says.
One of China’s richest media moguls, Wang, a Beijing native, is worth more than $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine. He co-founded Huayi Brothers Media with brother Wang Zhonglei in 1994, specialising in film production, record labels and talent representation.
He was ranked at 309 on Forbes’ China rich list in 2015 and 1,712nd on the world billionaires list.
In an interview with Sotheby’s magazine last year, Wang said he became interested in collecting art while taking painting classes in primary school. He started his collection with Chinese oil paintings from the early 20th century, and then began acquiring sculpture and contemporary work by Leng Jun and Zhang Xiaogang.
He’s recently purchased Western art to broaden his collection, paying $61.8 million for Vincent van Gogh’s “Vase with Daisies and Poppies” in 2014 and $29.93 million for Pablo Picasso’s “Woman with a Hair Bun on a Sofa” last May. Last month at a Beijing auction he splashed 207 million yuan (nearly Bt2 million) on a calligraphic letter known as “Jushi Tie” written by Song Dynasty politician Zeng Gong.
“I’ve been painting in oil for years and I know little about classical Chinese painting and calligraphy,” Wang says. “With the purchase of ‘Jushi Tie’ I can learn more about ancient Chinese art.”
Wang has brushed up on his own painting technique in recent years. In 2013 he displayed his work at Yuan Space, opened by Zeng Fanzhi, and last year had a solo exhibition at Poly Art Centre.
“Being Chinese, I feel it’s pretty sad if an art gallery doesn’t have top-quality Chinese art. The reason I bought ‘Jushi Tie’ was quite simple – I want to exhibit top Chinese artworks at my museum.”
Wang says he doesn’t know how many artworks he owns, only that he has a large amount of Chinese art and that his museum will be an “amazing” one.
As Chinese buyers with deep pockets like Wang diversify their collections, their extravagant purchases are sparking debate at home. But the eyebrow-raising deals are being made not only as long-term, secure investments. They could also be used by collectors to promote their private galleries.
Shanghai billionaire and collector Liu Yiqian and his wife, Wang Wei, who are this year listed among the world’s top 100 collectors |by Artnet.com, own Amedeo Modigliani’s painting “Reclining Nude”, which they bought at auction for $170 million late last year.
They also own the Long Museum, which has two branches in Shanghai, and last month opened an affiliate in Chongqing.
