What does the future hold for art galleries as artists can now leverage on social media to reach and engage directly with potential customers? More importantly, will auction houses meet the same fate as these art galleries?

Creating art, once regarded as an economically challenging profession, is now a sustainable career choice thanks to social media, according to Malaysian artist Red Hong Yi.

Budding and professional artists can now represent, market and brand themselves on Facebook, Instagram and Alphabet's YouTube instead of relying on agents and physical gallery spaces, Hong told CNBC on the sidelines of Credit Suisse's annual Asian Investment Conference.

In recent years, Hong has gained fame for creating portraits of well-known personalities such as Yao Ming and Jackie Chan using everyday objects — think teabags, food and chopsticks.

In the past, artists fought for exhibition space and profits as galleries typically kept 50 percent of sales from a purchase, she said. It was "a lot more difficult" to survive on art back then, she continued.

Now, artists can reach broader audiences and engage with potential customers directly on social media channels, she said, pointing to famous artists Takashi Murakami and Damien Hirst as examples.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/red-hong-yi-how-social-media-is-disrupting-art.html

Record Breaker? Rare Chinese Gold-Pink Kangxi Bowl Comes to Auction at Sotheby’s Hong Kong by Laura Chesters

The puce-enamel falangcai bowl carries an estimate of HK$200m (£18.5m). It has a Kangxi (1662-1722) yuzhi four-character mark and is of the period. ‘Yuzhi' marks, which translate as 'made for the Imperial use of...', suggest a close relationship with the Imperial court and it is believed to have been made for the personal use of the Kangxi emperor. 

The 5.75in (14.5cm) diameter enamelled bowl once belonged to the collector Henry M Knight and can be traced back to Shanghai in 1930.

Sotheby’s experts have described it as the finest example of its type and the only ever recorded with this specific design. A closely related example, in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, is painted with different flowers with the exact same colour background. It is believed the two were painted and fired side by side at the imperial kilns in Jingdezhen. The bowls are likely to have then been painted in the Imperial Palace workshops in the Forbidden City in Beijing, possibly by Jesuits resident at the court of the Kangxi emperor, and fired a second time.

To achieve a new record for Chinese ceramics, the bowl would have to better the HK$260m (£24.9m) bid for a Ru guanyao brush washer that sold at Sotheby'sin October.

The auction of the bowl is part of a series of six sales totalling 300 lots with a total estimate of nearly £68m.

Nicolas Chow, deputy chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, said: “The gold-pink falangcai bowl ranks without question among the very finest imperially enamelled porcelains made for the Kangxi emperor. There is extraordinary quality and breadth in our offerings of Chinese art this season.”

Sotheby’s is offering the bowl at its Hong Kong Chinese Works of Art Spring Sale on April 3 at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.

https://www.antiquestradegazette.com/news/2018/record-breaker-rare-chinese-gold-pink-kangxi-bowl-comes-to-auction-at-sotheby-s-hong-kong/

Documentary on Underglazed Five-Coloured Porcelain

Dear readers,

I recently came across this educational and enlightening documentary on underglazed five-coloured porcelain (in the link below). While it's in Mandarin, they do have English subtitles. 

Enjoy!  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdFBdZxrx_Q&feature=youtu.be