Success is never guaranteed for artists, but at least those who manage to hustle up a show in a museum or non-profit space should get paid something. This is the argument of the New York-based artist rights group W.A.G.E. (Working Artists and the Greater Economy), whose slogan is “fighting to get paid for making the world more interesting.” Two years ago, the group teamed up with Artists Space to gather data about the economic experiences of 600 visual and performing artists who had worked with New York City art non-profits in the past five years. Included in the survey were questions about artist fees, coverage of exhibition costs, and travel expenses for shows, screenings, lectures, and performances at over 67 institutions. The results give a snapshot of just how economically uncertain the terrain of artistic success is in New York.

W.A.G.E. unveiled the results of the data they collected at an event at Artists Space earlier this month. To get a deeper insight into the survey process and the final results, ARTINFO posed some questions to the group via email. Read on for the surprising numbers, and for the group’s recommendations on how to fix the prevailing dearth of artist fees.

What kind of trends concerning artist compensation did you uncover after analyzing the 2010 survey?

The results point toward a disparity in the way monies are distributed by institutions. Essentially, there are no consistent patterns regarding if and how public and private funds are being distributed to independently contracted performers, lecturers, or visual artists. 

The most conclusive information is that 58 percent of artists invited to work with small, medium, and large non-profit arts institutions and museums received no form of payment, expense reimbursement, or artist fee at all. While some might argue that the survey is skewed toward those who had a negative experience with an institution and were therefore more motivated to complain about it, the fact is that they had good reason to complain: 337 out of 577 artists did not receive any compensation, which is 337 too many.

In terms of fee payment, it’s very clear that artists are more likely to receive a fee for a solo exhibition than for a group exhibition. On the other hand, when they did receive a fee for a solo exhibition, almost the same number of artists who got a fee in the range of $2,000 to $4,999 did not receive a fee at all.  

In terms of the size of the fee, the range was not surprising, and is in line with what we found [nonprofit organization] Artists Space had been paying in that same time frame when we dug into their payment history. For exhibitions involving two to five artists, 47 percent received an honorarium between $100 and $500, while 22 percent did not receive any artist fee. For exhibitions involving six or more artists, 48 percent received less than $300 honorarium, while 40 percent did not receive a fee.

It looks like larger organizations and museums were 10 percent more likely not to pay an artist fee than small- to medium-sized organizations. While 10 percent isn’t a significant difference, the fact that larger organizations were not more likely to pay is significant, because we assume that larger institutions have greater means than smaller ones, and would therefore be more able to pay fees. The conclusion one might draw from this is that it’s not a matter of being able but is instead a matter of being willing.

In other words, the coverage of expenses and the payment of fees are limited by the budgetary priorities of an organization. What are funds being spent on in lieu of paying artists: Salaries? Overhead? Capital projects? Fundraising events? We can only answer this conclusively by looking at artist fees paid out annually in relation to the rest of an organization’s budget. The only problem is that there is no line item in annual operating budgets that indicates artist fees, which is why we had to do this survey. Institutions wouldn’t tell us, but artists would.

What do these results mean for artists and their relationship with larger organizations?

After compiling and analyzing the results, we are more convinced than ever that there is little clarity, consistency, transparency, or negotiation regarding artist fees — above and beyond expenses, which themselves are being covered wholly inconsistently.

Cultural producers are not in a specific relationship with non-profit arts institution as a charity provider, or on the other end of the spectrum, as a speculator. Cultural producers serve as content providers and as educators within this relationship, as non-profit status affords the arts institution tax-exempt status to provide a public good. Whether the cultural producers an institution works with have none, some, or an overabundance of cultural capital and/or commercial market value, this should have no bearing on whether or not fees are paid and expenses are covered; how each project is negotiated with each artist, collective, lecturer or performer can take whatever form the project needs, but the provision of an artist fee is a necessity.

Did any of the results end up surprising you? Was there any good news to be had?

There was a surprise in gender differences in the coverage of travel expenses. It turned out that 69 percent of female respondents reported that they did not have any travel expenses, and of the remaining 31 percent who did, only 10 percent of them were partially or fully compensated for their expenses. Whereas 45 percent of male respondents reported that they did not have any travel expenses, and of the remaining 55 percent who did, 50 percent of them were partially or fully compensated for their expenses.

According to our sampling, some people (42 percent) who work with these institutions are actually paid — so it is possible. But accordingly to our sampling, over half are not. This inconsistency occurred throughout the data, and is what spurred the W.A.G.E. survey to begin with. Now we know it's true. This pattern must change, and eventually end. 

Other good news is that there are many cases of artists having very positive experiences exhibiting with non-profits in New York. The purpose of this survey was not to publicly shame these organizations, but to gather evidence that there is a lack of consistency in their payment practices. For the most part we assume, and have experienced first-hand, that the dedication of non-profits to supporting the work of artists is a fact. We suspect that artist fees are not being paid for a number of different reasons, the main one being that there are no existing guidelines for what is appropriate and what is anticipated. The provision of an artist fee is therefore postponed, ignored, and if paid, is done so arbitrarily. W.A.G.E. Certification is intended to change that.

What are the first steps the art world can take to start solving the issues that the survey confronts?

An artist fee must be part of any exhibition, lecture, or performance proposal made to visual artists and performers. 100 percent of the cultural producers who work with arts institutions must be offered a fee as part of the negotiation of their work with that entity.

Both the artist and the art institution must be held to a compensation standard, whether this comes about because an institution develops methods of internal regulation in order to receive W.A.G.E. Certification, or via external pressure from funders — or both. W.A.G.E. Certification could require organizations to provide proof of payment of fees in the form of canceled checks paid to exhibiting artists and by incorporating artist fees as a separate and distinct line item in operating budgets as a matter of protocol. W.A.G.E. Certification is still in development, but funders could enforce this now.

How difficult is it to survey such a disparate group as artists? Is it possible to be at all comprehensive?

It is extremely difficult to be comprehensive, yes. The economic structure we're dealing with is unique, baffling, complex, layered, and alarmingly opaque, pitting cultural producers against each other in a destructive game of competition without compensation for their work. The non-profit is not a commercial marketplace, and although it clearly influences that marketplace, it is not one and the same; rather, it is a separate working and presentation space with its own budgets and set of mechanisms.

Surveying artists is difficult because of the unique nature of each artistic proposal and exhibition type. There are likely to be more exceptions to the options provided in the survey than there are those that conformed. Film screenings and lectures are a case in point. These activities can either be considered separate categories or they can be considered exhibitions or performances unto themselves. If an artist considered a single screening at MoMA to be a solo exhibition, then that’s how the data would have been entered. When we constructed the survey we were also limited by the technology at the time (2010). Survey Monkey has since evolved to make more nuanced data collection possible.

Changes in artistic practice necessarily make it difficult to place things in defined categories, and it was a challenge to take all of that into account without the survey becoming prohibitively complex. We’re thinking about how we can fix any holes, augment it for the continued collection of this data, and represent the fluid and flexible nature of negotiation strategies between arts institutions and cultural producers. 

Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Fashion, and Performing Arts, April 23-27, 2012:

ART

— With the inaugural Frieze New York art fair just a week away, Kyle Chayka looked at all that the newcomer and its various satellites have to offer, while Orit Gat spoke to artist Uri Aran about the site-specific performance he'll be staging during the fair. Frieze's chief competitor, the Armory Show, snuck back into the spotlight when it announced its 2013 dates.

— In anticipation of next week's other blockbuster, Sotheby's sale of Edvard Munch's "The Scream," Shane Ferro gathered all the information anoyone could possibly need to know about this prized pastel version of the iconic work.

— Julia Halperin shined a light on the plight of Dallas's Nasher Sculpture Center, whose new glass-clad neighbor, Museum Tower, is reflecting the sun onto the museum with such intensity that it has forced the closure of a James Turrell installation and the re-location of a Picasso painting.

— Los Angeles gallery Blum & Poe revealed that its hugely popular exhibition on the Japanese art movement Mono-ha will travel to New York's Gladstone Gallery in June.

— Alanna Martinez spoke to British artist duo Gilbert & George, who opened a three-part exhibition in New York this week at Lehmann Maupin and Sonnabend.

DESIGN & FASHION

— Coline Milliard was at this morning's London press conference where Dasha Zhukova and Rem Koolhaas announced that the latter's OMA would design the new home for the former's Garage Center for Contemporary Culture in central Moscow.

— Kelly Chan reported that a new $750-million skyscraper on Manhattan's Park Avenue will be designed by one of 11 competing firms, including a veritable who's who of global starchitects.

— Apropos of the craze for the Pebble watch, Janelle Zara noted that the most successful Kickstarter funding campaigns are for geeky Apple product accessories, while more noble endeavors go un-funded.

— Iraq recruited the help of French architectural conservationists to restore a stunning modernist gymnasium in Baghdad designed by Le Corbusier.

— Ann Binlot reported that Jeff Koons gave designer Lisa Perry access to his entire oeuvre to use as inspiration and imagery for her new capsule collection.

PERFORMING ARTS

— Nate Freeman reported that pop music it girl of a moment ago Lana Del Rey will play a Mulberry-sponsored party during Frieze New York.

— Graham Fuller reported that Lars von Trier will be the first art house filmmaker to venture into un-simulated, hardcore porn territory, with the sex scenes in his upcoming film starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, "Nymphomania."

— Richard Branson's Virgin Produced film company has tapped Brandon and Phillip Murphy to adapt Robert Greenfield’s 2006 book "Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell With the Rolling Stones" into a screenplay for a feature film on the feud between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

— Nick Catucci speculated that the upcoming Elizabeth Moss movie "A Buddy Story" will be "a potentially seamless, tickling embodiment of the wistful-winsome modestness of intelligence-depletingly derivative independent cinema."

— Graham Fuller noted that Felicity Jones will star alongside Ralph Fiennes in "The Invisible Woman," his upcoming screen adaptation of a speculative biography of Charles Dickens's mistress of 13 years Ellen (“Nelly”) Ternan.

MELBOURNE – The long-running dispute between Geoffrey Smith, current chairman of Sotheby’s Australia, and his former partner of 14 years, Robert Gould, a Melbourne-based private art dealer, has once again reared its ugly head. Since 2006 Smith and Gould have been embroiled in a series of public battles over assets acquired during their relationship.

Smith, 42, is currently in the process of suing Gould, 56, for a portion of the assets, which include real estate and a significant collection of fine art. The total value is said to be between $31.3 million and $58.4 million – $58.4 million according to Smith’s lawyer, and $31.3 million according to Gould’s lawyer.

Smith claims that he contributed to the couple’s personal art collection and also advised on most of the acquisitions made by Gould’s gallery business while they were together, and thus contributed to the gallery’s profits.  

It is claimed that Smith’s contributions to the running of Gould’s gallery were instrumental in the rise of Gould and his business to national and international prominence – a sentiment echoed by one prominent Australian art dealer who says that without Smith’s intellect and knowledge, Gould would not have had the successful business that he has today.

Smith is seeking a share of the proceeds from a number of works by artists such as Brett Whiteley, Arthur Boyd, Howard Arkley, Fred Williams, Sidney Nolan, Charles Blackman, and Andy Warhol. Documents from 2006 estimated the works of art being fought over to be worth $7.3 million. Gould denies that the collection exists.

Allegations that Smith had an affair with another man during his relationship with Gould, and were thus no longer living in a domestic relationship as defined by the Property Law Act, are part of Gould’s defense against Smith’s claim. The man he is alleged to have had the affair with is none other than Sotheby's chief executive and former deputy lord mayor Gary Singer. Smith denies that the affair took place.

This is not the first time that the relationship between Smith and Gould has made headlines. In 2006 Smith, then curator of Australian art 1900-1970 at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), was suspended by his employer while investigations were conducted into allegations of misconduct relating to the implications of his relationship with Gould. 

The 2006 inquiry into Smith’s actions began after it was discovered that in a sworn affidavit which emerged as part of the dispute between Smith and Gould, Smith stated that he had played a crucial role in developing the business of his former partner Robert Gould during his time as an employee of the NGV.

As a result of the 2006 investigation, Smith resigned from his position as curator at the National Gallery of Victoria.

The 216-page catalogue of the upcoming Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute exhibition “Schiaparelli & Prada: Impossible Conversations” just landed on our desks at ARTINFO. Since those who are closely involved with the show – like director Baz Luhrman, who is making a film inspired by its concept — are not divulging any details, we naturally began flipping through the tome to search for clues. While we weren’t able to determine if the show will have the theatrics or special effects of past Costume Institute productions, the book did shed light on Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada’s commonalities, from the jolie-laide quirk the two share to their affinity for the surreal. A thoughtful preview, the catalogue pages offer an insightful look at the exhibition, which opens to the public on May 10. Here’s our take on what to expect:

1. The Show Will Consist of Seven Sections: The book is divided into seven parts, obviously correlating with the sections of the installation. In case you were wondering, the titles are: “Waist Up/Waist Down,” “Ugly Chic,” “Hard Chic,” “Naïf Chic,” “The Classical Body,” “The Exotic Body,” and “The Surreal Body.”

2. Similar Style Garments by Each Designer Will Be Displayed Together: While we’ve known this would happen since the show’s announcement last October, the tome clues us in on which pieces have been selected. For instance, an image of a model in a fall/winter 2004 Prada blazer with rhinestone embellishments on the breast pockets is laid out next to a black-and-white Vogue photograph of a model wearing a fall 1938 Schiaparelli Mandarin-collar jacket with similar adornments on the pocket. Another example is a fall/winter 1996 color-block Prada sweater, which is partnered with a black-and-white image of a Schiaparelli sweater from the February 1927 issue of Paris Vogue.

3. There Will Be Lots of Fashion Photography: The catalogue features photographs by greats of the past like Man Ray and Cecil Beaton, and those by contemporary talents like David Sims and Toby McFarlan. Will the images accompany mannequins donning the actual ensembles, or will they stand alone? We presume it will be a mix, considering there are approximately 200 pictures (a good portion were detail shots of a featured piece), while only about 80 creations will be displayed.

4. Conversations Galore: Since the title of the show is “Impossible Conversations,” we assumed that Prada and Schiaparelli would be involved in some made-up dialogue. Harold Koda and Andrew Bolton, curators at the Costume Institute, said there would be simulated video discussions between the two women. We hope there will be headphones for more intimate eavesdropping. Additionally, tête-à-tête style conversations between Prada and Schiaparelli are sprinkled throughout the book. Here’s an excerpt of their “talk” on Salvador Dalí:

“ES: Dalí was a constant caller. We devised together the coat with many drawers from one of his famous pictures. The black hat in the form of a shoe with a shocking velvet heel standing up like a small column was another innovation...

MP: These collaborations with Dalí have been probably the only real artist-designer relationships. Many critics have said that my spring 2000 collection, which included prints of lips and hearts, referenced these surrealistic fashions. In truth, it referenced Yves Saint Laurent...”

5. Star Power: An April 1937 Harper’s Bazaar photo of Diana Vreeland, an October 1936 portrait of Marlene Dietrich in British Vogue, and a June 1937 Vogue image of Wallis Simpson illustrate some of the bold names of yesteryear who favored Schiaparelli’s designs, outshining models Daphne Groeneveld and Kate Upton, who wear the Prada pieces.

Click on the slide show to see highlights from the catalogue of “Schiaparelli & Prada: Impossible Conversations,” available from Yale University Press.

You wouldn't buy a $25,000 pair of shoes without trying them on, so why buy art that way? That's the logic behind the new San Francisco-based art-rental startup Artify It (artify.it, not to be confused with the Toronto-based Canadian art rental site Artify.ca), which aims to rent out original works to individuals and businesses on a month-to-month subscription basis — and as a further twist, to give subscribers a chance to become dealers themselves by selling the art off their walls.

The startup just received $800,000 in seed funding from a group of venture capital powerhouses including PayPal's founder Peter Thiel, the former director of Google Search products Benjamin Ling, and Phoenix-based investment group Quest Ventures. Artify It will launch its art-rental-cum-dealership to San Franciscans in mid-May.

The company was co-founded by Lorenzo Thione, an Italian-born entrepreneur who is probably best known for creating Powerset, a search startup that was sold to Microsoft in 2008 for roughly $100 million. According to Thione, Artify It, like many art-tech startups, is attempting to democratize the collecting process by taking some of the risk out of purchasing original artworks while at the same time easing them into the art world. Artify It will only work with artists in the area around their office (currently only in San Francisco, but coming soon to New York), but would-be subscribers from other locales can rent art as long as they are willing to pay a shipping premium.

"I think the specifics of what we are doing are pretty new," said Thione of allowing subscribers to both rent and deal art, adding that the focus on local San Francisco artists and clients will work to the Web-based company's advantage. "The real advantages come from a really interesting demographic. People are very used to the idea of taking advantage of the opportunities brought by new technology, and we have a more receptive pool of potential initial consumers."

Subscriptions will range from $50-150 per month, though the final figures still haven't been hammered out, and will depend on the artwork and the price-point chosen by the artist. By the time of launch, Artify It plans to have about 20-40 artists in their catalogue with 200-500 works to choose from.  The company is targeting both private individuals and small businesses that want to spruce up their offices but have minimal budgets.

While most of this sounds like a natural extension of the art-democratization-via-the-Internet ethos of other art-tech companies ARTINFO has covered, the real novelty that Artify It will bring to the table — for better or for worse — is the "Artify It Scout" function, which essentially allows subscribers to become dealers. All the rented works are also up for sale, and if the subscriber can sell a painting off their own wall, Artify It will cut them in on a part of the commission.

This is a pretty scary proposition, considering the entire primary art marketplace is built on the assumption that you need to be a dealer with connections and access to asymmetrical information in order to sell art. But how hard can it be? Via Artify It, we'll soon see.

Looks like Helsinki won't be getting a Guggenheim after all. The city's board has rejected a proposal to build a $185 million branch of the global museum in the Finnish capital, according to Reuters. The project was shot down amid fears that it would be too costly considering the city's economic situation.

When the Guggenheim first proposed constructing a branch in Helsinki last January, it noted that the city had a highly educated population but lacked a significant modern art collection — a gap it could help fill. The Finnish government summarily agreed to pay the Guggenheim $2.5 million to engage in a "feasibility study" for the new museum. The Guggenheim decided to forge ahead after the study was complete, leaving the next vote up to the city council. If the council had approved, the new building would have opened in 2018 at a city-owned site in Helsinki's rapidly developing south harbor.

Last month, a survey published in the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat revealed that a whopping 75 percent of Helsinki's inhabitants were against the project, which would cost more than $19 million in running costs per year on top of the initial investment of $185 million. Helsinki's local cultural scene has been battling arts cuts all year — the city parliament closed eight local museums this year, and sliced three million euros from the budget of the city's antiquities board.

Reacting to the news, Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong told CultureGrrl in a statement, "We would have liked to develop the idea for the museum one step further, through an international open architectural competition, but as we emphasized from the start, our study had no predetermined outcome. All the same, we remain committed to the possibility of being in Helsinki."

Finnish culture minister Paavo Arhinmaki told Reuters he thought it was inappropriate that Finnish taxpayers, clearly in a tight spot themselves, would end up paying the majority of the construction cost. "It is also worth considering whether Finnish taxpayers should finance a rich, multinational foundation in the first place," he wrote on his blog.

The most memorable fashion campaigns are the ones that strike a chord with the person observing them. Who can forget Mark Wahlberg’s sexy abs alongside the then-teen Kate Moss for Calvin Klein in the early ’90s, or Carine Roitfeld’s stylings in the Gucci ads showing pubic hair trimmed to a perfect G in the late ’90s? For this week’s “Fashion Star” on NBC, contestants had to create a campaign that captured their brand with one single image.

Okay, so the mock advertisements were nowhere near the caliber of those shot by superstar photographers Mario Testino and Annie Liebowitz, but they did the job, reminding us of the types of images that come out of novice fashion school shoots. This week, Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive stepped in to help coach the group. On to the ads:

We Liked: Ronnie Escalante’s whimsical shot of a model wearing his backless dress holding a bouquet of red latex balloons was a winner, as was Kara Laricks’s side-by-side shots of the same model styled in her tuxedo shirt – once in a masculine manner and then in feminine manner. We also thought Luciana Scarabello’s depiction of a model hunting for her prey in the forest in one of her structured print dresses was pretty cool.

So-So: While Nzimiro Oputa’s men’s cardigan was a versatile and smart piece, the suitcases didn’t feel particularly original next to the model. Orly Shani’s Polaroid take was passable, but her motorcycle dress was unoriginal.

The Failures: Ross Bennet’s attempt to capture Texas heat for his hunting jacket definitely looked like, as Saks Fifth Avenue buyer Teron Schaefer put it, “a film poster from ‘Out of Africa.’” The biggest bust was Nicky Poulis’s tight shot of the model’s head. Where the heck was the maxi dress she was trying to sell?

The buyers felt the same way. H&M snapped up Escalante’s dress for $50,000, Saks bought Laricks’s tuxedo shirt for $80,000 and Scarabello’s frock for $50,000, and Macy’s took Oputa’s cardigan for $50,000

The mentors were ambivalent about who they should save out of Shani, Bennett, and Poulis, so they didn’t pick anybody. The buyers didn’t find their decision as difficult, and cut southern boy Bennett. Surprisingly, all of the winning pieces are still in stock online – guess those campaigns didn’t sell well to the real customers.

Related:

"Fashion Star:" Episode 7 Report: Karma Strikes and John Varvatos Fights for a Suit

"Fashion Star" Episode 6 Report: A Childhood Tale of Tenacity and the End of the "Two-Fer"

"Fashion Star" Episode 5 Report: Window Display Flop and Free Advice From H&M

“Fashion Star” Episode 4 Report: The Case of the Cocky Texan’s Tacky Petticoat and Snarky Celebrity References

"Fashion Star" Episode 3 Report: Party Rockers, a Trapeze Act, and the Return of the Plaid Fabric

"Fashion Star" Episode 2 Report: Jessica Simpson's Odd Dream, Plus Tie Dresses and Tuxedo Pants

NBC's Reality Show "Fashion Star" Fills a Void, With Style

The year 2011 delivered three seemingly incredible statistics that confirmed the status of China as a major power in the global art world. In March, Artprice, the online clearing-house for art market data, declared China the world’s largest art market based on the total value of fine art auction sales in 2010. Three months later, France’s auction regulator, the Conseil des Ventes, released its annual report on the world’s top auction houses and included no fewer than 5 from China in its top 10. Moreover, 10 Chinese houses made the Conseil’s top 20. Two of them, Poly International Auction and its archrival, China Guardian, took third and fourth places, respectively. The final—and to many observers the most shocking—statistic came at year’s end, when Artprice crunched the numbers for its annual list of the world’s top artists at auction and found that Picasso, who had long reigned supreme, had been toppled by two Chinese modern masters who were largely unknown in the West: Zhang Daqian (1899–1983) and Qi Baishi (1864–1957).

More than the others, that last result signaled the scale of what has been happening in the auction rooms of Asia. New tastes, new names, and new modes of operating are in play, and no one seriously interested in the art market can afford to ignore the scene any longer. A glance at the numbers tells us that for now, the Asia story is really the story of China. In 2011, China—which includes Hong Kong—accounted for 41.4 percent of the world auction market, while the remainder of Asia added only another 1.6 percent to that total. Particularly noteworthy is the degree to which the Asian Market is driven by auctions. In the United States and Europe, galleries and dealers control a considerable slice of the action, but collectors in Asia seem to prefer to conduct their transactions through an auction house. “People are confident in the auction room,” observes Colin Sheaf, the chairman of Bonhams Asia. “It provides a very public forum, giving you confidence about not just the authenticity of what you are buying but also the level at which you are buying.”

Hong Kong

Unsurprisingly, Christie’s and Sotheby’s were instrumental in kick-starting the entire regional art market. According to Sheaf, “That the Asian market is now dominated by auction buying and selling is a direct result of Sotheby’s and Christie’s enjoining their global rivalry in the Hong Kong forum back in 1986." A great deal of the annual Asian art market action now centers on the spring and fall seasons in Hong Kong. Christie’s and Sotheby’s hold the lead, but an increasing number of houses from elsewhere in Asia shadow the major sales, snapping up business from local collectors. Some of these smaller houses do more business in Hong Kong than they do at home. Last year Ravenel, Taiwan’s leading auction house, moved six of its top lots in Hong Kong, including Sanyu’s Five Nudes, from the 1950s, which sold in May for $HK128.32 million ($16,493,573), setting a world record for a Chinese oil painting.

Hong Kong is the world’s third-largest auction market after New York and London. With rock-bottom taxes, zero tariffs on art and most other goods, a well-regarded legal system, and unmatched infrastructure, from banking to transport to communications, the city is a magnet for buyers from across the region. The authorities have astutely smoothed out wrinkles in the commercial environment, scrapping wine tariffs in 2008 to propel the city to global leadership in the wine auction market. Jewelry is the other auction sector where Hong Kong is now in contention for the top spot.

In 1973 Sotheby’s became the first house to hold auctions in Hong Kong. It would be a decade before Christie’s arrived, opening an office in 1984 and holding its first sales two years later. “Our first auction in Hong Kong realized $1.8 million with two sales, and we were terribly pleased,” recalls François Curiel, the head of Christie’s Asia. “Fast-forward to 2011: We sold more than $904 million in Asia with 27 auctions. So within 25 years, we increased our turnover by a factor of more than 500.” The truly telling figure is the contribution of Asia to the house’s global bottom line. Its pioneering 1986 Hong Kong auction added just 0.3 percent to the house’s sales for the year. In 2011 Christie’s drew as much as 16 percent of its total global take of $5.7 billion from its Hong Kong salesroom.

Last year Sotheby’s did $1 billion of business in Hong Kong, scoring a win for the year over its old rival. Sotheby’s also attracted most of the regional limelight with a glamorous series of sales from prestige collections. These set new records and staked a strong claim to three key areas of the Hong Kong market: Chinese contemporary, Chinese ceramics, and so-called fine Chinese painting—traditional ink-on-paper works created in the modern period.

Sotheby’s sellout auction of the Ullens Collection in April 2011 set a new world record for Chinese contemporary art when Zhang Xiaogang’s oil-on-canvas triptych Forever Lasting Love, 1988, went for a total of $10 million. Equally important was the message that the sale sent about the importance of Hong Kong to the market for Chinese contemporary art, a sector that just five years ago was centered in New York and London.

The market for Chinese porcelain has shown comparable strength. In 2011 Sotheby’s secured the right to sell the fabled Meiyintang Collection of Chinese porcelain, assembled over five decades by two Swiss brothers. Items that once might have been consigned in London or New York became headliners in Hong Kong, with the star lot, a meiping vase from the Yongle imperial period of the early 15th century, selling for $HK168.7 million ($21.6 million), double the previous record for Ming porcelain.

The final record-making category at Sotheby’s Hong Kong last year was in fine Chinese painting. Although not as widely written about in the West as contemporary art and porcelain, it is the heart of the Chinese art market. Once the province of a gentlemen’s club of wealthy Hong Kong and Taiwan connoisseurs, it has been supercharged since new money from the mainland started pouring in a few years ago. In 2011 this sector accounted for more than a quarter of sales at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, totaling more than $265 million. This has planted names like Fu Baoshi, Qi Baishi, Wu Guanzhong, Xu Beihong, and Zhang Daqian on global lists of top artists at auction. The record price for Zhang Daqian was set at Sotheby’s in 2011 when Lotus and Mandarin Ducks, 1947, fetched $HK 191 million ($24.6 million).

Nevertheless, the highest price for a Chinese painting was paid not in Hong Kong but on the mainland, where QiBaishi’s A long Life, A Peaceful World, 1946, sold in May 2011 for CNY425.5 million ($65 million) at Guardian, in Beijing. The record indicates the serious challenge from the mainland houses. Hong Kong remains powerful: Together Christie’s and Sotheby’s realized almost $2 billion there last year, and that does not include figures from the raft of smaller houses from Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore that also did good business in the Harbor City. But Hong Kong is increasingly being tested by the freewheeling auction scene on the main-land, where thousands of houses, not just a handful, are hungry for a piece of the action.

On the Mainland

The dynamics of the Chinese mainland auction scene would be familiar to any experienced observer of China’s commercial sector in general. A vigorous and wildly profitable business is dominated by two commercial giants, the Beijing-based Guardian and Poly, the former operating on the private business model of Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the latter a classic practitioner of Chinese state capitalism that can draw on the massive resources of a government-owned parent group that enjoys powerful connections. The total annual sales of the Chinese “big two” are more than double those of their nearest rivals, Beijing Hanhai and Beijing Council, whose results are nevertheless sufficiently solid to earn them a place in the Conseil des Ventes top 10. Beyond Beijing, some smaller, serious houses have recently become established in Shanghai and Hangzhou. Farther afield the market is a barely regulated free-for-all, rife with tales of fakery and sharp practice.

Guardian is the mainland’s leading fine-art auction house by revenue, having wrested that position from Poly last year with fine-art sales of $901.8 million, just ahead of its competitor’s $901.6 million. The house was cofounded in 1993 by Wang Yannan, the daughter of Zhao Ziyang, former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, and Chen Dongsheng. A widely respected figure, Wang still heads Guardian. In 1993 the rules of the post Mao economy were being written, and no one was even sure if selling art and cultural relics at auction was legal. Recalling those days, Wang laughs and quotes a Chinese adage that the ignorant have no fear. “The auctions were an immediate success,” she says, “and much beyond our imagination. We were discovering a new market, a younger generation who had never owned an artwork. They couldn’t believe that you could actually get such things with money.”

Guardian thrived by tapping into this yearning to own a piece of China’s cultural heritage. Using Christie’s and Sotheby’s as models, the house built a reputation for reliability and ethical behavior. Having claimed 7.8 percent of the world’s auction sales revenue in 2011, Guardian is enjoying considerable success.

Poly (or, more formally, the Beijing Poly International Auction Company), a relative newcomer, was founded in 2005 and has followed a markedly different path in its rapid rise to the top of the Chinese auction market. As a state-owned company with extensive resources, Poly has aggressively pursued market share, offering clients liberal financing as well as lending against the value of their collections, holding them as collateral, often to be consigned to sale later.

Poly is an arm of the Poly Culture Group, which in turn is a subsidiary of the vast China Poly Group Corporation, one of the most powerful state-owned enterprises to have grown out of China’s policy of encouraging government bodies to trade for profit. Poly was originally an offshoot of the People’s Liberation Army, and defense-related industries remain its commercial backbone. The Poly Culture Group draws on a huge network of influence and connections and is an avid buyer on its own behalf, displaying its art collection in the Poly Museum in Beijing. The group has spearheaded a campaign to repatriate cultural treasures taken from China, particularly works looted from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace by French and British troops in 1860.

Poly experienced stunning success at its debut auction, taking in CNY60 million (about $70 million) in the fall of 2005. Its growth since then has been phenomenal, and the house has brought a number of prestige collections and lots to auction. When Baron Guy Ullens consigned a scroll by the Song Dynasty Emperor Huizong to raise money for his Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing in 2009, he chose Poly, in a shrewd political move. Both Poly and Guardian have conducted appraisal weekends in various cities in the West, but they are now aiming to enhance their ability to compete for consignments by opening permanent offices. Guardian inaugurated its premises on Park Avenue last December, and Poly’s New York office opened in March. The two are considering U.K. locations as well.

The Wild, Wild East

There are thousands of houses that operate on the fringes of the market and contribute to what one senior Western auction house executive describes as the “smoke and mirrors” aspect of the Chinese art market story. Auctions in mainland China are poorly regulated. In the absence of a developed legal framework, the major houses are working through their professional body, the Chinese Association of Auctioneers, to strengthen codes of conduct. One curious feature of the sector is the high rate of nonpayment. Last year a survey by the auctioneers association found that an astonishing 58 percent of lots fetching more than CNY10 million ($1.6 million) at auction in 2010 had never been paid for, representing some CNY5.6 billion ($884.5 million) in unrealized revenue. Many of these failed transactions may have been phantom sales intended to juice value, while others are thought to represent collusion between consignor and buyer to create fake collateral for commercial loans. It’s hard to see how such scams can work without the knowledge of the auction house. One senior Western auction house specialist suggests that as much as 50 percent of the impressive Chinese auction market results should be discounted, citing the high number of unknown players contributing to the total, the rate of nonpayment, and the gap between the stellar prices reported and the professionally assessed market values.

Clouding the picture further are the self-styled art investment funds that both drive and feed on price rises. Fund buyers are active in Hong Kong salesrooms as well as on the mainland, hunting for bargains that can be resold in short order and undoubtedly contributing to market distortion. In a recent interview, C.K. Cheung, a modern Chinese painting expert at Sotheby’s, described the rapidity with which works bought in Hong Kong were being flipped for profit on the mainland. One example he singled out was a painting he sold in Hong Kong in the spring 2011 season, only to see it advertised three weeks later at a Chinese auction house he had never heard of. How much these funds return to their investors is anyone’s guess, operating as they do in the badlands of China’s “gray” economy.

Another investment vehicle that enjoys a little more respectability but has an equally distorting effect on prices is the “cultural equity exchange,” which offers fractional ownership of packaged art assets. More than 60 operate in China, but the Tianjin Cultural Artwork Exchange, which opened in the northern port city of Tianjin last January, attracted particular attention because it was the first to offer shares to the general public. One of the two paintings on offer to Tianjin investors was Roaring Yellow River by the mid-ranking Chinese painter Bai Gengyan. Trading was halted by a regulatory authority in March, when shares climbed so high that they were valuing Bai’s work at around CNY103 million ($16 million), some 52 times greater than the artist’s previous high price. Regulators eventually allowed the exchange to reopen, only to shut it down again soon afterward. There are rumors it maybe allowed to reopen under state control in the future.

According to the Shanghai Daily, most Chinese cultural equity exchanges have investor capital thresholds of around CNY1 million ($160,000)—compared with just CNY50,000 ($8,000) for Tianjin—and offer a target of 15 percent annual appreciation in the shares being traded. Since these exchanges’ operations lack transparency and their representatives routinely decline to comment, it is impossible to judge how they are performing. One local commentator recently wrote in the Chinese art magazine Leap that these exchanges have all the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme.

The success of these exchanges depends on speculators with ready access to credit. It is noteworthy that as the Chinese government has tightened lending controls over the past year to tamp down the country’s real estate bubble, speculative money has retreated from the auction salesrooms, too, both on the mainland and in Hong Kong. As the tide of speculative money recedes, the market correction evident last year will probably extend and deepen through 2012.

Looking Ahead

Among some auction professionals, a market correction is not seen as a bad development. Toward the end of last year, in an interview with the leading Chinese art market Web site Artron, Guardian cofounder Chen Dongsheng predicted a 40 percent reduction in the market over the course of 2012. A chorus of agreement and approval ensued. There is a general belief that if some of the heat can be taken out of the Chinese mainland market, a lot of the corruption will evaporate, leaving the field to the more reputable houses, dealers, and collectors. Gong Jisui, a distinguished academic at the Chinese Central Academy of Fine Arts, commented to Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Daily that a 40 percent drop in the market was “not only inevitable, but also healthy.”

One of the encouraging signs of the last few years is the emergence of principled collectors in China who are committed to their areas of interest. Auction house specialists Pola Antebi, of Christie’s, and Nicolas Chow, of Sotheby’s, note these collectors tend to have more refined tastes than most of the speculators who have been driving the prices of showier pieces of Qing Dynasty decorative arts to new levels. With an eye on those collectors as well as their traditional base in Taiwan and the West, these specialists say they will be putting together more “classic” sales for the next couple of seasons at least.

Meanwhile, those presiding over the hottest Chinese sector—fine Chinese modern painting—are sanguine. Cheung of Sotheby’s observes that with the runaway growth in this sector, even a 40 percent correction will leave longer-term investors in good shape. Kevin Ching, the CEO of Sotheby’s Asia, thinks the slackening market is anything but a signal to pull back. “Even if we were to have a massive downturn, we still need to invest,” he says. “China is going to be such an incredibly important market for us.” In fact, Sotheby’s expanded its premises in Hong Kong in April and plans to take on more staff in Asia as well. Curiel, of Christie’s, is also bullish. “I feel that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in the growth of the China market. Asia is still an emerging market, and it will take some time to mature.”
 Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s are keeping a close watch on their mainland competitors, with the result that these age-old Western rivals see each other in a different light. “One thing that has happened over the last 10 years,” says Ching,“is that we have both realized we cannot just see each other as competitors. However aggressively we go up against each other, we have always competed in the same environment, playing the game by the same rules. We now often have competitors from a totally different environment playing by a different game plan, different rules. That’s the big change.”

The question for mainland operators is whether the game they play is so different that it will hurt them in the long term. Chow, international head of Chinese ceramics and works of art for Sotheby’s, detects a shift. “Recently,” he says “I’ve heard from a few clients who have said, ‘Normally this is something I would plan to consign in [mainland] China, but now I want to sell through you because I am really afraid of nonpayments.'" When interviewed for this article, the heads of both Guardian and Poly made a point of saying that they wish to learn from the Western big two. As they move to open offices in the West and go up against Christie’s and Sotheby’s more directly for the best consignments, they may find that a level playing field will end up benefiting them as well.

Crossover Potential

Is there any prospect that collector tastes in Asia will shift to deliver what Sheaf of Bonhams calls the Holy Grail—the sale of Western art to the Asian market? The evidence suggests that the quest will be a long one. Dealers like to imagine the scale of the payday when Chinese collectors routinely buy Western art, but the occasional stories of Asians making top-end purchases in NewYork or London a few years back or a Gerhard Richter changing hands in Beijing stubbornly refuse to become a trend. The only regional house to publicly test the waters is Korea’s Seoul Auction, which has been holding dedicated sales of Western modern and contemporary art in Hong Kong since 2008 with underwhelming results. Marc Chagall’s Bestiaire et musique, 1969, fetched a creditable $4.15 million in October 2010, but in November 2011, 20 of 49 lots were bought, including the Jeff Koons cover lot, Smooth Egg with Bow, 1994–2008, and works by Andy Warhol and Candida Höfer. Sotheby’s toured one selling exhibition of Impressionist and modern works to China in 2010 and says it plans to organize more. But the house has declined to release the results from the first foray.

Are Seoul Auction and Sotheby’s pioneering a promising new market? It’s true that in the heady 1980s, Japan’s bubble economy drove up prices for Monet and Van Gogh. But Japan has a tradition of cultural exchange with the West dating back to the 1860s. China’s was slower to start. The last 50 years of China’s imperial rule (1860–1911) were marked by stubborn indifference to Western ideas. Although a handful of Chinese artists and intellectuals traveled to the West in the early years of the 20th century, these modest attempts at engagement never took root, eclipsed by the military struggle against Japan, China’s civil war, and the subsequent arid decades of Maoist rule, when the Chinese people were cut off from the West and—more significantly—from their own heritage. It may be a generation before Chinese collectors are lured away from their cultural patrimony, which they have only recently been permitted to own and appreciate. In the face of a possible 40 percent contraction, the safest bet for auction houses on the mainland and in Hong Kong may be to concentrate on established markets: Chinese traditional modern art, Chinese ceramics, Chinese contemporary art, jewelry, watches, and wine.

Rather than Western art, a more likely area of growth may be seen in the rise of Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art. According to Artprice’s 2011 survey, Indonesia’s art auction market expanded 39 percent last year, while Singapore registered a healthy 22 percent growth. Small, regional auction houses like Borobudur and One East Larasati, both in Jakarta, are already capitalizing on this market, and Christie’s and Sotheby’s are seeing record sales in Southeast Asian modern and contemporary art in Hong Kong. Indonesia is the key market to watch here, powered by impressive GDP growth and the rise of newly rich collectors eager to acquire both Southeast Asian modern masters and, increasingly, the region’s contemporary names.

Despite the emergence of new markets, China looks set to dominate the auction scene far into the future. The variety, depth, and value of its key markets and the sheer scale of the potential collector base suggest that China will be at the head of Asia’s challenge to the historical Western dominance of the fine-art auction rooms of the world.

To see works from the Asian auction houses' sales, click the slide show.

This article appears in the May issue of ART+AUCTION.

If you’ ve seen “Children of Men” — and really, you might have found the time by now — going back to the trailer feels a little like watching that rom-com-style “Shining” recut. This version, at least, sets up a little love story between Clive Owen and Julianne Moore, then morphs into Owen and earth’s sole fertile lady forming an odd couple and going on the run, complete with musical uplift. No judgement — it’s a trailer, and it was intended to lure people into a movie where, in fact, the ginger bombshell quickly gets shot through the neck, and in the end you’re left wondering whether humanity’s worth salvaging at all.

But if you want an ultra-concentrated dose of the blackness at the film’s center, we highly recommend the cut below, which isolates continuous shots of 45 seconds and up, and lasts about as long as an episode of “Two and a Half Men,” counting the ads. (You don’t DVR “Two and a Half Men,” do you?) The geek who made this did so anticipating director Alfonso Cuaron’s next project, “Gravity,” said to open with a take exceeding 17 minutes, and with a 45-second average for the shots overall. The folks at Indie Wire’s the Playlist blog point out that some of the long “Children” shots were composed of different takes, digitally massaged. Well, that’s why they leave you asking, what magic is this? Or, you know, reaching for the Quietus.

NEW YORK — Edvard Munch’s angst-filled masterpiece "The Scream" rocketed to a record $119,922,500 at Sotheby’s Wednesday evening. The 1895 pastel, expected to fetch in excess of $80 million, became the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction and the first to break the $100 million mark.

It is one of four versions and the only one still in private hands, with the other three safely in Norwegian museums. Remarkably, two of those versions were brazenly stolen and later recovered, making "The Scream" a remarkable target of desire. This particular version has another remarkable component as well, a hand-written poem in red paint on the artist-made frame. Translated from Norwegian, Munch’s blistering poem reads in part, “My Friends walked on / I remained behind / shivering with Anxiety / I felt the great Scream in Nature. E.M.”

The color-charged composition, postcard-famous for the twisted, androgynous, open mouthed central figure, clasping its ears on a bridge and set against a flaming sunset, sold to an anonymous telephone bidder after a protracted 12-minute battle. The contest began with an opening bid of $40 million and quickly moved skyward at one million dollar increments. At least four bidders chased the Expressionist trophy, including Oslo dealer Ben Frija of Galleri K, who led the charge in the salesroom against telephone bidders until the $73 million mark.

Asked after the action if he was surprised by the price, Frija snapped, “No,” and departed the salesroom.

Sotheby’s Asia head Patty Wong was another contender in the frenzied battle, but it eventually became a two-telephone contest, with Sotheby’s executives Stefan Connery and Charles Moffett fielding bids while auctioneer Tobias Meyer patiently awaited the outcome. At the $107 million mark, just as Connery’s bidder ran out of steam, Meyer pitched the audience with the probing question, “anybody else?” — before slapping down the hammer.

Since the pastel wasn’t guaranteed and came in as a regular consignment by its longtime Norwegian owners, heirs of patriarch Thomas Olsen who acquired it in 1937, Sotheby’s was entitled to the whopping $12,992,500 buyer’s premium. Still, it wasn’t clear how much of that profit the house kept in this cut-throat market for trophy works and what is known in the trade as the “enhanced hammer,” when a valuable consigner can cut a deal for a piece of that upside.

In any case, the whopping result drove Sotheby’s evening tally to $330,568,500, exceeding the $246.3-323.4 million pre-sale expectations. It became Sotheby’s highest result for any Impressionist and Modern sale, breaking the $286.2 mark set back in May 1990, and overall remaining second only to Sotheby’s record $362.3-million contemporary evening sale of May 2008 when Francis Bacon’s "Triptych" (1976), which sold to Roman Abramovich for a record $86.2 million.    

Coming back to Munch, the price is staggering by any measure. For example, until tonight’s massive result, the most expensive pastel to sell at auction was Edgar Degas’s sublime “Danseuse au Repos” (ca. 1879), which fetched $37 million at Sotheby’s New York in November 2008. Tonight’s price also crushed the previous Munch record set by the lusty “Vampire” (1894), which delivered $38.1 million at Sotheby’s New York in November 2008, selling to Gagosian Gallery.

The trophy aspect of the work, which London bookmakers presciently bet would hit around $125 million, decimated the previous world records set by three Picasso paintings and one Alberto Giacometti bronze, "Walking Man," which sold to philanthropist Lily Safra for $104.3 million at Sotheby’s London in February 2010. Munch’s "Scream" also surpassed Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust” which sold for $106.4 million at Christie’s New York in May 2010, making it the world’s most expensive painting at auction — until tonight.

In yet another example of auction house one-upsmanship, the Munch price alone surpassed Christie’s entire Impressionist & Modern evening sale on Tuesday, which realized $117 million. That said, it's worth noting that five other Munchs offered at Sotheby’s had relatively mixed results, including the beautiful and early, French-influenced interior scene, “Woman Looking in the Mirror” (1892), which made $5,122,500 (est. $5-7 million). Still, the heavily marketed pastel made the likes of Picasso and Giacometti seem like small change, at least for a moment.

It certainly sounded that way in a post-sale briefing as Simon Shaw, head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern department, exclaimed, “If there was ever a work of art of true shock and awe, it is Edvard Munch’s 'The Scream.'”

Not surprisingly, the over-achieving pastel elicited plenty of sound bites. “I think 'The Scream' made a very good price,” said Oslo/Beijing dealer Jens Faurschou, who co-published the Munch catalogue raisonne in 2008, “and it should have, because it is the most important work of art for sale at auction since I began in the business 25 years ago.”

That rave assessment of the work’s importance contrasted in part to London dealer Nicholas Mclean’s comment: “I think it would have meant more (to the market) if it had not done well.”

Though Munch easily dominated the 135-minute auction marathon, there were 75 other lots on offer. Fifteen of the evening’s 70 six lots failed to sell, making for a decent buy-in rate of 20 percent by lot and six percent by value. Forty-four of the lots sold made over a million dollars. Of those, five realized over $10 million.

Another big chunk of the overall tally came from the estate of New York investment tycoon Theodore Forstmann, with 16 of the 17 lots on offer contributing $83 million to the evening. That figure compared to pre-sale expectations of $64.6-96.2 million. Forstmann’s outstanding Picasso entry, “Femme assise dans un fauteuil” (1941) sold to a telephone bidder for $29,202,500 (est. $20-30 million) and Joan Miro’s Surrealist-tinged anti-painting, “Tete humaine” (1931) sold to another telephone bidder for $14,866,500 (est. 10-15 million). New York dealer Nancy Whyte was an underbidder.

After the Picasso sold, a muffled burst of applause was heard from a glass-fronted sky box situated above the salesroom, no doubt emanating from the Forstmann family contingent. Another Forstmann entry, Chaim Soutine’s raggedly charming “Le chasseur de Chez Maxim’s” (ca. 1925), sold to yet another anonymous telephone bidder for $9,378,500 (est. $10-15 million). Forstmann acquired the Soutine at Sotheby’s New York in November 2004 for a then record $6,728,000.

There were other isolated high points and stand-out works, including the stunning and early Surrealist masterpiece by Salvador Dali, “Printemps necrophilique” (1936), inspired by and formerly owned by fashion legend Elsa Schiaparelli, which fetched $16,322,500 (est. $8-12 million). The eerie desert-like setting with a floral-faced model and masked male seated figure last sold at Christie’s London in December 1998 for $4,384,000.

In the sculpture realm, a beautifully realized Constantine Brancusi gilded bronze, “Promethee” from a lifetime edition of four cast in 1911, made $12,682,500 (est. $6-8 million). To put things in perspective, that work last sold at Christie's NY in May 1999 for $1,212,500.

Sotheby’s dazzling night bodes well for the upcoming week of contemporary sales, which kick off on Tuesday at Sotheby’s.

To see some of the top works from Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Evening Sale, click on the slide show.

It may seem risqué to put on a show of nudes at the Arab World Institute, especially considering the prevalence of fundamentalism in Arab countries today, but once preconceived notions are set aside it makes perfect sense. "The Uncovered Body" is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art, but the works shown are anchored in a history that began in the late-19th century when Lebanese, Syrian, and Egyptian painters studied in Europe and began a personal practice of the nude that they would pursue for their entire lives — most notably Georges Daoud Corm in the 1920s and Khalil Saleeby in the 1940s. Others participated in the Orientalist movement, like Mahmoud Saïd with his "Sleeping Woman" in 1933.

The exhibition, on view through July 15, was curated by the Institute's Hoda Makram-Ebeid and Philippe Cardinal. "We hope to do two things," Makram-Ebeid told ARTINFO France. "To show the Arab Middle Eastern public that there are Arabs or people of Arab origin who dare to explore this subject that has been hidden by a certain hypocrisy in the Arab world. And to show the Western public that there are artists who show, think, and act in ways other than according to the stereotypes of Arab society."

The 200 works on view were all selected from the museum's collection. The exhibition shows the liberation of artists in the second half of the 20th century and how the body can serve as a site of resistance in pictorial representation. Most of today's major Arab artists are represented, including Ghada Amer, whose paintings feature countless female figures with their legs spread, and Youssef Nabil, with his Orientalist-inspired photographs "Natacha Sleeping" and "Natacha Atlas." Humor is also plentiful, as in Zoulikha Bouabdellah's video of a belly dance performed to the Marseillaise, and Mehdi-Georges Lahlou's photograph "Mouvement décomposé," which shows the artist wearing women's clothing and performing a belly dance. Lamia Ziadé's work features female genitalia embroidered on Pop art-inflected shields. Makram-Ebeid commented on these works: "Lahlou has done a lot on this theme of dual cultural affiliation, male and female, Christian and Muslim identity. With Zoulikha, it's the theme of dual affiliation and identity. And Lamia Ziadé, well, she doesn't pull any punches!"

The grande dame of these contemporary artists is Huguette Caland, daughter of the first president of the Lebanese republic, who started painting large monochrome works that represent weirdly funny body parts in the 1960s. "Now she is 83, and she was a pioneer at the beginning of women's liberation," Makram-Ebeid said. "She dared to work on the body, nudity, and women's sexuality. With 'Checkpoint,' she focuses on a part of the body which she enlarges to the point that it can be confused with other body parts, and she questions proximity and the contact between bodies."

But the body is also political in this exhibition, and always holds a double meaning. Iraqi artist Adel Abidin's video "Ping-Pong" shows two men playing ping-pong with a naked red-headed woman in place of a net. Her milky skin is marked with red circles left by ping-pong balls as she is struck by all the missed shots. This Duchampian metaphor of a macho duel can be understood not only in terms of the oppression of women, but also as a political metaphor for the Iraq War. As Makram-Ebeid sees it, "in this ping-pong game, Abidin speaks of the dictatorship of power, be it Iraqi or American, of all forms of power that decide a people's destiny. The young woman is very pure, very pale, even pallid; her mistreated body is a metaphor for a people's suffering."

The image in Tarik Essalhi's "Abu Ghraib," however, is very direct. The sculpture depicts an Abu Ghraib prisoner as a new Saint Sebastian. Suffering is represented here with a certain realism, while it is portrayed in a more Expressionist vein in Palestinian artist Hani Zurob's blue painting of a prisoner squatting in jail, a piece based on his own incarceration in an Israeli prison. Another political work, this one in Pop tones, is Zena el-Khalil's "Beefsteak." The mixed-media work depicts three bearded men in girls' dresses, one of them holding a machine gun. It refers to "all the television images she saw as a child. From these images of war, Michael Jackson videos, and Barbie dolls, kitsch remained and got mixed together in her mind," according to Makram-Ebeid. "The world is made of contradictions, everything happens so fast — in hybrid fashion, she shows war and the levity of childhood in a kind of blur."

Watch an excerpt from Adel Abidin's video "Ping-Pong":

This story originally appeared on ARTINFO France.