Behind the thriving scene of the Chinese art market

Since 2006, the Chinese art market has amazed the world with an unprecedented growth rate. Due to its recent emergence and disparity from the Western art market, it remains an indispensable yet unfamiliar subject for the art world. This study penetrates through the thriving scene of the Chinese art market, fills part of the gap by presenting an in-depth analysis of its market structure, and depicts the route of development during 2006-2011, the booming period of the Chinese art market. As one of the most important and largest emerging art markets, what are the key trends in the Chinese art market from 2006 to 2011? This question serves as the main research question that guides throughout the research. To answer this question, research at three levels is unfolded, with regards to the functioning of the Chinese art market, the geographical shift from west to east, and the market performance of contemporary Chinese art. As the most vibrant art category, Contemporary Chinese art is chosen as the focal art sector in the empirical part since its transaction cover both the Western and Eastern art market and it really took off at secondary art market since 2005, in line with the booming period of the Chinese art market. To fulfill the research purpose, an original data-set with 3750 sales records of paintings and prints is created containing 17 top contemporary Chinese artists auctioned within the research period is constructed. In the main data-set, 107 paintings are quickly resold form a sub-data-set. Empirical evidence shows that the transaction center of contemporary Chinese art is shifting back east, and that speculation is an important driver of the market, which consequently leads to a highly volatile market that fails to generate promising financial return.