At A Crossroads, International Show Continues To Present Finest Works On The Market Today

NEW YORK CITY

:Analyzing the fortunes of New York's Asia Week is like reading tea leaves. There are more leaves each year, but the leaves continue to swirl. The ultimate character and direction of the market - buffeted as never before by geopolitical and economic trends and cultural patrimony issues - remains something of a blur.

One thing is certain: Asia Week is big and getting bigger. Besides two major antiques shows with a combined 130 exhibitors, there are now two dozen special exhibitions at galleries around the city.

Plus, Sotheby's and Christie's continue to gear up. Their Asia Week sales this year reached an unprecedented $100 million. Nearly every genre, from Japanese to Chinese to Korean to Indian, seems on the uptick. Most surprising were the contemporary Asian art sales at both houses. Christie's $15.6 million Modern and Contemporary Indian art auction was 94 percent sold by lot and included 14 new auction records. Sotheby's took the lead in contemporary Chinese art, knocking down Zhang Xiaogang's "Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120" for $979,200.

Oddly, the enterprise that has done the most to raise Asia Week's profile, the International Asian Art Fair, seems to be suffering the most from the booming competition. At the Seventh Regiment Armory from Friday, March 31, to Wednesday, April 5, the International Asian Art Fair, now in its eleventh edition, replaced about a third of its dealers this year. Among the missing were noted specialists John Eskenazi, Francesca Galloway, Gerald Hawthorn, Roger Keverne, Sydney Moss and Doris Wiener. To be fair, many equally prominent dealers, some of whom have done the show from the beginning, remain.

Organizers Anna and Brian Haughton, who have a knack for staying ahead of the market and keeping their shows fresh, changed direction this year, broadening the show to include arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. They also expanded the event's contemporary component.

"Several of our exhibitors over the years have suggested that we do this. We researched and found that many people collect across these specialties. It seemed like a good time to move forward, as Asia Society is also moving into new areas," Anna Haughton explained.

So much change has had an unsettling effect on the show, now far removed from its original mission. All said, the International Asian Art Fair remains the standard bearer, an elegant beauty studded with objects of transcendent loveliness.

This year's many highlights included Knapton Rasti's monumental Chinese painting depicting a Persian emissary and his Afghani assistant leading a lion from Samark and to Beijing as a tribute offering. The mesmerizing tale is inscribed on the Ming dynasty piece that dates to 1483.

At Gregg Baker, each painted screen was more exquisite than the next. The London dealer's centerpiece was a stunning Japanese Rimpa style screen of the Eighteenth Century. It depicted smaller screens in different styles across its broad expanse.

Fiber and fine art fused in Cora Ginsburg's painted and dyed cotton Indian palampore, $45,000, made circa 1775 for the European market.

Japanese art specialist Joan Mirviss continued her ambitious program of each year presenting a one-person show of contemporary work. This year, a third of Mirviss's tripartite display was devoted to Takegoshi Jun's enameled porcelain vessels in translucent glazes inspired by antique Kutani porcelain.

Up and coming practitioners of contemporary calligraphy starred at the Kang Collection, New York dealers in Korean art. "Bamboo Grove," a pair of ink on paper hanging scrolls, was $37,500.

Earthy and ethereal, a life-sized Tenth Century Khmer stone sculpture of a goddess cast her soothing spell at Nancy Wiener Gallery, New York.

Fierce in demeanor, a coral-inlaid papier mache Mongolian mask, $130,000 at Milan, Italy, dealer Carlo Cristi, had much the opposite effect.

Monumental Tang dynasty pottery figures, always a feature of the show, were prominent at both Berwald and the Chinese Porcelain Company.

A special cataloged exhibition of Liao dynasty pottery at Uragami Sokyu-Do included eight amber-colored, leather bag-shaped flasks in graduated sizes.

Silkily metallic Qing dynasty carpets made for the pavilions of the Forbidden City glimmered in the semidarkness at Danon of Rome.

New exhibitor Barry Friedman exploded onto the scene with contemporary Chinese art that probed the ying and yang of the world's oldest, yet newest, culture. Represented were avant-garde photographers Zhang Huan and Zang Wan, along with Wang Jin, whose PVC vinyl robe was cut to imperial proportions.

"We sold 12 or 13 works to new and existing clients," said Friedman, who started his career as a dealer in European avant-garde design.

Kyoto dealer Robert Winter made a splash with Japanese arm and armor, including 13 Kamakura to Edo period helmets. A set of red lacquered armor, $90,000, complete with a helmet ornamented with enormous horns and a froth of grizzled hair, sold to an Asian institution.

Sales of Chinese art included a blue and white Yuan dish to an American museum at London porcelain dealer S. Marchant & Son; and a rare ivory Qianlong brush pot of European subject matter, also to a museum, at Knapton Rasti.

In the Japanese category, Grace Tsumugi sold a circa 1780 six-fold screen decorated with hawks on perches, a circa 1890 gold-lacquer display cabinet, and an underglazed black and white Nabashima dish. Malcolm Fairley Ltd sold an "Koro" incense burner with a carved lobster.

German dealer Erik Thomsen sold a screen to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Muromachi period ceramics to a Swiss collector and an Edo period Zen painting by Hakuin Ekaku (1685-1768) to a New York private buyer.

After a period of unevenness, the Korean art market is again advancing. At Koo New York, a large blue and white dragon jar dating to the late Eighteenth Century sold to an East Coast collector.

A European private collector acquired a Twelfth Century Tibetan manuscript at Mehmet Hassan, who sold an embroidered bow and quiver cover to a private American foundation and a group of Tibetan bronzes to an American museum.

In the contemporary arena, Michael Goedhuis parted with works on paper by Li Jin, Wang Tiande and Liu Cumming.

Both fairs promoted Islamic art, though in a low-register way. On Sunday, April 2, the International Asian Art Fair hosted the panel discussion, "The Arts of the Islamic World: A New Way of Looking at Islamic Art." The program was aimed at increasing public awareness about the Islamic world and its cultural heritage.

Benefiting Asia Society, founded by John D. Rockefeller III, a half century ago, the International Show's gala preview on March 30 drew 1,500 guests and raised $800,000.