“Crib Notes” is a quick-read dossier focused on the artists who ranked on our best-sellers list for ultra-contemporary art in our 2024 Mid-Year Intelligence Report.
The large-scale canvases of Huang Yuxing are a striking combination of traditional Chinese landscapes and what he sees as an inherently modern, generation-defining fluorescent palette. Our relationship with nature, and how this relationship is framed across the world, is a key theme in Huang’s landscapes which are so vivid they seem to ooze and pulsate.
Huang burst onto the scene in 2002 when he (following a rejected visa to study art in France and encouragement from his parents to join the army) displayed his own work as an independent exhibitor at a Beijing art fair. It was there that Huang was spotted by both Tang Contemporary Art Centre (Bangkok) and Soka Art Center (Beijing) and was offered his debut solo shows in 2003.
Huang begins his large-scale landscapes without a strict direction, instead following where the colours and details seem to lead him as he progresses. He often opens his paints more than a week before he uses them, lowering their viscosity to give his paintings an ethereal sense of flow. He is similarly loose with his titles, choosing intentionally open-ended words and phrases to avoid dictating meaning to his viewers.
Huang ranked ninth in Artnet’s mid-year Intelligence Report’s Best Sellers list in the ultra-contemporary category (artists born after 1974) after Magnificent Mountain (2017-19) sold for $1,511,901 at China Guardian Auctions on May 11. He ranked as the second Most Bankable ultra-contemporary artist, with a 96% sell-through rate and $6,327,010 in total sales value.
Most popular in the Asia—he created a splash at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2020 when his painting Enlightening (2016–18) more than quadrupled its high estimate—Huang’s prices have not yet reached boiling point in Europe and the U.S., something that keen collectors of his are not unaware of. So, who is this ultra-contemporary artist?
Huang Yuxing’s Enlightening (2010). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd.
Key details: Born in Beijing in 1975. Based in Beijing.
Galleries representing: Almine Rech, Paris, Brussels, London, New York, Shanghai. The gallery have put on three solo shows of Huang’s work: the first in 2021 at its Brussels’ branch titled ‘Heaps of Brocade and Ash 锦灰堆’, followed by a self-titled show in Shanghai and ‘An Absolute Power We Cannot Find’ the following year at their New York Upper Side galley in which Huang’s works reconciled “elements of East and West, with subjects ranging from humble human figures to a fearsome image of the cosmos”.
Breakout Moment: Along with Gregor Hildebrandt, Paola Pivi, Vik Muniz, Zeng Fanzhi, and Donna Huanca, Huang Yuxing designed a limited-edition Capucines BB Bag for Louis Vuitton in 2021. The bag—lined in hot-pink as would be typical for the florescence-loving Huang—was part of the third series of LV’s ‘Artycapucines Collection’ and saw Huang cemented as an internationally-recognised cutting-edge artist.
Huang Yuxing, River (2013). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd.
Auction record: At Christie’s Hong Kong on December 1, 2021 as part of their 20th / 21st Century Art Evening Sale titled ‘Worlds In A Hand’, Huang sold his Seven Treasure Pines for a personal record-breaking HK$64,830,000 ($8,320,712).
The piece consisted of seven individual canvases measuring over 78 by 274 inches, made by Huang over the course of three years between 2016 and 2019. It had the highest hammer price of the evening, and the auction achieved Christie’s Hong Kong’s highest ever auction total for a 20th / 21st Century Art sale (HK$2,007,615,000/ US$258,733,286).
Upcoming exhibitions: Set to open in June 2025, Huang’s fifth solo show with Almine Rech will open at the gallery’s Turenne space in Paris.
Key Quote: “Western cultures place humans on top of nature. Human beings are the master of nature. On the other hand, in Eastern cultures, humans serve for nature. It is a big difference, and I have continued creating my art with exceptional care for this view of nature that is unique to the East.” (Whitestone Gallery, 2023)