Asian art slowly perking up

       While contemporary-art markets in the US and Europe continue to suffer from a weak economy, the Asian market could be showing signs of a small, if slow, recovery. The superstar at the recent Sotheby Auction in Hong Kong was none other than Zhang Xiaogang.
       "Silence fell on Hong Kong auction room when bidding on a painting by Chinese contemporary artist Zhang Xiaogang reached HK$7 million" (Bt30 million), Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. "At the market's peak in May 2008, buyers offered up to 10 times more than that for the top lot."
       Zhang's 2005 diptych "Comrade" - an oil portrait of an unsmiling, Mao-style couple on 130 centimetre-by-110 centimetre canvases - eventually fetched HK$8.5 million, the most expensive lot at Sotheby's sale.
       But compare that to May 2008, the last major Hong Kong auction before the Lehman Brothers Holdings collapse, when a painting of red guards by Zeng Fanzhi set an Asia contemporary art record of HK$75.4 million.
       Asia contemporary art prices still have a long way to go before they make a full recovery.