Follow the money

List lovers will be pleased to know that the latest Art Price roundup of the 50 top selling contemporary artists at auction has been published. The thing that sticks out is the number of Chinese artists listed in the top 25; there are 11 of them compared to eight from the US. When it comes to the dollars the balance is somewhat reversed with the US accounting for $423 million of sales and China just over half that at $214.5 million. The top ranking Chinese artist is Fanzhi Zeng in spot number 4 with annual sales of $59.6 million. Other countries are far behind. Third is the UK with Peter Doig, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin hauling in 54.5 million between them. Emin comes in at 47 on the top 50 and the only woman who made it to the top 25 is Cindy Sherman at position 24 with $9 million in auction sales over the last year. The average age of living artists in the top 25 is 55 and the youngest of them is Wade Guyton at 32. His highest price last year was $3.8 million.
 
Image: world map showing the concentration of population in Asia. “There are more people living inside this circle than outside of it”