According to ArtPrice’s ranking of the top ten auction results for contemporary art in Hong Kong between July 2012 and June 2013, Zeng Fanzhi is currently China’s most expensive artist – works painted by him occupy the no 1, no 2 and no 7 spots in the list of most-expensive artworks sold during that period. 

The highest ranked of these, Society (2001), realised $3,348,800. Auction results tell how this superstar is supported by a new generation of Chinese collectors – a couple of business-minded superrich in Mainland China and Hong Kong. As this year’s Power 100 list is released, he will be the subject of a major midcareer retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Six months after that he will make the official announcement of his new museum project, the Yuan Museum, dedicated to showcasing Western and Chinese figurative art, to be built by Tadao Ando in Beijing and financed out of the artist’s own pocket.