China's New Art Stars

BEIJING–Somewhere between the jam-packed news conference and the moment, hours later, when the gallons upon gallons of bulk-quality wine ran dry, China's million-dollar men clustered together for a snapshot: Liu Xiaodong, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun and the man of this particular hour, Zhang Xiaogang, whose work filled the 22,000 square feet of gallery space surrounding them.

A decade ago, this moment would have seemed the stuff of deluded fantasy: four Chinese artists, each of them routinely selling work for millions of dollars, arms linked in a massive former government munitions factory given over to a storied New York gallery, PaceWildenstein, to promote Zhang's art to the world.

"When I was younger, there was no such thing as an art gallery," said Liu, 43. "We had no concept of a market, or an economy of art. We just wanted to make better work."

How times have changed. Liu, thoughtful and soft-spoken, a quiet presence behind black-framed glasses, sold one of his large-scale paintings last year at auction for $7.95 million (all figures U.S.). His previous best, in 2006, set a record at the time at $3.2 million; Yue claimed the title in 2007, selling paintings for $4.2 million, then $5.9 million, before passing it on to Zhang last year, when he registered $6.1 million. They've all since been surpassed by Zeng Fanzhi, whose "Mask Series, 1996" sold in 2008 for $9.7 million.

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