China rules and France descends to hell. According to the most recent annual arts report for 2010 published by Artprice (global leader in information on the art market), China is the second biggest economic power in the world and has now become the world leader in the fine arts market (excluding furniture and objets d'art). The report was based on 5.4 million auction results from 3,600 auction houses. China accounted for 33% of the $9.3 billion earned in 2010 by the 3,600 auction houses. It is now ahead of the US (30%), the United Kingdom (19%) and France (5%). In terms of art auction revenue in millions of dollars, China is again in the lead with 490 through these exceptional sales, as opposed to 401 in the US, 271 in the United Kingdom and only 24 in France. As for the 50 record art auctions achieved in the world last year, 10 took place in China. Two strong trends have emerged over the past decade, according to Thierry Ehrman, the director and founder of Artprice. The first trend is represented by the development of a real revolution in global arts market geopolitics. Over the course of 10 years, China has risen from 9th to 1st place in 2010 in terms of auction sales in fine art and is ahead of the United Kingdom and the US, which dominated the market for the past 50 years. France has constantly lost its competitive edge year after year and has been the main loser this decade. It has been set back considerably by the reform of the public auctions required by a European directive and the Drouot scandal. It is now under threat from two other Asian tigers, Taiwan and Singapore. The second trend is the overwhelming observation made by art market actors of the unprecedented transformation in the arts market. The very structure of the market has changed, particularly with the dominance of the internet and the two and a half million people who operate online and who are responsible for this enormous increase in online art purchases. The competition generated by more than 260 art fairs organised every year in the world and the importance of investors and investment funds in art have also had a significant impact. Art as a financial asset has also created a certain specific model: that of the arts stock exchange, where China has proved to play a pioneering role. 2010 was a momentous year: following spiralling art prices between 2004 and 2008 and the severe contraction in the arts market in October 2008 and summer 2009 (a fall in both volume and prices), the recovery arrived and has reached new and unprecedented heights. The main observation during the past decade highlights the considerable speeding up in the pace of the market and its march eastwards. After the art market crash in 1991, it took almost 4 years before a recovery in prices began. This time, the upper echelons of the market regained their healthy glow after just a year and a half. The Artprice report now includes additional categories: Top 10 artists: 1) Pablo Picasso ($361.5 million) 2) Qi Baishi ($339.2 million); 3) Andy Warhol ($313.5 million); 4) Daqian Zhang ($304.3 million); 5) Alberto Giacometti ($213.6 million); 6) Beihong Xu ($176.2 million); 7) Henri Matisse ($174 million); 8) Amedeo Modigliani ($139.8 million); 9) Baoshi Fu ($125.2 million); 10) Roy Lichtenstein ($112.5 million). Top 3 auctions: 1) Nude, Green Leaves and Bust of Pablo Picasso ($95 million); 2) Walking Man by Alberto Giacometti ($92.52 million); 3) Nude Sitting on a Divan by Amedeo Modigliani ($61.5 million). Top 3 artists in turnover in 2010: 1) Pablo Picasso ($361.5 million); 2) Qi Baishi ($339.2 million); 3) Andy Warhol ($313.5 million). In the auctions Top 10, China comes out as resounding victor once again, with seven auction houses in the premier league table, such as Poly International and China Guardian. The prestigious British auctioneers Christie's and Sotheby's still do not have permission to set up their auction houses on mainland China. In conclusion, it turns out that the record for the auction of Chinese fine art (which is in very high demand in China) has still not yet reached a peak because the number of Chinese millionaires is expected to increase by 20% a year until 2014, as opposed to 5.6% on the rest of the planet. (I.L./transl.fl)