Beijing - Artprice's
Chairman, thierry Ehrmann, and its senior executives have just
returned from several days of intense work at Artron's headquarters
in Beijing where discussions focused on accelerating and
implementing, as quickly as possible, all the agreed strategic and
commercial initiatives that will inevitably generate very positive
results in terms of turnover and the expansion of Artprice's client
base... not to mention shareholder value.
Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie gave the
Artprice team an exceptionally respectful, warm and loyal welcome
and introduced Artprice to China's top-level institutional leaders,
the country's principal Art Market players and all of Artron's
3,500 employees.
These face-to-face introductions
are an essential step in Artprice's bid to fructify the enormous
potential of the Chinese market in a fast and optimal
manner.
In 2018, China accounted for 45% of global online
transactions, generating 12 times more online transactions than the
United States. China has a huge advantage over the West because it
is building its market economy directly on the Internet (Source
GEAB / LEAP 2020).
Speaking in front of his senior executives and top
management, Mr. Wan Jie - at the head of his Artron empire and
probably the most powerful player in China's Art Market -
reiterated his unfailing personal friendship and loyalty vis-à-vis
Artprice's founder-Chairman, thierry Ehrmann.
This fact deserves emphasis as Chinese custom
usually prohibits such 'departures' from accepted business
protocol.
As China has become the global Art Market's
leading marketplace over the past decade - Artprice had been the
first to report it in 2009 -, it naturally represents a fascinating
new market for Artprice.
China has grand ambitions:
As the French language business weekly Challenges headlined last
week: "China, the giant that wants to dominate the
World". China is still accelerating with its "Made in China 2025"
plan and its "New Silk Roads".
As a global company, Artprice made a point to
successfully enter the Chinese market, now the last great
'eldorado' for any group whose market is global.
According to Artprice's founding Chairman, thierry
Ehrmann, "I appreciated the emergence of China's
global power, its insatiable appetite and its desire for leadership
a long time ago! Over the past nine years, Artprice has translated
hundreds of millions of data from its proprietary databases into
Mandarin. However, observant visitors to our famous head offices
(L'Organe Museum of Contemporary Art at the "Abode of Chaos" [dixit
The New York Times]) over the past 30 years will have noticed
thousands of artworks - including my own sculptures and paintings -
directly or indirectly referring to the ancient culture and history
of China."
"Unlike many, I am not surprised
to see China gradually becoming the world's leading economic power.
Artprice has decided to enter the Chinese market through the front
door with a humility that has clearly been lacking in many Western
listed companies. Any other strategy would have been a fatal
mistake. I therefore wish to reiterate my thanks to Wan Jie,
Artron's Chairman, and all his colleagues for making this open and
proper strategy possible after 9 years of close
collaboration!"
Thanks to Artron's expert advice, Artprice fully
complies with the specifications of China's "Great Electronic Wall"
and its terms and conditions: Law CL97 (1997) as well as its
"Golden Shield" protocol (1998).
In order to comply with
law CL97, Artprice spent two years rewriting all its databank code
in order to eliminate all US and European corporate source code
containing cookies, tags, metadata, backdoor elements (amongst
other elements).
Since Monday morning, Artprice is
one of the very few Western companies to possess a WeChat profile
reserved for companies operating under Chinese law. WeChat is used
by more than 1.8 billion Chinese Internet users around the
world.
The statistics concerning China are eye-watering:
a population of over 1.4 billion people, 5 times that of the United
States, a GDP growth of 6.5% this year and, regarding specifically
Artprice, a colossal art market with a massive pool of living
artists (1 million in China versus 120,000 for the USA and Europe
combined) and an almost infinite number of artworks. China's art
market is animated by tens of millions of art buyers, professionals
and collectors, many of whom are Artron customers and therefore,
going forward, potential customers for Artprice.
The title of Artron's press release: "Artron and Artprice team up to create the art 'silk
road'", (the 'silk road' notion is massively used by the
Chinese State) makes perfect sense. The New Silk
Road is part of China's soft power strategy (OBOR for One Belt, One Road) to conquer the world
economically.
China had initiated the project. According to the
IMF, the World Bank and the CIA World Factbook, China is the
world's leading economic power in terms of GDP-PPP in 2017.
According to CNN, this project encompasses 68 countries
representing 4.8 billion people and 62% of global GDP.
Artron is a very powerful company and, for those
interested in Art or the Art Market, Artron is completely
unavoidable in China. Artron is not only the world's leading
publisher of Fine Art books and auction catalogues (with more than
400 million books/catalogues printed); it is also a major
scientific laboratory - with premises in Beijing, Shanghai and
Shenzhen - and a technical and scientific knowledge base that
easily rivals that of Silicon Valley.
Its scanning processes in virtual reality,
augmented reality and mixed reality have reached the very highest
level of global sophistication and the company's scientific and
cultural innovation has been rewarded with more than 800 prizes and
awards for excellence.
Artron.Net is the most respected
brand in the Chinese art world. It has more than 3 million
professional members in the arts sector and an average of 15
million daily visits, making it the world's leading art
website. It is the first choice for art professionals,
investors / collectors and art lovers. Founded in 1993, the Artron
Art Group is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
The involvement of Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan
Jie in Art in China is completely uncontested. Mr. Wan Jie is a
'protector' of Beijing's famous 798 Factory which enjoys global
visibility and was visited by Artprice staff.
He is also Vice-Chairman and Founder of the
Institute of the famous Forbidden City, where he and thierry
Ehrmann visited government offices that are closed to the public
during the recent trip to Beijing.
The was also an opportunity for Artprice's
Chairman thierry Ehrmann to see first-hand Mr. Wan Jie's
involvement and support for the protection and diffusion of ancient
masterpieces of Chinese art in the Imperial Granaries. These superb
works have been "returned to the people" thanks to Artron's
scientific breakthroughs and ultra high-speed Internet which allows
these masterpieces of humanity to be contemplated in a virtual
reality context, with the support of the Chinese State.
During the trip, the Artprice team met some of
China's world-renowned artists including Fang Lijun (born in 1963)
ranked 623/700,000 in 2018 and Zhang Xiaogang (born in 1958) ranked
121/700,000 artists in 2018 in Artprice's global ranking.
Artprice's press agency, ArtMarketInsight,
together with Artron's editors, have decided to post around thirty
daily dispatches in both Chinese and English aimed at combining
information about the Chinese art market with information about the
Western art market.
Our various meetings and visits in Beijing left no
doubt in our minds as to the power of China, the extraordinary
wealth and depth of its history (over 4,000 years), and the
country's incredible advance over the West in terms of technology.
a vision and an understanding of China that completely disqualifies
the ignorant visions of the Chinese Empire that can still be found
in the West to this day.
A geo-cultural analysis is not interested in the
percentage of GDP spent on arms, but rather in the depth of the
countries' respective histories and the relative strengths and
weaknesses of the protagonist civilizations.
Among its numerous
manifestations, China's 'soft power' is also focused on the Art
Market. In this context, Artron's alliance with Artprice is part of
Xi Jinping's "BRI" (belt and road initiative) launched in 2013 (aka
the "Silk Road" in Europe). According to CNN, this project
encompasses 68 countries representing 4.8 billion people and 62% of
global GDP with an investment of close to $8 trillion.
It is therefore a great honour for Artprice to
have been chosen by Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie. Artron
appreciates the work conducted by Artprice and has validated its
place as World Leader in Art Market Information. That is why
Artprice subscriptions will be distributed in China, with a huge
potential for new customers. Artprice's data will contribute to the
fluidity of the Chinese and, more broadly, the Asian Art Market, in
a context where 'Greater Asia' will account for 70% of the global
Art Market by 2019.
According to Artron, Artprice's econometric
expertise associated with Artron's proprietary data will not only
provide an extraordinary boost to the fluidity of China's Art
Market (throughout its numerous provinces and autonomous regions),
it will also greatly enhance and facilitate the work conducted by
the country's tax, administrative and customs authorities.
According to Artron and its Chairman Mr. Wan Jie,
the only legitimate way to approach this colossal mission was to
team up with a recognised and globally authoritative third-party
certifier like Artprice, as World Leader in Art Market
Information.
Never mentioned in the press or identified by
economists or sociologists, this massive new market that Artprice
is entering is typical of the kind of domestic market that only a
central player in China's Art Market could have been aware of.
China's Provincial-level
administrative divisions are the highest level administrative
divisions in the People's Republic of China. There are 34 such
divisions, classified as 23 provinces, 4 municipalities, 5
autonomous regions, and 2 Special Administrative Regions.
Artprice subscriptions sold exclusively by Artron
in China will therefore reach directly into the heart of the need
identified by Artron within China's domestic market. Similarly,
Artprice will be accessible via Artron.Net's home page and all the
Chinese social networks where Artron is omnipresent.
Artron's Chairman Mr. Wan Jie has already
introduced Artprice to some very promising commercial contacts
including the Chairman of China Guardian, China's first
publicly-traded Chinese auction house. China Guardian needs
high-end Artprice subscriptions for its VIP customers as well as
Artprice's monthly analyses for its internal operations.
Thanks to Artron's unique technology in the field
of scanning parchments, manuscripts and collection catalogues from
the previous century, Artprice will finally be able to offer all
its customers extremely high value-added data such as the hundreds
of thousands of handwritten notes by Hippolyte Mireur and the
various pre-17th century documentary collections that Artprice
owns, which are too fragile to be scanned using Western scanning
devices.
With this major breakthrough,
Artprice will further strengthen its position as World Leader in
Art Market Information.
In the context of this
extraordinary alliance with Artron and the massive potential for
new customers in China, Artprice is anticipating a major boost to
its 2019 sales and profits.
For the launch and marketing of its services and
databases in China, Artprice will benefit from all of Artron's
logistical resources in terms of communication, via the Internet,
as well as the physical world, thanks to its power, its reputation
and its innumerable electronic and/or commercial networks
throughout Greater Asia.
In this context, Artprice, with the assistance of
Artron, has just translated 125 million data into the Chinese
currency, the Renmimbi (RMB). Naturally the primary objective of
this translation process is to facilitate the purchase of its data
by its new Chinese clientele, presented by Artron. This captive
clientele is accustomed to using Alipay and WeChat (1.8 billion
users), two Chinese instant payment platforms (QR Code in kiosk
mode debiting the Chinese customer on behalf of Artprice) that are
mandatory for Chinese buyers.
Numerous synergies have already been identified
from our joint working sessions and the merging of Artprice/Artron
teams with the similar functions. Given the extent of strategic,
financial and economic involvement with Artron, Artprice has
decided to appoint a Chief Executive responsible for its Chinese
and Greater Asia operations, who will reside in Beijing and work
closely with Artron's teams.
The objective of this strategy is to accelerate
the numerous initiatives recently engendered by Artprice's and
Artron's contractual and promissory agreements. This informed
decision has been carefully deliberated and enjoys unanimous
support within the Group.
This appointment will, notably, make it easier to
coordinate Artron's and Artprice's joint initiatives.
Artron's goals are both
transparent and unambiguous:
In Mr. Wan Jie's own words: "The
founders and Chairmen of the two companies, thierry Ehrmann and
myself - with our enthusiasm for art - will create a Silk Road
linking the Chinese and Western art markets on the principle of
mutual respect and cooperation".
"The two parties will build a
global, diversified and professional exchange platform in the art
market that will ultimately promote the sustainable development of
the global art market."
As this platform develops, Artprice's Standardised
Marketplace® will host millions of works by Chinese artists,
provided by Artron, generating a massive increase in the number of
artworks available online.
Artron's Founding Chairman, Mr. Wan Jie,
immediately understood the commercial interest and wisdom of
Artprice's ownership of the domain names artmarket.com,
artmarket.net and artmarket.org, names that naturally and legally
capture millions of "Art Market" queries on Google every month.
Artmarket.com, .net and .org therefore represent a
decisive advantage in our quest to capture and drive the Global Art
Market's development on the Internet.
According to a bailiff's report
established by the Estelle PONS - Sarah MERGUI licensed court
bailiff partnership in Lyon, Artmarket.com is the top result out of
1.82 billion results on Google.com (all languages combined) and
therefore represents the best possible vector for Artprice to
promote the works of 1 million Chinese artists and their tens of
millions of works (already hosted by Artron) in the Western art
market.
In view of the radical change in scope
anticipated, Artprice is naturally moving towards an IPO of its
subsidiary artmarket.com, its Standardized Marketplace®, on a
Chinese stock exchange (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen ...) and not
on an Anglo-Saxon exchange as originally planned.
According to thierry Ehrmann, "In
2019 Artprice will begin a new chapter alongside Artron that will
trigger tremendous value for the global Art Market and our loyal
shareholders. I am particularly pleased that my long-term strategy
based on China's rapid economic emergence will generate such
positive results."
"Today I am 56; when I first
visited China I was 25. Since then I have spent 30 years patiently
studying the Middle Kingdom. Beyond this satisfaction, I have had
the immense pleasure of knowing Mr. Wan Jie, a founding Chairman
with whom I share the same vision regarding the democratization and
promotion of art in the world. In short. Artprice's long march is
about to reach its objectives for its shareholders and for the
global art market."
Artron will soon be publishing a
documentary-report explaining all the meetings, discussions and
agreements between the Artprice and Artron teams in Beijing. It
will allow Western viewers to see images of Artron's
ultra-sophisticated scientific processes and appreciate the
economic power of Artron in Greater Asia.
About the Artron Group:
"Artron Art Group
(Artron), a comprehensive cultural industrial group founded in
1993, is committed to inheriting, enhancing and spreading art
value. Based on abundant art data, Artron provides art industry and
art fans with professional service and experience of quality
products by integrated application of IT, advanced digital science
and innovative crafts and materials. Having produced more than
60,000 books and auction catalogues, Artron is the world's largest
art book printer with a total print volume of 300 million a year.
It has more than 3 million professional members in the arts sector
and an average of 15 million daily visits, making it the world's
leading art website. Founded in 1993, the Artron Art Group is
celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It is the first choice
for art professionals, investors, collectors and art fans in
general wishing to discover and/or participate in the art world or
the art market. Founded in 1993, Artron Art Group is celebrating
its 25th anniversary this year."
According to the Artron
Group and its founder-Chairman Mr. Wan Jie "After 7 years of
cooperation, Artron and Artprice have optimised their cooperation
regarding the Chinese and Western art markets. The founders and
Chairmen of both companies, Mr. Wan Jie and Mr. Thierry Ehrmann,
with their enthusiasm for art, will create a Silk Road linking the
Chinese and Western art markets on the principle of respect and
mutual cooperation. The two groups will build a global, diversified
and professional exchange platform in the Art Market, which will
ultimately promote the sustainable development of the Global Art
Market.
Artron's Web:
www.artron.com.cn; www.artron.net.
Contact: 400-6690-999
About Artprice:
Founded by thierry Ehrmann (see Who's who
certified Biography )
(c) https://imgpublic.artprice.com/img/wp/sites/11/2018/10/bio-2019-whos-who-thierry-ehrmann.pdf ).
Artprice is listed on the Eurolist by Euronext
Paris, SRD long only and Euroclear: 7478 - Bloomberg: PRC -
Reuters: ARTF.
Dicover Artprice in
video: https://www.artprice.com/video
Artprice is the global leader in art price and art
index databanks. It has over 30 million indices and auction results
covering more than 700,000 artists. Artprice Images(R) gives
unlimited access to the largest Art Market resource in the world: a
library of 126 million images or prints of artworks from the year
1700 to the present day, along with comments by Artprice's art
historians.
12 Oct. 2018: Artprice and
Artron have just created an "Art Media Mogul":
Video:
https://vimeo.com/296010836
Artprice permanently enriches its databanks with
information from 6,300 auctioneers and it publishes a constant flow
of art market trends for the world's principal news agencies and
approximately 7,200 international press publications. For its
4,500,000 members, Artprice gives access to the world's leading
Standardised Marketplace for buying and selling art. Artprice is
preparing its blockchain for the Art Market. It is BPI-labelled
(scientific national French label)Artprice's Global Art Market
Annual Report for 2017 published last March
2018: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-art-market-in-2017
Artprice's Contemporary Art Market Annual Report
for 2017 - free access
at: https://www.artprice.com/artprice-reports/the-contemporary-art-market-report-2017
Artprice's press releases:
http://serveur.serveur.com/Press_Release/pressreleaseen.htm
https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom
Artmarket News:
https://twitter.com/artpricedotcom & https://twitter.com/artmarketdotcom
https://www.facebook.com/artpricedotcom & https://plus.google.com/+artpricedotcom/posts
http://artmarketinsight.wordpress.com/
Discover the Alchemy and the universe of
Artprice http://web.artprice.com/video, which headquarters are
the famous Museum of Contemporary Art, the Abode of Chaos:
http://goo.gl/zJssd
https://vimeo.com/124643720
The Contemporary Art Museum The Abode of Chaos on
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/la.demeure.du.chaos.theabodeofchaos999
Contact: ir@artprice.com
Left to right: WAN Jie - Artron /
thierry Ehrmann - Artprice
Press release (PDF)
This
announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West
Corporation clients.
The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely
responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the
information contained therein.
Source: ARTPRICE COM via Globenewswire
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