However, the performance of the auction from above, the international market than the domestic market for Chinese contemporary art is more enthusiasm, more than 3 million transactions of Chen Yifei's work is only a domestic transactions. This may be the early buyers with the international collection of classic works of the artists concerned.

Chinese contemporary art at the beginning of the development, that is, the Chinese avant-garde art, in 1993 began to enter the international market in 1993 to the 45th Venice Biennale as a symbol of Chinese avant-garde art began to appear frequently in international exhibitions: 1994 22 Session of the Sao Paulo Biennale, Germany in 1995, "China! China" Exhibition, 1995 46th Venice Biennale, 1999 48th Venice Biennale, and so on. At this moment, the Chinese people busy getting rich, the collection has been the main overseas, the earliest collectors in China is the work of the foreign embassy officials and staff of foreign companies, the collection is not for the purpose of preserving and increasing appreciation, just out of curiosity or as a souvenir. Former Swiss ambassador to China Almsick (Sigg) was one of the first people who dare to eat crabs. Sick at the time was ambassador to Switzerland, also in China in the cultural, or political and economic background of China's first interest in contemporary art. Sick beginning to establish a rational logic, and China's contemporary art collection system should be carried out from 1995 onwards. Sick in Europe for the first time, "Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition", so that when Ai Weiwei his curator, the exhibition of his more than 1,000 Chinese contemporary art in the 360, covering more than 140 contemporary Chinese artists .