Asian Art Standing Apart

Asian Art Standing Apart
Auctions

By MARION MANEKER
September 20, 2007

"Everywhere I go, dinner parties, benefits, the Hamptons, people only ask me about Chinese contemporary art," an art adviser, Kim Heirston, said. In what feels like a blink of an eye, Chinese painters have become a focal point in the art world: Just last year, Sotheby's started holding its main sale of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese contemporary art in New York. Today, Sotheby's will sell 275 works estimated at between $19 million and nearly $28 million. Two weeks ago, Pierre Huber, the influential Geneva-based dealer and Lorenzo Rudolf, the former director of Art Basel, held their inaugural Contemporary art fair in Shanghai, which was widely judged to be a whopping success. And next month, Phillips will sell the Farber collection of Chinese contemporary art in a single sale of 44 works of contemporary Chinese art that were acquired from the seminal exhibitions and gallery shows mounted since 1986 that introduced these painters to the West.

What is so fascinating about Chinese contemporary art is that much of it was produced under the radar in the past 20 years — and it is now bursting into view as a newly rich society supports its own artists with high prices and museums. Over the summer, it was announced that Sichuan province offered personal museums to eight of the biggest names in Chinese contemporary art — including Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang, and Wang Guangyi. The Chinese contemporary collector, Baron Ullens, announced his own art space in Beijing that would house Chinese and foreign art.

Though these developments point to the emergence of a domestic market for living Chinese painters, until now the bulk of the sales have been overseas. Last year, Sotheby's sold $70 million worth of Asian contemporary art. Also, 2006 was the first year the auction house brought Chinese contemporary painting to New York as its own sale. They broke 20 artists' records in the process. Sotheby's and the houses haven't suffered for including Chinese painters in their Contemporary art sales here in New York and London. In June, Yue Minjun's "The Pope" (1997), a clever allusion to both Francis Bacon and Velázquez, was sold for an astonishing $4.2 million.

This week's sale also features a Yue Minjun after Velázquez. "Infanta" (1997) is estimated at between $1.8 million and $2.5 million. The other Chinese superstar Zhang Xiaogang is represented by several works, but the most significant is "Chapter of a New Century — Birth of the People's Republic of China" (1992), which is estimated at between $1.5 million and $2.5 million.

"It's so exciting to see great works," Sotheby's expert Xiaoming Zhang, who put the sale together, said. Working in the Chinese contemporary field is still a journey of discovery because so many of the painters were previously working in obscurity to avoid the interference of censors. Others were simply overlooked until increasing value brought the work to market. "You don't know these paintings existed," Ms. Zhang said.

Chen Yifei is a prime example of the kind of painter and painting that one never knew existed. His numerous landscapes and city scenes painted in a misty realism are incomparable. But "The Cellist" (1983), estimated at between $800,000 and $1 million will be the star of his lots.

Other works not to be missed include Liu Dan's monumental "Dictionary" (1991), estimated at between $250,000 and $350,000, which depicts in massive photorealist splendor the open pages of a dictionary. Ai Weiwei's "Chandelier (2002)," estimated at between $400,000 and $600,000, is just that — a massive crystal and metal chandelier that seems suited in size, scale and opulence to a European opera house. A more whimsical work comes from Liu Ye: "The Little Mermaid" (2004), estimated at between $1 million and $1.5 million, is childlike in the way that Yoshitomo Nara's work represents children with wide eyes and expansive foreheads.

Don't let the bigger names distract you from the depth of the show. There is something in almost every style of contemporary painting from abstraction to graffiti-inspired work such as Wu Shanzhuan's "Today No Water–Chapter 29" (2007), estimated at between $30,000 and $50,000. There's even the Mark Tansey-like paintings of Shi Xinning, especially "Pride and Prejudice" (2004), estimated at between $40,000 and $60,000.

This sale makes a very good case that contemporary Chinese painting is better seen separately from the marquee sales in November where the biggest names jostle with their European and American counterparts. If nothing else, this sale will impress you with the variety and vibrancy of Chinese painters and surely justify the accelerating prices.

Surfacing | Beijing- A New Frontier for Chinese Art

Miranda Mimi Kuo for The New York Times

Suburban Caochangdi has become a magnet for contemporary art.

• By ARIC CHEN

Published: April 1, 2007

SEVEN years ago, the pre-eminent Chinese artist Ai Weiwei made a bold move to the outskirts of Beijing. In an area called Caochangdi Village, by the Fifth Ring Road in the city’s northeast, he designed a compound for himself, some friends and a gallery called China Art Archives and Warehouse. For a while, they were left alone.

“We all thought they were cuckoo,” said Meg Maggio, a prominent contemporary art dealer in Beijing. “It was basically the countryside — really far away.”

But this spring, Ms. Maggio is moving there herself, joining an influx of high-profile galleries that are turning this quiet, birch- and pine-lined enclave into an artistic hotbed. Indeed, as the 798 District, the epicenter of Beijing’s lively contemporary art scene, becomes increasingly crowded with boutiques and tourists, some of China’s leading gallery owners are bypassing the district altogether, and heading directly to Caochangdi Village.

Or maybe they should call it Ai Weiwei Village.

Ms. Maggio’s gallery, Pekin Fine Arts (www.pekinfinearts.com), will be housed in a new complex designed by Mr. Ai — a cluster of low, minimalist buildings clad in weathered gray bricks that suggests the hutongs, or traditional alleyways, of old Beijing.

Nearby, Mr. Ai designed similar compounds for the leading Swiss gallery Urs Meile (104 Caochangdi; 86-10-6433-3393; www.galerieursmeile.com) and the soon-to-open Three Shadows Photography Art Center (155 Caochangdi; 86-10-8456-6147), a 14,000-square-foot space founded by the vanguard photographer Rong Rong to showcase Chinese and international works.

“Now there is a nice density here, like a community,” said Mr. Ai, who still serves as artistic director of China Art Archives and Warehouse (200 Caochangdi; 86-10-8456-5152; www.archivesandwarehouse.com).

If Mr. Ai is the area’s star artist, then its social hub is the hip warehouse gallery Universal Studios (A-8 Caochangdi; 86-10-6432-2600; www.universalstudios.org.cn) with its bohemian cafe and bar serving no-nonsense fare like beef noodle soup. Nearby is the spectacular new National Film Museum (9 Nanying Road; 86-10-6431-9548; www.bjrt.gov.cn/museum) and the art space Platform China (319-1 East End Art Zone A, Caochangdi; 86-10-6432-0091; www.platformchina.org), which helped set off the area’s gallery boom.

Besides being remote (at least a 30-minute drive from central Beijing), Caochangdi’s mazelike warrens make it easy to get lost. And addresses are basically useless. So the best strategy is to hire a taxi for the day, take a cellphone, call the galleries and pass the phone to the driver. A full afternoon on the meter, including round-trip fare and generous tip, should run less than 300 yuan, about $38 at 7.9 yuan to the dollar.

It might sound like a hassle, but you’ll be rewarded with an early look at more than a dozen galleries that represent the Chinese art world’s next frontier.

Other noteworthy spots include F2 Gallery (319 Caochangdi; 86-10-6432-8831; www.f2gallery.com) and the gargantuan PKM Gallery (46-C Caochangdi; 86-10-8456-6245; www.pkmgallery.com). Meanwhile, ShanghART, the trailblazing Shanghai-based gallery, is expected to open this fall, while Korea’s Gallery Hyundai is on its way, too.

“Things are developing really fast,” said Pi Li, the co-director of Universal Studios. “I think you’ll see restaurants and shops here in maybe two years. After 20 years in China’s art world, nothing would shock me.”

Sotheby’s woos buyers from mainland China

Art.view

Asian spring

Mar 24th 2007
From Economist.com

Sotheby’s woos buyers from mainland China

ALL manner of wonderful wares have been on sale in New York during Asia Week, which ended yesterday. Cups and bowls and vases and vessels, made of everything from rhinoceros horn to porcelain, celadon and jade. But it was the auction of contemporary art, more than any other, that demonstrated how Asian buying is changing.

The contemporary auction market has expanded fast in the past two years. In 2004 Sotheby’s and Christie’s between them sold $22m-worth of contemporary Asian art, which included photography and paintings. Two years on that figure had jumped ten times, to $190m. The growth was especially steep for Sotheby’s. In 2004 its contemporary Asian art sales totalled just $3m. By 2006 they had leapt to $70m.

It was only a year ago that Sotheby’s held its first sale of contemporary Asian art in New York. Both auction houses had hosted sales in Hong Kong before that, but these offered mostly local art to local buyers.

Selling Asian art in America posed quite a different challenge.

On the one hand there were Western buyers, with a different aesthetic and history. A small number had already begun buying Chinese art in Shanghai and Beijing. But their aim was often speculative. Who knew how many more collectors might be interested, if any? And then there were the Asian, particularly mainland Chinese buyers. Sotheby’s was keen to attract more wealthy mainlanders to New York. But how?

In the event, Sotheby’s March 2006 sale brought in $13.8m, and 20 of the artists represented saw their work sell for record prices. Some pieces went for more than ten times the pre-sale estimates, though it is unclear whether this was the result of new-won popularity or a sign of Sotheby’s inexperience at setting estimates.

This year’s sale nearly doubled the 2006 figure, bringing in $25.3m, and the market is visibly more mature. Buyers were pickier, happy to bid high for select works while refusing others. A small number of artists again saw their work sell for record prices. Yue Minjun’s “Goldfish” (pictured below) shows 16 identikit Chinese men standing in line at the balustrade of a white bridge, laughing as they look down into the water at a solitary goldfish. Six bidders fought for this 1993 work, which was sold eventually to an anonymous buyer on the telephone for $1.38m against a pre-sale estimate of $700,000. None of Mr Yue’s four other pictures in the sale fetched more than $240,000. Buyers were equally particular about other lots; many sold within the estimate, while some did not sell at all.

Mr Yue’s laughing men, Zhang Xiaogang’s creepy pink babies with their outsized genitals and Zeng Fanzhi’s cartoon twins with their mask-like faces have all been bought by Westerners and Asian collectors alike. But one school—the photorealists—has an almost exclusively Chinese following. By offering 41 paintings of this kind, Sotheby’s was taking a gamble that it could attract new buyers from the mainland to New York.

To Westerners, who value the many innovations of modernist painting, such realism may seem sentimental, slavish and retrograde. But to Chinese collectors, these technically skilled artists, many of whom came of age in the 1970s, tried to see past the propaganda and capture the essential beauty of Chinese life.

Not surprisingly, women and the countryside feature strongly, but even here the images vary enormously. Works by Shanghai-born Chen Danqing depict tribal women with yaks, long woollen dresses and elaborate hairdos; prices for the artist ranged from $90,000-168,000. Wang Yidong’s “Yi River”—which fetched $801,600, more than twice the low estimate—depicts a young woman with pigtails standing on a flat stone as if edging across a river. Above her, in almost Freudian counterpoint, lies another woman (or perhaps it is the same one), asleep and possibly dreaming.

Leng Jun’s “Five Pointed Star” proved the realists’ stellar offering, realising $1.22m against a pre-sale estimate of $350,000-450,000. Painted against a black background, the star appears to be made of bits of rough scrap metal that have been folded and soldered together. The surface is depicted in minute detail, but it is the star’s symbolism that gives real feeling to the painting. It might be old and wrinkled, but despite its battered condition the star resiliently holds its form.

Sotheby’s chose well. Mainland Chinese collectors bought 22 of the photorealist paintings in the sale. Half of those lots, 11 in all, went to six mainland Chinese buyers who had never bought art in New York before.

The “Contemporary Art Asia: China, Korea, Japan” sale was at Sotheby’s, New York, on March 21st

Collector sells £15m Turner collection to buy Chinese contemporary art

Baron Ullens is acquiring new works for his Beijing gallery
By Georgina Adam |
Posted 22 March 2007
LONDON. The Belgian collector Baron Guy Ullens
has consigned 14 Turner watercolours to auction, because he wants to
focus on contemporary Chinese art. The works, which will be sold at
Sotheby's London on 5 July, are expected to fetch £10m-£15m
($19.7m-$29.55m).

Baron Ullens has founded the first private museum for both Chinese and
international contemporary art in Beijing, which is to open in
October. Titled the Ullens Centre for the Arts, it is located in
Beijing's Dashanzi art district and its first chairman is Jan Debbaut,
former head of collections at Tate.

Guy Ullens, whose fortune derives from the food industry,
lived in China in the early years of his career, and collects
classical Chinese landscapes as well as his newest interest,
contemporary Chinese art. He acquired the Turner watercolours over the
past 20 years, some at auction, and some through dealers. Most were
kept in store at the Geneva Free Port and according to Sotheby's
specialist Henry Wemyss, there will be no problems exporting the works
out of the UK should they go to foreign buyers. Indeed, Sotheby's is
taking the group around the world, including Hong Kong and Los
Angeles, before the sale. "Turner is such an international name and
his technique of brush on paper resonates with Chinese buyers, as well
as the more traditional American collectors of his work," says Mr
Wemyss.

The Ullens collection covers everything from early, naturalistic
renditions of British coastal scenes to late, impressionistic views in
Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. Among the most expensive
works is a large Swiss view, The Lake Lucerne from the Landing Place
at Fluellen, probably 1807-10, estimated at £2m-£3m ($3.95m-$5.91m).
This last appeared at auction in the Wills sale at Sotheby's just two
years ago when it made £1.86m ($3.35m). Another work, Oberwesel, 1840,
carries the same estimate.

Last year saw new Turner records established for an oil and
for a work on paper: a Venetian oil, Giudecca, La Donna della Salute
and San Giorgio sold for $35.86m at Christie's New York while the
watercolour The Blue Rigi sold for £5.83m ($11m) at Christie's London.
Christie's has traditionally dominated the Turner market so the sale
of this collection, which is the biggest to come to auction since the
Munro sales in 1878 and 1879, is a coup for Sotheby's, which offered a
guarantee on the group.

Let 10,000 Young Artists Bloom, Saatchi

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/magazine/11wwlnQ4.t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

Among the young artists whose work can be seen on Charles Saatchi's new
Chinese Web site are two who posted self-portraits: Huiyuan Sun, who
posted a series of photographs called "A Little Matter and My Face,"
above.

Stephanie Hueon Tung describes herself as a "fan of adrenaline and
adventure" on the Saatchi site, on which she has posted her "Light
Writing No. 1" and five other images.

PERUSING the student art on his Web site recently, as he does somewhat
obsessively throughout the day, the British collector Charles Saatchi
happened upon an entry from a painter named Liu Yang. This artist had
posted images of seven of his works, including a painting of a factory
set against a haunting gray background and a work on paper depicting a
woman's elongated torso.

But unlike European, American or Australian users of the site, who use
their Web pages there to tell the world everything about themselves —
their favorite artists, what movies and books inspired them, their
convictions about art or politics — Mr. Liu, a student at the Sichuan
Fine Arts Institute, simply wrote: "I can't speak a lot English. Sorry.
But love. ..." His message trailed off in a few lines of Chinese that
read in part: "I admit that my knowledge of art is limited at present.
However, I am sure I can learn quite a bit from your Web site."

Soon Mr. Saatchi began to notice that Mr. Liu was not alone. Every day
more art students from China were posting their work at Stuart (short
for Student Art), a popular nook of Mr. Saatchi's recently reinvented
Web site, saatchi-gallery.co.uk).

Known a decade ago for spotting talent and turning his discoveries into
superstars, as he did with so-called Young British Artists like Damien
Hirst and Rachel Whiteread, Mr. Saatchi is fixated these days on
Chinese artists, the hottest sector of the global market. And when he
saw these shyly tentative Web postings, something clicked.

"There are so many artists in China who want their work to be seen," he
said in a recent interview at his London home, pausing every now and
then to scan the large computer screen on his desk. "These students,
like all the others, want to know what's going on around the world."

So in January he decided to create a Chinese version of his Web site to
cater to that audience. Working in a warren of makeshift offices in the
basement of his Eaton Square home, 16 experts now oversee both the
popular Saatchi Gallery site, which is getting more than six million
hits a day, and a site in Mandarin, accessible from the home page, that
went online two weeks ago.

"Our goal is to break down language and cultural barriers," said Neeraj
Rattu, who is leading the site's technology team. Having compiled a
considerable amount of data, the team estimates that 20 to 30 art
schools operate in China; that about 10,000 students will graduate from
such schools this year; and that some 14,000 artists in China are
represented by galleries.

"That leaves roughly 10,000 unrepresented artists," said Kieran McCann,
who is in charge of the site's content and creative development.

About 300 art galleries operate in Beijing and about 300 in Shanghai: a
relatively small number, Mr. Saatchi said, considering the surge in
interest in Chinese work. China also has 100 to 200 auction houses,
many of which sell contemporary works.

Like Stuart, the Chinese site is designed to be as navigable as
possible, so that posting work will be as easy as opening an e-mail
account. So far 23 Chinese students have posted work on the site.

Each has a distinct personality. Kang Can, a serious-looking young man
photographed in sunglasses, writes, in perfect English, that he was
born in 1982 in Chongqing and graduated from the Sichuan Fine Art
Institute, and that he has already shown his work at Art Basel Miami.
Among the 15 images he has posted are a series of paintings in which a
sleeping infant is variously depicted in a chewing-gum wrapper, on top
of a gun, on the rim of a KFC plastic cup and in other poses.

"Babies as a symbol of human purity came to this world simple and
unadulterated," Mr. Kang writes.

Some of the pages are more cosmopolitan than others. Stephanie Hueon
Tung, a student at Peking University, writes that she recently
graduated from Harvard. "Now living and working in the wonderful city
of Beijing," her posting says. "Fan of adrenaline and adventure. Olé!"

Ms. Tung shows six images from her "light writing" series, in which she
scrawled in light on photographs ranging from a still life of a park
bench to an image of a closed-up shop that she embellished with a
heart-shaped graffito. Another student, Huiyuan Sun, has posted a work
called "A Little Matter and My Face," a series of 10 photographic
self-portraits in which he depicts himself in many guises.

In a few weeks the Saatchi team hopes the new site will be as
interactive as the English-language one, with a chat room in Mandarin
and a forum encouraging artists to debate current issues. The team's
eventual goal is to make its chat rooms seamlessly international, so
that students from all over the world can talk to one another in many
languages.

As it did for Stuart, the Saatchi team is reaching out to art schools
in China to let them know that their students can post pages at the
site. "It's all been word of mouth," Mr. Rattu said.

One looming concern is potential censorship by the Chinese government.
In recent months China has aggressively brokered controversial accords
with Google and Yahoo to filter the search-engine services they offer
in China and blocked access to some material offered by the Chinese
version of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Mr. Saatchi's team knows it may encounter problems if work posted on
the site is overtly political or directly critical of the Chinese
leadership. Its pioneering effort is likely to be closely monitored by
Western dealers and auction houses in the months ahead.

Pressed on that possibility Annabel Fallon, a spokeswoman for the
Saatchi Gallery, played down the potential for conflict. "After
discussions with the Chinese Embassy here we don't believe censorship
will be too much of a problem," she said in a written statement.
"According to the dealers and artists in China we are in contact with,
government interference in the arts seems to be at a very low level in
the last 10 years."

She added, "We don't foresee our site becoming a platform for
anti-government propaganda, but we do of course aim to be respectful to
the wishes of our host nation if our site starts being abused."

In remaking his Web site nine months ago to appeal to artists and
students and to be more interactive, Mr. Saatchi says, he resolved to
buy nothing posted there for the site's first year. Nonetheless he has
already bought works elsewhere by popular Chinese artists like Wang
Guangyi, Yue Minjun and Zhang Xiaogang. And when his new gallery, a
50,000-square-foot space on Kings Road in the Chelsea section of
London, opens in the fall, its first show will be devoted to
contemporary Chinese artists.

In the meantime he and his Internet team spend their days pondering
ways of attracting more artists to the site. In addition to Stuart, for
art students, and Your Gallery, a separate area where artists of all
ages can post their work and sell it directly without relying on a
dealer or other middleman, the site offers links to museums around the
world and a magazine with art world news and feature articles.

It is also sponsoring a six-month competition called Showdown, the art
Web equivalent of "Pop Idol" in Britain or "American Idol" in the
United States. Artists registered at the site can enter works on which
the Internet public will vote; the winner will get £1,000 (about
$1,930) and a chance to show his or her work at the Saatchi Gallery
when it opens. The runner-up will get £750, or about $1,450.

After posting its first call for submissions last week, the site
reported nine million hits over a 24-hour period. The team will soon
post the contest instructions in Mandarin so that Chinese artists can
compete.

But Mr. Saatchi says he won't stop with China. Over the next six months
his team hopes to draw in artists from India, Russia, Spain and South
America.

"My aim," Mr. Saatchi said, " is to do everything I can to maximize the
site's exposure."

Francesco Bonami on Chinese Art

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/25/magazine/25Style.China.t.htmlr=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

For every Koolhaas the West produces, [China] can produce 10 very good young Chinese architects able to deliver the same project, at the same level of quality, for about a third of the price. This doesn't mean, of course, that China is immune from nouveau riche posturing.

Published: February 25, 2007

Recently I received an e-mail message from a curator friend inquiring about a painter and sculptor named Liu Wei. I had included his work in a show I organized in Turin called "AllLookSame?" that featured pieces by young Korean, Chinese and Japanese artists. "Do you believe that Liu Wei is just a good artist or a very good artist that will be famous in the future like Zhang Xiaogang?" my friend asked. (Zhang Xiaogang is a Chinese art star whose paintings fetch six figures.)

I am a curator, but I am not a clairvoyant. The word on Chinese art right now is "Buy!" but I'm not convinced that we really understand what's going on there. Ten years ago, a few Chinese artists, like Chen Zen or Huang Yong Ping, appeared on the West's radar screen, satisfying a certain outdated "Orientalist" craving among some collectors. People like Uli Sigg, the former Swiss ambassador to China, who counts some 1,500 pieces of Chinese and Asian art in his collection, and another Swiss citizen, Lorenz Helbling, who opened his gallery, ShanghART, in China more than a decade ago, are reaping the profits of their foresight. But now Western collectors and dealers are descending on China like a swarm of annoying and aimless flies. Actually, today's burgeoning Chinese art world depends very marginally, if at all, on the gallery establishment in New York and London. Huge crowds may jam the Miami Basel and Frieze
art fairs, but those numbers are nothing compared with the potential size of the art market within China itself.

All of these things make it hard for me to answer my friend's question about Liu Wei. But the real difficulty has less to do with the dangers of market speculation than with the fact that I haven't quite figured out how a Chinese artist thinks, creates and produces a work of art.

A studio visit to an artist in Beijing is often like 10 studio visits in Brooklyn. In China, you don't find a painter, and a sculptor, and a video artist, but rather one artist who is working on painting, sculpture, photography, video and (why not?) performance all at the same time. When I visited Liu Wei in Beijing to select works for my show in Turin, he offered me not only beautiful cityscape paintings but also architectural models of famous buildings, like St. Peter's
Cathedral and the Empire State Building, made from the same rubber used to make fake dog bones. (I chose a painting.) In Europe, an artist that looks for inspiration in both a pet shop and the early work of Gerhard Richter would most likely be dismissed as lacking a consistent point of view. But in China the same criteria do not apply.

European artists often develop different bodies of work. Many Chinese artists seem to develop different bodies for each work. A great chaos under the sky was supposedly an excellent sign for Chairman Mao Zedong, and the same may be true for today's Chinese artists. Complexity and change is part of Chinese philosophy. To favor one medium over the others would be to impose a silly constraint. If all is possible in contemporary art, why limit yourself?

Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts currently receives applications from some 17,000 aspiring artists annually. Maybe a third of these will be accepted. But even if only 10 percent of those succeed in some way, there will be plenty of Chinese art to collect. What and by which ones has yet to be determined. But there is less and less doubt that the future, in some form or shape, will belong to the Chinese — not only as producers of art but also as consumers of it. Their capacity to devour and digest global ideas in order to create their own new aesthetic is
simply astonishing. It's happening already with architecture. After overcoming their initial inferiority complex, the Chinese are realizing that they don't need to buy into the Western star system. For every Koolhaas the West produces, they can produce 10 very good young Chinese
architects able to deliver the same project, at the same level of quality, for about a third of the price. This doesn't mean, of course, that China is immune from nouveau riche posturing. Louis Vuitton and Prada bags are as avidly consumed there as they are everywhere else on the planet. But a new, more sophisticated generation of creative people and style makers seems to be taking control.

Today, even government censorship has become a sort of performance art. During my visit to Shanghai last year, the government closed down a weeklong exhibition of ambitious installations in a newly renovated factory — some of the art was said to contain pornographic content — and a mild protest followed. But it all seemed to be part of a continuing game of cat and mouse, if not even a weird new form of art marketing.

They say that if you show a video of a tiger running in the jungle, a person from the West will focus on the tiger while a person from China will take in the whole image. There's no question that while Americans and Europeans are looking at individual artists or individual works of
art, the Chinese are seeing a cultural transformation of enormous proportions. Some Chinese artists will no doubt get eaten by the tiger. But perhaps it's the dealers and the collectors in the West who are missing the big picture.

Art zones create high rent not talent, says designer

Art zones create high rent not talent, says designer
By Yan Zhen 2007-1-25 Shanghai Daily

ASPIRING artists have been squeezed out of the city's newly created art
spaces because of soaring rents, a top designer has warned.

In an interview with Shanghai Daily on Tuesday, Wu Zhiqiang, chief
designer of the Shanghai Creative Industry Center and the 2010 World
Expo, took aim at the old factories and warehouses converted into
upscale art studios, saying Shanghai "misinterpreted" their
development.

"Many of the so-called creative zones have turned out to be
over-luxurious," said Wu, who is also dean of Tongji University's
school of architecture and urban planning. "It seems we have focused
too much on imitating other's form, but we didn't really get the
essence."

Transforming deserted factory buildings and warehouses into modern art
workshops and creative industry buildings proved a popular way to
preserve old architecture in the West during the 20th century.

"Spacious sites with low rent and low labor costs make it possible for
unknowns to produce great innovative ideas. But the model was
misinterpreted in Shanghai," Wu said.

Since 2005, the city has developed 75 creative zones in disused
buildings, including Bridge 8 on Jianguo Road M. and M50 on Moganshan
Road along Suzhou Creek.

Rents in the zones have soared in recent years.

In 2000, daily rent in M50 was only 0.4 yuan (five US cents) to 0.5
yuan a square meter on average. It now stands at about four yuan.

Rents in some of the more well-known zones have even reached eight
yuan to 16 yuan per square meter, on a par with some downtown central
business district office buildings.

"The rent is unbelievably high. Almost no single young artist can
afford it," said Sun Xiaojian, who gave up his studio in a converted
factory to move to an office building in Pudong New Area.

Jochen Schuster, a visiting architecture professor at Dusseldorf
University of Applied Sciences, said it was good for the city to find
connections between old buildings and modern art, but zones should be
made more suitable for young designers, rather than already successful
names.

Jonathan Napack, dead at 39

Jonathan Napack, a correspondent for The Art Newspaper for over ten
years, died unexpectedly in a Hong Kong hospital on 20 January. A few
days earlier Napack had told his friend, the curator Hou Hanru, that
doctors had found "fluid in his lungs". The exact cause of death is
still unknown. He was 39.

Napack started his career writing for a number of publications in New
York including the New York Observer and Spy, before moving to Hong
Kong in 1997 where he became increasingly involved in the Chinese
contemporary art world, championing artists through his journalism, his
contributions to exhibitions, catalogues and scholarly publications,
and most recently as ArtBasel's official representative in Asia.

News of Napack's sudden death, first reported on ArtForum's website,
shocked his many friends in the art world. Hans Ulrich Obrist, director
of exhibitions at the Serpentine Gallery in London, who collaborated
with Napack on a number of projects including the travelling show
"Cities on the Move", described him as "irreplaceable". The London
dealer Maureen Paley said she is "stunned and deeply saddened."

In an email circulated to friends Hou Hanru wrote: "In our memory, he
will always be brilliant, funny and pungent…you'd be pleasantly
surprised by his insightful understanding of things, people, especially
about China, Hong Kong, and the rest of Asia! It's not only about
talent, it's about love and commitment! He's gone; the art community
has lost one of its most wonderful actors, and we have lost a dearest
friend. We'll miss him endlessly."

Cristina Ruiz, editor of The Art Newspaper, said: "Jonathan knew
everything that was going on behind the scenes in the contemporary art
world in Asia. I will particularly miss his frequent updates from every
corner of the world delivered in his inimitable style— a combination of
reportage, connoisseurship, and (unprintable) gossip."

Sam Keller, director of ArtBasel, paid tribute to his friend: "I am
shocked and saddened by the dreadful news of Jonathan's unexpected
death. He was one of my oldest and best friends in the art world. We
often travelled together and had shared wonderful and unforgettable
experiences. Jonathan was a very special person, a truly unique
character and absolutely irreplaceable. Those of us who had the
privilege to know him will miss him deeply. He had a fantastic sense of
humour and told surreal anecdotes; he had a detailed knowledge of the
culture and cuisine of the countries he travelled in. Jonathan's
curiousity was never satisfied and he was always looking for the truth
behind the hype. He was an adventurer, an explorer, an analyst, a
critic and an aficionado. His pioneering spirit took him far beyond the
beaten tracks of the art world. With Jonathan's death we lose a
brilliant expert, writer, and thinker. He connected the art world from
the East to the West. It is tragic that he leaves us just as the
bridges he built are starting to get used. I am grateful to have met
this man who never stopped being a boy at heart."

Napack was preparing to celebrate his 40th birthday in Bangkok in
February.

His incisive journalism and irreverent sense of humour will be sorely
missed by everyone at The Art Newspaper.

In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism

In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism
By DAVID BARBOZA
Published: January 4, 2007

Images:http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2007/01/03/arts/20070104_ARTI_SLIDESHOW_2.html

SHANGHAI, Jan. 3 — After the peppered beef carpaccio and before the pan-fried sea bass there were raucous toasts and the clinking of wine glasses in the V.I.P. room of New Heights, a jazzy restaurant in this city’s most luxurious location, overlooking the Bund.

Wang Guangyi, one of China’s pioneering contemporary artists, was there. So were Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Zeng Fanzhi and 20 other well-known Chinese artists and their guests, many of whom had been flown in from Beijing to celebrate the opening of a solo exhibition of new works by Zeng Hao, another rising star in China’s bubbly art scene.

“We’ve had opening dinners before,” said the Shanghai artist Zhou Tiehai, sipping Chilean red wine, “but nothing quite like this until very recently.”

The dinner, held on a recent Saturday night in a restaurant located on the top floor of a historic building that also houses an Armani store and the Shanghai Gallery of Art, was symbolic of the soaring fortunes of Chinese contemporary art.

In 2006 Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the world’s biggest auction houses, sold $190 million worth of Asian contemporary art,

most of it Chinese, in a series of record-breaking auctions in New York, London and Hong Kong. In 2004 the two houses combined sold $22 million in Asian contemporary art.

The climax came at a Beijing auction in November when a painting by Liu Xiaodong, 43, sold to a Chinese entrepreneur for $2.7 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece by a Chinese artist who began working after 1979, when loosened economic restrictions spurred a resurgence in contemporary art.

That price put Mr. Liu in the company of the few living artists, including Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, whose work has sold for $2 million or more at auction.

“This has come out of nowhere,” said Henry Howard-Sneyd, global head of Asian arts at Sotheby’s, which, like Christie’s, has just started a division focusing on contemporary Chinese art.

With auction prices soaring, hundreds of new studios, galleries and private art museums are opening in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Chinese auction houses that once specialized in traditional ink paintings are now putting contemporary experimental artworks on the block.

Western galleries, especially in Europe, are rushing to sign up unknown painters; artists a year out of college are selling photographic works for as much as $10,000 each; well-known painters have yearlong waiting lists; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Pompidou Center in Paris are considering opening branches in China.

“What is happening in China is what happened in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century,” said Michael Goedhuis, a collector and art dealer specializing in Asian contemporary art who has galleries in London and New York. “New ground is being broken. There’s a revolution under way.”

But the auction frenzy has also sparked debate here about whether sales are artificially inflating prices and encouraging speculators, rather than real collectors, to enter the art market.

Auction houses “sell art like people sell cabbage,” said Weng Ling, the director of the Shanghai Gallery of Art. “They are not educating the public or helping artists develop. Many of them know nothing about art.”

But the boom in Chinese contemporary art — reinforced by record sales in New York last year — has also brought greater recognition to a group of experimental artists who grew up during China’s brutal Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

After the 1989 government crackdown in Tiananmen Square, avant-garde art was often banned from being shown here because it was deemed hostile or anti-authoritarian. Through the 1990s many artists struggled to earn a living, considering themselves lucky to sell a painting for $500.

That has all changed. These days China’s leading avant-garde artists have morphed into multi-millionaires who show up at exhibitions wearing Gucci and Ferragamo.

Wang Guangyi, best-known for his Great Criticism series of Cultural Revolution-style paintings emblazoned with the names of popular Western brands, like Coke, Swatch and Gucci, drives a Jaguar and owns a 10,000-square-foot luxury villa on the outskirts of Beijing.

Yue Minjun, who makes legions of colorful smiling figures, has a walled-off suburban Beijing compound with an 8,000-square-foot home and studio. Fang Lijun, a “Cynical Realist” painter whose work captures artists’ post-Tiananmen disillusionment, owns six restaurants in Beijing and operates a small hotel in western Yunnan province.

If China’s art scene can be likened to a booming stock market, Zhang Xiaogang, 48, is its Google. More than any other Chinese artist Mr. Zhang, with his huge paintings depicting family photographs taken during the Cultural Revolution, has captured the imagination of international collectors. Prices for his work have skyrocketed at auction over the last two years.

When his work “Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120” sold for $979,000 at Sotheby’s auction in March, many art insiders predicted the market had topped out and prices would plummet within months.

But in October, the British collector Charles Saatchi bought another of Mr. Zhang’s pieces at Christie’s in London for $1.5 million. Then in November at Christie’s Hong Kong auction, Mr. Zhang’s 1993 “Tiananmen Square” sold to a private collector for $2.3 million. According to Artnet.com, which tracks auction prices, 16 of Mr. Zhang’s works have sold for $500,000 or more during the past two years.

Are such prices justified? Uli Sigg, the former Swiss ambassador to China and perhaps the largest collector of Chinese contemporary art with more than 1,500 pieces, calls the market frothy but not finished.

“I don’t see anything at the moment that will stop the rise in prices,” he said. “More and more people are flocking to the market.”

Mr. Goedhuis insists that this is the beginning of an even bigger boom in Chinese contemporary art.

“I don’t think there’s a bubble,” he said. “There’s a lot of speculation but no bubble. That’s the paradox. In China there are only a handful of buyers — 10, 20, 30 — out of a billion people. You only need another 10 to come in and that will jack up prices.”

He added: “Another astonishing fact is there is not a single museum in the West that has committed itself to buying Chinese art. It’s just starting to happen. Guggenheim, the Tate Modern, MoMA, they’re all looking.”

Representatives from those museums, as well as others, have made scouting missions to China. A growing number of international collectors are looking at Chinese art too.

“After the 2005 Sotheby’s show I just jumped in,” said Didier Hirsch, a French-born California business executive who has long collected American and European contemporary art. “People said the next big run-up in prices would be at Sotheby’s in March so I said, ‘Now or never.’ ” Mr. Hirsch purchased nearly his entire collection — about 40 works — by phone after doing research on the Internet. He said he went first for what he called the titans — the original group of post-’79 painters — including Wang Guangyi and Liu Xiaodong.

Some critics here say the focus on prices has led to a decline in creativity as artists knock off variations of their best-known work rather than exploring new territory. Some are even employing teams of workers in assembly-line fashion.

Christopher Phillips, a curator at the International Center of Photography in New York, has become a regular visitor to China, scouting young artists for the center and other places. On a recent trip “I went to visit the studio of a well-known Beijing painter,” Mr. Phillips said. “The artist wasn’t there, but I saw a group of canvases being painted by a team of young women who seemed to be just in from the countryside. I found it a little disconcerting.”

There are also complaints that some artists are ignoring international standards by selling works directly into the auction market, rather than selling first to collectors. And many experts here say that some gallery officials and artists are sending representatives to the auctions to bid on their own works to prop up prices, or “protect” the prices of some rising stars.

But Lorenz Helbling, director of the ShanghART Gallery here, said Chinese artists continue to produce an impressive array of works, and that talk about the market being overrun by commercialism is exaggerated.

“Things are much better than they were 10 years ago,” he said. “Back then many artists were commissioned to simply paint dozens of paintings for a gallery owner, who went out and sold those works. Now these artists are thinking more deeply about their work because they’re finally getting the recognition they deserve.”

From Art Basel Miami

as shot by Ai WeiWei

Chinese Art in the news

Art in the news from Artzinechina.com

A painting by Liu Xiaodong sold in November for $2.7 million, shattering the record set by Zhang Xiaogang to become the most expensive Chinese contemporary art work ever sold at auction. The painting, "Three Gorges：Newly displaced Population," was sold to a Singapore collector in 2005. But the piece was put up for auction and the Chinese Poly auction house sold it today. The buyer was Zhang Lan, the founder of the South Beauty chain of expensive Chinese restaurants.

A conference called“The Reality and Dream of Chinese Contemporary Art” was held on November 17 at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Artists Liu Xiaodong, Xia Xing, Cui Xiuwen and the critics Yi Jinna, Zhao Li, Yu Ding and Feng Boyi discussed the topic “Can artists create artworks freely when they live in the market”drew lots of attention from the audience.

The Shanghai Art Fair arranged 2000 square meters space for 50 Young Chinese Contemporary Artists under 35 years old. Ma Liang, Han Zijian, Zhanghua, Xiang Qinghua, Zhou Jianhua, Liang Haopeng and Shen Na attended this special exhibition.

Zhai Mo, a 35-year-old abstract artist, will set out alone by sailboat from Shanghai for his around-the-globe voyage on January 1, 2007. His press conference was held at Chang An Club in Beijing last month. Zhai is hoping to become the first Chinese to travel around –the globe by sailboat.

Gu Ya, A 32-year-old woman from Yi Liang village in Yunnan Province, has created more than one thousand abstract pen–and-ink paintings in past three years, but she was only educated as high school level and never received art training. When asked to explain the meaning behind her images, Ms. Gu spoke in a language no one was able to decipher. The artist strange art and language has drawn enormous coverage from the media and on the internet. Now, CCTV – the national television network – plans an interview in the hopes of figuring out what this woman is saying and drawing.

Now in his 80s, famous Chinese abstract artist Zhao Wuji, who lives in Paris, was named last month an honorary professor of Fudan University. Five of his traditional art works have recently sold at auction for over $1 million, the highest being a 1958 composition that sold for $3.1 million – the highest price ever fetched by a living artist in China. Among contemporary artists, Liu Xiaodonghas sold for the highest price.

“Visible-Invisible”Chinese abstract painting exhibition was opened in One Moon Art Gallery which was located on Beijing Ditan Park on Dec. 2. Based on this exhibition, the seminar named “Chinese abstract painting” was held on Dec. 3. The artists of the exhibition were Chen Ruobing, Li Yang, Lin Yan, Tan Ping, Tang Kaizhi, Wang Guangle, Xu Hongming, Zhang Fan, Zhou Yangming.And the attendees of the seminar were: Gao Minglu, He Guiyan, Huang Du, Lei Hong, Li Xu, Liu Libing, Shao Yiyang, Sheng Wei, Wang Dunting, Wang Luyan, Wang Nanming, Wang Xiaojian, Zhu Jinshi, Zhu Qingsheng, Zhao Xun.

Christie's completed a record breaking auction of 20th Century Chinese art today with sales of $67.9 million worth of Asian contemporary and 20th century Chinese art works. Zhang Xiaogang's 1993 work, "Tiananmen Square," sold for $2.3 million, the second highest price ever paid for a work by a Chinese avant garde artist. Zhang Xiaogang had another work sell for $2.3 million and two other paintings sell for close to $1 million, making him easily the most sought after Chinese contemporary artist. Also, Yue Minjun's 1993 piece, "Kites," sold for $962,000 -- a record for a work by the artist. And a Zeng Fanzhi piece, "Mask 1999 No. 3," sold for 816,400 -- a record for the artist.

Two works by Chinese contemporary artists were banned from the Shanghai Art Fair held this week at the ShanghaiMART. The works were by Huang Rui and Cang Xin. The Cang Xin work portrayed him licking a Mao figurine. The works were being shown by the Hong Kong gallery 10 Chancery Lane. The gallery's other images -- including photographs of Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming undressing and standing naked with a large group of artists and other people -- were not taken down.

The latest issue of Time magazine features an article about the boom in Chinese contemporary art. The article, by Simon Elegant, is called "The Great China Sale," and it explains how hot the art market is right now. The article also mentions that Christie's auction in New York last week, one of Zhang Xiaogang's paintings sold for $1.36 million. The article also says that the British collector Charles Saatchi paid $1.5 million at a London auction for another piece by Zhang Xiaogang.

A man calling himself the “Yanan Clay Sculpture King,”Wang Wenhai, has accused the well-known Beijing sculptor Sui Jianguo, who is the professor of Central Academy of Fine Arts, of violating the copyright by creating a sculpture called Sleeping Chairman Mao. Wang, who worked in the Revolutionary Museum in Yan'an, the central province of Shaanxi, has devoted much of his life to creating sculptures of Mal. In 2002, Wang said he created a sculpture of Mao sleeping. Mr. Wang,who says Mao is his hero, also say Sui Jianguo's Mao in his work "Nightmare," also depicts Mao as the devil. Wang told one Chinese newspaper he was so angry about the image he fainted. This case was heard at a court in Beijing Chaoyang District People Court on November 21 2006. No word yet on the verdict.

In 2006 Taipei Biennale, the young artist from Guangzhou, Cao Fei, created what is being called her National Father project. As a curator, Cao Fei planned the whole sculpture solo exhibition for her father, the sculptor Cao Chongen. At the exhibition, she exhibited six small bronze sculptures of the famous Chinese leader Sun Yat Sen in his different time such as youngster Sun Yat Sen, the Great President, Great Marshal, etc. Cao Chongen, Cao Fei’s father, created many of the Sun Yat Sen sculptures that are now displayed in China.

Interview with Steven Wang

Steven Wang

Position: An assistant director
Films: Fearless, Mission Impossible III.
Background: graduated at Film Academy in Shanghai University, working 5 years in Chinese film making industry, now study in New York Film Academy.

(Below are the interviews, I simply summarized, A is Alex, S is Steven Wang)

A: How do you think of the film market in China?

S: The whole market was divided by three groups. The first is American, Japan, and Korea. They occupy the largest part. American was the first one entering China. Under the influence of Hollywood, films from Japan and Korea developed very fast, especially Korea. In recent years, Korean films are more and more commercialize. Some famous films from Korea have been introduced into China; it is very obvious that Korea has ranked into the train like Japan and America. The second group was Hong Kong, since the import quota license has been canceled, Hong Kong films have greatly impact Chinese Mainland, and in the same time, films from Taiwan, who used to be as important as Hong Kong, have quitted this stage. The third group was a few excellent directors in Mainland; they once operated several ‘successful’ commercial films.

A: What are the objective conditions of work in China?

S: It can be summarized by a Chinese traditional idiom “Yu Long Hun Za” (good and evil people mixed up). Most film making groups are from Hong Kong; because the limitation and shrink of Mainland market, those groups crushed into Mainland. They use the advantage of geography and cheap labors to produce and publish films. About the propagandizing part, they are occupied by the advertisement making groups from Taiwan. They have adequate experience by plagiarizing, absorbing, and imitating advertisement creativities from foreign countries, especially Japan. Now, they have formed their own expert groups to pack and propagandize. While in the mainland, under the film-making mode from Hong Kong and Taiwan in several years, some small brands and producing groups have been built up.

A: How do you think the future of film industry in China?

S: There are infinite potential in China now. Since the national power strengthened, the brand of culture has been more and more emphasized. Due to the particularity of film making environment, it needs special management and reasonable salary distribution system. And after joining into WTO, the communication of culture has been broaden, the art quality and commercial factors of Chinese films have been forced to run up. Moreover, not only the capital from foreign countries, but also the producing money from inland has greatly increased. It activates the producing environment. In addition, some talent persons choose to return to China, to join into producing domestic films. They helped to advance the producing level, and the new management they brought into is forcing the old system to step out of the market.

Museums vs. Chinese Art Market

The current state of contemporary museums in Shanghai is a complex web of funding and weaving of resources to attempt to provide a feasible museum to the public. With the emerging interest in the collection of Asian art, galleries and collectors have often times made quick assertions about the perceived value of contemporary Chinese art. In Shanghai alone, dozens of museums and galleries have emerged with the goal of not only advancing artistic ideas, but pushing, and literally selling these ideas to the rest of the world. In this new emerging world of Asian art questions begin to arise as to whether or not contemporary museums and galleries in Shanghai are taking the ethical steps necessary to provide the proper reciprocal benefits to the artistic community, as well as valuing art for its creativity, and not simply its capitalistic market worth.
Currently in China today, the government lacks a cohesive plan that would allow for non-profit organizations to feasibly exist. As a result, this situation makes the various museums and galleries come up with creative means to sustain and fund their artistic ventures. Unlike in the United States, where a system of donations allows a tax benefit and unlike in Europe, where the governments provide cultural budgets to stimulate the arts, a void exists in China to the extent that neither of these two forces are present. With the lack of government support and philanthropic tradition, Chinese galleries and museums have resorted to various means of raising capital, such as finding corporate sponsors, selling the art being displayed, providing professional services like graphic and concept design, and in some cases receiving donations from private individuals.
As a result, many galleries have been forced to find a business solution to allow for the continued existence of their organization. In the case of BizArt, which opened in 1996, an innovative solution had to be found. According to the director of BizArt, David Quadrio, “BizArt is a self-supported and not-for-profit art center that combines artistic and commercial pursuits with the ultimate goal of advancing contemporary art in Shanghai and beyond. The name ‘BizArt’ refers to our straddling the duel roles of business and art, and the ‘bizarre’ nature of our existence.” Although BizArt advocates its non-for-profit status in the pursuit of artistic creativity and development, the harsh reality is that BizArt needs to receive revenue to survive. This gray area, or as BizArt would say, “bizarre” nature of its existence, points to the conflicts that exist within its not-for-profit status and its need to create revenue through business endeavors such as graphic and concept design. Despite this juxtaposition of values, BizArt recognizes the growing imbalance of the cost of Chinese art in relation to funding allocated to artists and creative organizations. BizArt acknowledges this growing hyper-inflation of Chinese art, and strives to reinvest in the artistic community by the creation of Arthub. Arthub supports a process of creative contemporary art free of pressures resulting from the hyper-inflated contemporary Chinese art market.
Another contemporary art space in Shanghai, the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, better known as the Shanghai MoCA, has experienced many of the effects of commercialization due to the lack of a philanthropic tradition. Opened in 2005 from the support of Samuel Kung, who contributed US$1.5 million, the museum quickly needed to find a way to bring in extra revenue that would allow for its continued existence. Endorsed by the Shanghai Municipal Government, the MoCA has become a notable tourist attraction in the heart of Shanghai. Despite its not-for-profit status, the MoCA contains a restaurant, as well as holds private functions. Thus the MoCA’s status of non-for-profit is tainted by its need to bring in income. A perfect example arises from personal experience when we visited the MoCA, the staff members were preparing to move a famous clay pot exhibit by Ai WeiWei to make space for a Ferrari that was to be shown at a private party later that evening. In addition, an AirFrance model for their new first class seating was blocking Miao Xiaochun’s “Last Judgment” exhibit, which already had poor visibility and viewing space. These two examples force us to question what is the priority of the MoCA - is it to make money, or display contemporary art? The MoCA claims to be the first not-for-profit contemporary art museum, but what line is to be drawn between where art ends and profit begins?
Likewise, the Zendai Museum of Contemporary Art brings to mind similar ethical questions. The Zendai is funded by the Zheng Da Property Group, which is the largest single property developer in Pudong. Although the Zendai is willing to take chances and exhibit edgy, more controversial pieces of art, the fact is that Zendai is entirely funded by a single organization, thereby creating a potential conflict of interests. In addition, the future plans are to create a center for contemporary art, called The Himalaya Center, which includes a five-star hotel, commercial space, and office space for creative businesses. The Zendai therefore represents the current commercialization of contemporary art, and the current hyper-inflation that threatens artistic creativity. Despite being free from having to look for outside contributors to fund its space, the relationship between Zendai and the parent corporation is in need of scrutiny. The fact remains that Zheng Da is a developer in Shanghai, and the Zendai may not be free to take truly creative measures in displaying art. It may instead be forced to display art that would appeal to the hyper-inflated art market and bring in tourism money to create a profit for the parent sponsor.
In our examination of these three major players in the Shanghai art world, there is a lack of definite boundaries between art for its intrinsic value, and art for its commercial value. There lacks a sanctity in the use of an art space such as the MoCA or Zendai, as compared to museums in America and Europe, which believe that art should be displayed for intellectual and cultural value. Understandably, the realm that these art spaces exist within is inextricably bound to the need to attain financial viability due to lack of proper societal contributions. However, these museums and galleries should strive to limit the influence of the commercial art market to maintain their integrity as public art spaces. As the Shanghai art scene develops and expands, one can only hope that the true spirit of art will be preserved from an ever growing capitalist influence.

Contemporary Chinese Art - Piecing it Together

Last Thursday we were privileged to have three active members of the contemporary Chinese art scene who live in Shanghai arrive and present our small class with a lecture on the emerging and evolving performance art scene in Shanghai and China today.
The first of these specialists was Yang Zhanzhong, who was the curator an exhibition “Art for Sale”, which was compiled over half a year in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The exhibit resembled a supermarket, offering up art in wholesale quantities. One could possibly imagine Wal-Mart adding an art arm, as it were. After discussing the “Art for Sale” exhibit for a short while, and presenting a film highlighting his role as an “employee”, he showed a short film entitled “I Will Die”, in which people are recorded saying, “I Will Die”. This work, like the rest of Yang Zhanzhong’s work is rather lighthearted, and simply asks us to examine death from a less morbid sensibility.
The next speaker was Philip Tinari, a writer living in Shanghai, although he also has extensive experience living in Beijing. Philip’s lecture highlighted “The Long March Project” (www.longmarchspace.com), in which various artists retraced the stops during Mao’s own Long March. These artists often created site-specific pieces along the way. In an exampled that remembered the violence that occurred in one stop, knives were used to highlight the events at that locale. The key element for the artist involved has been to keep a unique Chinese social tradition as an intrinsic part of their works, going back to the Chinese countryside to find “roots”. Lastly Philip brought up the Yan’An Project, which has set out to help future artists in China, as an adequate art education system is something that has been seriously lacking in China today. This education system will become increasingly important as China moves towards a goal of creating one thousand museums by 2015.
The last speaker, Liu Ying Mei, is another curator who has lived both in Shanghai and Beijing, and is well known for working with artists who push the limits of what is to be tolerated in modern China. Liu began by presenting us with a history of modern art in China, starting in 1750 with an Italian priest, moving towards the 1979 Stars Exhibition, the 1989 Modern Art Exhibition, and finally into the 1990s with the beginning of solo exhibitions as a way to present contemporary Chinese art. After giving us a general history of art in China, she moved on to discuss the creation of Shanghai’s first art school, an oil painting school in Xu Jia Hui. The Catholic Church can be attributed to the creation of the school, which was founded in 1860 as an orphanage, but was converted to an art school in 1864 by Juan Ferrerra. Shanghai’s first art school lasted around ninety years, from 1864 – 1949, ending with the accession of Mao.
Interspersed between illuminating us with the fascinating history of contemporary art in China, Liu presented us with pictures from the various art exhibits she has been associated with. Her most fascinating story comes from 2002, when during one of her works at a library, eight artists had to removed their works and offer less “offensive” creations, due to disapproval from the organizer.
Although these three speakers touched on different topics, all wove together to give an underlying presentation of what is happening today in contemporary Chinese art. Liu Ying Mei highlighted the history of the contemporary art movement, as well as serious issues facing the Chinese gallery scene, where an organizer has too much power over their sponsored artists. This strangulation of artistic creativity is a worrisome possibility in some of Shanghai’s new museums, such as the Zendai. This new building spree is also worrisome because of an acute lack of art education in China, upon which Philip touched upon, as well as the attempt by contemporary Chinese artists to find their own, indigenous inspiration with his discussion of the Long March Project. Finally Yang Zhanzhong highlights issues of China’s inflated contemporary art market with his work “Art for Sale”, which while being shut down shortly, also highlights the still restrictive nature of China in relation to allowing artist freedoms. These three artists brought together all of the critical issues facing Chinese art through their own personal experiences of working in China in a thoroughly thought provoking manner.

Modern Chinese Art: A Prism of Perspective

First thing’s first: Thursday’s class was definitely a challenge for a giddy college student like me. The extended 5 hour class stretched my patience and focus beyond its average academic capacity. However, naked Chinese male artists locked in cages grasping bottles of beer and drunkenly designating prices on a female mannequin a few feet across and oblivious chickens ravenously but rhythmically thrusting their heads towards the rice in a duel for rice can be considered some of the most entertaining art I have observed ever. But to have seen these works in class with the artist and other elite members of China’s contemporary art community, I felt honored.

Aside from the humor, cheerfulness, and cordiality exuded by each of the speakers, the concepts and concerns that they expressed have significant value and insight into Chinese contemporary art. The speakers possessed different backgrounds such as artist, critic and curator respectively, but each of them voiced concerns and beliefs on the same topic. Chinese contemporary art and contemporary art in China have reached the intersection in which artists deviate from the same origins as some pursue art as passionate expression and some as profitable marketing.

Our first speaker is renown contemporary artist Yang Zhenzhong (the very person that reflected curious irony in his work “Light and Easy”). During his lecture segment he showed video clips of his past work as a collaborator with other artists or as a solo performance artist. Through his media presentations and his speech, Yang expresses his inclination towards art as a means of communication. In his films “Art for Sale,” Yang collaborates with other artists and strangers alike to accentuate the jovial atmosphere of his performance art as well as convey to the larger community the existence and evolution of art in modern Chinese society. Even though the exhibition was shut down 3 days after opening, the impact and symbolism that it represented of modern Chinese society and contemporary Chinese art both had great influence on the broader populace. Yang believes that art is a form of expression and communication that may be broadcasted to the larger community through exhibits or purchases. Profit is not his primary motivation.

Philip Tinari solidifies Yang’s position by showing and explaining to us the artists’ Long March. Participating artists in this event travel the original route of the famous communist Long March and visit significant stops. At each stop, artists contribute works or performances to the community as a gesture of goodwill and introduction to modern Chinese art.

In her speech, Liu Ying Mei explains in detail the historic course of contemporary Chinese art from the 1970’s Stars Movements to present day contemporary Chinese art. She confirms the beliefs and impressions that Yang and Philip suggested when she remarked that in 2001 Beijing held its first public contemporary Chinese art exhibition in the Xinhua Book Store.

Even though artists such as Yang Zhenzhong, members of the Long March event, and members of the Beijing Bookstore exhibit create art as a means to bond with the larger population, many other artists produce art for the sake of profit. Attracted to returns of material wealth and fame that an auctioned painting at Sotheby’s may offer, many artists produce works driven by material rewards. However, monetary benefits may only rise to a certain amount as an inflated and speculated market loses its steam and infatuation of contemporary Chinese art. On the other hand, spiritual and cultural understanding and exhibition of contemporary Chinese art shall flourish as an increased population comes into contact with art and artists develop more insightful and ingenious works.

China's new millionaires see capital gain in art

China's new millionaires see capital gain in art

By Will Bennett - Financial Times

Published: September 29 2006 16:37 | Last updated: September 29 2006 16:37

China may still pay lip service to communism but it is fast emerging as a capitalist superpower and its rapidly growing millionaire class, already numbering more than 300,000, is starting to flex its muscles in the international art market.

Auction houses and dealers are watching the progress of China's new rich as well as their counterparts in India, another booming Asian economy, with self-interested fascination.


India's new millionaires are sending prices for their country's contemporary art soaring but it is the mainland Chinese who represent the most glittering prize for the likes of Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams, all among the world's leading dealers in Asian art.

Most of China's 1.3bn people are poor by western standards but economic reforms have created a breed of wealthy entrepreneurs some of whom are keen to buy art, either as an investment or to display their recently acquired riches.

In May and June, Christie's ran up more than $154m at its Hong Kong sales, the highest for a series of auctions held in Asia.

A few weeks earlier, Sotheby's sales in the former British colony, now a semi-autonomous part of China, brought in $108.5m with record prices for paintings, textiles and jewellery.

In March, Sotheby's New York Asian sales totalled $51.6m with a 14th-century Yuan dynasty jar becoming, at $4.7m, the most expensive Chinese work of art ever sold by the auction house in the US.

The market for contemporary Chinese art has never been stronger with Christie's Hong Kong sale totalling a record $39.1m.

Bidding from mainland China has been credited with driving these remarkable prices but the reality, as with most things in this vast, complex nation, is more complicated. The market for Asian art and, in particular, for Chinese works has always been international and many of today's biggest buyers are American and European collectors and dealers.

At Christie's Hong Kong sales, the piece that attracted headlines worldwide was a 14th-century Ming porcelain vase that sold for a record $10.2m. The buyer was Steve Wynn, the American gambling magnate, more usually known as a buyer of impressionist and Old Master paintings, who donated it to a museum in the Chinese port of Macau, where he is due to open a casino.

The most expensive lot at London's Asian art sales in July was a Yuan dynasty jar bought for $3.9m by London-based Giuseppe Eskenazi, the world's most important dealer in Chinese art.

That price was a fraction of the $27.7m that Eskenazi had paid for an even rarer Yuan dynasty jar at Christie's in London a year previously, a purchase for a European collector rather than a millionaire in Shanghai or Beijing.

A syndicate from mainland China had bid up to $18m for the jar but the final four contenders, who pushed the price into the stratosphere, were from elsewhere.

"The mainland Chinese have not had such an impact at the very, very top end of the market," says Eskenazi. "They are buying in the upper part of the middle market but not at the top where you need a sophistication that people acquire when they have been buying for a long time."

Although Asian art buyers are often Chinese, they are not necessarily from the People's Republic. Many of the high rollers are from Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which now have more than 170,000 millionaires between them.

One of the big spenders in London's summer sales was veteran Hong Kong dealer and collector Robert Chang and, when he won a hotly contested battle for a vase at Bonhams, his chief rival was a Taiwanese dealer.

Hong Kong's importance is undoubtedly growing but New York and London remain the biggest centres for the market. Their strength will be evident at the ninth annual Asian Art in London exhibition. Auction houses, dealers and museums will combine to stage the event from November 2-10 to promote the British capital's important role in the sector.

One of the key, and as yet unanswered, questions is whether western auction houses will hold sales in mainland China. Since the communist authorities legalised the private art market in 1992, almost 2,000 local auctioneers have set up businesses boasting, in 2004, a combined turnover of more than $1bn. Works of art made up about a quarter of this total and it is clearly a market with huge potential.

The problem is that although the People's Republic theoretically opened its doors to foreign competition almost two years ago, in order to fulfil its obligations as a member of the World Trade Organisation, government regulations, in effect, exclude outsiders.

Christie's discovered this last year when it formed an alliance with the Beijing-auction house Forever and held a successful $12.1m sale of modern and contemporary Chinese paintings. Within weeks, Forever's auction licence was withdrawn because the law bans joint ventures to sell cultural items with foreign companies. Christie's is still waiting for its local partner to resolve the situation with the authorities.

For the moment Sotheby's and Christie's find it easier to sell in the less bureaucratic atmosphere of Hong Kong. But, in spite of such setbacks, there is no doubt that China's new millionaires will play an increasingly important role in the market for Asian art.

"They will get there in the end," says Eskenazi. "There is so much cash available."

www.asianartinlondon.com

BJG II: Art Economy Forum Schedule

October 6,2006
Current Creation Situation and Recent Collection Trends of Contemporary Art

Host: Pi Li (Curator, Art Critic)
14:00—14:20 Opening Speech by Shang Yusheng, Secretary-General, Wu Zuoren International Foundation of Fine Arts
14:25—15:15 A Speech by Fan Di’an, Director, National Art Museum of China
15:20—16:10 A Speech by Uli Sigg, Former Ambassador of Switzerland in China, Art Collector
16:15—17:05 A Speech by Pierre Huber, Founder of The gallery Art & Public
17:05—17:35 Discussion

October 7, 2006
The Strategy in Art Investment and The Management of Art Fund

Host: Yu Tianhong (Vice-Director,Tai He Media Group)
14:00—14:50 A Speech by Jone Tancock, Vice-Dirctor, Sotheby’s New York Ltd.
14:55—15:45 A Speech by Friedhelm Huette, Curator of Deutsche Bank
15:50—16:40 A Speech by Zhangfan, CEO, Sequoia Capital China
16:40—17:10 Discussion

2. Special Forum

October 8, 2006
Concept and Strategy—Management of Gallery in the Globalization Background

Host: Gu Weijie (Producer and Chief-Editor, Art Finance Magazine)
Speakers: Directors of six different galleries from around the world, which are very young or not well-known, but promising. They will introduce their galleries’ history, management style and represented artists, and discuss the recent trends in their local art market.

14:00—14:30 A Speech by Alexander Ochs, Director of Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin / Beijing
14:35—15:05 A Speech by Meg Maggio, Director of The gallery Pekin Fine Arts
15:10—15:25 A Speech by Yun Chea Gab, Director of The gallery Arario Beijing
15:30—15:45 A Speech by Ye Mingxun, Director of Main Trend Gallery
15:50—16:05 A Speech by Xiao Qiong, Director of The gallery C5 Art
16:10—16:25 A Speech by Fang Fang, Director of Star Gallery
16:30—17:00 Discussion

October 9,2006
Topic: Art and The Public-The Goals and Responsibilities of Contemporary Art Medium
Speech Time: 15 minutes for each Chinese speaker and 30 minutes (including translation) for each foreign speaker
Host: Zhao Li (Vice-President, School of Liberal Arts Central Academy of Fine Arts)
Speakers: 6 experts from famous public media, art media and web media around the world. They will introduce national and international art newspapers, art magazines, art book publishers and art websites, and discuss the recent trends in contemporary art news report.
14:00—14:30 A Speech by Inna Kanounikova, Manager, LTB Media Liaison Office
14:35—14:50 A Speech by Shu Kewen, Sub-editor, San Lian Life Weekly
14:55—15:10 A Speech by Jiang Wei, Director, www.artron.net
15:15—15:30 A Speech by Zhu Qi, Chief-Editor, Art Map Magazine
15:35—15:50 A Speech by Gu Weijie, Producer and Chief-Editor, Art Finance Magazine
15:55—16:10 A Speech by Wang Gang, Director, www.artnews.cn

Survival of the Fittest in Business

We visited the MoCA during its exhibition MoCA Envisage—Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity. The first impression left on me was made by the structural design of the MoCA. Built from glass and steel, the MoCA represents transparency that contains the ingenuity, creativity, and social and personal experience of artists in regards to aesthetics, emotions, and experience. In an architectural respect, the MoCA perfectly illustrates the Envisage theme through the convergence of glass and steel to encase and craft perception flawlessly and lure the audience to perceive the art within.

As I explored the MoCA, the variety and originality exhibited by the many artworks attracted me in all directions and allowed my imagination and perspective to converge with the artist’s. The art works exhibited in the MoCA reflect the progressive impression modernity instills in everyday life, in society, culture and individuals. These artworks are inspired and illustrate the union of aesthetics with the daily lives of individuals and their interactive positions in society. As the artworks represent the perspectives and experience of artists in China or of Chinese origin, their ingenuity reflects the development and transformation of China and Chinese elements in life.

The piece that completely and immediately caught my attention is Andre Cervera’s painting “Story of Chinese Business.” As I first saw the picture, a black and white drawing of ancient Chinese men gathering around a table and complimented by a dynastic Chinese background, I thought that the presence of this painting in the MoCA Envisage exhibition must definitely contain hidden meaning that yearns to be debunked. Feeling adventurous, I looked for the title and author of this painting and found the answer (as mentioned above), though initially to my astonishment. The focal point of the artwork lies in center of the picture with the three distinctive illustrations—the man with the face of a tiger standing on the left, the table with nothing on it, and the man with a normal face standing on the right. The peculiar representation of the two main characters at the center of the painting is pivotal to the accentuation of the piece’s understanding and underlying cultural representation. In modern society, economy is based on reciprocal relationships of mutual agreement and benefit. However, Cervera depicts one of the characters as a man with the face of a tiger whereas the other individual is portrayed as a normal human. This portrayal of the two characters creates a sense of imbalance and challenges the foundation of Western economic interaction. Through the tiger-headed character, the artist illustrates to the audience primal dominance in the context of humanity: an instinctive and beastly aggression, the tiger-head ravenously advances on his prey.

Although the two main characters are the focus of the painting, without the crucial presence of the table at the center, the painting would not as deeply and distinctively emphasize the cultural significance of Chinese business relations. In the painting, the table lies in the exact center of the entire painting, its shape distinctively square. The imagery of this table symbolizes the equality and balance of an economic relationship, which contrasts more sharply with the predator and his victim. It shows to the audience that even though the two parties to the business deal compliment each other in an atmosphere of equality, in Chinese business culture, survival of the fittest dictates and characterizes Chinese business relations. The table also accentuates the lack of a transparent and definitive legal system in Chinese relationships. In Western society, the presence of legal institutions and illustrations and the conduct of relationships in a formal surrounding are the milestone for successful interaction and development; however, as seen in the painting, the table is bare and empty. This lack of legal presence highlights the continuing chaos in Chinese society and its lack of an institutionalized and transparent legal system, especially in its business interactions.

The setting and outfits of these pivotal characters symbolic of Chinese business lies also plays a peculiar role in accentuating Chinese entrepreneurial relationships. As this is an artwork describing the cunning and primal actions of Chinese business relationships, the setting does not have to be archaic and neither does the clothing of the characters. However, by illustrating a background and outfits that parallel ancient Chinese attire and architecture, the artist portrays the extended chronology of the competitive and brutal Chinese business relationship as a tradition deeply embedded in Chinese culture that retains through modernity and progress—through the age of a developing Chinese legal institution and emergence of a global market system.

As China progresses and gradually synchronizes with the Western world—enjoying Western consumerism, accepting Western pop culture, and appreciating Western aesthetic perception—there remain traditions rooted deeply in the Chinese culture and individual psyche that will not fade from the increasingly modernized nation and culture. But through rigorous efforts and a demanding community, Chinese have the possibility and hope of evolving beyond primal instincts and selfish desires and progress towards a true civilization.

When I used to think of China, I had an idea of it as vast foreign place, and I didn’t imagine much variety among the country’s constituents. Moreover, I thought little of China beyond the big cities of my imagination: Beijing and Shanghai. If asked to define the essence of China, I would be at a loss, but I’d believe it possible. The Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art’s current exhibition "Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity" is trying to get at this essence of China through the work of its contemporary artists. What they’ve found is that the reality of China is not easily soluble; it’s complex and multifaceted and this exhibition aims to demonstrate the aesthetics of the conglomerate of dissimilar parts that is contemporary China.

During my visit to the MoCa, I was particularly struck by two works from Qiu Jie. The first piece "Washer Women" is a large pencil drawing on the first floor. The drawing depicts a scene in contemporary China where the old, new, and surreal all congregate. Women wash clothes on stone steps at the base of the river while listening to a radio over which a pair of Nikes is draped. Beyond the women in the foreground we see at the same time modern Chinese town, with cars and trucks traversing the streets and an ancient one, with its citizens washing clothes and visiting the market as they have done for centuries. Flying above the scene is winged man and several mythical Chinese birds adding a surreal element to the piece, perhaps an indication of the artist’s bewilderment at the mixture of old and new.

Qiu Jie’s other drawing on display, "Voyage To the West", also utilizes the surreal. Drawn with pencil, the work symbolizes a departure from, and perhaps even a growing contempt towards, traditional Chinese values, and a steady march towards Western ideals. A Chinese woman, clad in Nike tennis shoes, and her child ride atop a steer traveling through mountains and forest. On the other end of the picture Qiu Jie presents a monkey, dressed in traditional Chinese clothing, dancing wildly with a staff in hand. I think Qiu Jie’s monkey is representative of a growing feeling of absurdity towards traditional Chinese beliefs as its society progresses, as it voyages west. The further China goes on its voyage away from its traditional values, the more absurd and out of place those old values look.

Made for the marketplace- a Biennale Review

Made for the marketplace

By Rabinowitz and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz

Published: September 12 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 12 2006 03:00

Travel to Shanghai for its biennale, and you may find more shows than you had bargained for. As well as Hyper Design, the city's sixth biennale, housed in the Shanghai Art Museum, there are a host of other group exhibitions - some calling themselves "biennales" too - to investigate: Crossovers: Beyond Art and Design at the Contrasts Gallery; Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity at the Museum of Contemporary Art; the Second Shanghai Duolun Exhibition of Young Artists at the Duolon Museum of Modern Art; and another show organised by young artists that calls itself "the alternative biennale".

The number of satellite biennale platforms is as hard to ignore as the dearth of debate about their content. Instead of discussions about what these artists and curators have produced, many of the conversations taking place around these shows are focused on questions of monetary value.

ADVERTISEMENT

The market for Chinese art continues to soar. But commercial value alone is no proof of a work's intellectual worth; indeed, if its intellectual worth remains suspect, its long-term market value will be shaky. Remarkably, I have noticed only a few jabs at globalisation or consumer culture; there seems instead to be a wholly unironic celebration of capitalism's possibilities.

Another noticeable feature is the absence of politically charged art. Unlike the 1990s, there are few references to Mao Zedong or Tiananmen Square. What a New York Times article of March 2006 called "a quiet but forceful cultural revolution" now looks like an all-out rejection of any polical concerns among those exhibiting this season in Shanghai. For it is not merely, as the NYT noted, that "such artists operate without government interference." Rather, it is that - as the video artist Xu Zhen has put it - "now the Chinese government is more conceptual and forward-thinking than the artists".

Interestingly, some have returned to analyses of ancient Chinese traditions to make sense of new trends. For these observers, it is the history of centuries rather than of decades that provides an illustrative foil for these exhibitions. The catalogue essay for the Crossovers show by Li Xu, the former director of the Shanghai Museum, explains this comparative approach, and it is an explanation that applies equally well to MoCA's Entry Gate and to several of the works in Hyper Design. In earlier centuries, when referring to the concept of "art", the Chinese thought of ji shu, meaning craftsmanship, and xue shu, meaning knowledge. For items as diverse as teapots, gardens, calligraphy and poetry, there was no segregation of art and design. The wen ren or artist scholar was valuable because his creativity and skill implied spiritual and intellectual worth. Yet today a Chinese artist's social worth may too often be based on his market value.

Perhaps neither a lack of political content nor an emphasis on market value should be decisive factors in evaluating a contemporary art show's worth. But if Hyper Design is anything to go by, it is clear that the conceptual has been almost entirely taken over by the commercial in China.

But what of the exhibition's subtitle, The Practice of Everyday Life? Certainly, the Dutch artist and designer Atelier von Lieshout's free-standing desk/bed unit and the Chinese artist Liu Jianhua's "Dream Installation" - a shipping container overflowing with cheap plastic utensils - both involve considerations of work and the economy. So too does the impressive installation by Lee Kyung-Ho from South Korea, a landscape surrounded by video projections of more than 20 remote-control toy trucks at work in the space. These playtime work vehicles were imported to and sold on the street in Seoul, and, as'the artist explains, he "has brought them back home to work".

Another striking work-about-work is Zhou Wu's "Tribute to Handicrafts", an installation of white glazed ceramic tools that look like mummified antiques leaning against the wall. However, any implied concern with productivity is lessened by the juxtapositioning of Maurizio Mochetti's sleek hybrid model aircraft/human/penguin sculptures. The uncanny combinations in this Italian artist's squat, immobile gnomes are certainly preferable to another series of hybrid constructions by Daniel Lee, who uses Photoshop to combine human portraits with animal features, resulting in disturbing digital paintings. The most impressive digitised works based on photographs of people are by Julian Opie, who reduces the human figure to its most essential form and yet - despite the barest detail - renders the most dynamic movements. Opie's LED boxes are scattered throughout the exhibition.

Work by several artists such as Ceal Floyer, Kristian Ryokan and Nara Yashitomo are similarly dispersed. Floyer has two distinct wall works on different levels of the museum - one covering the wall's entire surface in diagonal strips of yellow and black adhesive tape, the other a discreet ready-made entitled "Spirit Level". Ryokan's flatly rendered oil paintings of everyday objects - a book spine, two-wheeled vehicles, modernist chairs - stylistically border on both photorealism and cartoonism. Often placed in rooms dominated by other artists, these pieces seems to question the supposedly therapeutic function of desire. They certainly challenge Yashitomo's doll-like children and animal made-for-museum-store products, pieces that nurture a compulsion to consume art objects not ideas.

Despite my attempts to consider these biennale exhibitions in terms of international contemporary art trends, the reality of sales almost always prevailed. Some of this is related to the spectacular performance of China's economy in recent years. As I was informed by a Hong Kong-born Stanford University MBA student, "a rise in the GDP of a specific culture does indeed mean an increase in the sale of that culture's art". While this assessment may become (or may already be) a reality for China and its art, my sense is that a culture of for-the-market art is not a good fit with art history's standards of measurement.

'Hyper Design' is at the Shanghai Art Museum until November 5. Tel +86 21 6327 2829

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006