New stars rising over China
cnw
Beijing is playing host to a revolution in Chinese art. But is it for love or
money, asks Jane Macartney
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February 26, 2007
THE art world gasped when a painting by the Chinese artist Zhang Xiaogang sold
for just short of $US1 million ($1.26 million) at Sotheby's last March. But that
was merely the start. In October, Charles Saatchi paid £770,000 ($1.9 million)
for another of Zhang's Bloodline series of Cultural Revolution portraits, and in
November the artist's 1993 Tiananmen Square went for £1.17 million at an auction
in Hong Kong. That same month a Chinese restaurant entrepreneur bought a
painting by the cynical realist Liu Xiaodong for £1.4 million.
That dizzying run of records has led to rumblings of a bubble. If there is a
bubble in the market for contemporary Chinese art, gallery owners, curators and
collectors are not expecting it to pop just yet.
Briton Karen Smith arrived in China in 1993 planning to stay a year and research
a book on Chinese art. Fourteen years later she is a leading authority, working
from an office a stone's throw from the Forbidden City and co-curating The Real
Thing: Contemporary Art from China, which opens next month at the Tate Liverpool
in England. Smith is of the view that, bubble or no bubble, modern Chinese art
is finally being plotted on the world map.
"Even if it does crash, everything goes in cycles, and out of that will come
something new. Chinese art is not going away," she says.
Indeed, contemporary artists are laying solid foundations. An East German-built
former military components assembly plant has now become known among art
cognoscenti as the 798 Factory. The collection of 400 galleries, cafes,
bookshops and restaurants housed in disused industrial buildings has even
received an official stamp of recognition from the Beijing City Government as
one of six cultural and creative centres in the capital. Avant-garde and
counter-culture artists who once revelled in their disdain for the authorities
have found themselves almost mainstream. Receipt of a government imprimatur is
likely only to fuel demand and to support prices. Chinese buyers who may have
been wary of investing in artworks by painters on the fringes of society are
starting to enter a market so far dominated by international buyers. These
collectors discovered the contemporary art scene mainly because of the
headline-grabbing prices paid at last year's auctions. A breed of newly rich
Chinese who 10 years ago were dealing in coal and then discovered property have
now found modern art.
Strolling among the hangar-like grey concrete buildings of the 798 Factory are
more and more young Chinese, eager for a taste of this most hip and chic of
Beijing quarters. Chinese film stars rub shoulders with Shanghai designers,
foreign diplomats and overseas businessmen at the latest vernissage on a weekend
afternoon. The occasion is a solo show by Chang Zongxian at the Xin Dong Cheng
Space for Contemporary Art. The walls are lined with portraits of fellow
artists, including the small but expanding group who now command prices in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Cheng Xindong, who owns the gallery, says there's no doubt that prices, at least
for a small group of artists, suddenly skyrocketed in 2006. "Last year was
crazy," he says. But Cheng has been collecting and curating since 1992 and feels
that the very slow and steady rise in prices in the intervening years was even
more of a conundrum -- given the quality of the work by the very best painters
-- than the sudden discovery that there were great contemporary artists in
China. "These prices apply only to a very small group of star artists and their
works are still not really expensive," he says.
In 1995, a Zhang Xiaogang painting, one of his portraits of vacant-faced
families, could be bought for as little as pound stg. 5000 but now -- after 11
years of work -- the minimum price is pound stg. 300,000. "This is just the
beginning," says Cheng. "Before the prices were all about the same. There was no
big difference. Now a huge gap has opened up between this very small group of
stars and the rest."
Among that select group is Zeng Fanzhi. His works already feature in the Saatchi
collection. Zeng, like many of those involved in the Chinese contemporary art
scene, voices concern at the role of auctions in pushing up prices -- possibly
artificially. He says he was shocked when he sold a painting to a buyer who
presented himself as a collector and almost immediately sold the piece at
auction for a much higher price. "Are people buying my works for pleasure or for
business? We didn't understand at first that people were starting to speculate
and not to invest. Now there's a bit of a question mark around auctions and I do
try to be careful that I am selling my paintings to people who genuinely like
them. Otherwise people might think we are trying to manipulate the market."
Sotheby's and Christie's in the UK sold pound stg. 97million of Asian
contemporary art, mostly by Chinese artists, last year, compared with pound stg.
11 million the year previous. Zeng says it is not the international auctions
that worry him but speculation at sales in China. Some artists and gallery
owners have been suspected of sending representatives to auctions to bid up the
prices. This has some gallery owners worried. They say that as a result of the
heady sums achieved in auctions, some higher-priced painters are producing works
almost to a formula. Reports have even surfaced of artists employing students to
paint a piece to their design. Critics worry that the more established names may
be becoming increasingly unwilling to experiment because they have found a style
that can guarantee them enough money to live more than comfortably in China.
Brian Wallace, owner of the Red Gate Gallery and the first foreigner to open a
gallery in Beijing, in 1992, believes that most of the painters now commanding
high prices will stand the test of time.
"Some have painted themselves into a corner, but the hope is that they'll
realise that and step back," he says.
In Zeng's studio outside Beijing, a huge, almost abstract work resembling
tangled bushes against flames stands against the wall. It is a far cry from the
Mask series that won him renown. He says he can't stay still in his work. "When
I change it's because I feel I have done everything I can in that style and I
have no feeling left in me. If I don't feel excited then I can't press ahead and
find a new way to paint."
It is an approach that critics hope will sustain the market in case of a bubble.
Wallace believes that some air may escape but is unconcerned. "I see a good
couple of years yet and this is going to give the market time to mature. When
prices do settle there will be a stronger body of work in collections -- both
domestic and international."
There is no denying that some younger artists are trying to leap on the
bandwagon, excited by the 2006 price explosion and eager for a piece of the
action. One of the few who is convinced that a bubble is already in the making
is Huang Rui, founder of the Dashanzi International Art Festival, which drew as
many as 160,000 people in its fourth year in 2006. One of the first members of
that artist community, Huang occupies an austere space at 798 with his paintings
on the wall and vase of lilac roses at the centre of a huge wooden table. He is
a founder of the Stars -- the first independently creative artists to emerge in
China after the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. Serving fragrant tea in
exquisite porcelain cups little bigger than thimbles, he remains an unafraid
member of China's counter-culture. "Artists are just creating for the bubble and
this affects their creative ability. They will lose confidence and this will
affect their ability to paint. Many painters now face this crisis. The market is
too commercialised."
He is anxious these works will be picked up by buyers who lack experience. It
may be here the "China factor" comes into play.
Are collectors buying because of the quality of the work or because of the
excitement surrounding all things Chinese? The mystique surrounding China cannot
be denied. "In the past six months people do seem to have struggled at spotting
talent. There's a blurring of the senses, as if entering a dark room from
sunlight. It takes time for the eyes to adjust."
Wallace, speaking in his gallery housed in an ancient city gate, says he is
thrilled by the amount of new talent, but also notes that some artists have
tried to cash in. "This is where the market has to respond by saying we want
good art, not just Chinese art."
The Times