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A PPT presenting a master course at the Shanghai University

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Page 1: Chinese Contemporary Art
Page 2: Chinese Contemporary Art

Chapter I

Page 3: Chinese Contemporary Art
Page 4: Chinese Contemporary Art

The first Stars art exhibition, hung on the fence outside the National Art Gallery in Beijing, September 1979

Wang Keping, Idol, 1979 Wood

Page 5: Chinese Contemporary Art

East Village, Beijing 1993

Zhang Huan, 12 Square Metres, 1994

Page 6: Chinese Contemporary Art

Yang Fudong, Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest, 2003, Video

Wang Guangyi, Great Castigation Series: Coca-Cola, 1993

Page 7: Chinese Contemporary Art

Gu dexin, 2005.03.05, installation

Jin Jiangbo, God, Go Ahead with Chatting, 2008  

Page 8: Chinese Contemporary Art

UCCA, Beijing

Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou

Page 9: Chinese Contemporary Art

ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai Pace Gallery, Beijing

Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou

Page 10: Chinese Contemporary Art

Different types of galleries: - Art critic/dealer: The Courtyard Gallery, Boers Pi Li (Beijing) - Risk taker and trend setter: Shanghart (Shanghai), Vitamin

(Guangzhou) - Chinese-collector oriented: Tang Gallery (Beijing) - The leading gallery: Hanart Gallery (Hong Kong) - The foreign galleries: Pace Gallery (Beijing), James Cohan

(Shanghai)

Role of galleries in art distribution - Beijing and Shanghai exhibits establish system for viewing new art - Galleries are the major player in stabilizing the local structure and in

teaching collectors and other audience - In China, galleries are much along the sames lines of galleries in the West

Page 11: Chinese Contemporary Art

Cai guoqiang, Ancient Branding (detail), 2003, Gunpowder on paper, 400 x 1000 cm

Yan Pei-Ming, Bruce Lee, 1999, Oil on canvas, 400 x 300 cm

Page 12: Chinese Contemporary Art

Yang Jiechang,Another turn of the screw 1998 – 2004, acrylic on canvas

Huang Yongping, The Nightmare of George V,2002, Installation

Page 13: Chinese Contemporary Art
Page 14: Chinese Contemporary Art

Magicien de la terre, Pompidou Center, 1989,Paris France

Biennale di Venezia, 1999, Venizia Italy

The revolution continues, Exhibition in Saatchi Gallery, 2008,London UK

Page 15: Chinese Contemporary Art

Zhang Xiaogang, Bloodline: The big family no. 3, 1995Sotheby's Hong Kong, April 2008Sold for 47,367,500 HKD (6,083,363 US$)

Yue Minju, Gweong-gweong, 1993Christie's Hong Kong, may 2008Sold for 54,087,500 HKD (6,941,948 US$)

Page 16: Chinese Contemporary Art

From 2000, tremendous commercial growth as contemporary Chinese art incorporated into global art market

Increasing number of foreigners living in and visiting China, expands the mainland’s collecting base

Contemporary Chinese art becomes the focus of numerous academic and curatorial efforts by leading Western curators, which generated greater awareness about Chinese art while also expanding its viewing public

Market growth was fueled by a combination of an expanding collector base and speculation

Page 17: Chinese Contemporary Art

« To Chinese artists, appropriation is only a method…..it aims to achieve modernization of art and to establish new values » Huang Du, Art critic

Chapter II

Page 18: Chinese Contemporary Art

« Chineseness »: term coined by the West during the early 1990’s to describe a particular quality of the art and the people of the Middle Kingdom, has been the catalyst for a refinement and review of the essential characteristics of China.

Chinese modern art was an anomaly. Its ideas were not native and its forms were acquired.

2a. What is “Chineseness”?

Page 19: Chinese Contemporary Art

Many critics – in the West and at home – accuse Chinese artists of imitating Western art

For these artists the challenge was in making themselves relevant to a Western aesthetic hegemony without being marginalized by their Chineseness

Development and subsequent discussion of the idiom“Chineseness” is colored by multiregional and often-contradictory views of what it means to be Chinese

Page 20: Chinese Contemporary Art

Speech delivered at Songzhuang Art Festival's Conference of Collectors of Chinese Contemporary Art in 2009

Page 21: Chinese Contemporary Art

Collection: a kind of cultural creation Collectors face value standards, but

value standards in a progressing era are of a very uncertain ideological form

Collectors — through their behavior — have to confirm whether they’re qualified to build these value standards in the era in which we live.

Page 22: Chinese Contemporary Art

In China, there’s a different history and understanding of art museums

Art appreciation is a lifelong form of education

Building an art museum system is long and difficult in such a short amount of time, not least because it is not only about constructing a building but also about what to put in and how to run it

Value standards are like the core of a culture, the artistic values of the system

Page 23: Chinese Contemporary Art

The government should recognize the value of a contemporary art value system.

«China should establish its own value and no longer refer to the Western ones.»

Li Xianting expresses his frustration that much Chinese art remains at surface level, work he feels is simply cashing in on the China art boom in the West, but lacks any deeper questions

Page 24: Chinese Contemporary Art

«I’ve always insisted that we have to have our own art critics and exhibitions if Chinese contemporary art wants to find an audience at home. We have attached too much value to the response of our Western audience, because anything that attracts attention in the West will also be recognized at home. These forms of contemporary art have thus become very monotone.»

- Shen Yubing, art critic

Page 25: Chinese Contemporary Art

Every country has its specific social problems

Focus of art varies in different countries, a result of globalization and imbalanced development of world politics

Political topics refer to different problems that are formed by the public opinion in specific countries.

The discussion of Chinese contemporary art involves its regional politics.

Page 26: Chinese Contemporary Art
Page 27: Chinese Contemporary Art
Page 28: Chinese Contemporary Art

A more specifically Chinese approach: Contemporary ink painting

A global point of view: the artist Cao Fei

Page 29: Chinese Contemporary Art

Contemporary Ink Painting Contemporary ink painting fuses formal

techniques with Western concepts and elements, presenting a new development of the tradition

Prominent examples exhibited in the West today: Cai Guoqiang, Xu Bing,Yang Jiechang, and Gu Wenda

Major collectors are often artists and scholars

Page 30: Chinese Contemporary Art

Gu Wenda, Psuedo Character 1989 Ink on paper

Xu Bing, Square Word Calligraphy Study Sketch (detail) 1994

Page 31: Chinese Contemporary Art

Chen Yufan, Become One, Mixed media on paper, 2007

Cai Ming, Metropolis in the Ups& Downs,Ink& Color on Paper, 2009

Page 32: Chinese Contemporary Art

In Fall 2009: selected as a finalist for the 2010 Hugo

Boss Prize Exhibitions:    - International Center of Photography,

NY.October 23th   - Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan,

November 1 - Artissima in Turin, Italy November

7th              - Louisiana Museum of Modern Art,

Denmark. September 5 - January 10.  - RMB City, Lombard-Freid Projects,

Paris- October 22-25

Cao Fei

Page 33: Chinese Contemporary Art

Chapter III

Page 34: Chinese Contemporary Art
Page 35: Chinese Contemporary Art

Artist with a strong Chinese market

Page 36: Chinese Contemporary Art

Liu Xiaodong, Hot bed no. 1 China Guardian Auctions Co. Avril 200857,120,000 CNY (8,173,778 US$)

Page 37: Chinese Contemporary Art

Zhang Huan

Artist with a strong market outside of China

Page 38: Chinese Contemporary Art

Zhang Huan, My New York #4, 2002Sotheby's Hong Kong, Octobre 2009Sold for 187,500 HKD (24,197 US$)

Zhang Huan, Youth,1998Christie's New York, May 2009, sold for 212,500 US$

Page 39: Chinese Contemporary Art

Zeng Fanzhi

Artist with both a strong Chinese and international market

Page 40: Chinese Contemporary Art

Zeng Fanzhi, Mask series, 2001Poly International Auction, May 20098,064,000 CNY (1,180,562 US$)

Zeng Fanzhi, Mask series, 1997Sotheby's New York, Septembre 2008Sold for 1,082,500 US$

Page 41: Chinese Contemporary Art

Chapter IV

"Without a sound collection of Chinese contemporary art, we will lose a real and fresh documentary on Chinese transformation during the past several decades, which will be a huge loss to the Chinese people"

Ma Fenghui, director of the newly founded Zhejiang Art Museum.

Page 42: Chinese Contemporary Art

A presentation by Chris Gill

Chris Gill, Editor-in-Chief of Interfax China News Agency in Shanghai. He also contributes to many specialist Chinese and international publications and the Guardian newspaper.

His blog:http://www.shanghaieye.net

Page 43: Chinese Contemporary Art

China- art collectors

The modern capital v art relationship

Page 44: Chinese Contemporary Art

Introduction

In China since 1992.

Writer for international press (Guardian, Art Newspaper, FT, etc)

Artist – Yuanminyuan, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghart, etc

Blog- www.shanghaieye.net

Page 45: Chinese Contemporary Art

The past to the present

China Western collectors play a leading role in China

Now Chinese collectors are emerging “New faces from the mainland” Sotheby’s

autumn sales 2009 Who are the main known collectors of

Chinese contemporary art?

Page 46: Chinese Contemporary Art

Some of the leading collectors:Guan YiUli Sigg Johnson ChangZhang RuiYang BinMonique Burger

Page 47: Chinese Contemporary Art

Guan Yi

Page 48: Chinese Contemporary Art

Quotes: artworks are increasingly expensive. My own personal

ability, to more accurately say, my economic ability, it is hard to keep up, as things are increasingly expensive, even young artists are expensive. So now, when we buy things, we need to be increasingly clear, on target, to choose the best art. No extra money to go and buy other things.

So the name list of the artists I collect is very small- just a few dozen. Wang Jien Wei, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Zhou Tiehai, Xiao Liu Wei, Cao Fei, Da Liu Wei, they all represent this time.

I won’t sell work at auction, but I will choose some, as you see now works are too expensive, so I have 700, maybe even 800 works now. So, maybe, since I collected them, maybe now these works aren’t so important to my collection, or fit into my system.

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its very hard to write about Chinese art. There is no education, there is no tradition, texts, to get an accurate answer to any question ,who can tell you? Chinese critics? There are far too many problems with them. Too many people have become business oriented, so you have no idea if he is telling the truth or lying. Turning it around, can we trust these national art museums and what have you? The art museums also, they are not clear, the time is too short, in China, and all this influence of the market. How can see a good work, how can you tell? So from this perspective, I rely on myself.

Page 50: Chinese Contemporary Art

in China a lot of young artists they come up with an idea, and that idea they can sell several hundred pieces. In the 1980s an artist would have an idea, and then do perhaps 2 or three pieces, and then leave it and move on, as he would think, that idea I have finished. But now its become like a production line, that idea, several hundred pieces, that idea two hundred pieces…the factory model. Not a lot to do with art.

The dead artists, their work its already settled, in the hands of certain collectors, but with living artists they can make a plan. They can catch the living artists, it’s a capitalist’s game. Capital is becomingly increasingly important in art, and you must be especially careful of it, it’s a bad influence. Its like Marx said. I have re-read Marx and a lot of what he said is right. What does capital exist for? Its about control.

Page 51: Chinese Contemporary Art

Zhang Rui

Page 52: Chinese Contemporary Art

Quotes:

I met Huang Liaoyuan, the partner of my current art gallery (Art Now Gallery). He had been dealing with rock and roll musicians as a planner and broker, arranging gigs and what have you. We were high school together actually. When we met again after a decade I mentioned my interest in art

People of my generation received a Soviet style education. So most oil paintings we saw were of a revolutionary nature and had combative content, reflecting the policy that art should serve political purposes.

Since the end of 2002, I became a collector of Chinese contemporary art. Early in 2003, when China was hit by SARS and everybody wanted to stay home, I interacted with those artists who were staying together drinking. I visited their studios and bought their works. At that time there was no local market for their work like today and the only active buyers were from overseas. So at my early stage of collecting, I did not spend a lot of money getting some nice pieces, the value of that work has gone up a lot by now.

Page 53: Chinese Contemporary Art

Over the recent 2-3 years, I had a shift in my collecting approach. This is partly because I acquired good contemporary pieces for reasonable prices before the market came into being, and I don’t want to buy things at today's high prices. Secondly, I think art is a strange thing. Simply put, it is an outlet of people's emotions.

Generally speaking, I agree with Li Xianting's popular assessment which divides the contemporary art scene into a few distinct stages, and several main stream segments.

Page 54: Chinese Contemporary Art

I also like even younger artists today and people who are no longer young but have never become very famous, just because their artistic forms are not focused on reflecting their own life and therefore is not understood by or popular with mainstream audiences. More often they focus on society, their ideal and use satire. I like people of this kind who are serious enough to try to understand and remain critical of the society. For instance, I have among my collection pieces by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, who are a couple in Beijing in their 40s.

I have now been collecting contemporary Asian works instead of concentrating on Chinese pieces. Japanese, Korean, Indian. I feel art is without borders. We can have a narrow focus or we can collect anything in the world. I am not personally a nationalist. Since I was young I was not bound by geographical boundaries. This is also reflected in my collection practice. I don’t insist on collecting Chinese work.

Page 55: Chinese Contemporary Art

Monique Burger

Page 56: Chinese Contemporary Art

“My background is in finance, my husband is in banking and is an entrepreneur, so the arts give us a different angle, another way of looking at the world. Artists are very intelligent people, philosophers, they do a lot of research, they don’t just wake up in the morning and start painting, they have issues, they live a different lifestyle. In the beginning I was insecure, as I didn’t study art history, other collectors usually have advisors, but then someone told me I have courage, so that felt good.” Burger said.

Now that Burger is making her collection public the discussion will begin regarding her collection. “David Tang he told me I’m stupid to do this to make my collection public. But I told him, for me, I want to take the collection to the next level. We are not trophy hunters, what I really want to do is give very young artists a platform to show their works.

Page 57: Chinese Contemporary Art

Following her move to Hong Kong in 2004 Ms. Burger explained she has had to shelve plans to build a museum to house her collection, and has instead decided to take her collection public via this series of exhibitions, and will revisit the idea to open a museum once the series of shows has finished.

“I had a vision, there is this beautiful museum in Switzerland, the Bayeler Museum. This would be a dream come true, one day, to have a space, open to the public, where you can have a park, where you can live, and have your outside sculpture, like a dream. When we moved to Asia five years ago, my husband and I, we knew we had to postpone that dream. We are not going back to Switzerland, we have started a new life here in Asia, here in Hong Kong where space is a big issue. So what do we do now? The idea to open a museum is further and further away, so we came up with a new idea, to hold a series of temporary exhibitions over the next 8-10 years. Because this is our lifestyle, we are global travelers, global citizens, so why not live like this with the art?”

Page 58: Chinese Contemporary Art

Burger describes her collection as having a diversity in terms of geopolitical origins and contexts, specifically American-European, the Indian subcontinent and Asian. “The collection blends very established international artists and younger, up-and-coming artists while remaining resolutely contemporary and not becoming historical, with very few exceptions such as Rauschenberg,” Burger said.

“I needed a curator, to be professional, but also because I’m too emotional, the way I collect is intuitive. You can see, I have so many different media in the collection. Daniel said he saw a thread going through my collection, which was very good for me to hear, because it represents my life. I have dedicated 15 years of my life to buying art. It represents my moods, my feelings, my moving around in the world, and also major things, like history, political issues, language, we are talking about more than 1000 pieces. I never had these topics in my head when I went out there to buy art.

Page 59: Chinese Contemporary Art

Case study: the power 100 in China

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Chapter V

Support for contemporary art in China has reached new heights: indicated by art fairs, exhibitions in state-run institutions, and even new forms of government funding.

Still the underlying spirit aims at capital gain, market interests, and the business end of art production, with little, support for activities outside this sphere

But changes will necessarly occur

Li Xianting’s speech and awareness of the importance of Art as not just a commodity