Chinese Modern Art

By Pallavi Aiyar

BEIJING - "The first time I sold my contemporary art collection was around three years ago, and I tripled my investment. If I had waited until today, the same works would have gone for 10 times what I sold them for," rued Robert Bernell, a Beijing-based art publisher and collector.

Indeed, as China's booming economy rolls ever onward, contemporary Chinese art has become the latest "next big thing" in the international art market, sending galleries, collectors and investors alike into a rapturous tizzy.

At Sotheby's first New York auction of contemporary Asian art, held 2 years ago, Chinese figurative painter Zhang Xiaogang's Bloodline Series: Comrade No 120 (see below) sold for US$979,200, more than twice the auction house's high estimate of $350,000.

"I wasn't surprised at all. In fact I had bet money that this auction would see a contemporary Chinese painting reach $1 million. I narrowly lost the bet, but there is no question in my mind that it will happen at the very next auction," said Ludovic Bois, founder of Chinese Contemporary, a leading gallery of Chinese art in London and Beijing.

After years of being forced to operate underground, pariahs at home and ignored by the outside world, artists in China are fast transforming from near-starving outcasts to priority guests on celebrity party lists. The flea-ridden, dingy artist communities of the 1990s have metamorphosed into ueber-chic neighborhoods, offering cappuccino breaks for weary art-mongers.

Both Bernell's bookstore and Bois's art gallery are in the 798 Space art complex, in the Dashanzi Art District of east Beijing. Until a few years ago the area was notable only for its hulking, semi-defunct electronic-components and military-equipment factories. Designed by architects from East Germany in the 1950s, the factories' Bauhaus architecture proved to be the perfect environment for a new art community with a fashionably edgy feel, and in the past three years Dashanzi has emerged as the center of Beijing's art scene.

"What Montmartre was to Paris and SoHo to New York, 798 is to Beijing," said Bois, perhaps a tad bit hyperbolically.

The complex is home today to more than 30 galleries, cafes, boutiques and bookstores. New York's Long March Foundation and the Tokyo Gallery of Japan both have spaces here. According to Bernell, the Guggenheim and Pompidou Center are also currently looking to establish a presence at the complex. Initially slated for demolition, Dashanzi has now been given a stamp of approval by the municipal authorities, who want to showcase the neighborhood during the Summer Olympics in 2008.

This month, the high-profile third Dashanzi International Art Festival will kick off, a three-week extravaganza featuring 100 Chinese and 50 foreign artists. The organizers are expecting 150,000 people to attend. This month will also see more than 90 art galleries from around the world converge in the Chinese capital for the third China International Gallery Exposition (also known as the Beijing Art Fair).

"It's a heady feeling," said Bois. "Museums around the world are buying [contemporary Chinese art], Chinese collectors have begun to get seriously interested and even funds are being created to buy it. This is Chinese art's moment."

In the 1990s, little was known about contemporary Chinese art. Most local artists at the time belonged to what are called the pop-art or cynical-realism schools. Both involved an overt political critique. Wang Guangyi's Great Criticism series, for example, slapped brand logos on socialist propaganda images. At the time, police routinely closed down exhibitions, and denunciations of specific artists by the authorities were common.

A few visionary curators did organize shows abroad: the Oxford Museum of Modern Art in 1993 and PSI New York in 1998 are examples. In 1999, the inclusion of 21 Chinese artists at the Venice Biennale was a breakthrough, followed by a successful photography exhibition called Inside Out that traveled across the United States.

Bois recounts how a few canny international collectors began to buy into Chinese art early, when the market was still brand-new to most investors. Kent and Vicki Logan were the first noteworthy collectors in the US, acquiring close to 200 works.

But the most famous collector of Chinese contemporary art is Swiss national Uli Sigg, who owns close to 2,000 works. Last year, ArtReview magazine ranked Sigg 72nd on its list of the most important personalities in the art world. Bois predicts that as Chinese art reaches its full value, Sigg has a good chance of making it to the No 1 spot.

Aside from its popularity in the West, Chinese art is now also beginning to be aggressively collected by the Chinese themselves.

"In the 1990s, contemporary art was seen as too risky, and most domestic collectors preferred to go for antiques," recalled Boriana Song, manager of the Chinese-owned Beijing Art Now Gallery. "But now Chinese buyers are hungry for culture, and they see contemporary art as fashionable. The market is maturing, tastes are changing, and more than 60% of our clients are local Chinese."

Moreover, as Bernell explained, the routine oppression of artists by the authorities, common in the 1990s, is over. In fact today the government seems to be consciously trying to find ways to use contemporary art to bolster its image abroad, resulting in its active involvement in sponsoring large-scale exhibitions.

"Satirizing Mao [Zedong]'s image still remains taboo," said Bois, "but violence, sex and nudity, which used to come in for flak, are pretty much accepted today."

Supporting this renaissance in Chinese art are museums, hundreds of which are being renovated and built across the country. The nationwide goal is to add 1,000 new museums by 2015. In the capital, plans are afoot to start up a privately run Beijing Museum of Contemporary Art.

Bois also points to the important work of young and dynamic curators intent on making sure that Chinese art is exhibited and promoted by Chinese people and institutions. "While the bulk of Chinese art collectors are still Westerners, slowly tastes and trends are starting to be dictated by Chinese themselves," he said.

The cumulative result of all this activity has meant that the market for contemporary art is zooming ever upward. Works by leading artists such as Zhang Xiaogang and Wang Guangyi used to go for as little as $1,000 in the early 1990s. By 1996 their price had risen to about $10,000. Today, their works routinely fetch $100,000-$200,000.

Despite fears that the contemporary art market may be overheated, Bois - who spent 15 years as an investment banker in London prior to his artsy avatar - remains bullish. "I think it's still an 'emerging market' worth investing in. It's still undervalued, and upcoming artists can multiply in value by as much [as] 30 [times], and more established ones can go up at least 10 times."

Beijing Art Now's Song is more cautious. "Prices seem to be going up too high, too quickly. I think they will actually continue to rise for a few more years. But [the contemporary art market] can be dangerous - as dangerous as speculating in real estate," she smiled.