| At a recent preview in Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery, artist Zhou Jirong’s large mixed media canvases drew a substantial crowd. The contemporary art gallery is housed in a Ming Dynasty guardhouse, where the work has to be exceptional to compete with the beauty of the architecture. Inside, Chinese art students rubbed shoulders with prospective buyers from Europe, the United States and Beijing. The upper gallery of the guardhouse contained a group show and I could hear excited whispers in English and Mandarin as couples clutching price lists looked at the works. It was a serene scene, but one that shows the revolution that is taking place in the Beijing art world.
|
 |
|
Who’s Buying Art In Beijing? – Ellen J. Twaddell
At a recent preview in Beijing’s Red Gate Gallery, artist Zhou Jirong’s large mixed media canvases drew a substantial crowd. The contemporary art gallery is housed in a Ming Dynasty guardhouse, where the work has to be exceptional to compete with the beauty of the architecture. Inside, Chinese art students rubbed shoulders with prospective buyers from Europe, the United States and Beijing. The upper gallery of the guardhouse contained a group show and I could hear excited whispers in English and Mandarin as couples clutching price lists looked at the works. It was a serene scene, but one that shows the revolution that is taking place in the Beijing art world.
It is only within the last two years that Chinese buyers have shown an interest in contemporary art. Still more common are the visitors and permanent expatriates who flock to venues like Red Gate and Beijing’s gallery district “798,” to look and buy. “Up until recently, that was the only market,” says Red Gate director Brian Wallace. He now estimates that Chinese buyers account for 20 percent of the art trade in the capital. As the economy expands, with some studies charting income growth rates of eight or nine percent a year in the cities, more Beijing residents find themselves with the time and money to buy art.
Buyers from abroad have always formed the mainstay of Beijing’s contemporary art market. They come to acquire work for their own collections and to speculate. Investors can purchase pieces from artists, galleries or at auction, hoping to sell them at a profit in six to nine months. Collectors can find a wide array of styles and media at a variety of prices. Red Gate Gallery offers prints for a few hundred American dollars, and larger pieces by established artists that range from $4,000 to $50,000. The selection consists mostly of paintings, but sculpture, photography and mixed media all have strong works available.
I ran into a pair of ladies who had escaped from their Yale alumni tour group to visit the gallery. When I asked them what they were doing at the preview, one of them replied, “We love contemporary art.” She later took a card and gave the pieces a last, longing look, hoping perhaps to make a purchase when she returned to the States. “They just recognize that they’re looking at very, very good and fresh art work,” says Wallace of consumers coming from abroad.
While foreign buyers still make up the largest percentage of the modern market, Chinese buyers are gaining ground. Although classical art commands the highest prices and maintains a strong appeal for Chinese collectors, contemporary art is on the rise. In the early 90s, Wallace says there were three or four contemporary art galleries in Beijing. Now there are scores.
Wallace mentions that the longer a gallery is in operation, the more accurately it can gauge the lasting value of a work. He explains, “Again it’s everyone’s individual taste. I look for something striking, with quality." A large and lasting local presence of emporiums draws in more local consumers who can trust the gallery and the artists it represents. A greater disposable income allows them to participate in the expansion. The combination of these factors: an established canon of galleries and more wealth within the city, means high quality art with long-term value—an appealing prospect for an increasing population of moneyed citizens.
What does this all mean for the future of art in Beijing? While photography and digital media dot the landscape, Wallace says painting and sculpture still dominate. The group show at Red Gate’s upper gallery shows the variety that keeps buyers flocking to it. Pieces with themes of politics and materialism in bold reds and golds share walls with delicate portraits of cityscapes. Artist Liu Qinghe’s Fan might be the best summary. A watery acrylic portrait shows a nude woman hiding behind a paper fan. On closer inspection, one sees that the fan is actually a piece of aged paper, specked with burn holes through which I could see the painted woman. The art world in Beijing is like that, layered, subtle and beautiful. As Wallace says, “a lot of people are buying work because it’s telling them what’s going on in China.”
