One of Ai WeiWei’s “F*ck Off” series of photographs

Here I sit on an aeroplane en route to Beijing and Shanghai – yet all the while I hear “London Calling”. Hardly surprising: my mission in China will be to find artwork for a London art exhibition that will mark the 30th anniversary of The Clash’s seminal album of the same name.

Those of us of a certain age will remember with an anarchic smile The Clash’s apocalyptic, politically charged title tune, featuring the band’s famous combination of reggae bass-lines, punk electric guitar and vocals – the lyrics reflecting the desperation of the band’s situation in 1979. And whilst punk was highly controversial in mainstream society back then, the platinum-selling album received unanimously positive reviews and in 2003 ranked at number eight on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Great art, like great music, can impact upon individuals and society in a number of ways. First and foremost, of course, it must touch our hearts. But often art also has an important place in provoking dialogue, causing controversy, shifting attitudes: witness the dramatic effect of exhibiting the thought-provoking sculpture “Physical Attachment 4” at my own gallery recently. Art can really make us think.

Nonetheless, curating the Chinese contribution to the “London Calling” exhibition (which is to feature punk-inspired artwork from around the world, produced in the style of an album cover), will be something of a challenge. First there is the daunting predicament of trying to follow in the footsteps of the original album’s own award-winning cover, an homage to Elvis Presley that was designed by Urmston’s very own Ray Lowry. It will also be a bit tricky because the music scene in China is somewhat disconnected from the visual arts.

Furthermore, some of my curator associates in China have asserted that punk is not a good fit with Chinese culture. However, I think they might be forgetting the photographs of Ai Weiwei (the revered godfather of Chinese contemporary art) and Zhu Yu, amongst others, shown at a notorious art exhibition which ran alongside the Third Shanghai Biennale in 2000. The exhibition’s title reportedly transliterates from the Mandarin as “Uncooperative Approach”, but a blunter English language sentiment was soon adopted. Ai, the son of two poets who were exiled and made to clean toilets during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, is one of the Chinese Government’s most prominent internal critics. He encapsulated the exhibition’s artistic-curatorial attitude with a set of photos in which he gives the finger in turn to the White House, the Forbidden City and the viewer, and another in which he releases an ancient Han Dynasty Chinese vase that smashes to at his feet. The exhibition was shut down by the Shanghai police before its closing date: I think we can safely say it was provocative!

According to The Telegraph, a former BBC chairman and a retired GP have emerged as owners of two of the largest private modern art collections of their kind in exhibitions that will be on public view this summer. The exhibitions reveal not only the extent of the collections, but also how they have been made on relatively modest budgets, even if high prices have occasionally had to be paid.

You can read the article here – and discover how Sir Christopher Bland and retired local GP Jeffrey Sherwin did it.  Seems they fell in love with what they bought in the early years – which is exactly what LiKailin has always said is so important:  our view is that the ONLY reason, EVER, to buy artwork is because you make an amazing emotional connection with it.  Then, if you’re lucky, it will appreciate in value just like the collections of Sir Christopher and Dr. Sherwin.  But even if it doesn’t, at least you’ll have beautiful artwork in your home (better than a worthless share certificate in your drawer, any day, I say).

But ….. just to dream for a minute or two: if money was no object, what would you buy?  For me, well, see the pic above – a piece from Zhang Xiaogang’s bloodline series ….. sigh……

A temporary work, Open Wall reconstructs a moment of China’s Great Wall as an assemblage of glass bricks. The glass bricks become a kind of cultural currency, to be distributed and redistributed in the process of installation. Open Wall suggests the possibility of China’s contemporary moment, opening the culture to the global economy and an unprecedented exchange of ideas. Sheng’s Open Wall is an uncanny, iridescent sculpture, indicating a threshold of both transparency and opacity, as a critical symbol of China’s intersection with Western culture. Easily dissembled and reassembled, Sheng’s Open Wall evokes a moment of flux and mutual consumption. Open Wall consists of 2,200 glass bricks, corresponding to the 2,200 years of the Great Wall’s construction. Sheng reimagines the Great Wall as a temporary pavilion of stacked glass; her installation evokes the exquisite yet transitory flux of globalized time.

Open Wall is an example of Shan Shan Sheng’s fascination with architecture, material, national memory, and the perception of time. China’s historic Great Wall was originally built as a series of discontinuous, autonomous zones. Each section corresponds to a dynastic phase. As a discontinuous sequence of materials and styles, the Great Wall is distributed along 6400 km (4,000 miles).

Renowned for her large-scale paintings and suspension sculptures in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing, Sheng’s conceptual art installations activate and transform the reading of traditional Chinese motifs and sites of memory. As a visual artist based in San Francisco and Shanghai, Sheng’s works are frequently concerned with heightening viewer experience, and creating a ritual atmosphere between history and the present moment.

Sheng’s Open Wall project is part of the Venice Biennale’s La Città Ideale at La Certosa Island from June 6 to October 25 2009. The exhibition introduces a “new world” on the Certosa Island, including the installation work of Shan Shan Sheng, Vinicio Momoli, Pino Castegnam, Riccardo Liccata, and Claire Becker.

http://openwallproject.com
http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/exhibition/collateral_events/events.html

Now Warsh, whose 700-strong holding also includes painting and sculpture, has sold nine works by two Chinese photographers to the Getty Museum in California.

It is the Getty’s first big acquisition in this field. The works are by Wang Qingsong and Hai Bo, and include Hai Bo’s “I am Chairman Mao’s Red Guard” (2000), showing the same person now and when she was a young militant, and Wang Qingsong’s dolled-up “New Women” (2000, pictured). “The Getty has one of the largest collections of photography in the world, and it is important for it to add Chinese contemporary photography to its holdings,” says Warsh.

“It is the start of a new era for the museum, and with the large Asian-American community in California, the acquisition also enables [the museum] to connect with this audience.”

By all indications, the Getty’s choice to add these artists to its extensive photography collection should be followed by other museums. If you want to read more, this seems a really informative article: read it here

As the art world begins to rebound from the global economic slowdown, this summer has brought plenty of great opportunities to see contemporary Chinese art around the world. With domestic demand growing rapidly, and as more Chinese middle- and upper-class individuals diversify their assets to include mainstays like gold and property but also portable assets like art and jewelry, the Chinese art market has been one of the more active art areas in 2009. As Chinese-American artist Jian Wang recently said after spending several months working in China, “The Chinese art market is very hot, and Chinese contemporary art is seen [by Chinese collectors] as a commodity and a good investment.”  Read more…..

As you read on, remember: you don’t have to go to Shanghai!  For globally accessible Chinese contemporary fine art from the comfort of your armchair, visit www.likailin.com

On a broader note, in the latest episode of the ArtTactic Podcast art dealer and author Richard Polsky shares his thoughts on the results of the recent Contemporary auctions in London and what they tell us about the state of the art markets.  Polsky also addresses the curious and fascinating markets of Alexander Calder and Peter Doig – artists who seem to not only been unaffected by the recession but have actually prospered during this time.  Lastly Polsky speculates on what kind of art market activity we should expect during the art market “summer vacation” and if the hiatus is coming at a good time for the art market given where it is in the recovery process.

Click here to listen

A friend sent me this podcast (link here) about the Chinese art market because he thought is was really interesting – I agree!  I think it’s also really useful, especially for those who might be new to Chinese contemporary art.

In the podcast, Larry Warsh, founder of AW Asia (a private organization in New York City that promotes contemporary Chinese art) discusses the phenomenal development of the contemporary Chinese art market over the past decade. Warsh also previews the upcoming Christie’s Asian Contemporary Art & Chinese 20th Century Art sale in Hong Kong. Warsh offers his thoughts and insight on the progression and long-term future of the contemporary Chinese art market as well as his views on the new Chinese collector base and its financial implications, the scarcity of important historical artists, and the growth of Chinese photography. Check it out and let me know what you think…. click here

For more info, check out http://www.arttactic.com/

Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest Part III

This summer, Asia Society Museum in the US will exhibit a compelling video work by artist Yang Fudong.  If you’re in New York any time between July 6 and September 9, you have to go!

Shanghai-based artist Yang Fudong’s five-part cinematic masterpiece Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest will be shown in its entirety for the first time in a U.S. museum. While referencing the Seven Sages, a popular subject in traditional Chinese art, the artist imbues a film noir aesthetic into this mesmerizing black-and-white film. The New York Times states, Yang Fudong “creates sequences of images that are like perfectly composed Modernist photographs.”

In 2003, Yang Fudong produced the first part of his now seminal, five-part film, Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest. One part of the film was created each year (in sequential order), and the entire work was finished in 2007. The work has no clear narrative, although each part takes place in a different setting. Some parts take place in a rural environment, while others are set in cities. The film poses questions about the dissonance between men and women, individuals and society, the past and present, and reality and an ideal world.

Each part was originally shot in 35mm film, which was then transferred to DVD. Yang prefers to shoot in film, as opposed to digital video, as he believes that film retains a strong sense of the artist’s touch, which digital videos often lack. The five parts differ in length, ranging from approximately thirty to seventy minutes; the total running time amounts to about four hours.

Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest was first screened at the 2007 Venice Biennale and received high praise. The Asia Society exhibition is the first presentation of the complete five-part work in a U.S. museum, and the work is a promised gift to Asia Society’s Contemporary Art Collection.

For more information and a preview clip, click on the image below

Yang Fudong – Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest
In 2003, Yang Fudong produced the first part of his now seminal, five-part film, Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest. One part of the film was created each year (in sequential order), and the entire work was finished in 2007. The work has no clear narrative, although each part takes place in a different setting. Some parts take place in a rural environment, while others are set in cities. The film poses questions about the dissonance between men and women, individuals and society, the past and present, and reality and an ideal world.

Each part was originally shot in 35mm film, which was then transferred to DVD. Yang prefers to shoot in film, as opposed to digital video, as he believes that film retains a strong sense of the artist’s touch, which digital videos often lack. The five parts differ in length, ranging from approximately thirty to seventy minutes; the total running time amounts to about four hours.

Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest was first screened at the 2007 Venice Biennale and received high praise. The Asia Society exhibition is the first presentation of the complete five-part work in a U.S. museum, and the work is a promised gift to Asia Society’s Contemporary Art Collection.sia Society and Museum
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