Great Haul of China - Financial Times, How to Spend it

Chinese contemporary art is no longer ghettoised in dedicated Asian sales – and is a haven of opportunity for canny collectors, says Bettina von Hase in The Financial Times, How to Spend It.

Stepping into auction house Phillips de Pury’s new European headquarters in London's Victoria for the contemporary sale during the Frieze Art Fair was like having a walk-on part in a Fellini movie. Pulsating energy and glamour pervaded the vast 40,000sq ft Space, crammed to the rafters with dealers, bidders, groomed blondes and gawkers. Simon de Pury, chairman and chief auctioneer, was going through the lots at breakneck speed, his voice straining with the effort of making himself heard at the back. The atmosphere was strangely decadent, a cultural feeding frenzy which included some choice Chinese morsels — works by established artists such as Fang Lijun and Zhang Xiaogang — reaching dizzying heights inconceivable only a few years ago.

A perfect illustration of the current art-world boom, the auction demonstrated that Chinese artists have well and truly arrived on the international scene. They were also in evidence at Sotheby's and Christie’s all three houses carrying images of Chinese works on the front or back cover of autumn catalogues. Chinese art was in evidence else- where in London, from the Vitamin Creative Space of Guangzhou at Frieze to the city's Battersea Power Station, which opened its doors for the very first time to art of any kind with a show of video and sound pieces aptly named China Power Station: Part 1. Organised as a Serpentine Gallery offsite project, the landmark building could not have been a more appropriate setting for the newest cultural offerings from the world's latest industrial power.

In a fusion of iconic architecture and new art, China Power expresses what has become an unstoppable force, even if there has recently been a levelling-out of the market: "It's being shaken out but the best artists are still making high prices," says Francis Outred, Sotheby's head of private sales. A Sotheby's auction of contemporary Asian art in New York in September was only 66 per cent sold, by all accounts to do with the volume of work, untried younger artists and high estimates. But established artists — such as artist/photographer Wang Qingsong whose Follow Me had an estimate of $35,000 to $50,000 but sold for $318,400 (about €167,000) - set records. Meanwhile Zhang (the Chinese put the last name first), with his Bloodline Series, managed to bag four places in the top 10 list of that sale, with a combined price of $2.3m (about El. 2m). In the Christie's October 14 contemporary sale in London, a large-scale work from the same series more than doubled its estimate to sell for £769,000.

In other words, after the initial hysteria, buyers are becoming more discerning. "The Chinese art market exploded suddenly in the past three years, with prices going way beyond estimates," says Outred. "There is now an adjustment going on; in our latest sale [in October] we had high-quality work by a few select artists at reasonable prices." This integration strategy seems to work, reflecting a new maturity in a market which is a haven of opportunity.

The increasing power of Asian collectors will make itself more felt in the future because at the moment Asian buyers and viewers still have a preference for art that is built on Chinese heritage rather than one which has the Western paradigm. "Some are not sophisticated yet," says Swiss-born Uli Sigg, the greatest collector of Chinese contemporary art. "Many buyers, not just Asian, lack the criteria of what is and isn't important — but we are beginning to see a sense of differentiation in the market, which is very healthy." Chinese collector Yu Tianhong, director of a Beijing-based media investment company, has been buying since the early 1990s. He has set up a private equity art investment fund with other collector friends from China and Hong Kong. "We started with about US$3m investment and plan to increase it yearly by about US$2m. We aim for total investment of US$10m - $30m.” The fund has already collected about 300 artworks, mainly by younger Chinese artists.

Another cultural difference that affects the market is the Chinese way of collecting. Artist Zhang Xiaogang, whom I met on a recent China trip, says, "It's different to others. The Chinese buy for investment, as if they are on the stock market. They buy and sell quickly." Experts say that China's art market would not necessarily evolve in the same way as in the West, with a set gallery structure and set career paths for artists nurtured by dealers. Many artists of the first generation (who are now in their 40s and up) had to be their own dealers, and do not feel loyalty towards a gallery in the way many Western artists do. Deprived of freedom for so long, Chinese artists value independence above all else. "There are also lots of irregularities in the market... gifts to officials, bidding up by friends," says Sigg. "There is a blurred line between business and art creation." In the future, artists might have to choose between working to be integrated and accepted into a global art market or making it primarily in China. On my visit, which included stops to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, I met some of the artists who are currently so sought-after.

Part of the excitement lies in the fact that they were hidden from the West for so long, only emerging since Deng Xiaoping's liberalisation of the early 1990s as a force to be reckoned with. Among the established artists — working either in painting, sculpture, installation or photography — are Cai Guo•Qiang, Ai Weiwei, Yan Pei Ming, Fang Lijun, Yue Miniun, Yang Shaobin, Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi and Wang Qingsong. They were all still at school during the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), which only ended with Mao's death in 1976. Their childhood and education was deeply affected by him, to the extent that the first sentence they learned at school was "Long live Chairman Mao" and then they learned the alphabet. This legacy is acknowledged by all, by some overtly in their works, or in conversation. In one or two of the studios I visited, porcelain figurines of Mao nestle with family photographs and mementos on the mantelpiece.

Chinese artists are all rigorously trained at art schools and are feeding off the tension between living in a totalitarian regime and rampant consumerism, which provides a rich context for documentation. "What makes them unique is their capability of appropriation, be it from the West or other cultures, and creating something new," says Sigg. There is precious little abstract art, and intuitive, rather than analytical, creation. "It's still early days and the extraordinary is still to come," comments Hans-Ulrich Obrist, director of international projects at the Serpentine Gallery. Obrist co-curated China Power, where he concentrated on artists "who are not strong in the auctions yet. It was important, for example," he says, "to show video, as painting and sculpture is currently more well known."

One of the artists Obrist included is Cao Fei, a 20-something female artist from Guangzhou, and a sensation in the making. Her video, entitled Whose Utopia, was made in the light-bulb factory of Osram in Guangdong, and shows workers acting out their dreams on the factory floor: playing the guitar, dancing in a winged ballerina costume, or doing t’ai chi. It is a poignant reminder of the anxiety-in-a-changing-world concerns of the younger generation of artists. Among them are Han Yajuan, who paints modern Chinese girls with all their consumer goodies; Qiu Xiaofei, whose work will be featured in Tate Liverpool's The Real Thing: Contemporary Art from China next year, and who makes photo albums where every picture is painted by hand; and Wang Mai, who is obsessed with technology, space and astronauts. But video and photography is often the younger artists' medium of choice, more suitable than painting for documenting the current China, a country in a period of rapid transformation made more intense by the rapid build-up for the summer Olympics 2008, which is when the country will present its modern face to the world.

The art on show everywhere in China and in auction houses worldwide reflects this urban revolution. There are images or videos filled with both excitement and angst; the lone individual trying to survive in the concrete jungle. Other themes are memory, the yearning for harmony in idealised landscapes, and the sometimes witty exploration of consumerist greed. The latter is the theme of artist/photographer Wang Qingsong who I met in Beijing: "There are too many artists greeting people like tourists." says Wang. "The contemporary art world is like rich tourism."

Zhang has a huge studio in Beijing, and his work deals with memory. The extraordinary Bloodline Series is also a comment on China's one-child policy; the paintings, based on old Chinese family photographs, are black-and- white with patches of colour. atmosphere is sombre; large black eyes stare out of the canvas at the viewer. Zhang says that "the Chinese are close to a complete memory loss. They don't want to abandon history, but the speed of change is so fast that it raises a lot of psychological questions."

It is this depth of inquiry which interests collectors. Three years ago, London-based Maryam Eisler started establishing a collection which has now grown to about 80 pieces. Some of her first purchæses were four pieces by Guo Jin, at $5,000 each. In the latest Hong Kong sale, the largest one went for $85,000 (about €45,000). Eisler is not collecting for investment; nonetheless she is pleased the value of her collection is rising fast. "I still buy works from these guys, even at the going prices. There is a lot of movement within established artists. All the pieces I bought in the last year have doubled."

Artists are watching the frenzy and becoming concerned that their work is appearing so fast at auction, even if it does triple in price. They are also bemused by their new status. Once persecuted, they are now courted by government officials. It has not escaped the authorities' attention that contemporary art is a brilliant tool with which to attract the goodwill of discerning foreigners visiting China and an ever-growing bourgeoisie who can afford to build art collections and private museums. "The government is now saying: 'You should help us look good to the outside world,"' says Wang, and this is particularly true with the Olympics looming.

To that end, the Chinese government wants to build 1,000 museums by the year 2015 — and 30 in Shanghai alone by 2010 (when the city hosts the World Expo). It's a mind-bokgling number, considering that people are only just beginning to think about what to put on display, the "software", as the Serpentine's Obrist calls it. For the artists themselves, these museums can't come soon enough. They are keener to sell to museums and institutions than individuals. "One of the main ways in which to validate or bestow value on a Work is for museums to exhibit and acquire it. The problem is that there is not yet a museum structure," comments Meg Maggio, owner of Beijing-based Pekin Fine Arts gallery.

There are new art spaces mushrooming in Beijing, all looking for things to exhibit, and any collector needs to be careful about what he or she chooses. "Do research, get a good adviser and really compare prices," says art dealer Amelie von Wedel, who has just curated a Zeng Fanzhi show at her space Allsopp Wedel on London's Conlan Street. Obrist, who has been working with Chinese artists since the 1980s, gives the following advice: "First, go to China and don't just visit one city, but explore. Then, don't buy anything for a year, just look and do your research. Finally, work with a good adviser or talk to other collectors." Eisler did just that, and it paid off. Now, she says, her enthusiasm "has become a sickness. My husband said to me recently, 'Can we talk about something else one night?'"