The rise of the Chinese economy ties into the rise of the Chinese collector and the revival of the Chinese contemporary art market. There is still much speculation about these collectors since most are deemed as investors but either way, the global art market is scheming up ways to tap into the Chinese market.

Chinese financial institutions are tapping into the rising art market. Minsheng Bank opened up their own museum earlier this year in Shanghai where they exhibit their own collection. Minsheng is the first private bank in China therefore they have the freedom to be more progressive: purchasing artworks a decade ago, before the Chinese contemporary art bubble (2006-2008).

Wang Lifeng painting in Hua Xia Bank’s main staircase

Hua Xia Bank, owned by the central government, is the most recent financial institution to collect Chinese contemporary art works. Paintings by Beijing based painter Wang Lifeng were installed in their Jinrong Jie office last week.

Wang Lifeng 420×180cm painting

Wang Lifeng’s style fits Hua Xia’s persona because they are a traditional state-owned institution. His oil paintings are modern interpretations of traditional Chinese ink paintings. He uses traditional symbols and iconography that have historical and cultural meanings, like Mei Lan Zhu Ju, four elements that represent the highest qualities of mankind in Chinese traditions.

Businessweek: The Rise of Emerging Art Economy.
Jing Daily: More Chinese Companies Investing in Corporate Art
China Daily: Minsheng Art Museum Opens in Shanghai
Hua Xia Bank Official Site
Artinfo: Treating Art as Stocks Comes to China

Shen Jingdong’s new body of work is currently on display in Hong Kong at Exchange Square financial center in cooperation with Yan Gallery. The Beijing based artist is known for his iconic cartoon military portraits. The works shown in this exhibition show the artist venturing a bit further than his usual portraits, incorporating political figures and families.

Shen Jingdong is unique because he one of the only Chinese contemporary artists that is also in the People’s Liberation Army post 1989. The development of his iconic painting style took many stages. Over a decade ago, Shen Jingdong took a photo portrait of himself in his military uniform. He then created fiberglass and porcelain models of the portrait. He then took photographs of the sculptures and liked the shiny-effect of the photographed porcelain and began to experiment with painting to attain that effect.

Simplistic and comical, these shiny-faced soldiers are endearing and sweet. He paints what he understands. He himself is the soldier and his understanding of the world is molded through the army.

The future looks bright for Shen Jingdong since his works appeal to Chinese collectors, an elusive group of people who the rest of the world is trying to tap into. Chinese actress Zhang Zhiyi, who is most well known for her staring role in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, is a huge fan and avid collector of his paintings and sculptures.

Yan Gallery
The National: China Finds its Art Palatte
Spears Wealth Management: Chinese Takeaway

The LA Times has just covered the Gao Brothers solo exhibition in Cao Changdi. Please enjoy the article. It features a quote from ML Artsource.

LA Times China Art Testing Chinese Boundaries
ML Artsource Coverage of the Exhibition

Chinese contemporary art has only been around for a little over 30 years. During the Cultural Revolution art that did not serve communist goals was deemed counter-revolutionary. Artists were forced to learn Soviet Realism in school and all other styles of art was banned.

Huang Rui is one of the founding members of the Stars Group, which included Ai Weiwei. They pushed forth the the first contemporary art movements following the Cultural Revolution. They painted in Western styles which were considered extremely avant-garde, such as Impressionism, Dada, Cubism, and Surrealism.

Huang Rui cubist painting from 1980 at his studio

The group made history on September 27th 1979 when the Stars Exhibition, China’s first contemporary art exhibition, opened on the perimeter of China Arts Gallery (now the National Art Museum of China). They did not have a permit therefore defying authority and official policy. One day later the authorities declared the outdoor exhibition illegal. The Stars marched on October 1st, the 30th anniversary of the founding of the PRC to express their protest of this decision.

Huang Rui Studio

After living in living in self-exile for close to twenty years, Huang Rui now resides ten minutes from 798. You can find The Founding Father of 798 strolling the streets of this art district on any given day.

Recent works in his studio

Huang Rui is still very active in the Chinese contemporary art scene, most recently doing a performance art to criticize the 008 incident where artists were beaten because they would not vacate their studios earlier this year.

How much has changed? Is there more freedom now, or less? More or less police/government control and brutality?

Artzine China Huang Rui Profile
Artspeakchina Huang Rui Profile
Artspeakchina The Stars Group

The UCCA just opened with Zhang Huan’s breathtaking installation Hope Tunnel. He is one of China’s most well known conceptual artists but he started his career in the 1980s as a performance artist. His physically traumatic performances captured the international art scene. After a stint in the USA he returned to the motherland in 2005. This is the same year he traveled to Tibet where his soul was awakened by Buddhism.

Two Ash Officers at entrance of UCCA

Zhang Huan’s most iconic installations and paintings are made from Ash collected from Buddhist temples. Burning incense is an ancient tradition that still remains strong in modern China. The ashes carry the hopes, dreams and prayers of the Chinese people. The process of gathering the ashes requires patience and finesse since Monks do not accept payments, rather the artist had to prove his cause was worthy of the ashes.

This massive installation Hope Tunnel takes center stage in the UCCA’s main exhibition hall. I was moved to tears as I watched the documentary of this piece. The Sichuan Earthquake is an event that shook the Chinese nation and brought together its people.

At 2:28 p.m. on May 12, 2008, on an otherwise ordinary afternoon, the ground in China began to tremble. Something had fractured deep within the earth, rending and ripping, turning peaks into valleys and valleys into tombs. When the wave of destruction hit, countless fragile lives were lost and many more were injured. Sichuan’s once-lush landscape was turned into a desolate wasteland, a swath of death.
Zhang Huan

Freight train no. 21043 collided with a massive boulder when it went through tunnel no. 109 on the Baoji–Chengdu railway during the Earthquake. Zhang Huan got in touch with the salvage company and bought the train.

When we behold the train that Zhang Huan purchased, refurbished and installed here, we may find ourselves dwarfed by the scale of the wreckage, dismayed by the destructive force of nature and daunted by the challenges that lie ahead. Perhaps we should feel humbled by the shadow of that awesome bulk, but as the title reminds us, while we may be small, we are not powerless. Through remembrance, reflection and concerted action, each one of us has the power to help—and to hope.
Jérôme Sans, UCCA Director

UCCA Zhang Huan Hope Tunnel
Artzinechina Zhang Huan Studio
Art Daily Zhang Huan Hope Tunnel
China Daily Sichuan Earthquake Death Toll

World of Thousands is a collaborative exhibition by Tibetan artist Gonkar Gyatso and Chinese artist Liu Zhuoquan, two artists with strong ties to Buddhism. The artists transform the Space Station gallery by covering the walls and floors with objects of desire from this worldly realm.

This is a participatory work created specifically for this exhibition by Gokar one of the few Tibetan artists invited to participate in the 2009 Venice Bienniale. For this piece he collected hundreds of images, from political images to pop culture Hello Kitty stickers. These images are strewn all over the floor. Visitors are encouraged to pick up the stickers and cut outs and glue them onto the piece to create a collective memory of the modern world. The work will be completed after the exhibition ends.

Liu Zhuoquan bottle series is a site to be seen. Painstakingly created by using a traditional and almost extinct technique, each bottle bears an image that the artist has been painted inside the bottle.

Inspired by his own childhood memories of the ashes at Buddha’s alter, Liu Zhuoquan has painted images of dead babies, deformed fetuses, monsters and other bizarre creatures on the bottles. Other bottles are filled with mold, constantly growing and evolving.

Space Station Art

Agriculture is the key to China’s growth. Although many first-tier cities such as Beijing and Shanghai are extremely developed and westernized, most of the nation is rural countryside. Agriculture is still the most important economic sector employing more than 300 million farmers. Wang Lei looks at the evolution of China through the tools of agriculture that have predominately been unchanged for centuries.

This large installation, a dragon’s head made from farmer’s tools, is the center of attention in the exhibition hall. To create this piece for his graduation exhibition Wang Lei spent 6 months in the countryside of Henan province’s Yang Shao village. This site is one of the most important archeological finds in China famous for discovering agricultural tools from the early dynastic periods.

Although inspired by Xu Bing’s Aerial Pheonix, all of the materials used in Wang Lei’s installation are kept in their original form and each piece is well documented with numbers which correlate to where the tool is from and who owned it. This work is a year in the making and is accompanied by 3 large books of Wang Lei’s research.

This is a page from the large book documenting each tool and the farmer who owned it

Although Wang Lei is very young and just completed his masters, I have been following his career for a few years. Conceptually he is very strong and all his works are painstakingly crafted. The Experimental Department of CAFA never disappoints.

Top Ten Archeological Finds in China

The next few months are going to be extremely busy for the Chinese contemporary art world. The Central Academy of Fine Arts also known as CAFA is hosting their graduation exhibitions for the next few weeks. CAFA is the best art academy in the nation and it boasts professors and graduates that are world famous Chinese contemporary artists. The school is extremely hard to get into, it turns away more than 90% of the applicant pool, due to the fact that most students land contracts with international and local galleries and dealers before graduation.

During the next few weeks, each graduating class will exhibit their works for 3-4 days. Now that confidence has returned to the Chinese contemporary art market, Sotheby’s Hong Kong spring auction was its highest grossing ever at $256 million including a record breaking Liu Ye selling for $2.4 million, I am sure dealers and galleries will be snapping up young CAFA talents.

This massive Transformer is one of the many pieces showcased in CAFA’s courtyard. Only in China can an art student have the money or the manpower to create such a gigantic sculpture. This is possible because many students are snapped up by galleries/dealers or investors while they are in school, funding huge projects, making the artist’s dreams come true.

The car that the Transformer is made from

On the other hand, the negative affects of the heavy scouting is that many young artists get snapped up before they know who they are. Some of these investors push the artist to create tons of product a year and immediately throw the works into the market without the right support where they crash and burn.

But I am sure this Transformer is a dream come true for this artist and many young boys and girls all around the world. Massive in its size and scope and beautiful in its detailing, it truly is a site to be seen.

Central Academy of Fine Arts Official Website
Art Speak: Central Academy of Fine Arts
NY Times: Schooling the Artists’ Republic of China
The New York Observer: Betting on China

The Gao Brothers have a solo exhibition at China Art Archives Warehouse, which is also known as Ai Weiwei’s art space in Beijing. The brothers and Ai Weiwei are the most controversial figures in the Chinese Contemporary art world therefore it is significant that Ai Weiwei co-curated and hosted this exhibition.

Two Portraits of Karl Marx

This is the first time the Gao Brothers have publicly shown their large scale portrait series. Although the brothers are most well known for their sculptures, such as their massive Lenin Head and their notorious M.A.O’s Guilt, their paintings and photography are equally conceptually strong.

Two Portraits of Saddam

These paintings are monumental in size. Each painting is 300cm by 400cm (about 10 feet by 13 feet). In this series the brothers analyze the impact of media on these controversial figures. The portrait of childhood, which the public has not seen, versus the portrait of the dictator, a portrait that has so much impact and significance, is quite thought provoking.

Gao Brothers and I at the opening in front of Two Portraits of Hitler

In addition the portrait of the dictator is painted like an abstract painting. Up close all you see are lines and gradations of colors, only when you step backwards does a figure appear. Therefore they are suggesting that the audience should always read between the lines.

Although these works are not considered as controversial as most of their other works, Beijing is lucky to have the opportunity to see these paintings before they are shipped to the USA. This might be one of the first and last times to see these works exhibited on the mainland.

“To protect the right of expression is the central part of an artist’s activity. … In China many essential rights are lacking, and I wanted to remind people of this,” Ai Weiwei

China Art Archives Warehouse
ArtINFO: Who is Ai Weiwei
Global Times: Double Trouble
Gao Brothers Banned in China

Liu Ruowang, born in the mid 1970s, has a solo exhibition at China Space Gallery. This large gallery is tucked away from the main streets of 798. Unlike many Chinese contemporary sculpture artists, he does not draw his influence from Western art, rather his works echo Chinese classical art.

The Horse the Carriage Guard is one of his most iconic pieces. The soldiers are from the modern Communist army but they strongly resemble the Qin Emperor’s Terracotta Warriors. The uniforms might change through the generations but the idea of power and unity remains the same.

The Horse and Carriage Guard

The monumental Wolf Coming is an awe-inspiring installation that is currently on display in Originality Square in 798. In this work, the people are literally larger than life. Although the figures are heroic, they are ordinary people. They are not high ranking officials, generals of armies or historically recognized names. Liu Ruowang makes the ordinary, extraordinary.

Wolf Coming installation made from cast iron

Yin Shuangxi, an art critic, states that it is significant to see the revival of the image of the HERO in Chinese contemporary art linking directly to the people’s developing self-confidence.

Close up of the wolves

I agree. The older generations focused their works on the suffering of the Chinese, like the popular Cynical Realism movement. Now that China is a world power, you are beginning to see heroes emerge in the Chinese art scene.

8000 Miles of Clouds and the Moon
The Guardian 24 hour in pictures