CHINESE CONTEMPORARY ART SCENE THRIVES

Audience continues to grow despite pandemic

Interest in contemporary Chinese art and artists has mushroomed globally in recent years, including in Australia.

From local and international exhibitions in galleries and museums to a significant presence in the auction and private markets, the audience for Chinese art in Sydney and across the country continues to grow, despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Billionaire philanthropist Judith Neilson, who has amassed one of the world's biggest collections of Chinese contemporary art, is one of the art scene's leading figures in Australia.

Her White Rabbit Gallery in the inner Sydney suburb of Chippendale, which has just celebrated its 10th anniversary, has become a major draw for art lovers, both locals and foreign visitors.

Over the past 20 years, Neilson has put together a collection of more than 2,500 pieces by some 700 artists.

Her passion for Chinese contemporary art grew from trips to the country in the 1990s with close friend and artist Wang Zhiyuan.

In an interview published in Tatler Hong Kong magazine in June, Neilson said: "I decided to focus on Chinese art because China has the greatest number of practicing artists in history. Therefore, I would see more of the good, bad or ordinary than would be possible anywhere else."

Twenty years ago, contemporary Chinese art barely raised interest among collectors or investors.

Today, artists such as Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Xiaogang, Liu Ye, Zhang Enli, Liang Yuanwei, Hao Liang and Huang Yuxing, to name just a few, are among the most sought-after in the world, including at auctions.

The 2019 Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report said nearly one-fifth of the $67 billion outlay on art the previous year was spent in China, making it the world's third-largest art market.

According to the auction database Artprice, Liu Ye was the bestselling Chinese contemporary artist last year, with a "sold" rate as high as 94 percent.

Artprice said, "Liu Ye's artworks have recently gained greater popularity, thanks to a combination of several factors, including academic recognition, greater visibility and the new success of pop culture."

Arthur de Villepin, who opened a gallery in Hong Kong in March with his father, the former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin, said the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen major exhibitions and auctions either canceled or postponed this year, has not stopped artists from working, or collectors from buying.

Michele Chan, head of research and specialist in contemporary art at auction house Sotheby's in Hong Kong, said Chinese contemporary art has literally taken the art world by storm.

"It barely existed before 2005 and went through seismic shifts in the following decade," she said, adding that the market is now less speculative, more mature and is welcoming new voices.

"Chinese contemporary art has been accepted as a global genre－people collect not because of the nationality of the artists but because the voices are recognized as good art by established and new collectors," Chan said.

The birth of the genre is widely debated among academics, but most tend to agree its emergence can be traced to the rise of an avant-garde group of artists in the late 1970s and early 1980s known as The Stars.

Founded by Ma Desheng and Huang Rui, the group included some of China's up-and-coming young artists.

Great change

Olivier Krischer, acting director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, said: "It was a time of great change in China. What made The Stars and those who followed exciting was the fact they had no formal training… their work represented a new freedom of expression.

"There was an influx of new cultural ideas, art, music, literature and other things from all over the world. At the same time, young artists were rediscovering parts of Chinese culture."

By the mid-1980s, China's contemporary art scene had become established and artists were starting to make their mark overseas.

According to Krischer, there were "endless debates whether this was a new art movement or not. One school of thought described it as a cultural renaissance. It was a time when Chinese contemporary art was growing in popularity not only at home but overseas, where there was a great deal of interest.

"Many of the rising stars ventured overseas to Europe and North America, while others stayed in China."

Krischer said it was common at the time for a notebook to be kept at exhibitions in China to document people's views.

"Some didn't like the new art form. Others didn't know much about it but thought it was a good idea. Then you had others who liked the idea of artists expressing their emotions and thoughts through art," he said.

In the early days, Hong Kong played a significant part in promoting the new art form to collectors and investors internationally.

One man who had a prominent role was Johnson Chang, credited with turning artists such as Zeng Fanzhi, Wang Guangyi and Fang Lijun into international sensations.

Chang, founder of the Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong, has built a formidable collection of Chinese contemporary art.

Krischer said: "Chang's role in Chinese contemporary art should not be understated. He was instrumental in taking it to the world. Chang promoted individuals and their art, rather than groups."

Chang was also behind the Chinese Exhibition at the 1995 Venice Biennale in Italy and the China section of the 22nd International Biennial in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1994.

He has been quoted as saying he did not discover artists but "simply created a stage for them at a time when few spaces were available to them".

This month, Sotheby's sold works from Chang's collection, including icons of Chinese contemporary art such as Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi, Liu Wei, Fang Lijun and Yu Youhan.

The works were included in The First Avant-Garde: Masterworks from the Johnson Chang Collection, part of Sotheby's Contemporary Art Autumn Sales 2020 on Oct 6-7 at the Hong Kong Convention Center.

According to Chan, from Sotheby's, several factors are driving the market for Chinese contemporary art, with perhaps one of the key ones being the rise of "new and cuttingedge private institutions in China, which increases local exposure to homegrown talent".

"Then you have had increased international exposure through auctions, museums and galleries."

Western collectors who normally collect blue-chip Western contemporary art are increasingly paying attention to Chinese contemporary art as a solid category, she said.

The genre has also been helped with the support of local and international galleries, she added, "especially when mega-galleries such as Hauser& Wirth and David Zwirner begin to represent artists like Zeng Fanzhi and Liu Ye".

Chan said another factor has been the rise of young collectors in Asia who "tend to collect across genres".

karlwilson@chinadailyapac.com