Arts

The business of art

By Zhu Linyong (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-01 08:21

Top: The Thinker by French sculptor Auguste Rodin attracts a huge crowd in February 1993 when 113 works by Rodin were displayed at the National Art Museum of China. Above: Some 7,000 applicants try to present their best to enter the Shandong University of Art and Design in February 2009. Top: Wang Wenlan / China Daily; Above: Luo Bo / for China Daily

Lu Peng is widely considered a pioneer of the local art market, having published an art magazine, organized exhibitions and other projects - not all financially successful.

In the 1980s, he established the Art and Market magazine, the first of its kind in China, and was its first editor-in-chief. The magazine did not survive the test of time, although the country now has hundreds of art magazines, newspapers and Internet portals.

He also raised funds to organize the first Guangzhou Art Biennale in October 1992, although this, too, turned out to be a commercial failure.

But Lu has persevered, convinced that "art and business are inseparable in the modern world", and has gone on to become recognized as one of the most active players in this field in China.

A political science major from the Sichuan Teachers College, Lu has translated books about Western art and wrote a book on the history of art in 20th century China. He is now working on a book about Chinese art in the 21st century.

Lu says he is "determined to bridge artistic creations and the business world by staging projects that are both academically accepted and commercially successful".

His projects, all of which demanded huge sums of money, include the private museums' cluster near Mt Qingcheng in Sichuan in 2007, the curatorial work A Gift to Marco Polo: Contemporary Art from China in 2009; Reshaping History: The First Chinese Contemporary Art Document 2010; and Pure Views: New Paintings from China, an exhibition held at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco in April.

"With the Chinese economy growing rapidly, Chinese contemporary art has also been developing dramatically over the past decades, particularly in the past 10 years," says Lu.

In 1979, Chinese modern art was symbolized by the first Stars Art Exhibition held in the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. "Chinese new art, also dubbed contemporary art, has become hot globally," Lu says. "The market-oriented growth of art has further confirmed and expanded the development of Chinese contemporary art as well as its social influence."

Although Lu was once labeled "a shameless man, who sells his soul to capitalists" by critics on the Internet, he is proud of his role in the art world. "I am witnessing, participating in and pushing forward contemporary Chinese art in my own way," he says.

Lu has named artist Fang Lijun as one of the few people who were quick to grasp opportunities of the changing art scene. But Fang says his success did not come easily.

Still, "I am not sure that I have achieved success in terms of artistic creation", says Fang, whose works have sold for millions at international auctions.

But Fang, 48, is happy his art has found a way to an increasing number of viewers in China. His solo exhibition tour, which kicked off on May 1 at the Xi'an Art Museum, has drawn huge crowds.

The museum's director, Yang Chao, says contemporary art exhibitions are rare in Xi'an and Fang's exhibition may usher in other contemporary art shows.

At the opening ceremony, Fang met enthusiasts, including a tearful young woman who called him "one of the best artists of our time".

"I have never experienced such an emotional opening for my exhibitions over the years," says Fang, who trekked a long and tumultuous path in the 1980s, doing various jobs but always clinging to his artistic dream.

He managed to carve a name in the early 1990s as a key figure of the so-called Cynical Realism art group, when his works were taken to international arenas such as the Venice Biennale.

However, "the overall atmosphere back home was not as tolerant as it is now", Fang says, adding that most of his early fans were foreigners.

To win local support, Fan developed the Tea Road, a high-brow restaurant chain that not only served dishes from Southwest China's Yunnan province but also held free art exhibitions.

Two decades ago, restaurant patrons "could find various original works by many of today's heavyweights artists such as Wang Guangyi and Yue Minjun", Fang says. But not anymore as many of the artists have taken their works back. Even Fang displays only copies of his works at the restaurants.

Fang says he's tried to balance commercial success with artistic integrity. "No matter what labels people throw at me and my art, or what dramatic changes have taken place in our country, there is not much change in my attitude toward life and the world," he says.

Unlike Fang, ink painter and publisher Zhang Zikang holds a changing attitude toward the art world.

"I easily get excited about fresh creations by vanguard artists," says Zhang, director of Today Art Museum in Beijing, one of the earliest and by far the largest private space for Chinese contemporary art.

The museum inspires creative potential and helps build a modern culture, says Zhang, a long-time observer of the ebbs and flows of Chinese contemporary art.

"My early knowledge about Chinese contemporary art and such terminologies as abstract expressionism, conceptual art, performance art and surrealism came from newspapers and magazines in the early 1980s," Zhang says.

"With limited knowledge about modern and contemporary art, I felt it hard to understand how art works could be executed in such bold and even subversive manner."

The museum is recognized as a leader among the country's private museums of contemporary Chinese art, while Zhang has been hailed as a key supporter and promoter of the art, and for fostering China's younger talents.

"I am always confident in Chinese art as I am in the future of this nation," says Zhang, who also is the director at Contemporary Chinese Art Research and Promotion Center under the Ministry of Culture.

Chinese contemporary art began stealing the limelight in the late 1990s when Chinese artists flooded international art biennials in Europe and the Americas.

Since 2000, Chinese contemporary art has found its way into public life at such galas as Art Beijing, Shanghai Biennale, Chengdu Biennale and Guangzhou Triennial, alongside works by international artists.

(China Daily 06/01/2011 page40)