Big stage for Western artists
The burgeoning art market in China has attracted solo shows featuring many prominent contemporary artists from abroad. Deng Zhangyu reports.
The year gone by has witnessed many solo shows by influential Western contemporary artists in China as the Chinese appetite for art has increasingly become more global. Audiences in China’s first-tier cities are embracing contemporary artists highly rated in the art world — but not known to a broader public — such as Olafur Eliasson, Albert Giacometti and Anselm Kiefer after having been bombarded in the past few years with shows featuring Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and Claude Monet, who now find a market in second-tier cities like Chengdu and Hangzhou.
The burgeoning art market in China is now attracting prominent artists to hold solo shows in the country. These shows are held either in Beijing, which has a large group of artists, or in Shanghai, a city that houses most of the country’s private museums and is a major center for the trading of contemporary art.
Here are some of the exhibitions held in 2016 in chronological order.
March
Olafur Eliasson: Nothingness Is Not Nothing at All at Long Museum in Shanghai This was not the first time that the Danish-Icelandic artist known for his large-scale installations featuring light, colors, water and ice held a show in China. But the one at the Long Museum was the largest with more than 30 pieces. Described by the museum’s co-founder Wang Wei as an artist with a scientist’s brain, Eliasson created two large installations for the show: The Open Pyramid tailored for the museum’s building and Still River that used water from the Huangpu River.
The visual effects produced by Eliasson drew lots of visitors despite a 150-yuan ($22) ticket.
Alberto Giacometti Retrospective at Yuz Museum in Shanghai This was the world largest retrospective show of the Swiss sculptor and painter, covering 250 pieces. Alberto Giacometti’s iconic Walking Man, Tall Woman and The Nose were on display. Although regarded as the embodiment of modernism, Giacometti is relatively unknown in China, according to Catherine Grenier, curator of the show and director of the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation.
To educate the public that had scarcely heard about him, the museum held a series of programs to help them understand the Western master who died in 1966.
June
Robert Rauschenberg: Rauschenberg in China at Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art After his influential solo show in Beijing in 1985 that attracted more than 300,000 visitors, the late American artist was brought back to China with a large retrospective featuring his massive 305-meter long work and a set of color photos he took on his first visit to China in 1982. Many Chinese contemporary artists, both established and emerging, came to visit the show.
August
Andy Warhol: Contact at M Woods Museum in Beijing The late American pop art pioneer is well-known in China because of frequent shows featuring his silkscreen works held in the past decade and his works on China-related topics. The show at the M Woods Museum — a private institution founded by a young couple Lin Han and Lei Wanyang —was the second time that the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh held a posthumous solo show of the pop art icon in China. It displayed Warhol’s interactive installations, Polaroid photos and silent films.
September
Markus Lupertz: Freezing the Time at China Art Museum in Shanghai
The German neo-expressionist held his second solo show in China with 88 pieces, including 13 sculptures created since the 1970s. The first show was held in 2015 in Beijing. For both shows, the 75-year-old flew to China.
German artists’ shows have been frequently held in China in recent years. Independent curator Hu Zhen attributes this to the artistic links between the two countries, which have both experienced wars. Artists from both countries also agree that what matters is not what one paints but how, a common theme in German expressionism and Chinese xieyi (freehand brush work) paintings.
November
Anselm Kiefer in China at the Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum in Beijing
The show of the leading German expressionist Anselm Kiefer was mired in controversy before its opening. It made headlines as the artist expressed dissatisfaction that his first solo show in China did not involve him. However, more than 80 of his works, including large-scale installations,sculptures, paintings and photos, attracted a large number of visitors. The controversy also sparked discussions in art circles about how to introduce Western artists to China in a more appropriate way.
There were also other shows in China in 2016. And with new buyers entering the art world, and a strong willingness to build private museums, more solo shows of Western masters can be expected in the coming years.