A PASSION FOR POP
Art collector Amanda Wei’s gallery is carving out a reputation for showing offbeat yet spirited work
it’s only been open since September, but Amanda Wei Gallery is already making a name as an art space with a focus on bright, pop-influenced artists with an urban sensibility.
A collector for decades, founder Amanda Wei decided to turn her personal passion into a profession, taking up prime real estate on the ground floor of a building on lower Wyndham Street, an area not yet overpopulated with other galleries, showing artists who may not fall into the category of collector darlings, but still hold an appeal for those with tastes off the beaten track. “I had so many pieces at home, at first, my only thought was to open a place to display them – I wasn’t thinking of a business yet,” she says.
For Amanda Wei Gallery’s inaugural exhibition, she approached Francebased Moroccan graffiti artist and DJ, Ceet. “His work is a little bit graffiti, a little bit pop. It’s funny, I was born in the year of the rooster, and his paintings mainly use a chicken as the dominant motif, so it seemed like it was meant to be. And the show sold very well,” she says.
Immediately, Wei received comments on how vibrant her gallery and show were. The subsequent showcase focused on Kongo, another French artist introduced to her by Ceet, who’s collaborated with Hermès on a collection of scarves. “A lot of the artists I work with are able to cross the line between art and commerce fluidly – I’m not as interested in artists who are too serious. My perspective is that art is part of our lifestyle – it’s not about investment, I buy art because of something that I like. As a collector, of course I’ve bought and auctioned off pieces – I was an early buyer of Zhou Chunya’s, but I acquired the pieces because I thought that while so many other contemporary Chinese artists were making art that reflected on society, I enjoyed his themes which centred more on nature and humanity, and of course his well-known green dog series. Now his work sells for similar prices to Zeng Fanzhi, but that’s not what attracted me.”
Currently on show is Qiu Shengxian, an artist that Wei observed as being very popular with Western collectors looking to veer away from overly traditional Chinese art. “Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is a collector, Obama is a collector – the imagery he uses appeals to them. And he’s also worked with a German fashion brand [s.Oliver] who used his artwork on clothing.”