Review on Art LTD, Aug. 2008
2008
Asian Art the Galleries: 10 Leading Contemporary Galleries
by George Melrod and Kim Beil
Aug 2008
Asian Art: The Galleries
Over the last few years, the reputations of Chinese artists—and the prices for their work—have shot up faster than the new Olympic stadium in Beijing, and with almost as much splash. Whether that trend can continue at the same rate is open to debate. While Chinese art seems only on the rise, savvy buyers and speculators—who may well remember the high-tech boom and bust of less than a decade ago—might think twice before investing the childrens’ college fund. Still, if this year has witnessed a dramatic display of Asian art in West Coast museums, it has been the collectors, and art dealers, who have been ahead of the trend in the U.S., and who often serve as knowing guides to this lesser-known terrain. Odds are, it is these galleries who will be showing the next hot Asian artists long before the larger institutions catch on. To anyone looking to learn more about contemporary Asian art, the following pages offer capsule summaries of ten notable California galleries who specialize in Asian art in one form or another. The list is not comprehensive. See it rather as an open door to a rich aesthetic territory that as yet remains largely unexplored by U.S. viewers.
LIMN GALLERY
San Francisco, CA
SPECIALITY: Contemporary Chinese Art
When LIMN Gallery opened in San Francisco’s SOMA district in 1997, over a decade ago, Chinese art was not well known in the United States and they were very much in the vanguard. Working with independent curator Britta Erickson (now a leading scholar/curator on Chinese art at Stanford), LIMN introduced many West Coast collectors to the sphere; Kent Logan, whose collection was recently spotlighted in a major show at SFMOMA this summer, bought his first pieces from LIMN in 1998. Today Liu Xiaodong, who had his first U.S. solo show at LIMN, is repped by Mary Boone in New York and many of the original artists that LIMN brought over sell for $1.2 to $1.5 million per painting.
“Now the artists I show are second generation,” says gallery director Christine Duval, who travels to Beijing and Shanghai twice a year. “A lot of the artists we showed originally are now professors at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, they are teaching a new generation.”
Says Duval, of the next wave of Chinese painters. “They’re extraordinarily talented technically, that’s not the issue. The issue is the content, it has to be challenging. [Until recently] individualism did not exist, it was totally suppressed. So the artists’ challenge is to find their own identity. The question for the new generation is, how do they fit? And where do they belong, in this big global art market?”
With a stable including both U.S. and Asian artists, LIMN presents about four shows of Chinese art a year. Among the artists LIMN represents are photographers Yu Hang, Wang Ningde, and Shanghai-born Zhang Xianyong, who creates striking staged tableaux of uniformed figures, eating meals and swimming underwater, using himself as the sole model. This September he will be featured at LIMN, along with painter Weng Yunpeng, a former student of Lui Xiadong, whose work depicts the ubiquitous TV sets posed amid often desolate landscapes and alleyways. The Gao Brothers, who headlined a show at LIMN called “China Avant Garde, Part IX” last fall, exemplify the dangers of the cutting edge. Often garish and beautiful—as with their yellow-and-pink topless female fiberglass torso of Mao, which suggests a cartoon animal—their work has also attracted the attention of the Chinese censors, who have at times shut down their website and studio.
Yet despite the political tensions, the global marketplace for Chinese art continues to expand. “There were works I couldn’t sell for even $10,000,” Duval recalls. “I was begging people to buy them. Now they say, ‘Why didn’t I listen?’”...
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by George Melrod and Kim Beil
Aug 2008
Asian Art: The Galleries
Over the last few years, the reputations of Chinese artists—and the prices for their work—have shot up faster than the new Olympic stadium in Beijing, and with almost as much splash. Whether that trend can continue at the same rate is open to debate. While Chinese art seems only on the rise, savvy buyers and speculators—who may well remember the high-tech boom and bust of less than a decade ago—might think twice before investing the childrens’ college fund. Still, if this year has witnessed a dramatic display of Asian art in West Coast museums, it has been the collectors, and art dealers, who have been ahead of the trend in the U.S., and who often serve as knowing guides to this lesser-known terrain. Odds are, it is these galleries who will be showing the next hot Asian artists long before the larger institutions catch on. To anyone looking to learn more about contemporary Asian art, the following pages offer capsule summaries of ten notable California galleries who specialize in Asian art in one form or another. The list is not comprehensive. See it rather as an open door to a rich aesthetic territory that as yet remains largely unexplored by U.S. viewers.
LIMN GALLERY
San Francisco, CA
SPECIALITY: Contemporary Chinese Art
When LIMN Gallery opened in San Francisco’s SOMA district in 1997, over a decade ago, Chinese art was not well known in the United States and they were very much in the vanguard. Working with independent curator Britta Erickson (now a leading scholar/curator on Chinese art at Stanford), LIMN introduced many West Coast collectors to the sphere; Kent Logan, whose collection was recently spotlighted in a major show at SFMOMA this summer, bought his first pieces from LIMN in 1998. Today Liu Xiaodong, who had his first U.S. solo show at LIMN, is repped by Mary Boone in New York and many of the original artists that LIMN brought over sell for $1.2 to $1.5 million per painting.
“Now the artists I show are second generation,” says gallery director Christine Duval, who travels to Beijing and Shanghai twice a year. “A lot of the artists we showed originally are now professors at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, they are teaching a new generation.”
Says Duval, of the next wave of Chinese painters. “They’re extraordinarily talented technically, that’s not the issue. The issue is the content, it has to be challenging. [Until recently] individualism did not exist, it was totally suppressed. So the artists’ challenge is to find their own identity. The question for the new generation is, how do they fit? And where do they belong, in this big global art market?”
With a stable including both U.S. and Asian artists, LIMN presents about four shows of Chinese art a year. Among the artists LIMN represents are photographers Yu Hang, Wang Ningde, and Shanghai-born Zhang Xianyong, who creates striking staged tableaux of uniformed figures, eating meals and swimming underwater, using himself as the sole model. This September he will be featured at LIMN, along with painter Weng Yunpeng, a former student of Lui Xiadong, whose work depicts the ubiquitous TV sets posed amid often desolate landscapes and alleyways. The Gao Brothers, who headlined a show at LIMN called “China Avant Garde, Part IX” last fall, exemplify the dangers of the cutting edge. Often garish and beautiful—as with their yellow-and-pink topless female fiberglass torso of Mao, which suggests a cartoon animal—their work has also attracted the attention of the Chinese censors, who have at times shut down their website and studio.
Yet despite the political tensions, the global marketplace for Chinese art continues to expand. “There were works I couldn’t sell for even $10,000,” Duval recalls. “I was begging people to buy them. Now they say, ‘Why didn’t I listen?’”...
Read Full Article
