ShContemporary - Indian Art News

ShContemporary on Solid Footing, Despite Setbacks

visionsart — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:33:00 +0000

SHANGHAI—Even ShContemporary’s new director, Colin Chinnery, says he was surprised at how well this year’s fair went off. After all, there were plenty of factors working against the Sept. 10–13 show, such as the economy, the recent departure of founding director Lorenzo Rudolf, competition from the sprightly and young Hong Kong fair Art HK, and the specter of last year’s rather moribund edition still giving dealers and buyers pause.

Zhan Wang’s “Artificial Rock” (2007) was on view at Beijing’s Long March Space. 90 x 45 x 85 in.

One of the major objectives for this year’s edition, Chinnery says, was simply adjusting people’s expectations, which were overblown by the exploding Chinese art market before being squashed by the recession. “The expectations are different now than before,” he said, “but they are based on solid reality. The hyper-commercial or expensive work is nowhere to be seen. There are a lot more experimental works, lots of younger work. People are going to realize that art doesn’t appreciate 100 times in five years.”

James Cohan was showing tapestries at his booth, including this one, “Carioca” (2008) from Beatriz Milhazes, at 79 x 79 in.

To give ShContemporary new energy, Chinnery, formerly of Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, reorganized the show with a revamped collector’s program, along with a curated portion put together by Anton Vidokle, Mami Kotaoka, and Wang Jianwei. While last year’s curated section focused on undiscovered artists from Asia, this year’s, titled “Discoveries,” had no regional boundaries and pulled in works from Anri Sala, Martha Rosler, and Marina Abramovic from such high-profile international galleries as Marian Goodman (New York and Paris), Christian Nagel (Cologne and Berlin), Sean Kelly (New York), and PMK (Seoul and Beijing). For the conference program, the curators were able to draw such speakers as critic Hal Foster, artist Martha Rosler, and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, who all lent the fair some much-needed critical heft.

One notable absence was that of Shanghai gallerist and social doyenne Pearl Lam, who in past years has almost single-handedly shepherded the fair’s collectors program. Her nightly dinners during the event — including one extravagant, 250-person affair each year — were always the most coveted invitations. This year, her absence — and the lack of openings at any of her four Contrasts galleries in the city — was strongly felt.

To make up for that loss, the fair mounted an ambitious Collectors Development Program, which hosted a major dinner at the Swissôtel in addition to organizing talks and programs that were geared toward attracting visitors. Some notable events outside of the fair included a show of Chinese and Belgian art, “Fantastic Illusions,” at the Museum of Contemporary Art and another show, “Stolen Treasures From Modern China,” which featured work by Zhou Tiehai, at ShangART’s new space in the Dunhill Villas, a pair of gorgeous 1930s mansions that the Richemont Group renovated as homes for two its brands, Dunhill and Constantin Vacheron. Still, there was a slight reduction in the number of events overall, although some people enjoyed the more relaxed tone.

In terms of the sales, ShContemporary seemed to have found a healthy lifeline this year, with firm if not spectacular activity reported, thanks to a strong showing of collectors from such countries as the Philippines, Taiwan, and South Korea. (The U.S. and Europe, meanwhile, had fewer to show for themselves.)

On fair floor, artworks and prices seemed to be more on the moderate side, with few galleries trotting out really expensive work. A few notable exceptions included Ota Fine Arts of Tokyo, which presented a solo offering of Yayoi Kusama, with works in the $200,000–$320,000 range, and sold on the third day one of her pumpkin sculptures. “We took the opportunity to understand the market for Kusama,” said Yoshiko Kogi, assistant curator at Ota. “We see potential in China.” Curiously, the gallery had sold mostly to female collectors from the Philippines and Taiwan.

The Long March Space of Beijing brought along a wide range of pieces, with prices ranging from $10,000 to $300,000, according to director David Tung. “I think people are looking for things that are a bit different in terms of medium this year,” he said, noting that Long March’s main draw continues to be work from the Chinese artist Zhang Wang, which sells in the $200,000–$300,000 range. Tung told ARTINFO the gallery had sold “close to 10 pieces” for a total of almost $1 million.

“One reason we came is that Colin has emphasized the community that’s here,” said Tung. “This fair not only serves Shanghai but is also a platform for southern China. Beijing is the major art destination, but in terms of art-buying the mentality is different. Here, in Shanghai, it’s a lot about meeting new clientele.”

While a majority of the 50-some galleries participating in the fair’s main section were China-based, there was a smattering from Asian neighbors South Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and a few representatives from the U.S. and Europe.

“We participated in the Beijing fair last year, and it was very successful,” said Kerimcan Güleryüz, director of Istanbul’s X-IST, who had clearly chosen to come to ShContemporary over the contemporaneous Istanbul Biennale opening. “After my observations of the show, we realized that big painting and monumentality seemed to be what the collectors were looking for, and that’s why we’re in Shanghai.” Among the works Güleryüz had brought were large portraits by Serkan Adin and Mehmet Güleryüz, on offer for €6,000 to €85,000.

“Shanghai is a very good position in Asia,” said Berlin dealer Michael Schultz, who has been in the show all three years. “This year there was a very good mix here. There was not so much big business, but enough.” One of Schultz’s main draws was a Berlin-based Korean artist named SEO, who had a work sell for $110,000.

Perhaps the most unusual selection of work was over at the James Cohan Gallery, of New York and Shanghai, which had brought a range of tapestries from such artists as Gary Hume, Kara Walker, Fred Tomaselli, and Gavin Turk, priced between 50,000 and $100,000. The choice was unorthodox to say the least — most gallerists agreed that paintings and sculptures seemed to be the most sellable media, but “there was a great response to the tapestry from the locals,” said Cohan Shanghai director Arthur Solway. “I’ve learned something this year,” he added. “We should always be doing things that keep people off-kilter. Tapestry is a lost art form, but merged with the contemporary way, it makes people wake up and take notice.” When he spoke with ARTINFO, the Turk had already sold, and several others were on reserve.

Overall, galleries seemed to be relieved that the fair wasn’t a total bust and, in fact, reported that business was pretty satisfactory overall, at least good enough to keep marching forward. However, there were certainly detractors. “The end result of the fair was more middle of the road,” said Marcello Bardi, a collector and managing director of the Ferrari Group, a fine-arts logistics company in New York. “But there were a few great surprises that you didn’t expect.”

Bardi was seen giving a visitor a tour of the entire presentation from the OV Gallery of Shanghai, which he said had the most covet-worthy works at the fair, including several by Shi Jing, a painter who creates monochromatic landscapes using a subtle mix of glossy, matte, and raised textures. Also on view was an arresting series from Jiang Guozhe that showed symbols of childhood — a carousel or playground, for example — gradually sinking into water.

For his part, Chinnery was upbeat. “Next year we will be braver and bolder,” he said. “I want to build a solid foundation step by step. I think we are getting there.”

By Andrew Yang
Published: September 16, 2009
www.artinfo.com

The post ShContemporary on Solid Footing, Despite Setbacks first appeared on Indian Art News.

Shanghai surprise

visionsart — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:32:00 +0000

By Susan Moore

Contemporary art is one of the world’s great resources. It can be found almost anywhere and in potentially limitless supply. Hitherto unknown territory is being mapped and emerging talent tapped by eager prospectors.
Innovative art fairs, particularly Art Basel, began offering an international platform for galleries from far-flung corners of the globe in the mid-1990s. It is therefore not surprising that Lorenzo Rudolf (Art Basel’s transforming director from 1991 to 2000, who was responsible for introducing new platforms such as Art Unlimited and Art Statements) is extending the reach still further in ShContemporary.
Launched last September as the region’s first truly international contemporary art fair, ShContemporary is staged in Shanghai. The show presents leading galleries from Europe and the US with some of the best artists from the Asia Pacific region in equal proportion (this year there some 130 exhibitors representing 26 countries).
It is, of course, a commercial venture but Rudolf is determined the event will be more than a shop window for the artwork. “The fair has to have an educational role,” he says. “It is essential to give people here an overview of art from all over the globe.”
In a ground-breaking move Rudolf has commissioned a team of 10 independent curators with knowledge of their given regions to make an informed selection of work by promising younger artists largely unknown on the international stage. They have scoured not only China but Australasia, Central Asia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Middle East, Taiwan and Thailand.
The works selected for this Best of Discovery section will go on display in an open-format, museum-like installation in the grounds of the imposing Soviet-built Shanghai Exhibition Centre, where the fair will be held from September 10 to 13.
Unlike the large-scale work in Basel’s Art Unlimited space – which this year included Chinese artist Qui Anxiong’s train installation “Staring into Amnesia” – these pieces are not on show because of gallery affiliation but on merit alone. In fact, half the artists selected had no gallery representation at all. For the purposes of the fair, exhibiting dealers have sponsored these artists, forging temporary relationships that may well continue after the event.
Most intriguing is the work being produced in those regions where creativity has been frozen, corrupted or isolated for decades, even centuries. Perhaps least known is the art of the new Central Asian republics which first made their debut on the international stage at the Venice Biennale in 2005. To represent Central Asia and the Caucasus, curator Sara Raza has alighted on the work of the outlandish Kazak performance artist Erbossyn Meldibekov and also on the emerging Georgian artist Sophia Tabatadze.
While Meldibekov takes a satirical look at the personality cults of leaders promoted by nationalistic government campaigns in the post-Soviet era, Tabatadze’s architectural installations investigate the post-Soviet urban experience.
Sponsoring Meldibekov is London-based dealers Rossi & Rossi, specialists in Himalayan and South-East and Central Asian classical art. Fabio Rossi, who began to diversify the business founded by his mother by showing the contemporary Tibetan art, says his project with the Kazak artist is part of the gallery’s policy to extend its programme. “These regions are exploding with creativity,” he says. “These artists don’t carry the burden of modern western art; what they come up with is very fresh and exciting.”
But while the curators have been given a free hand in their selection, some of their exhibits have fallen foul of the Chinese censors, among them Erbossyn’s Iznik-style plates incorporating motifs of American flags and missiles. (They rejected Indonesian curator Rifky Effendi’s initial Crucifixion project too).
As to the tricky business of how to price work by artists with little or no international standing, Rossi takes into account how complex a work is, whether or not it is a one-off piece and at what stage in his or her career the artist is. “It is important to find a way of building up interest in an artist, and starting with a price range that most people feel comfortable with,” he says. “The contemporary pieces in my gallery sell for £5,000-£10,000, although artists like Gonkar Gyatso now sell for £40,000.” While at last year’s fair buyers were predominantly from Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong, Rossi is optimistic about interest from the Chinese mainland. “There is a real buzz about contemporary art in China now,” he says.
One of the aims of ShContemporary is to help develop a framework for this fledgling and potentially lucrative international art market on the Chinese mainland. To date, few Chinese contemporary art collectors have bought anything other than Chinese art, although dealers such as Michael Schultz of Berlin and New York dealers James Cohan and Pace Wildenstein have all recently opened spaces in the country. The big question is what, if anything, local buyers will choose to favour.
ShContemporary shows at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, September 10-13; the Shanghai Biennale is at the Shanghai Art Museum, September 9-November 16.

The post Shanghai surprise first appeared on Indian Art News.

Fair Ground

visionsart — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 09:03:00 +0000

Gargi Gupta

The ShContemporary is a sign of a mature Chinese art market.

Come September, and eight galleries from various Indian cities will be travelling to the Middle Kingdom.

Their desintation, the ShContemporary 2008, or the Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Fair as it’s formally called, held in Shanghai from September 10-13. This is only the second year of the fair, which was instituted as something of a meeting ground for the best of contemporary art from the East and the West.

Quite successfully, since as many as 130 galleries from 23 countries participated last year, along with dealers, curators, museum representatives, artists and visitors numbering around 25,000. The Indian presence was not inconsequential (considering that Indian galleries are relatively recent to the art-fair scene).

Four galleries � Bodhi, Chemould Prescott, Sakshi and Nature Morte; three artists in the “best of discovery” curated section, showcasing young and promising talent � Shilpa Gupta, Sharmila Samant and Ravikumar Kashi; and another three in the “best of artists” section for the more established names � Jittish Kallat, Sudarshan Shetty and Zarina Hashmi.

Sales were good says Geetha Mehra, founder of Sakshi Gallery, adding “There was a lot of energy in the air.” Nivedita Magar, director with SKE Gallery in Bangalore, reports much the same.

“Many inquiries are still coming in,” she says. The gallery, which specialises in new age, mixed media kind of work, was recommended for participation at the inaugural ShContemporary by Pierre Huber, a Geneva-based dealer who was artistic director of the fair (he has since stepped down after allegations of “conflict of interest”).

Despite a few glitches like very high import duties � which meant Magar spent far more on transporting the art works within China than she did shipping them from India � and taxes on Chinese nationals buying foreign art, the Shanghai experience was valuable, Magar feels, “as it set off a network”.

This year, the Indian contingent to Shanghai is far larger than 2007’s � eight galleries, with such established names as Gallery Espace, Vadehra and Threshold, among them. The “best of discovery” section announced already has six Indians � Deeksha Nath (curator and critic), Tushar Joag, Vibha Galhotra, Ved Gupta, Sumedh Rajendran and Suhasini Kejriwal.

But there’s more to the China-India art encounter in recent times than the ShContemporary. The most important here is the 2006 exhibition at the Arario gallery in Beijing, “Hungry God”, which had a large selection of contemporary Indian artists like Subodh Gupta, Atul Dodiya, Tallur L N and Sonia Khurana.

Lately, these isolated encounters look set to become two way. “We already collect Chinese art and have been showing them selectively in our group shows at Sakshi,” says Mehra.

In art, as in their economies, there is a tendency in the West to see the two countries together as the two Asian giants with the most “happending” art that collectors must watch out for.

To give just one example, last year’s Rencontres D’Arles, arguably the most important international photography festival on the calendar, focussed on both India and China. The truth, however, is a little more complicated. While we celebrate the record $2.48 million that Souza’s “Birth” recently went for at a Christie’s auction, Yue Minjan’s 1995 oil “Execution” went for $ 5.9 million last year at Southeby’s, while the “Mask Series 1996 No.6” by Zeng Fanzhi fetched the highest price ever by an Asian artists � $9.7 million, at Christie’s Hong Kong auction in May.

High prices, of course, don’t mean anything. But fairs like the ShContemporary, especially the importance they are given by galleries and curators globally, show how much more mature the Chinese art market is.

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