China Art Now, Huang Liaoyuan's monster or monstrosity of what qualifies these days for artistic spectacle opens in Shanghai. After accumulating enough monster capital in their original digs - Beijing's Worker Stadium's parking lot, Huang decided to expand to Shanghai. The gallery is a partnership between some playboy telecommunications mogul who conceived the gallery as an attraction for his very fine restaurant which sits adjacent, a place where one can dine on fillet Mignon and mayi shangshu (ants going up the tree) in one sitting. The restaurant, a marvel in itself, is constructed from a beautiful old farmhouse that was transported from faraway Yunan province and reconstructed in the Gonti parking lot. It also hosts a bunch of questionable but nonetheless interesting sculptural works.
Huang Liaoyuan, the man that makes it happen, is one of Beijing's cultural wonders- the boy has dabbled in most everything from Rock and Roll promoter (he still manages 2nd Hand Rose) to magazine editor, poet, film/stage actor, director, karoke king, yogi, and now gallerist/collector/consultant/promoter/curator/critic
He stayed with me in NY once and now I am eternally introduced with this story
ANYWAY
Back in Shanghai- the Beijing art world descended upon the opening of the new space located where else but Moganshu No. 50 ( Shanghai's 798/Chelsea)
The A list (if you are looking from a market perspective) of Chinese (con)temporary art were all in this inaugural show which in a fare display of avant gardeness displayed all of these canvas' wrapped in wall paper prints of the world's strongest currencies: the dollar, pound, euro
So there were the name brand artists, who all stood around cleverly cool and waiting for dinner, but their works were hidden. or were there works at all?
Ma Liuming speculated that because the 2x2.5m canvas was such a popular dimension in China, there were several works that could've been his...
interrupted by an older intoxicated French man who asked in French whether or not I was a specialist? and then proceeded to explain that he was a spy for the Chinese during the 1960's, was jailed for six years after being discovered, released by Mitterand, the film MButterfly was about him and now he's paid handsome royalties so that he can travel the world and pontificate at unsuspecting art goers.
Anyway google him: Bernard Boursicot
If he is who he says he is then he's the real deal
So there was a rock and roll band crooning away when we arrived (to compensate for the lusterless conceptual nature of the event) but we came we late and missed the dancing girls according to Qiu Zhijie fresh back from his HK opening where, "nothing is selling" Because 1. everyone's coming to the mainland to shop for art and 2. Johnson Chang needn't push anything on the floor because he's sitting on a stack of vintage Zhang XiaoGang's that can pay for a lavish life for the next billion years
BUT that wasn't so surprising - what was surprising was that Qiu, guerrilla artist cum theoretician, performer cum professor, avant gardist cum idealist, all around renaissance man
was worrying about market performance in HK
Qiu has lost focus as has all of us
That's the chatter all around the world
Not art but market
A Warholian Utopia
At that evening's dinner of some 200 odd art world elite (or whomever wanted the free meal) held at Shanghai's premiere restaurant Xiao Nanguo (y'know lobster sushi and the like) the preferred means of groupie interaction was photo withing- the enamored foreigner and novice Chinese collector taking a photo with Yue Minjun, a photo with Zhang Xiaogang, a photo with Liu Ye, Zhou Tiehai, Wang Jinsong, Ma Liuming, etc.
The funny thing is that these superstars didn't feel the least bit disturbed... but why would they it's nice to be stroked.
Anyway lots of Wu Liangye (the good baijiu) and hobnobbing, table twirling, name card exchanging, one upping, and off into the night.
A good time was had by all
and China Art Now (appropriately titled) is Now in Shanghai too
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