The strong recovery of the art auction market in 2021 was unexpected, especially in the modern and contemporary art sector, which has been further improved in the steady development, and both the volume of the auction and the total turnover have been brilliant. This is also the seventh consecutive year of growth in the modern and contemporary art sector, another record high.
New phenomena in guangzhou's contemporary art market have also sprung up, from the opening of the country's first public art fair in December last year to the second "bloom" of the Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair, to the "Shangxin" academic brand exhibition of the Guangdong Museum of Art...
How to use the expo as a driving force to boost guangzhou's contemporary art ecology? With the development of technology and artistic concepts, what multiple meanings have contemporary art been given? How can contemporary art achieve cross-regional linkage and add vitality? The answer may be behind these new phenomena.
"Guangzhou Contemporary" starts again, and it is necessary to make contemporary art a business card of urban culture
Recently, the second Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair (Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair) was successfully concluded at the Poly World Trade Center Expo Center in Guangzhou, which is one of the few fairs in the country with the title of "City + Contemporary Art", and 33 first-line galleries from all over the world gathered in Guangzhou, bringing high-quality modern and contemporary paintings, sculptures, videos, installations and multimedia art works.
On the basis of the experience of the first "Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair" last year, the organizers have new ideas and make new changes: the hardware facilities have been upgraded, the space has been replaced by a larger and wider exhibition space, the theme of the exhibition unit has been thoughtfully added to the Lingnan element, and most of the exhibited works have taken into account the local characteristics of Guangzhou and selected works that match their temperament.
The scene of the 2nd Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair
"The works that can be understood and interesting are more suitable for bringing Guangzhou." Especially before participating in the expo, the gallery is best to make a scene assumption for the living room at home, first hang each painting on the wall, bring it over if you feel awkward, this is the best way to screen. If you want to bring some works with teeth and claws, black, don't bring them, which is difficult to have a market in Guangzhou. Ai Hai, artistic director of Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair, said.
At the exhibition site, a number of participating galleries expressed confidence in the art market in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
With a history of more than 50 years, Lisen Gallery is participating in the Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair for the first time, and as a veteran gallery, the artists it has cooperated with are very mature. For the first time, The Riesson Gallery brought oil paintings by artist Anish Kapoor for the first time, and its relevant person in charge said that such works were sold at the fair.
Chengdu's Thousand Plateaus Art Space is the first time to participate in the exhibition, and it also takes the opportunity of the expo to understand the Guangzhou art market. The relevant person in charge said that the collector group in the Guangdong market is quite interested in contemporary art collection, especially the younger generation of collectors. Participating in the Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair is a beginning, not only to interact with collectors and peers in Guangzhou on the spot, but also to further explore and pay attention to the art market in Guangzhou in the future, and there are plans to hold solo exhibitions of cooperative artists in Guangzhou in 2022.
In addition to the gallery section, the "Public Art" section and the "Public Image" section presented more than 20 excellent works by domestic and foreign artists.
"Southern Art Ecology Research", "Cargo Lang Tu", "See for Yourself" and "Landing" constitute the four theme exhibition units of public art.
"Southern Art Ecology Research" combs through and presents the representative works of guangdong contemporary art front-line activists; "Landing" integrates the artistic appearance of various places and violently "smashes" on this southern land; the theme exhibition of "Cargo Lang Tu" is based on the cultural history of Guangzhou's thousand-year-old Shangdu; "See for Yourself" not only has the excellent video works of Che Jianquan, Shi Jinsong and Chen Qiulin, but also the art documentaries of Sui Jianguo, Tan Ping, Tan Xun and Li Yongzheng, which is enough for the audience to experience a public video unit like a cinema.
"The Guangzhou audience is actually a very subjective group, relatively 'Buddhist', and very pragmatic. So 'see for yourself' is really suitable for the Guangzhou group, dissolving all the marketing strategies, giving the initiative to the audience, and letting them make choices spontaneously. Ai Hai said.
It is particularly worth mentioning that "Cargo Lang Tu" is the work of the Southern Song Dynasty painter Li Song, and has created many pieces, and the whole picture depicts a scene in which a seller picks up a variety of goods and attracts many people to watch. The reason for choosing such an exhibition as "Cargo Lang Tu" is also to express Guangzhou's business culture in a way of experimental art, design and recreate the visible things in life, and form a "sellable" work.
"Guangzhou, with its thousand-year-old Shang capital culture, opened the gateway to the East as early as the Qin and Han dynasties, and realized the historic beginning of trading with the West. At present, Guangzhou still has such a pioneering spirit, the art market will also blossom in the southern market, and the formation of "Cargo Lang Tu" is also an attempt to introduce experimental art into the vision of public life, and it is also an attempt to reopen life in the south with this gentle artistic 'goods'. Ai Hai said.
"From 'Southern Art Ecology Research' and 'Cargo Lang Tu' to 'See for Yourself' and 'Landing', the four themes are closely related, which is intended to deepen the understanding of contemporary art among local audiences and allow them to slowly and actively receive information in this regard." Ai Hai said.
So, what impact does the contemporary art fair have on Guangzhou's art ecology? In Ai Hai's view, the Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair is definitely not a space and personal thing, but should be an important part of the construction of Guangzhou's art ecology, and it is an urban event. Contemporary art in the south is highly valued and recognized by everyone in professional scholarship, but the market is a bit unbalanced, which has also caused a lot of talent loss in Guangzhou. We hope to attract excellent gallery institutions to join the South through the Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair, and if these institutions can land in Guangzhou, this will promote the local artists in Guangzhou, Guangzhou or the entire southern art ecology.
"I hope to use five years to polish a standard and high-quality contemporary art fair for Guangzhou, so that contemporary art can take root in Guangzhou and become a cultural business card of Guangzhou." Liu Yi, founder of the Guangzhou Contemporary Art Fair, said.
Guangdong Museum of Art "Shangxin" witnesses the new trend of contemporary art
The New Year's Eve exhibition, "GDMoA Annual Artist Academic Nomination Exhibition (2021)", which is currently being exhibited at the Guangdong Museum of Art, is dedicated to building the interaction and dialogue between Guangdong contemporary art and other regions in the country. This is the first time that the Guangdong Museum of Art has held an annual artist academic nomination exhibition, and a total of 23 contemporary artists from different fields have been selected.
The academic committee members nominating the artists participating in this exhibition come from many "big names" in the art world, including Wang Shaoqiang, director of the Guangdong Museum of Art, Ji Shaofeng, director of the Hubei Art Museum, Lu Peng, artistic director of Yinchuan Museum of Contemporary Art, Pi Daojian, deputy director of the Curatorial Committee of the China Artists Association, Wu Hongliang, president of the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts, and Zhang Zikang, director of the Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Exhibition site
The reporter saw at the exhibition site that the exhibition exhibited the works of a number of active Chinese contemporary artists, including Cao Fei, Gu Xiaoping, Guo Gong, Jiang Ji'an, Li Bangyao, Li Changlong, Li Yongzheng, Pei Yongmei, Qiu Ting, Wang Yin, Xu Gang, Xu Wentao, Yang Maoyuan, Yin Xiuzhen, Zeng Jianyong, Zhan Rui and others. The works in the exhibition are rich in form, ranging from traditional forms such as painting and sculpture on the shelf to "postmodern" forms such as installation, video and concept.
They have mature techniques and master multiple media, some extend their creative tentacles to the social scene, some extend their creative tentacles to the inner world, and some extend their creative tentacles to the future time and space...
As Pi Daojian, deputy director of the Curatorial Committee of the China Artists Association, said, "The participating artists in this exhibition are nominated by critics, curators and art management workers who are active in the frontline of Chinese contemporary art, and the selected artists and their works present the development trend of Chinese contemporary art to a certain extent, and in their works, we also see a great broadening of the innovation and development space of contemporary art brought about by the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, etc." ”
Born in Guangzhou, Cao Fei is both a multimedia artist and a filmmaker. He is good at using black humor and surreal beauty to express the changes of economic growth and urban development to people. Asia One is a fictional film that tells the futuristic love story between only two male and female employees in a smart device-controlled warehouse in Asia One. To this end, Cao Fei went deep into the core of the Internet shopping industry and completed the "Asia One" project in the warehousing and logistics base of an Internet e-commerce company.
The multimedia installation "Algorithmic Landscape" created by artist Zhang Xiaotao emphasizes that the current Internet information is actually filtered and subjective. In the era of information explosion, in the face of the constant influx of information, how people judge and how to find the truth of things is worth pondering.
"These contemporary art works, carrying the creative ideas of artists from all over the country and the artistic judgment of curators, gathered in Guangdong from all sides, are an artistic practice activity that transcends space and personal thinking." Wang Shaoqiang, director of the Guangdong Museum of Art, said.
Text/Guangzhou Daily, New Flower City reporter Li Qiaorong
Photo: Li Qiaorong, reporter of Guangzhou Daily And New Flower City
Some of the image sources: organizers
Guangzhou Daily New Flower City Editor Li Yani