NYT piece on art buyers

Funny, but nice rambling NYT piece here on NYCs top art buyers during the economic downturn.

New art gallery for Shanghai

A new gallery will open in Shanghai city center (well, Xiangyang Lu, Nanchang Lu) in April. The gallery is called Kogo, and a branch of Hangzhou’s only gallery of note. Currently it has some Zhang Peili, Ai Weiwei and Tang Song pieces up in the meantime.
Some photos:

Timezone 8 shanghai closes

Oops, forgot to mention this…news here. A shame really, where else in Shanghai can you buy 2-3 month old dog eared copies of modern painters? And why did it always take them 2o mins to tot up the bill? Oh dear, oh well…the mrs shanghai eye will be happy I won’t be spending my money there.

China art news

Here’s a round up of Chinese art news - in English- I daren’t look at the Chinese language press on Chinese art with all its doom and gloom…
Anecdotally, I have heard actually things are picking up a bit for the survivors of the great winter of discombobulation. Though various economists predict China is having a ‘W’ shaped recession, as opposed to their ‘V’ shaped one in other parts of the world. What does that mean? With the ‘W’ shape we go down, up, down again, then up again. Cool, better than say a ‘Z’ shape, or ‘N’ or even ‘A’ which would be like a log flume ride.
Anyhow, on to the news that matters:

In Paris, France, whose leaders are famously annoying China this week, painters are complaining on the import of Chinese factory art (read here). To quote:
“Mass produced Chinese oil paintings are anti-art and any artist or art lover that supports them should hang their head in shame. Go buy an art poster if you must, but don’t encourage the abuse of featherless battery hens that pop out countless empty blobs of colored mud parading as art.”

****HMMM*****

IHT looks at a Taiwanese installation artist here.

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The Bloomborg report a Hunrun report that Zhang Xiaogang is China’s most valuable artist (from a monetary standpoint obviously?)

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Chinese officials are furiously canceling appointments with Christie’s staffers
No linkage.

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Andrew James has written his own China Art Power 100, in reaction a similar list created by local Chinese media. Yes, read it here. OK, anyhow I’ll reproduce it below:
But go to the Andrew James site, as he has helpfully created a web link to the personal site, or something related to their work, for every name.

1
Ai Weiwei
Artist
2
Uli Sigg
Collector
3
Lorenz Helbling
Gallerist
4
Melissa Chiu
Curator
5
Eric Chang
Auction House
6
Li Xianting
Critic
7
Zeng Fanzhi
Artist
8
Ullens Family
Collector
9
Zhang Xiaogang
Artist
10
Liu Xiaodong
Artist
11
Evelyn Lin
Auction House
12
Charles Saatchi
Collector
13
Kim Chang-il
Gallerist
14
Zhang Huan
Artist
15
Zhu Qi
Critic
16
Wu Hung
Curator
17
Huang Yongping
Artist
18
Zhang Rui
Collector
19
Johnson Chang
Gallerist / Collector
20
Larry Warsh
Collector / Publisher
21
Yan Peiming
Artist
22
Urs Meile
Gallerist
23
Alexander Ochs
Gallerist
24
Cai Guoqiang
Artist
25
Xu Bing
Artist
26
Zhao Xu
Auction House
27
Ludovic Bois
Gallerist
28
Karen Smith
Critic
29
Cheng Xindong
Gallerist
30
Lv Peng
Critic
31
Fang Lijun
Artist
32
Huang Liaoyuan
Gallerist
33
Liu Ye
Artist
34
Phillip Tinari
Critic
35
Zhou Chunya
Artist
36
Art Seasons
Galleriest
37
Yang Shaobin
Artist
38
Kent & Vicki Logan
Collectors
39
Zhou Tiehai
Artist
40
Yang Bin
Gallerist / Collector
41
Miao Xiaochun
Artist
42
Pi Li
Gallerist
43
Wu Jin
Gallerist
44
Sui Jianguo
Artist
45
Zhang Wei
Gallerist
46
Dai Zhikang
Collector / Museum
47
Agnes Lin
Gallerist
48
Fabien Fryns
Gallerist
49
Fritz Kaiser
Collector
50
Meg Maggio
Gallerist
51
Victoria Lu
Curator
52
Yue Minjun
Artist
53
Yu Deyao
Collector
54
Wang Guangyi
Artist
55
Feng Boyi
Critic / Curator
56
Leng Lin
Gallerist
57
Primo Marella
Gallerist
58
Elaine W.Ng
Publisher
59
Lu Jie
Gallerist
60
Sun Ning
Gallerist
61
Wang Qingsong
Artist
62
Hans Ulrich Obrist
Curator
63
Xu Zhen
Artist
64
Pearl Lam
Gallerist
65
Ou Ning
Curator / Designer
66
Guan Yi
Collector
67
Rong Rong
Artist
68
Yukihito Tabata
Gallerist
69
Li Suqiao
Gallerist
70
Hou Hanrou
Critic
71
Ye Yongqing
Artist
72
Deng Chuanqin
Collector
73
Zhang Peili
Artist
74
Zheng Shengtian
Publisher
75
Michael Goedhuis
Gallerist
76
Cao Fei
Artist
77
Hua Yuzhou - Hwas Gallery
Gallerist
78
Asia Pacific Triennale
Museum
79
Levy Family DSL Collection
Collector
80
William Acquavella
Gallerist
81
Sheng Qi
Artist
82
Didier Hirsch
Collector
83
Sun Yuan & Peng Yu
Artists
84
Christopher Mao
Gallerist
85
Qui Zhijie
Artist
86
Britta Erickson,
Critic / Curator
87
Arnold Glimcher Pace
Galleriest
88
Max Protetch
Galleriest
89
Claire Hsu
Art Achieve
90
Ethan Cohen
Galleriest
91
Robert Bernell
Publisher
92
Zhang O
Artist
93
N12
Artists
94
Wang Ling
Critic
95
Brian Wallace
Galleriest
96
Feng Mengbo
Artist
97
Jerome Sans
Curator
98
Tian Kai
Dealer
99
Monique Burger
Collector
100
Gu Zhenqing
Publisher / Curator

*** COMING SOON- THE SHANGHAI EYE CHINA ART 1000 ***ED- WHAT?*** YES*** NO*** YOU”RE FIRED*** THATS ENOUGH LISTS*** ENDS***

Madrid art fair does well

Press release here

Mini news round up

Interview with Jerome Sans by City weekend

****BEEP***BEEP****ART****NEWS*****BEEP****
More Chinese rock and roll videos/documentary here

****THATS***MUSIC***NEWS****
An article about dealing with PR people in China, yes you know who you are, bad PR people

***PR*****BAD****PR****PUBLIC****RELATIONS****NEWS*****

Christie’s are in trouble for selling those cultural relics

***VERY***NAUGHTY****BAD****AUCTION****HOUSE****
ENDS******

So..what is a hipster?

Shanghaiist has got excited about a new Shanghai hipster magazine, read here, and this website goes on about hipsters alot..

Are they like a cross of hippies and slackers?

NYC Job

Flash Art is seeking a New York

advertising agent.

The successful candidate has to be based in New York and responsible for being in touch with the galleries in New York but also in the rest of the United States, liaising with the Milan office, working with our existing clients in the US and developing new contacts. The ideal candidate will be extremely dynamic, full of initiative and highly communicative. Salary negotiable.

To apply please email your letter of application and CV to

federica AT flashartonline.com
edoardo AT flashartonline.com

View of an art dealer’s home in Shanghai

I was lucky enough to visit the Berko Shanghai villa, to have a look at their new shipment of paintings into China. Took a few snaps of the place below:

Random news from Italia

To be filed in the random news category (via flashart):

Barbara Berlusconi, Nicolò Cardi and Martina Mondadori together for “Cardi Black Box”

Barbara Berlusconi, daughter of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is one of the majority shareholders, with her family, of Cardi Black Box, a new contemporary art gallery born out of a project by gallerist Nicolò Cardi.

For the first time Barbara Berlusconi, already shareholder and board member at Fininvest, is investing outside her family’s firms.
Cardi Black Box, which besides the founder Nicolò Cardi also includes among its partners Martina Mondadori, will inaugurate in Milan on Thursday, February 26th, with a solo exhibition by the Iranian-German artist Shirana Shahbazi.

Cardi Black Box is a new gallery focused on contemporary art, based on a totally new model: for the first time the role of the gallerist is doubled, bringing together in the same project two different figures. An entrepreneur, Nicolò Cardi, with a background in business applied to art, and Sarah Cosulich Canarutto, an artistic director with long-standing experience in international institutions. A young team, with clear ideas: to offer recognition to the art historical value of the proposed artists, regardless of provenance and age, in the conviction that a private commercial space can present museum quality exhibitions.

After Milan, two other Cardi Black Box galleries will open: one in London later in 2009, and one in New York in 2010.