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Below is a Q&A with CIGE, the upcoming Beijing based art fair, which is mentioned in this article here. The CIGE fair starts April 14. Their site is here, but doesn’t seem to be working at the minute.Its working now. Has sound…

1. Has CIGE received any funding from the Art Beijing fund?
No, we have never got any funding from the Art Beijing fund, or other funds.

2. How many galleries are attending?
Around 84. CIGE 2009 will present around 84 outstanding contemporary art galleries
from all over the world, the proportion of galleries from outside of mainland China is 75%
and Asian galleries are 80%. It is strengthened the concept of CIGE 2009, “CIGE Is Energizing the Art World”

3. Are there any major sponsors?
This year CIGE established partnership with Boloni for the 2nd time, 9Dynasty of Boloni group will design and set the onsite VIP lounge for CIGE. French cognac Martell will provide beverages for the VIP preview party and VIP lounge. CIGE also has support from AUDI, Bloomberg TV, ILLY Coffee, Contemporary Art Society, Modernsky, UCCA, Today museum and all partnered media.

4. Why did the date change from May to April for CIGE?
The date of CIGE 2009 was set up in accordance with the plan and arrangement of our art fair, we haven’t made any adjustment purposely. Actually during the past five editions, most of which were held in April, like last year, CIGE 2008, it was April 25 to April 28. The date was fixed by the whole arrangement of our art fair and the schedule of China World Trade Center Exhibition Hall.

5. How many attendees do you expect?
In the past CIGE 2008, according to our rough estimate, had a huge attendance of 40,000 visitors, including gallerists, collectors, artists, reporters, art critics and art lovers from all over the world who enjoyed the five-day gala of contemporary art in CIGE 2008 (2008 China International Gallery Exposition). It expected that there will be more visitors coming to our art fair.

6. What is your director’s opinion of the art market at present- do you feel buyers will be out in strength?

Concerning many private buyers, collectors and companies coming from finance, real estate areas, it is true that financial turmoil caused by American subprime crisis negatively impacted the international art market. Under this circumstance, the exhibitor-recruiting work of our exposition was indeed directly influenced. However, we need to keep clear that the overall picture of Chinese economy did not change. Chinese contemporary art is still lively, national collectors rising continuously, and international ones paying more attention to Chinese contemporary art than before. Therefore we are very confident about the Chinese art market.

For an art exposition, the first key problem is attracting excellent galleries to participate; the second one is inviting collectors to join. These are two are problems that must be well solved. Except keeping previous exhibiting galleries, CIGE2009 widened the scope of exhibitor-recruiting work to much more countries. From May 2008, our colleagues had been visiting and researching numerous galleries overseas, trying to calling for high quality galleries to China. We have been keeping touch and having a nice relation with national galleries too, trying to collaborate with each other to overcome the crisis. After the exhibitor-recruiting work, we spent more time and resources to do media contact, advertisement, and inviting collectors.