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| Art Capitalism in China (Part II) |
| By Zhu Qi |
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  n the second of two articles published in ArtZineChina.com, the art critic and curator Zhu Qi completes a sweeping assessment of the market excitement surrounding Chinese contemporary art. Zhu challenges artists, critics and collectors to reevaluate the development of the art market here and its implications for the future. He also explains to readers how the soaring art market is changing the way artists create their art, and employ workers to produce. Here is Zhu Qi's provocative article:
 rt and Criticism: As a Sign capital
In the two and a half years since art market bubble began to expand in the latter half of 2005, economic boom hasn’t encouraged breakthroughs in art and enforced creative powers. With input of more and more money, contemporary Chinese art speeds like an unstoppable train, and an increasing number of artists want to squeeze into this crowded train for fear that there would be no next train to wealth. Art market becomes more like a crazy stock market into which foreign and domestic capitals flow incessantly. And capitals come from increasingly complicated sources too: there is money from owners of the coalmines in Shanxi Province, from illegal transactions, from American and European foundations, from real estate industry, from banks, from bosses of listed companies, and it is even rumored that there is money from the army.
More and more setups and collectors madly put money into contemporary art, like injecting fuel into a locomotive; with increase of influx money and new upstarts, the power structure of the art scenes also changes. 70 percent of all collectors emerge in only these two years; veteran collectors including Uli Sigg have been reduced to a minority group; then rules of the game are laid down by a new population that is the majority capitalists. The heavy influx of new capitals results in rapid expansion of collections, galleries and auction houses. Now there are more money, more galleries and more auction houses, all demanding large number of art works to keep sale and circulation flow. Then, younger artists born in 1970s and 1980s happen to become the first lucky ones to be recruited in the market expansion.
Zhang Xiaogang took 20 years to rise from scratch to fame, whereas the following artists experienced shorter and shorter hard time actually, and some artists hardly went through such a time. Artists born in 1970s such as Li Jikai, Qin Qi remained unknown for at most 5 years after college graduation; artists born in 1980s such as Zhang Peng, Chi Peng made their name in only a year after graduation; while several students from the Department of Sculpture of Central Academy of Fine Arts were selling their works at prices of several hundred thousand yuan in 2007 before they earned their diplomas. Gallery,  auction houses and newly coming upstart collectors rush directly to the studios of young artists, breaking the previous state of affairs that art exhibitions and sale channels were controlled by several big shot artists. Now all medium- and small-sized galleries are actively searching in art colleges, friend circles and all groups in compact art communities for gifted and hidden “new talents” all the way from Star Art Group to those born in 1980s. Now there are numerous opportunities and channels to success and fame. An example is young artist Zhang Peng who was born in 1982 and is poor at social intercourse and who might never be able to get along in the brotherhood-like art circles 10 years ago; now, in another round of hunting fledgling talents and “runaway fish” campaign, he was brought out by Artseasons Gallery and quickly hit the jackpot in less than one year.
Curators of all strengths could ask a gallery for more or less money for exhibitions, and gallery system also developed the character of a new generation of artists. For example, artists of Fang Lijun and Liu Xiaodong’s generation all fought single-handed and underground, not only created art works but also balanced relations in art circles; even if they lost contact with their group they could also open up new prospects. In contrast, young star artists of the present generation are all of a shy race, who are not good at words and not familiar with market, and are even scared at strangers. Nevertheless, they are lucky enough to live in a time when galleries do all things for them, like star singers and movie stars contracting with their agent firms.
But they also run into an unfortunate time when there is no longer genuine heart and soul exchange between critics and artists. This is a time when  everything must be paid for, and in all collaborations you must square up separately. You do not have to pay your girlfriend immediately after sleeping with her, but you have to pay a prostitute the moment the business is done. Social relations and values in a capitalist society make it impossible for people to work together for a common goal before other considerations; they must negotiate shares of interests before doing things, and they must square up the minute things are done, never waiting until communism is realized. Art capitalism’s experiment with academic payment practice is represented more thoroughly in China than in western countries. The dialogue article “Aiming for Money” in American Art has very classical words, saying that Chinese art circles are now all very free with talking about money, even less likely to feel awkward than western people. Now most artists talk about money, houses and cars only, which is unprecedented in Chinese art scenes.
Nowadays critics feel reluctant to write free articles for artists, and curators would not spend their own money on avant-garde exhibitions too, because they believe that all arts are business-natured. Actually art is more than money: in late 1980s and early 1990s, critics and curators devoted their youth, dream, passion and ordeal to art, which could not be bought with money now. In this respect, artists like Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang are lucky ones, because they met a time when people would never take gain and loss into consideration, and that is how avant-garde art myth was created. Then, the art market boom this time also doomed the avant-garde art myth in China because of the resumption of payment system and separate settlement system.  Why should separate settlement system be practiced? Because when dreams end up capitals and marketing revelries, few people would care about those who once contributed but felt shy to ask for money payment.
Then, asking for pay becomes a practical lesson academic intellectuals should learn to be self-transformed. For in a time when every one believes it a normal practice to ask for pay for what is done, even if you feel shy to ask, your beneficiary wouldn’t feel guilty for not paying you but would laugh at you instead– why wouldn’t you make it clear beforehand? Thus, to avoid being hurt and unpaid work in the name of dreams, you can only “take care of yourself and ask for pay each time you have done a job”, and there would be no longer brotherhood feelings that brother helps brother without pay since the day of 1985 New Wave movement. Then, ethic values have been thoroughly transformed here.
The practice of charging fee existed in art scenes before but never runs so rampant like it is today, like confrontations in boxing rings. Now, critics demand paintings or high payment for their contributions, art magazines charge fees or demand paintings for printed sheets, and galleries and art museums ask for paintings to pay off space rents and the cost of painting albums. These are not phenomena unique in China, for people in America and Europe are also debating about art criticisms’ orientation to advertisements these years. However, in China the situation is more chaotic in these two years: critics open galleries; curators take on the role of agents, taking collectors to buy paintings at their exhibitions and getting royalties from artists after selling works; owners of galleries, artists, art officials do jobs of curators; art magazine offices send to auctions paintings they got from artists; auction houses pay to hold academic exhibitions and document exhibitions, and the exhibited works are sold or auctioned directly.
This is a time when roles are confused and desires directly take actions, and a game without rules has been played in Chinese art scenes. First it is a group who does not obey rules, then, like domino effect, one group after another is forced to fight back, following to offside and leave their roles and advancing towards an imbroglio by playing multiple roles, obeying no rules and reshuffling. As the saying goes, “meeting on a narrow path, the courageous wins”, then if you snatch my role, I would further appropriate your role.  The only rule for this scuffle is capital, for all offside and role appropriations are intended to maximally approach and control more capital. The only criterion of success in this scuffle is who gets closest to capital tycoons and who has the largest available capital.
Fames, paintings, money, photos, sculptures, popularities, and even friendships with tycoons are all capitals, and all are convertible, but ultimately they all have to be cashed. In such a fight for capitals, artists, galleries and investors are the power axis. Art market resembles stock market where artists produce share certificates and chips, galleries place orders and carry out advertising and selling campaigns, and investors buy shares and manipulate prices together with other investors at auction sessions. In this game, critics and curators also play important roles; this we would understand by only taking a look at artists’ curriculum vitae in the picture catalogues of various sessions of auctions: artists quickly made a name in small circles due to exhibitions planned by curators and critics, then they had a certain number of works sold out and were entitled to be exhibited in higher level exhibitions, then they enjoyed a better name and a better price until they leaped over the true worth of their name and price, then they could get themselves firmly established even without the help from critics and curators. Now he was known widely in society and went on to be praised by media, social setups, fans and investors, all the way until he was praised as a great master in this country, he would be further freed from critics, curators and academic circles, unless he met extreme times like the Cultural Revolution or Nazi Reign when a man could be plunged into Dark Ages. Now, however poor he might paint, his social reputation and peak market price would never be affected. Art has never been so absurd like contemporary art is.
To say this is a picture-reading time is only partly true, for it has two other meanings: this is a time when rich people want to possess picture objects, and it is a time such picture objects could be taken to market to operate as capitals. Contemporary art is more than art itself; it is also derivatives of financial capital; it is stock shares, futures, bank checks or guarantees. Upstarts with global visions could not afford time to read, so they prefer to finish reading things in five minutes, and picture works serve the purpose. And it is not enough to read them only; upstarts would like to own object carriers of images, which are paintings, sculptures, photos and other art works. But it is still not enough to own picture objects only; they would further build them into a market of bidding and resale, attracting more rich people and selling these picture objects out at prices scores of times or even several hundred times higher than original collecting prices. This is what we call art capitalism!
Contemporary art is actually turning into financial capitalism, and in China, this process is accelerating beyond westerners’ psychological tipping point. Though we couldn’t say all Chinese upstarts are “parvenus selling inferior paintings”, a majority of art investors don’t know much about art indeed; they don’t believe all suggestions by critics are necessarily true, and most of them  ]buy paintings with respect to their tastes and potential market values of the works. This is the major reason why critics and curators are important but are not in the power axis in this round of competition. The business axis of artists, galleries and investors actually take control of more and more capitals and situations, while the power resources of curators and critics did not expand essentially in the past 10 years. Except a small number of important curators, most of them end up part of galleries’ marketing strategies.
Because art capital allocation is made mainly at points of sale and auction after exhibition, the biggest share of art market profit comes from investors’ bidding and reselling deals, and next to it is the 50 percent of the initial gallery sale artists get. Though gallery gets 50 percent too, it actually gains less than artists do after all operation costs are deducted. And critics and curators can get only an odd little. The role arrogating is thus begun. Those star artists whose prices are driven up at auction biddings soon take their works directly to auctions, and even learn to be their own investors to drive up bidding prices. Some galleries go directly to collect and auction works at auction meetings too, because traditional practice of exhibiting for artists and shop selling earns more slowly than investors, and also because some investors would now get round galleries to buy paintings directly at artists’ studios.
Then art critics and curators, the propaganda machines who are responsible for interpretation of art, extension of good art and production of good word of mouth or reputation, would never feel content with only a small pay for their promoting and planning work; they begin to combine roles of critics, curators and agents together, turning exhibitions directly into sales, taking collectors to see works and taking commissions after works are sold. Some curators and critics simply open galleries; naturally it benefits somehow, for critics may have better visions in running galleries.
Is It Art or Art Production?
The art market boom has turned art into art production, and artists have turned into sign capitalists whose job is to find a ready image and transform it into his image symbol and then try all means to make it popular, then relentlessly copy and sell this symbol. Such a practice has led to grave  consequences: now art is produced instead of created, art deals are founded on capitals, and art exhibitions and criticisms are intended for sales; in turn, art standards are now evenly distributed, art spirit is drained to hollowness, and art images remain nothing but imitation copies.
In several years Chinese artists at all levels have founded studios much larger than those of the western artists at equal levels, and cheaper labors allow them to hire a group of assistants and even representative painters, then business volumes of galleries and auctions soars from scores of million five years ago to the present several billion yuan. And all art forms are now using post-war American art language: pop art, conceptual art and new media art, and contemporary art ends up a processed product that integrates Chinese image content into foreign concept and form.
In terms of art language, all artists find American post-modernist theory of borrowing, imitating and piecing techniques an excuse for their practice of transforming stolen ready images into their own symbols; every one is looking for ready images in magazines, websites, art histories, old photos, old ads, revolutionary propaganda pictures, and even non-art books such as biology, medicine, folklore, weapon history and others, then use computers to revise and piece images into their own image symbols. The success of individual symbols by Wang Guangyi, Fang Lijun and Zhang Xiaogang has encouraged this practice, and post-modernist borrowing theory ended up an excuse for no need of original image creations. Then, conceptual photographic works begin to sell at high prices in recent two years. If a photo picture can sell for tens of thousand to two hundred thousand yuan, and a negative film can produce 10 copies, then all copies could sell for over 2 million yuan, virtually the price of an oil painting. Now all people are doing performing photography; like shooting stage photos of movie and TV series, they ask a few people to stage a scene and it is so-called avant-garde photography.  Of course because Chinese investors inexplicably feel attached to realistic oil paintings, only a few artists’ photographic works sell well. The same photo picture when painted as oil painting could sell, but if it’s in original photo form it couldn’t sell, thus many painters who are not good at realistic techniques feel compelled to print image silkscreen directly onto canvas and then fill in or retouch it with colors.
There is something hugely absurd with contemporary art market boom, for actually it is confined only to realistic oil paintings, sculptures and part of conceptual photography; though there are collections of installations and video works, they account for only an odd part of it. Even with paintings, abstract and expressive paintings are not selling very well. And there are two major reasons. One is that many art investor upstarts believe realistic paintings cannot be copied (actually all artists are making copies in disguise – changing the angle of a head sculpture and painting a picture of it remains copying in disguised form.). Another reason is that the story nature of realistic paintings carters to upstarts’ habit of understanding paintings in terms of social experience instead of art history, and this is also why abstract paintings are not popular, because they cannot be interpreted in terms of story scenarios and daily experiences.
Though all artists are copying ready images, they have to find different images to make their symbols distinctive from each other. Almost when any imaginable image subject is made to sell well in market by some artist, all artists will throng to follow suit. And any image an art college graduate can think of has been made use of, and Mao Zedong, Tian’anmen Square, Duchamp’s little urinal basin, Suzhou Gardens, Guevara, fake rocks, Marilyn Monroe, large-eyed little girl, Coca-Cola tin, old group photos, calendars, furniture of Ming and Qing Dynasties, landscape paintings, picture posters of Cultural Revolution, movies of Cultural Revolution, sculptures of workers, peasants and soldiers, and the Red Guards are all subjects once used by an army of artists.  Some artists turn themselves into sign production factories, and various image subjects become his sign products, which are fashioned into all media forms: painting, sculpture, photography, video, etc.
This has culminated in an absurd cycling of contemporary Chinese art: artists represent into art works their rebellions and sufferings, which are then sold to capitalists, then artists themselves turns into capitalists; after capitalists consume these sufferings, artists suffer no more and begin to enjoy wealth and honor and become empty-minded, then stops this round of cycling. The next generation of artists again express into works their rebellions and sufferings and sell them to capitalists, then they themselves turn into capitalists; capitalists consume the sufferings and artists no longer suffer and begin to enjoy luxurious lives and become hollow-spirited. Then again comes next generation of artists who relive such a cycle again, and this goes round and round. Whatever huge sufferings and rebellions will be ultimately turned into symbols and products of sufferings and then be sold and consumed. Capitalists need suffering sympathies in art pictures to fill up their empty heart and artists need to sell sufferings to be salvaged, and this is art capitalism.
It’s thought-provoking that art capitalism’s rapid rise in China is triggering reactions from the society and the state. Large groups of artists and agents have become mainstream buyers of luxurious cars and houses; lots of bankrupt factories and deserted land in the suburbs have been transformed into districts of rows of barracks-like art studios; group after group of artists flood to Beijing, determining to become next Fang Lijun and Zhang Xiaogang; no longer driving away artists like over a decade ago with North-drifting artists in Yuanming Garden and East Village, the government now prepares to transform blind-drifting artists villages into business promoting districts of culture industry; Beijing plans to loan an initiative industry fund of 500 million yuan to 10 art districts in Beijing; more and more TV stations, newspapers, fashion magazines from the nation’s capital to provincial capitals are all praising avant-garde artists as stars; even publicity department directors of some provinces and cities are attending opening ceremonies of contemporary art exhibitions.  The key to all these phenomena is that contemporary art is beginning to drive up economic growth and capital operations.
Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang and the succeeding Yue Minjun, Zeng Fangzhi, and Liu Xiaodong all had their works auctioned at a peak price of over 10 million yuan; if those are true deals, they should all have a yearly income of over 100 million, and this means that they earn even more than bosses of listed companies do, while bosses of listed companies actually do not have much money in hand because the huge money they have is all in stock values that cannot be sold at random. Some artists once claimed that his works did not sell for that much money but at most for several million yuan. Then there can be only two possibilities with the peak prices at auction houses: one is “setting traps” to sell a work at peak high price to a deceived newcomer collector, and this is almost a legal shell game; another is also “setting traps”, that is, the artist pays a commission to the auction house and has his own man buy the work back, which serves to advertise his works. In recent two years an auction follow-up effect seems to have been created; whenever there is peak auction price, all media will follow up. Then it’s almost quite easy for auction records to manipulate media.
The fact that all have been reduced to operate around the capital axis and there have been so many role appropriations come as a result of the lack of true art criteria for contemporary Chinese art in the past thirty years, and it has never been made clear what kind of art could represent future Chinese spirit and soul. What people care about is what art could bring them mid- or short-term wealth and fame. All these happen because of nothing but money.
A little while ago Ullens Art Museum at 798 held an exhibition, called “1985 New Wave: Birth of Contemporary Chinese Art”, which is one of many exhibitions that are all directed at seizure of the discourse power.  It never matters; what matters is that artists from true middle and lower classes were seldom seen at the site of the opening ceremony, and middle and lower class artists couldn’t get in either, for rows of Mafia-like young men in black blocked the entrance, asking all attendees for VIP cards. So the exhibition was actually a VIP wine party, virtually a party for millionaires and billionaires except for those insignificant reporters from news media and people with different methods. Among these big shots were bosses of listed companies, owners of galleries, wealthy star artists and their assistants, directors of art museums in all cities, foreign embassy officials, foreigners of all sorts, art agents, beautiful girl reporters, distinguished ladies, etc., and whoever wore casually might not be permitted in.
Art capitalism is permeating into our blood through every pore, and the past sufferings and courageous rebellions of Chinese avant-garde art are now playthings in the hands of magnates and foreign and domestic capitalists. The 1985 New Wave art works that had inspired the young generation over a decade ago are now encased in glass boxes like mummies and end up cold sacred objects. The forgoing avant-garde art movement has ended, and another movement is madly starting. I can only call this movement “art capitalism’s experiment in China”; currently, I couldn’t think of any term more appropriate to describe it.
November 18, 2007, at Wangjing in Beijing
 Zhu Qi ( born in 1966, Shanghai), an art critic and independent curator.
Translated by Hu Zhu. 
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