Chinese Contemporary Art: A Crisis? - magazine Art. Contemporary Chinese art in the context of global culture The unique style of Chinese art is cynical realism

Sales of Chinese contemporary art beat all records at auctions, Sotheby's triples auctions of Asian contemporary art, exhibitions of Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art are shown in museums around the world. St. Petersburg was no exception, where in September an exhibition of Chinese artists was held in the Loft Project "Etazhi". 365 magazine was interested in where such interest in contemporary Chinese art came from, and we decided to recall 7 key figures, without whom it would be completely different.

"Contemporary art" is opposed to traditional art. According to the famous critic, Wu Hong, the term "modern art" has a deep avant-garde meaning, usually denoting that various complex experiments take place in the traditional or orthodox system of painting. Indeed, contemporary Chinese art is now developing incredibly rapidly, competing with European art both culturally and economically.

Where did the whole phenomenon of modern Chinese art come from? In the early years of Mao Zedong's reign (since 1949), there was a rise in the arts, people hoped for a brighter future, but in reality there was total control. The most difficult times began with the onset of the "cultural revolution" (since 1966): art schools began to close, and the artists themselves were persecuted. Rehabilitation began only after Mao's death. Artists joined in secret circles where they discussed alternative forms of art. The most vehement opponent of Maoism was the Zvezda group. It included Wang Keping, Ma Desheng, Huang Rui, Ai Weiwei and others. "Every artist is a small star," said one of the founders of the group, Ma Desheng, "and even the great artists in the universe are just small stars."

Of the artists of this group, Ai Weiwei is the most famous. In 2011, he even took first place in the list of the most influential people in the art industry. For some time the artist lived in the USA, but in 1993 he returned to China. There, in addition to creative work, he engaged in sharp criticism of the Chinese government. Ai Weiwei's art includes sculptural installations, video and photographic works. In his works, the artist uses traditional Chinese art in the literal sense: he breaks ancient vases (Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995-2004), draws the Coca Cola logo on a vase (Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo, 1994). In addition to all this, Ai Weiwei has some very unusual projects. For 1001 readers of his blog, he paid for the trip to Kassel and documented this trip. Also bought 1001 Qing Dynasty chairs. The entire project, called Fairytale (“Fairy Tale”), could be seen in 2007 at the Documenta exhibition.

Ai Weiwei also has architectural projects: in 2006, the artist, in collaboration with architects, designed a mansion in upstate New York for collector Christopher Tsai.

The work of Zhang Xiaogang, a symbolist and surrealist artist, is interesting. The paintings in his series Bloodline (“Pedigree”) are predominantly monochromatic with splashes of bright color spots. These are stylized portraits of the Chinese, usually with big eyes (how not to remember Margaret Keane). The manner of these portraits is also reminiscent of family portraits of the 1950s and 1960s. This project is connected with memories of childhood, the artist was inspired by photographic portraits of his mother. The images in the paintings are mystical, they combine the ghosts of the past and the present. Zhang Xiaogang is not a politicized artist - he is primarily interested in the individuality of a person, psychological problems.

Jiang Fengqi is another successful artist. His work is very expressive. He dedicated the series "Hospital" to the relationship between patients and authorities. Other series of the artist also show his rather pessimistic view of the world.

The name of the exhibition in "Etazhy" is "Liberation of the present from the past". Artists rethink national traditions, use traditional, but also introduce new techniques. At the beginning of the exhibition, Jiang Jin's work Narcissus and Echo - Shall the water and wind do not remember. The work was made in the form of a triptych in 2014. The author uses the technique of ink on paper - sumi-e. The sumi-e technique originated in China during the Song Dynasty. This is a monochrome painting, similar to watercolor. Jiang Jin embodies the traditional plot: flowers, butterflies, mountains, figures of people by the river - everything is very harmonious.

Presented at the exhibition and video art. This is a work by Beijing-based video artist Wang Rui titled "Do you love me, do you love him?" (2013). The video lasts 15 minutes, on which hands stroke hands made of ice, it can be seen that their fingers are gradually melting. Perhaps the artist wanted to talk about the transience and fickleness of love? Or that love can melt an icy heart?

Stefan Wong Lo's work "Flying Above the Earth", made in the application technique, resembles the images from the films of Wong Kar-Wai in terms of color.

Definitely, the stars of the exhibition are two sculptures by Mu Boyan. His sculptures are grotesque, they depict very fat people. The problem of excess weight interested the artist in 2005, after which he was inspired to create these sculptures. They resemble both enlightened Buddhist monks and modern people with the problem of excess weight. Sculptures "Tough" (2015) and "Come on!" (2015) are made in the technique of colored resin. In these works, the sculptor depicts rather than even adults, but babies.

Whether modern Chinese artists were able to free themselves from the past is up to the viewer to decide, but the connection between generations can be clearly seen in their works, and it becomes clear that it is not so easy to get away from the past. This confirms the use of the sumi-e technique, as well as installations that involve ancient artifacts. Until now, contemporary Chinese artists have not freed themselves from the influence of Maoism, the protest and memory of which is still present in their work. Artists stylize their works under the times of Maoism; memories of the past can, as, for example, on the canvases of Zhang Xiaogang, be key in the artist's work. The restless Ai Weiwei invents more and more performances, but he also turns to traditional culture. Chinese art has always been, is and will have something to surprise the viewer - its legacy is endless, and new representatives will continue to find inspiration in Chinese traditions.

Text: Anna Kozheurova

Art is an integral part of the world cultural heritage. From the immature forms of the Neolithic era, it gradually turned into a highly developed a different culture, which evolved over many centuries.

The main place in the art of China is given to but landscape painting. iso advanced technique of painting natural objects with a brush and ink: waterfalls, mountains, plants. The genre of such a landscape in China is traditionally called: shan-shui, which means “mountains-waters”.

Chinese painters tried to depict not so much the landscape itself, in the European sense of the word, as constantly changing natural states, as well as their impact on humans. However, the person himself, if he is depicted in a landscape, occupies a secondary role and looks like a small figure, an outside observer.

Poetic reality is conveyed in two ways of writing: gong-bi, which means “careful brush”, this technique is based on a deep study of details and accurate transmission of lines; and se-i, which means "expression of thought" - a technique of pictorial freedom.

The wen-ren-hua schools supplemented their izazhi calligraphy - nadp essays with philosophical overtones that never revealed the direct meaning; and tiba - epigrams. Their authors are the artist's admirers, who at different times leave them in free areas of the image.

Chinese architecture merges with the surrounding landscape. Pagodas in China organically fit into the nature around them. They rise from the ground as naturally as trees or flowers. The silhouette of the Tibetan temple resembles the shape of a mountain or a gentle hill on the slope of which it is located.

All this is created with the aim of the best contemplation of the beauties of nature, so the art of China did not strive to create grandiose and monumental architectural structures.

The main advantage in the traditional art of China was considered repetition of the works of old masters and fidelity to traditions. Therefore, it is sometimes quite difficult to determine whether a given item was made in the 12th or 16th century.

"miao". The center of lace-making is Shandong, it is there that Tuscan lace is created; besides this, the woven lace of the Guangdong province is also known. Chinese brocade is also distinguished by sophistication, its best types are cloud brocade, Sichuan brocade, Sung brocade and shengzhi. Brocade made by small nationalities is also popular: Zhuang, Tong, Tai and Tujia.

The art of making porcelain and ceramics is considered one of the greatest achievements Ancient China, porcelain is a kind of pinnacle of traditional Chinese arts and crafts. History The origin of porcelain is more than 3,000 years old.

The beginning of its production dates back to about the 6th-7th centuries, it was then that, by improving technologies and selecting the initial components, the first products began to be obtained, reminiscent of modern porcelain in their qualities. Contemporary China Porcelain testifies to the continuation of the best traditions of its production in the past, as well as to the significant achievements of the present.

Wickerwork- a craft that is popular both in the south of China and in the north. Mostly everyday items are produced.

In the traditions of China, there are all forms of art - both applied and easel, decorative and fine. The art of China is a long process of forming the creative worldview of the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire.

It is believed that the period from the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 to the present is a single stage in the development of contemporary art in China. What conclusions can be drawn if we try to understand the history of Chinese art over the past hundred years in the light of contemporary international events? This history cannot be studied, considering it in the logic of linear development, divided into stages of modernity, postmodernity - on which the periodization of art in the West is based. How then are we to construct a history of contemporary art and talk about it? This question has occupied me since the 1980s, when the first book on contemporary Chinese art was written. i. In subsequent books such as Inside Out: New Chinese Art, The Wall: Changing Chinese Contemporary Art, and especially the recently published Ypailun: Synthetic Theory vs. Representation, I have attempted to answer this question by looking at specific phenomena of the art process.

It is often cited as a basic characteristic of modern Chinese art that its styles and concepts were mostly imported from the West rather than natively nurtured. However, the same can be said about Buddhism. It was brought to China from India about two thousand years ago, took root and turned into an integral system, and eventually bore fruit in the form of Chan Buddhism (known in Japanese as Zen) - an independent national branch of Buddhism, as well as a whole body of canonical literature and related philosophy, culture and art. So, it is possible that Chinese contemporary art will still need a lot of time before it develops into an autonomous system - and the prerequisite for its future development is precisely today's attempts to write its own history and often question the comparison with global analogues. In the art of the West, since the era of modernism, the main power vectors in the aesthetic field have been representation and anti-representation. Such a scheme, however, is hardly suitable for the Chinese scenario. It is impossible to apply such a convenient aesthetic logic based on the opposition of tradition and modernity to the contemporary art of China. In social terms, the art of the West since the time of modernism has taken the ideological position of the enemy of capitalism and the market. In China, there was no capitalist system to fight against (although ideologically charged opposition gripped the bulk of the artists of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s). During the era of rapid and fundamental economic transformation in the 1990s, China's contemporary art found itself in a system far more complex than that of any other country or region.

It is impossible to apply an aesthetic logic based on the opposition of tradition and modernity to Chinese contemporary art.

Take, for example, the much-discussed revolutionary art of the 1950s and 1960s. China imported socialist realism from the Soviet Union, but the process and purpose of the imports were never detailed. In fact, Chinese students who studied art in the Soviet Union and Chinese artists were more interested not in socialist realism per se, but in the art of the Wanderers and critical realism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This interest arose as an attempt to replace Western classical academism, which was inaccessible at that time, through which the assimilation of artistic modernity in its Western version proceeded in China. The Parisian academicism propagated by Xu Beihong and his contemporaries, who were educated in France in the 1920s, was already too distant a reality to become a model and guide for the younger generation. In order to pick up the baton of the pioneers of the modernization of art in China, it was necessary to turn to the classical tradition of Russian painting. It is obvious that such an evolution has its own history and logic, which are not directly determined by the socialist ideology. The spatial connection between China in the 1950s, artists peers of Mao Zedong himself, and the realist tradition of late 19th-century Russia already existed and therefore did not depend on the absence or presence of political dialogue between China and the Soviet Union in the 1950s. Moreover, since the art of the Wanderers was more academic and romantic than critical realism, Stalin identified the Wanderers as the source of socialist realism and, as a result, had no interest in representatives of critical realism. Chinese artists and theorists just did not share this “bias”: in the 1950s and 1960s, a large number of studies on critical realism appeared in China, albums were published and many scientific works were translated from Russian. After the completion of the cultural revolution, Russian pictorial realism became the only starting point in the modernization of art that was unfolding in China. In such typical works of "scar painting", as, for example, in the painting by Cheng Conglin "Once in 1968. Snow”, the influence of the Wanderer Vasily Surikov and his “Boyar Morozova” and “Morning of the Streltsy Execution” can be traced. The rhetorical devices are the same: the emphasis is on depicting real and dramatic relationships between individuals against the backdrop of historical events. Of course, "scar painting" and Wandering realism arose in radically different social and historical contexts, and yet we cannot say that the similarity between them is reduced only to imitation of style. At the beginning of the 20th century, having become one of the key pillars of the Chinese "revolution in art", realism significantly influenced the trajectory of the development of art in China - precisely because it was more than a style. He had an extremely close and deep connection with the progressive value of "art for life".

Quan Shanshi. Heroic and indomitable, 1961

Canvas, oil

Cheng Chonglin. Once upon a time in 1968. Snow, 1979

Canvas, oil

From the collection of the National Art Museum of China, Beijing

Wu Guanzhong. Spring grasses, 2002

Paper, ink and paints

Wang Yidong. Picturesque area, 2009

Canvas, oil

The rights to the image belong to the artist

Or let's turn to the phenomenon of similarity between the red pop art movement, which was initiated by the Red Guards at the beginning of the "cultural revolution", and Western postmodernism - I wrote about this in detail in the book "On the regime of Mao Zedong's folk art" i. "Red Pop" completely destroyed the autonomy of art and the aura of the work, made full use of the social and political functions of art, destroyed the boundaries between different media and absorbed the maximum possible number of advertising forms: from radio broadcasts, films, music, dance, war reports, cartoons to memorabilia. medals, flags, propaganda and handwritten posters - with the sole purpose of creating an inclusive, revolutionary and populist visual art. In terms of propaganda effectiveness, commemorative medals, badges, and handwritten wall posters are just as effective as Coca-Cola advertising media. And the worship of the revolutionary press and political leaders in its scope and intensity even surpassed the similar cult of the commercial press and celebrities in the West. i.

From the point of view of political history, the "red pop" appears as a reflection of the blindness and inhumanity of the Red Guards. Such a judgment does not stand up to criticism if we consider "red pop" in the context of world culture and personal experience. This is a complex phenomenon, and its study requires, among other things, a thorough study of the international situation of that period. The 1960s were marked by uprisings and riots around the world: anti-war demonstrations were everywhere, the hippie movement, the civil rights movement, was growing. Then there is another circumstance: the Red Guards belonged to the generation that was sacrificed. At the beginning of the "cultural revolution", they spontaneously organized to participate in left-wing extremist activities and, in fact, were used by Mao Zedong as a lever to achieve political goals. And the result for these yesterday's pupils and students was exile to rural and border areas for a ten-year "re-education": it is in pitiful and helpless songs and stories about "intellectual youth" that the source of underground poetry and art movements after the "cultural revolution" lies. Yes, and the experimental art of the 1980s also experienced the undoubted influence of the "red guards". Therefore, whether we consider the end of the “cultural revolution” or the mid-1980s as the starting point for the history of contemporary art in China, we cannot refuse to analyze the art of the era of the cultural revolution. And especially - from the "red priest" of the Red Guards.

In the second half of 1987 and the first half of 1988, in Contemporary Chinese Art, 1985-1986, I attempted to justify the stylistic pluralism that had become the defining feature of the new visuality in the post-Cultural Revolution period. We are talking about the so-called new wave 85. From 1985 to 1989, as a result of an unprecedented information explosion on the Chinese art scene (in Beijing, Shanghai and other centers), all the main artistic styles and techniques created by the West over the past century appeared simultaneously. It is as if the century-old evolution of Western art has been re-enacted, this time in China. Styles and theories, many of which belonged more to the historical archive than to living history, were interpreted by Chinese artists as "modern" and served as an impetus for creativity. To clarify this situation, I used the ideas of Benedetto Croce that "all history is modern history." True modernity is the awareness of one's own activity at the moment when it is carried out. Even when events and phenomena refer to the past, the condition for their historical knowledge is their "vibration in the consciousness of the historian." “Modernity” in the artistic practice of the “new wave” took on its shape, weaving the past and present, the life of the spirit and social reality into a single ball.

Art is a process through which a culture can come to know itself comprehensively. Art is no longer reduced to the study of reality driven into a dichotomous dead end, when realism and abstraction, politics and art, beauty and ugliness, social service and elitism are opposed. (In this connection, remember Croce’s assertion that self-consciousness seeks to “distinguish by uniting; and difference here is no less real than identity, and identity no less than difference.”) The main priority is to expand the boundaries of art.
The field of art includes both non-professional artists and the general public. In the 1980s, in many respects, it was non-professional artists who were the bearers of the spirit of radical experiment - it was easier for them to break away from the established circle of ideas and practices of the Academy. In general, the concept of unprofessionalism, in fact, is one of the basic in the history of classical Chinese "painting of educated people." Intellectual artists ( literary) constituted an important social group of “cultural aristocrats”, which, starting from the 11th century, carried out the cultural construction of the entire nation and, in this respect, was rather opposed to artists who received their craft skills at the imperial Academy and often remained at the imperial court.
Movement towards the art of the future is possible through overcoming the gap between Western postmodernism and Eastern traditionalism, through the convergence of modern philosophy and classical Chinese philosophy (such as Chan).

Yue Minjun. Red boat, 1993

Canvas, oil

Fang Lijun. Series 2, number 11, 1998

Canvas, oil

Image courtesy of Sotheby's Hong Kong

Wang Guangyi. Materialistic Art, 2006

Diptych. Canvas, oil

Private collection

Wang Guangyi. Great criticism. Omega, 2007

Canvas, oil

Cai Guoqiang. Drawing for Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: Ode to Joy, 2002

Paper, gunpowder

Image copyright Christie's Images Limited 2008. Image courtesy of Christie's Hong Kong

However, the "modern art" produced in China in 1985-1989 was by no means intended to be a replica of modernist, postmodernist, or the current globalized art of the West. First, it did not in the least strive for independence and isolation, which, coarsening, constituted the essence of the modernist art of the West. European modernism paradoxically believed that escapism and isolation could overcome the alienation of the human artist in capitalist society—hence the artist's commitment to aesthetic disinterest and originality. In China, in the 1980s, artists, different in their aspirations and artistic identity, were in a single experimental space of large-scale exhibitions and other actions, the most striking of which was the China/Avant-Garde exhibition in Beijing in 1989. Such actions were, in fact, socio-artistic experiments of an extraordinary scale, which went beyond the scope of a purely individual statement.

Secondly, the “new wave of 85” had little in common with postmodernism, which questioned the very possibility and necessity of individual self-expression, which modernism insisted on. Unlike postmodernists, who rejected idealism and elitism in philosophy, aesthetics, and sociology, Chinese artists in the 1980s were captured by a utopian vision of culture as an ideal and elitist sphere. The exhibition-actions already mentioned were a paradoxical phenomenon, since the artists, asserting their collective marginality, at the same time demanded the attention and recognition of society. It was not stylistic originality or political engagement that determined the face of Chinese art, but the incessant attempts of artists to position themselves in relation to a society that was transforming before our eyes.

It was not stylistic originality or political engagement that determined the face of Chinese art, but precisely the attempts of artists to position themselves in relation to a transforming society.

To summarize, we can say that for reconstructing the history of contemporary art in China, a multidimensional spatial structure is much more effective than a meager temporal linear formula. Chinese art, unlike Western art, did not enter into any relationship with the market (due to its absence) and at the same time was not defined solely as a protest against official ideology (which was typical of Soviet art in the 1970s and 1980s). With regard to Chinese art, an isolated and static historical narrative that builds the lines of succession of schools and classifies typical phenomena within a particular period is unproductive. Its history becomes clear only in the interaction of spatial structures.

At the next stage, which began in the late 1990s, Chinese art created a special finely balanced system, when different vectors both reinforce and counteract each other. This, in our opinion, is a unique trend that is not characteristic of contemporary Western art. Now three types of art coexist in China - academic realistic painting, classical Chinese painting ( guohua or wenren) and contemporary art (sometimes referred to as experimental). Today, the interaction between these components no longer takes the form of opposition in the aesthetic, political or philosophical field. Their interaction occurs through competition, dialogue or cooperation between institutions, markets and events. This means that a dualistic logic that pits aesthetics and politics is not good enough to explain Chinese art from the 1990s to the present. The logic of "aesthetic versus political" was relevant for a brief period from the late 1970s to the first half of the 1980s - for the interpretation of art after the "cultural revolution". Some artists and critics naively believe that capitalism, which has not liberated art in the West, will bring freedom to the Chinese, since it has a different ideological potential that is in opposition to the political system, but in the end, capital in China also successfully erodes and undermines the foundations of contemporary art. Contemporary art, which has gone through a complex process of development over the past thirty years, is now losing its critical dimension and is instead engaged in the pursuit of profit and fame. Contemporary art in China must first of all be based on self-criticism, even if individual artists are more or less influenced and subject to the temptations of capital. Self-criticism is exactly what is missing now; This is the source of the crisis in contemporary art in China.

Material courtesy of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art.

Translation from Chinese to English by Chen Kuandi

On the world stage, contemporary Chinese art has appeared relatively recently. The so-called "Chinese boom" occurred in 2005, when, for a small number of objective reasons, the prices for paintings by contemporary Chinese artists increased more than tenfold. On the world stage, contemporary Chinese art has appeared relatively recently. The so-called "Chinese boom" occurred in 2005, when, for a small number of objective reasons, the prices for paintings by contemporary Chinese artists increased more than tenfold. There is an opinion that an information war is actually being waged on the international art market. Conducting multi-million dollar deals to buy Chinese art is not always supported by facts. Often there are cases of delay in payment of the lot due to the appearance of doubts about the authenticity of the monument. For example, the most expensive painting sold at Christie's in 2011, Qi Baishi's Long Life, Peaceful Land, was in storage for two years. With the help of such instances as the Chinese government, the media, dealers, the cost of works of art is artificially inflated. Thus, experts say that “the Chinese government is pursuing a policy of falsifying the prosperous, stable and prosperous background of the PRC in order to attract foreign investors' money to the country.” Thanks to the announcement of record sales, Chinese auction houses and representative offices of the world in China have become the international leaders in the art market, which has allowed to raise prices for works from China. Also, at the moment, it is rather difficult to assess Chinese art objects, since there are no appropriate criteria, which also contributes to a free interpretation of the value of the work. Thus, according to Abigail R. Esman, the “soap bubble” of art objects is beneficial to the PRC government. In turn, Chinese contemporary art dealers unnaturally raise prices for the works of the artists they patronize. According to Dr. Claire McAndrew, “The boom in the Chinese market has been driven by rising wealth, strong domestic supply and buyer investment. The fact that China has taken a leading position in the global art market does not mean that it will retain its position in the coming years. The Chinese market will face the challenge of realizing more stable and longer-term growth.”

Nevertheless, at the moment, Chinese artists are known and popular all over the world, they make up to 39% of the revenue in the contemporary art market. This fact has both objective explanations, and based on the personal, subjective taste of the buyer, and so on, which should be further understood.

“Asian art is rapidly becoming international, and there has been a significant increase in purchases from both the rest of Asia and the West,” said Kim Chuan Mok, head of the South Asian Painting Department. At the moment, the most expensive artists in China are Zeng Fanzhi, Cui Ruzhou, Fan Zeng, Zhou Chunya and Zhang Xiaogang. At the same time, the work of Zeng Fanzhi "The Last Supper" in 2013 was sold at Sotheby's for $ 23.3 million, which is a record amount not only for the Asian market, but also for the Western one, putting it in fourth place in the list of the most expensive works by contemporary artists. .

In three years, China has bypassed the United States and Great Britain in terms of sales in the art market, which initially occupied a leading position in the world. Among Christie's departments, the Asian art market is in second place in terms of importance and profitability. According to Artprice, China accounts for 33% of the contemporary art market, while American - 30%, British - 19%, and French - 5%.

Why is contemporary Chinese art so popular?

Today, Chinese art is extremely relevant and important, partly because China itself has become one. Art centered around an economically strong centre. But there are quite specific explanations for the rise in prices.

In 2001 China joined the WTO, which influenced the increase in the presence of auction houses in the region, which in turn began to adapt to the personal preferences of new buyers. Thus, in the first decade of the 21st century, about a hundred auction houses were opened in China. Both local, such as Poly International, China Guardian, and international: since 2005, Forever International Auction Company Limited has been operating in Beijing under a license obtained from Christie's, in 2013-2014, world leaders Christie's and Sotheby's opened their direct representative offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. As a result, if in 2006 China's share of the world art market was 5%, then already in 2011 it was about 40%.

In 2005 there was a so-called "Chinese boom", in which prices for works of Chinese masters rose sharply from several tens of thousands to a million dollars. So, if one of the Mask Series paintings by Zeng Fanzhi in 2004 was sold for 384,000 HKD, then already in 2006, a work from the same series went for 960,000 HKD. Uta Grosenick, a German art historian, believes it has to do with the venue of the Olympics, Beijing. "Attention to modern China has shifted to contemporary Chinese art, which turned out to be understandable to the Western audience."

During periods of economic instability, the art market grows. 2007-2008 years are characterized by experts as a period of a sharp increase in sales of paintings in general by 70%, as well as an increase in demand for contemporary Chinese art. This can be seen in Zeng Fanzhi's sales at Sotheby's and Christies auctions. In 2008, the crisis year, he broke a price record. Painting "Mask series No. 6" was sold at Christies for 9.66 million dollars, which exceeds the most expensive sale for 2007 and 2006 by almost 9 times. During the economic crisis, art is the second most popular alternative asset after luxury goods. "The presence of hoarding objects in the company's portfolio allows not only to diversify risks, but also to provide additional profitability, which is ahead of some stock market indicators."

For Chinese entrepreneurs, who are the main buyers, investing in art seems to be the most rational and promising, since the Chinese Communist Party has limited real estate speculation, which has led to the need to find new ways to solve the problem. Art objects are ideal for preserving investor anonymity.“The best-known ways of making large investments in the arts of developing countries, in particular China, are meetings of hedge funds and organizations with direct investments, when in fact they buy a part in a portfolio of several positions of art objects, but do not buy ownership.” The ban on the export of capital in excess of $ 50,000 per year, Chinese investors have learned to bypass. An underestimated cost of work is declared, the difference is transferred to foreign accounts. Thus, it is almost impossible to calculate the outflow of capital to another country. “Pictures for such investors are an instrument of an investment mechanism, ideal in terms of secrecy.” For these purposes, during the first decade of the 20th century, institutions were formed in China that made it possible to invest in hoarding facilities. So, at the moment in China there are more than 25 funds of artistic values and art exchanges, special editions are issued to help make the right and profitable investments.

The popularity of investment in contemporary art began to increase with growing number of young entrepreneurs and an increase in the subsistence minimum for a representative of the middle class of the BRIC countries. So in China at the moment there are 15 billionaires, 300,000 millionaires, and the average salary is $2,000. "Contemporary art of the second half of the twentieth century is just right for young businessmen who may not have time to go to museums and galleries or read books and leaf through catalogs." These people often do not have the proper level of education, but have enough money for the right investments, which leads to a large number of Chinese investors in art and a small number of art collectors. But they know that the product will increase in price, and therefore later it will be possible to resell it profitably.

In Asia, Russia and the Middle East, the purchase of art objects has a large economic, cultural and "status" connotations. Thus, the object of art is also a positivist investment that determines the status of the owner and raises his prestige and position in society. “When Chinese investors want to diversify their investment portfolio, they most often turn to luxury goods, analysts at Artprice say, so buying a painting by a contemporary artist is like buying something in a Louis Vuitton boutique for them.”

For businessmen and officials in China, the purchase of works of art, in particular by local masters, is of interest, since there is a layer of so-called "cultivated functionaries" who accept bribes in this form. The appraiser before the start of the auction underestimates the market value of the picture so that it can no longer be a bribe. This process was called "Yahui" and as a result became "a powerful driving force of China's art market."

One of the reasons for the popularity of Chinese contemporary art is painting style, understandable and interesting not only to the Chinese themselves, but also to Western buyers. Artists from China were able to accurately reflect the "cultural and political phenomena of the modern Asian world", especially since the issues of the collision of East and West do not cease to be relevant today. On the territory of China, media propaganda of active participation in the development of the country's art market is carried out. More than 20 television programs, 5 magazines are offered to the attention of recipients, covering such topics as “participation in art auctions”, “identification of art relics”, etc. According to the official website of the auction house Poly International, "Poly is a fine art auction whose main goal is to return art to the people of China", which is the next reason for the increased demand for Chinese art.

"A Chinese man will not buy a work of art from a non-Chinese." In terms of ethics, national art objects are bought by investors or collectors from a given country. Thus, they raise prices for the work of their compatriots and carry out the ideological setting - they return art to their homeland. Many collectors are residents of the region, and this rise in South Asian art is in line with the influx of art from Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines,” said Kim Chuan Mok, head of the South Asia Painting Department.

Art objects, including contemporary paintings, are purchased for formation of collections of new museums in China. At the moment, there is a phenomenon of "museum boom" in China, so in 2011, 390 museums were opened in China, respectively, there is a need for their worthy filling. In China, the easiest way is to purchase works at the auctions of auction houses, and not directly from the artist or through the gallery, this explains the fact of increased both demand and supply for Chinese contemporary art.

At the moment, China is the leader in the contemporary art market. Despite the fact that the works of local artists are mainly bought directly in China, and less often from abroad, the Chinese themselves, the popularity of Chinese contemporary painting and its importance in the context of the global art market cannot be denied. The "Chinese boom" that began about ten years ago does not leave the world and its masters never cease to amaze both with their works and their prices.

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Chinese Contemporary Art: Hao Boyi, Ai Weiwei, Zhao Zhao

Creativity of the artist Hao Boyi (haoboyi) reminded the world what a classical Chinese print is. He is currently the head of the China Artists Association. Reminding the viewer that Oriental art is characterized by minimalism and elegance, Boi carefully and restrainedly depicts nature. Most often, the artist prefers to work on wood, but sometimes he also uses metal. On his engravings there is no hint of a person. Birds, trees, bushes, sun, swamps are depicted in their original beauty.

One of the most famous contemporary Chinese artists - Ai Weiwei- became famous not only thanks to creative projects. In every material about him, his oppositional attitude is mentioned. Weiwei lived in the United States for some time, so the tendencies of Western art of the last century, combined with traditional oriental trends, are clearly visible in his work. In 2011, he topped the list of "The 100 most influential people in the art world" according to Art Review magazine. His installations are not just art objects designed to point out social problems, but also a huge work. So, for one of the projects, the artist collected 6000 stools in the villages of Northern China. All of them are placed on the floor of the exhibition hall, completely covering the surface. At the heart of another project - "IOU" - is a story from the artist's life. The name is an abbreviation of the phrase "I Owe You", which translates from English as "I owe you". The fact is that the artists were charged with tax evasion. In 15 days, Weiwei had to find 1.7 million euros and pay off the state. This amount was collected thanks to those who are not indifferent to the work and life of the oppositionist artist. Thus, an installation was born from a huge number of receipts for the transfer of funds. Weiwei held solo exhibitions in New York, San Francisco, Paris, London, Bern, Seoul, Tokyo and other cities.

With the name of a conceptual artist Zhu Yu the concept of "cannibal" is inextricably linked. In 2000, at one of the exhibitions, he presented a provocative photo project, followed by scandalous articles and public investigations. The author presented to the public a series of pictures in which he eats a human fetus. After that, information appeared in a number of media about the strange food preferences of the Chinese elite - supposedly in some restaurants lovers of delicacies are served embryos. The provocation, of course, was a success. After that, Yu's work began to be popular, and he himself was able to start making money on his strange projects. Speaking about eating embryos, he noted: “Artists did nothing but use corpses in performances, without creating anything new, blindly copying each other. This situation annoyed me, I wanted to put an end to these competitions, put an end to them. My work was not intended for the audience, it had to solve an internal technical issue. I didn't expect such a reaction." By the way, the exhibition at which Yu showed "Eating People" was called Fuck Off, and Ai Weiwei, mentioned above, acted as its curator. The artist also has more humane projects, for example, the installation “Pocket Theology”. In the exhibition hall, a hand hangs from the ceiling, holding a long rope that covers the entire floor. At the moment, Yu has moved into another creative stage, devoid of past outrageousness. He became interested in hyperrealism.

Zeng Fanzhi- today one of the most expensive Chinese artists. In 2001, he presented his version of The Last Supper to the public. The composition is borrowed from Leonardo Da Vinci, but everything else is a figment of the imagination of our contemporary. So, there were 13 people at the table dressed as pioneers and with masks on their faces. Judas stands out against their background, wearing a Western-style shirt and tie, which hints to the viewer that even China, a traditional country, is influenced by capitalism. In 2013, this work went under the hammer for $23 million.

Below are works Zhao Zhao. Art historians call this artist one of the most promising contemporary Chinese authors. In addition to the fact that collectors from all over the world willingly acquire his creations, the authorities also pay attention to them - in 2012, Zhao's works "went" to an exhibition in New York, but the Chinese customs deployed the party. His works are associative, metaphorical and often associated with events in the life of the artist himself. For example, once a car accident became a source of inspiration for Zhao, during which the artist drew attention to how interesting cracks crawled along the windshield ...

Zhang Xiaogang- the author of a well-known series of works under the general name "Blood Footprints". It represents portraits of people of different ages, made in the style of photographs, but with artistic touches. “China is one family, one big family. Everyone should rely on each other and confront each other. This was the question that I wanted to draw attention to and which gradually, less and less connected with the Cultural Revolution, and more with the representation of the people's state in the mind," says the artist about "Blood Footprints". The series was created over 10 years, its total cost exceeds 10 million dollars.