Earlier in the month of November, I attended Art021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre – a major landmark for the city. And in this beautiful, state-owned building of Soviet neoclassical architectural design, with its palace-like interior décor and elegant chandeliers, it was interesting to see how this venerable city hosted a major art fair and how its people – from the higher members of society, the cultivated, to the general public – behaved around art. Over a hundred dealers and galleries, local and overseas, were invited and paid for the privilege to show their wares.
Compared to the Hong Kong Art Basel show earlier in March, with its long queues and wild crowds, and where it seemed that nearly everybody in town had to check out the show so as not be seen as old-fashioned or of out of touch… the calmer atmosphere and the quieter audiences of Shanghai were pleasantly different.
However, and not surprisingly, a majority of the works seemed inaccessible – indeed, it is increasingly common for the everyday person, the untrained eye, to lack the simple aesthetic sensibility to appreciate the challenging nature of some of today’s contemporary art. From a personal perspective, these works are very often not well executed, and do not manifest artistic excellence, but somehow are celebrated and marketed with a highly technical sales pitch and a mind-blowing price tag.
However, contemporary art continues to sell against all odds, even in tough times. The art world continues to be a multi-million-dollar economy.
The relationship between ‘art’ and money has always been intertwined. Profit is obviously an important factor in the sustenance of the art world nowadays. In the context of the capitalist art market, gallery owners and auction house managers hope that some of those artists’ reputations will be cultivated so that they can make money from them. Curators of large and powerful galleries get to decide which works of ‘art’ can be publicly displayed. Indeed, they have the power to define what is ‘art.’ They have positioned themselves as the ‘taste-makers’.
Meanwhile, the Art Fair has become a theatre of prestige and speculative magnetism. Competition between dealers and artists is often vicious, making this marketplace an unusual place to conduct business, and contemporary art, a global commodity. Prices inflate and deflate very quickly, with buyers ranging from those who ‘collect’ art – where the art is a part of their life – to the pure speculators who just “go with the flow” of the market.
The higher end of the Art Market certainly has its pros and cons – very few artists enjoy huge success and it provides certain artists as well as collectors with a system to sell and buy and price their works, but it is tough when the market operators are the primary influencers, for good and bad. Price and quality are often unrelated, as there are many factors that can influence the value of artwork other than quality.
Good art is tested by time. A work that can be passed down through the ages, yet keeps its vibrancy and pleases the viewer, is a work that can maintain a good reputation for a long time.
