Artists brush with commerce at Sino-US forum
- By Wu Jin
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail
China.org.cn, December 21, 2011
Eric Fischl, Judith Belzer, Liu Xiaodong and Xu Bing are widely-acclaimed artists who have created works worth thousands, if not millions, of dollars at a time of great commercial upheaval in the art world.
Despite benefitting from, and appreciating, the financial gains their works bring, the artists spoke warily and at times wryly, about the effects of the ever-increasing commercialization and marketing of art at the recent Sino-US cultural forum.
|
|
|
Judith Belzer, Xu Bing, Eric Fischl, Liu Xiaodong and moderator Melissa Chiu (L to R) [China.org.cn] |
"I just hope that [my artwork] receives respect and credibility, which is why I do it," said Fischl, an American figurative painter, best known for his portrayals of suburbia. Fischl continued: "I don't know any artists who don’t work out of a sense of love."
"And the weird thing about the market is that although you create works for love, someone gives you money in return."
According to Fischl, artists are now being confronted by the fact that the "art world" is becoming the "art market". As a result, he believes that artists must adapt to a new reality in which it is impossible to separate fame from fortune. Gone are the days when famous painters made a living by teaching or painting other people’s houses. Today, the most popular artists can achieve lifelong financial security from the proceeds of one auction.
Liu has been one of the principal beneficiaries of the financial infusion that has invigorated the Chinese art market since 2006. His panoramic oil painting "The New Migrants of the Three Gorges" was sold for an incredible 22 million yuan (US$3.46 million), almost 200 times the average price in previous years. The sale put the increased commercialization of the art market in the spotlight.
Liu, though, believes that money need not corrupt. "The capital flow is beyond anything we could have imagined," he said. "I embrace it with the hope of channeling it in a positive direction as well as to achieve my own artistic ambitions." Although the sale of such pieces as "The New Migrants of the Three Gorges" have made Liu wealthy, a sizeable chunk of his fortune goes to funding lesser-known documentary films and art movies. One of Liu’s success stories is Jia Zhangke, who won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2006.
But not every artist shares Liu's enthusiasm for the market. Chicago-born painter Judith Belzer, whose works seek to display the sophisticated beauty of nature, said she will never bend to the market. "I choose to stick with the path my works take me on and try not to pay too much attention to the market," she said.
However, despite artists' struggles to retain their independence, the market continues to play its relentless, and often amusing, games with them. Fischl said that he was once invited to a collector's home and, on arrival, found that his paintings were everywhere. The collector was a middle-aged man who had gone through a series of family crises and turned out to be a playboy.
"My works, in context, are good works but all erotic. I always thought my works had a question mark in front of the erotic. And in the context of the house, I saw there was no question mark," said Fischl to accompanying laughter.
Liu Xiandong concluded: "It's fine to attend collectors' dinners, but you can never invite them in return."
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)