Thursday, April 24, 2008

JUST SAY NO...TO CHINESE ART

Yesterday, I posted an article about how hot the Asian art market is. I specifically focused on Japanese art. Today it is going to be a bit more political...Chinese art. According to Charlie Finch in an article on artnet.com entitled Fear Strikes Out "young artists in the Chinese academies are now career-oriented and not interested in politics and that Xu Bing, whose work long criticized Chinese government propaganda, has returned to China after decades as an expatriate." In a related story, bloggers Roger Simon and Ron Rosenbaum of Pajamas Media have started to solicit professional writers to focus on writing about boycotting companies that are sponsoring the Chinese Olympics. These writers claim that Chinese artists (and their work) should also be boycotted for providing the Chinese government another tool to use in the propoganda wars which propogate the atrocities in Tibet.

How will all of this affect the Asian art market? It is a fact that after any Olympics the economy of the area begins to improve. Undoubtably, a new interest in Asian art will emerge and the market will see a surge in sales. Or will it? China and Tibet are now seen in the news more and more. If the movement pushed by writers, academics, and celebrities to boycott anyone and everyone who supports the current Chinese government continues to gain momentum it may soon be unfashionable to collect Chinese art. Only time will tell.

1 comment:

Achtung Nada said...

I do not believe one second that it will become unfashionable to collect chinese art works for political reasons !! some german artists who were considered as nazis supporters before WW2 and immediately after are highly praised now and their work goes for a lot of money....