In a country under the control of an individual’s will and authority, this control will determine the scope of the basic words and actions of everyone living in this country. An individual, in the face of pressure from society and the state, will usually protect themselves in a tortuous manner or simply change his perception of reality; this is the result of the necessity of survival and there will be a struggle to find blind spots within a space. In the final analysis, the maximum self-expression will be limited by conditions: this is the instinct of life.
Between 1978 and 1989, despite the emergence of short-lived political movements to “eliminate spiritual pollution” and “oppose bourgeois liberalization”, for most of the time translations of Western thought (politics, economics, philosophy, religion, literature, art, and other humanities) filled the schools (tertiary institutions in the main) and institutions in which intellectuals were concentrated. As can be imagined, the result was that Western thought exerted growing influence, especially on the political system, philosophical concepts, and the fields of literature art. This led to doubts concerning existing politics, and this was attributed in the main to “spiritual pollution” and “bourgeois liberalization”. In parallel with the development of commodity economy, the question of how to stop people from adopting the entire bourgeois ideology that favored the market economy was not an easy thing, unless the door was again closed to contact with the outside world.
However, from the outset Deng Xiaoping was not able to draw a line in the overall situation of studying the West or found it difficult to filter Western influences while preserving what was required from the West. For example, limited technical knowledge was required to develop commodity economy, while filtering out political thought that could destabilize the leadership of the party and change the nature of society. On 12 September 1988, in listening to a report on prices and their initial program of reform, Deng continued to express optimism about economic development, telling his Party colleagues: “Controlling inflation and price rises cannot damage our reform and opening up policy and cannot make the economy shrink, so we must maintain a proper pace of development”. However, after April 15, 1989 the social atmosphere made the Party uneasy, and people commemorating Hu Yaobang’s death were expressing dissatisfaction with the Party. Discussing the students and people gathering in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on April 25, Deng told Li Peng and Yang Shangkun at his residence: “This is not a student movement, this is chaos. It is crystal clear that we must take effective measures to oppose and suppress this unrest”. Deng said: “The aim of these people is to overthrow Communist Party leadership”. He complained that “the earlier opposition to bourgeois liberalization had not been followed through, and that the campaign against spiritual pollution was abandoned after a little more than 20 days. If it had been carried out effectively, thinkers and educators wouldn’t have found themselves in this mess”. [1]
However, after June, Deng Xiaoping repeatedly stressed the importance of economic development in different places, and in early 1992, after examining economic development in Shanghai and Guangdong’s coastal cities he could see the results of the development of the commodity economy over the previous decade as well as the real confidence in these places in the market economy. On June 12, Deng Xiaoping at his place of residence told Party Secretary Jiang Zemin that he was all in favor of the “socialist market economy”: “With what we are actually doing, Shenzhen is a socialist market economy”. Earlier during his trip to the South he warned those who were suspicious of the market economy to not use the terms “socialist” or “capitalist” in their writings, adding that “while there might be more planning this was not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism; the planned economy was not equivalent to socialism, and capitalism also has planning; the market economy is not capitalism, because socialism also has markets”. [2]
Deng repeatedly stressed the importance of the Party’s leadership, but the aim was to develop what he called a “socialist economy”. Until then, people had a basic belief: if politics did not matter and the focus was on the market, it might be possible to gain material wealth and security access, and creating material wealth was the most basic and important part of people’s work and daily lives. Isn’t our fight for democracy to get more material goods? Isn’t ideological liberation intended to better develop the economy? Most people also followed this logic of the Party in understanding reality. In theory, no one has conditions to discuss the relationship between political reform and economic reform, since the core leadership of the Party had set the basic tone: one center and two basic points. The central task was economic construction, and the two points were adhering to the four cardinal principles and the reform and opening.[3]
From June 1989 to October 1992, the number of exhibitions of modern art or contemporary art could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and some small modern art exhibitions were held in underground spaces. Most of the critics and artists who had not left the country were living in a miasma of hopelessness. The ideological thrust was over, and for activists, there was no path to success and so a rethink was required for those who wanted to go on. It was now clear that new possibilities were presented by the market, and even though the art market had been subject to criticism and suppression by Mao Zedong since 1949, the market which had long been considered to be the basic characteristic of capitalist society had now achieved legal status in China In that case, people began to acquire a vague understanding of the rules of the game determining the market economy; nothing had changed, except that “economic development” was now clearly expressed as the development of the “market economy”. It was in this context that in January 1991, the first issue of a journal devoted to the art market, called simply Art·Market, was published in China. In the foreword of that journal, the editor intentionally steered clear of ideological disputes and announced that the journal’s focus was on the market and the goal was developing an art market that acquired a new legitimacy:
After ten years of economic reform and development, China’s unique model of development and the rapidity of change have won the attention of the international community. In this, people pay attention to how this reflects aspects of the Chinese nation’s spirit, philosophy, morality, and the aesthetic sense of art and culture. In the last ten years, China’s art has through exhibitions, publications, and other forms increasingly influenced the world, in the same way that corresponding forms of Western art and other foreign cultures have been widely introduced and spread in China. Eastern and Western societies have never at any time had such frequently and mutually beneficial contacts as at present, and mutual, interactive and penetrating criticism in politics, economics, culture, and especially will constitute the existence of a new humanity. In such a context, only something like “commercialized culture” (jingjihua wenhua) can more accurately describe the contemporary culture of our times; Chinese contemporary art is adopting unsophisticated forms and channels to enter the international cycle of “the art industry”, despite the fact that few people are acutely aware of this. However, because of this, it is crucial for a correct understanding and participation that leading museums, galleries, collectors, art dealers, art dealers, art publishers, and intermediaries have the information that will benefit the development of art. We know that art in contemporary society faces a different situation from art in other times, in that its value has to be fully reflected through price, even though the value of art is not economic in the sense of price. In this regard, the sale of artworks is the basic premise or guarantee for the efficacy and significance of the work of artists and art dealers, galleries and museums, not to mention art intermediaries. In today’s society, it is inconceivable that a culture lacking in “economic clout” can be effective.
In 1991 official statements relating to the market remained vague, and only a few people in the art world could mentally link art and the market, but many critics were involved in the art market and on art and discussed market issues.
In genial discussions of the relationship between art and the market, the critic Huang Zhuan in his essay titled “Who Will Sponsor History” pursued the issue of the art history that created the art market. He reminded people to pay attention to the writing of art history, and wrote about a common cognitive bias:
For a long time, our art history has fabricated many myths about how artists become great because of a unique and innate obsession, but it rarely relates how each artist has acquired fame because of extremely complex modes of reality, how behind and around them various political and religious forces, various aesthetic groups, art brokers, painting businessmen, people taking orders, collectors, and critics have played a subtle and immeasurable role in the process of history. It should be said that all of these forces are supporters of art history, and are also a part of the history of art. [4]
In this way, ideology and style have long been popular in China, and in the history of art, especially in the writing of the history of contemporary art, this has been seriously questioned. Huang Zhuan cited the example of the formation in China of the myth of Van Gogh in the 1980s as an example, and he tried to throw a basin of cold water over those with no knowledge of history who blindly accepted the myth of Van Gogh: “Such cynical philistines will remain failures all their lives. An artist who only sold his works for low prices during his life time is now the best selling artist in the Western art market, yet history recognizes him only in terms of eight figure prices. Of course, you can say that Eight-Figure van Gogh is so great, but I want to get away from the art scene that discusses the greatness of an art work or artist in such unforeseeable terms”. Throughout the 1980s, Irving Stone’s biography of Van Gogh Lust for Life was very popular among young artists, and most young Chinese poeticized and romanticized Van Gogh’s pain and anxiety, and how his art derived from his destitution and utter poverty and from his suffering in life; that’s the life that produced such great art. However, Huang Zhuan also pointed out that the myth of capitalism comes from capital. When an editor asked him about “the modes of historicizing art and artists in our time”, Huang replied:
Someone interested in this question might be better going through art magazines produced in the United States and Taiwan and reading about gallery owners like Leo Castelli and corporate collectors like Morishita Yasumichi. As an art businessman Castelli is described in the Western art scene as the “pope of contemporary art” and as someone who “wrote history”; this is not simply because from the late 1950s on, he launched through his gallery the likes of such masters that represent an era as Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Frank Stella, Lichtenstein, and Warhol, but also because he applied commercial power successfully to created a mode of historicizing art works and artists. Obviously, any history of post-war art must mention Castelli, just as it would be impossible to write about the art of the middle ages without mentioning the Christian Church, the art of Michelangelo without mentioning the Medici family or the Pope, or the history of Chinese literati paintings without mentioning such leaders of interest groups as Su Shi and Dong Qichang. I believe that if Castelli the patron of art history emerged today, he would be fundamentally associated with the economy of human life and, as Marx said, we should consider this reality from an economic basis. In these times of high-level industrialization, human economic and commercial activities have more significance for human civilization and human behavior; the biggest difference between modern economics and classical economics is that the former begins with the behavior of human culture as a whole rather than and not simply from the people and things of benefit to economic activity in the human pursuit of profit-maximizing behavior. [5]
That statement emphasizes that economic forces may be an instinct of people at this time. This is an age in which the Center clearly promotes the market economy; in cities like Shenzhen and Guangzhou that were China’s earliest reform and opening cities, there is no shame associated with words like “sale”, “trade”, or “making money”. Art, if required can also be an exchange of goods. However, Shenzhen and Guangzhou are viewed in China as a “cultural desert”, this means that people in the two cities lack an understanding and awareness of art, not to mention the ideological positions concealed within a work of art. The background also means that those modernist works can escape from the political oversight of official ideology in a city that does not understand culture or art. In fact, in official vetting of exhibitions by the local Department of Culture, eight works by Wang Guangyi from his Great Criticism series that included his Marlboro works were not allowed to be shown as in the rest of China, but because the ideology of the market prevails and is supported in Guangzhou, the artist was able to apply, pay a fee, and have the decision overturned. [6]
In short, Huang Zhuan at this time felt keenly that “the commercialization of serious works of art, or the establishment of an art market with true meaning allows us essentially to appreciate the world significance in the history of modern art”. [7]
An artist, unlike a critic, is not concerned with rational discourse, and artists instinctively perceive, and respond to, new things. When Wang Guangyi responded to questions about money, he had this to say:
I am an artist, and I believe money and art are good things. Only after thousands of years did humans discover that only art and money could bring joy and contemplation. As an artist I love money like ordinary people, but unlike ordinary people who use money to live a luxurious life, an artist uses money to maintain a mythic image. The more awesome the myth of an artist, the more valuable his works are. Within this the metaphysics of a myth has the function of converting a mundane myth into a rule. The relationship between these two aspects mutually advances the art process, and it should be said that the negative and positive aspects of these “Matthew effects” phenomena in contemporary art enclose the birth and death of the myth of artists, critics and the art market. [8]
Even when discussing mundane problems, Wang Guangyi also tends to use wise words to that draw towards the metaphysical nature of the problem.
Older artists had a somewhat different reaction to the market; from the outset they kept a wary eye on the market, as is evident from He Duoling’s answer to an interviewer’s question:
I do want to be around markets and I am not able to do a boss’ bidding. So far I have not had a boss who wants me to paint this or paint something. They’ve all said to me: paint what you want. Of course some bosses will say they like something or that this has a certain effect when they are offering advice, but I usually ignore this. Even if the work can’t sell, I will try a different way of making money. [9]
He Duoling was dealing with something quite different from the Castelli-style commercial galleries, but he still used the word “exploitation”, as when he said: “My painting Little Di sold in Japan for $US 16,000, but most of that went to the exhibition organizers so that after I only received RMB13,000 yuan, which for me is an example of exploitation”. The uncertainty of the art market made him feel uncomfortable, so that he even thought of buying back paintings he had sold, although he was never faced with having to put this idea into practice.
Zhang Peili, a major conceptual artist, when asked about the relationship between art and money, answers in a way that is as obscure as his art works. He said that “commercialization” made him think of “alienation”. Obviously, he had not thought deeply about such question as what society was without “alienation”. The concept had emerged in the 1980s in the course of intellectual debates about early Marxism and here the artist must have viewed “alienation” as something negative and disagreeable. In discussing the commercialization of art, he said:
There is no denying that business enables the realization of today’s art projects, such as Walter De Maria’s Vertical Earth Kilometer, and this cannot be regarded as something that many people would have found reassuring. But the business community benefited contemporary art in its attack on other current art, although the influence remained rather subdued. [10]
Zhang Peili had no confidence in the art market per se and was very wary about art market trends, and in this he was more anxious about the dissipation of the significance of art than his classmate Wang Guangyi. He said: “The great temptation with commercialization is that few people care about the loss of meaning, and more people unreservedly accept an alienated reality. As a result of this change is that at the same time that contemporary art has developed, it has lost its positive spirit and vitality”. [11]
In the early 1990s as the market atmosphere intensified, Shao Dazhen, professor of fine arts history at the Central Academy of Art also discussed the art market in the pages of Art·Market. Citing the experiences of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Van Gogh as examples, he explained how art prices and value are likely to be asymmetrical. He expressed a hope that “the demarcation lines between exploratory and academic art and so-called ‘commercial” would become increasingly smaller, until they disappear, and at that time people could determine the selling price of artworks in line with true value”. [12]
Prior to the 1990s, the Chinese art world had almost no contact with the market, and so naturally could not anticipate about the difficult problems associated with the market. Those born in the 1940s and 1950s understood the capitalist world from the novels of Balzac, Dickens, and Victor Hugo, as well as from the writings of Marx and others. For two generations capitalist society was regarded as an evil abyss. Marx’s mention of capitalists earning 300% profits made students in classrooms shiver in fear. A deeper reason for this was that after the Communist regime assumed power in China in 1949, the country broke off relations with Western countries. Political, economic, and cultural influences came from the Soviet Union, but later Mao Zedong made the decision to even cut off these resources coming from the Soviet Union. In the 1960s, Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping tried to experiment with some capitalist economic ideas, but after 1966 those in authority alleged to be “taking the capitalist road” were overthrown and lost political power. Therefore, the “market” naturally became a pejorative political and ideological term. In the “Cultural Revolution” period a classic political slogan maintained that “weeds of socialism are preferable to shoots of capitalism!” The basic meaning of the slogan was that in socialist China, no trace of capitalism was allowed to survive. In 1992, however, Deng Xiaoping, in his grip on the Party’s power, wanted those who doubted that the “market” was appropriate for China to shut their mouths and not dispute the case; this gave “the market” legitimacy and anyone could use the market to achieve their goals. Thus, ideological control was again undermined. The artists in the official artists’ associations who had no opportunities to organize exhibitions now had the concept of a fantasy market, even though none of these people knew anything at all about the art market, but they were gradually learning that the market was the only thing that would allow them and their art to survive. After 1990 this was the basic context faced by Chinese artists.
With a somewhat absurd idealism, fourteen critics formed a committee of review for what would be called the “Guangzhou Biennale” to be held in October 1992 in the Central Hotel in Guangzhou. At the opening ceremony in the grand hall of the hotel, to the accompaniment of music by Mozart, the award-winning artists took their place on the podium. Each of artists was asked to give short speeches and Shang Yang had this to say: “One history is over, and another begins”.
However, after the biennale’s academic seminar was held in South China Botanical Gardens in Guangzhou, critic Li Xianting responded to Shang Yang’s declaration by asking: the history of the past is unending so how can a new history begin? Li Xianting was, of course, commenting on the country’s political system, and at a time when there had been no fundamental change in the political system people could not talk of the end of an era, let alone of a new historical beginning. As Li Xianting saw it at this time blind market building could not overturn the political rules of the past, which could basically only be achieved by overturning the old ideology and political system. Only this time, the threat from the art market had begun, but people like Li Xianting were saddened by this. [13]
The Guangzhou Biennale’s official title evoked the name of the Guangzhou Fair, so people could see that the biennale referred to exhibition business; the organizers strategically only included oil painting in the unwieldy official name of the biennale, but mixed media works could later be included. However, those critics involved in the organization and curatorial work of the biennale were well aware that this was an attempt to take advantage of a loophole in the system and that new art could hopefully break new ground and develop. To demonstrate the goals of the “Guangzhou Biennale”, an article titled “Moving towards the Market” provided a description of the exhibition:
History focused on the development of metaphysical art is coming to an end. In other words, the art of Chin in the 1990s will comprehensively move towards the market.
There is no doubt that the essence of art’s move to the market is seeking financial support. Such claims will be ethically condemned, but money in itself does not in fact have any a priori moral character or color and it has from the beginning been subject to morality defined by different sectors of society. Today, the view that money is the source of all evil should give way to the view money forms the basic premise for awareness of the development of contemporary culture. The market in which money circulates is not a vat of corrosive culture and art, but rather a cultural production machine. In contemporary society, if an art work is separated from gallery business, the practical actions of agents and brokers, the sound of the gavel in auction houses, and the operations of the financial banking system, not to mention the publishers, legal bodies, insurance agencies, industrial and commercial tax agencies who provide direct or indirect support, then any “success” that might accrue to it would be incredible. Once an artwork is regarded as an independent “entity” and then entrusted to society in the hope that society will affirm it, the abstract “entity” no longer exists, unless it is “actualized” through the operations of various social roles based on certain rules. The lubricants that constitute market mechanisms are manifested in monetary form. [14]
At this time, very few people like such statements and their aggressive tenor, which was in stark contrast to the concern many artists had about the marketplace. [15]
In fact, the “Guangzhou Biennale” created a number of problems that long prompted criticism: award winning artists did not receive their prizes, many artists’ works were not returned to them, and there was the commercial flavor of the exhibition itself. For several years, many of the artists who participated in the “Guangzhou Biennale” shied away from including their participation in the Biennale in their resumes, and only later when the art market was booming and the relationship between art and the market was no longer a problem did artists begin to cite their participation in this event. In any case, within the system the “Guangzhou Biennale” used market forces to open up a new space, and people saw it as foretaste of future structures to be put in place; it was through the efforts of the critics who participating in the Biennale that meant this exhibition provided an example for later exhibitions. The Preamble of the Biennale stated:
The Biennale is different from any exhibition that has been held on the Chinese mainland. In the economic background of its operations, “investment” replaced the “sponsorship” of the past; in the subject of its operations, the company replaced the cultural institutions of the past; in operational procedures, the legally binding contract replaced the administrative “notice” of the past; in the academic background of its operations, the evaluation committee composed of critics replaced the “selection team” of the past that had relied mainly on artists; in operational aims, the “overall effectiveness” of the economic, social, and academic spheres replaced the unitary, narrow and endless struggle for “artistic success”. These characteristics of the “Biennale” make it clear that Chinese art history in the 1990s had really begun. [16]
In any case, the rules of the game in the 1990s really came from the West, and the vast majority of contemporary artists had great hopes of participating in international exhibitions. After Chang Tsong-Zung of Hong Kong’s Hanart TZ Gallery staged “Post 89 New Art from China” in 1993, and Achille Bonito Oliva staged “Passage to the Orient” at the 45th Venice Biennale, Chinese contemporary art entered the international arena because of the “market” and other channels and a new artistic environment began. [17]
When the contemporary art market began in the 1990s, the Guardian Auction Company held the first auction of contemporary art works in 1993. However, the Chinese contemporary art market performed spectacularly beginning in 2004 and continuing until 2008 before the global financial crisis, and art followers around the world were shocked at the prices Chinese contemporary art fetched at auction houses. But in the 1980s, the modernist and contemporary artists whose concepts, ideas, styles, skills, interests, and psychology were at odds with official art standards never had a chance, given the double pressures of politics and ideology. Now, regardless of whether the market in future brings possibilities or poor results, Chinese art must negotiate the market passage, even if it leads to heaven or hell.
NOTES:
[1] See: Central Documentation Publishing House ed., Chronicle of Deng Xiaoping, 2004, pp.1272-1273.
[2] See: Central Documentation Publishing House ed., Chronicle of Deng Xiaoping, 2004, p.1343.
[3] Of the Four Cardinal Principles, the key principle is upholding the leadership of the Party.
[4] Art·Market, 1992:6.
[5] Art·Market, 1992:6.
[6] After the Biennale was announced a review was conducted by the Cultural Bureau. The leadership of the Bureau (a Deputy-Director) and two subordinates looked at the works to be exhibited, and finally demanded that works by eight artists could not be exhibited, among which was Wang Guangyi’s Great Criticism: Marlboro. In fact, as far as I know, from 1949 onwards, no Chinese enterprise had ever invested in an art exhibition. There was no provision for this in the national art system and it was also in conflict with the ideological criteria of the government institutions that controlled art. The Guangzhou Biennale was therefore not a national exhibition staged by the government’s cultural and art institutions. This was a big problem that concerned me, and even though the Western Sichuan Company (Xi Shu Gongsi) had submitted exhibition application files, the Biennale could not be compared with the system governing exhibitions to that point in time, so where did this exhibition find its legitimacy? However, in the context of the market economy and by virtue of introductions from people with whom I was familiar, the exhibition’s organizing committee received a simple approval from the Bureau. However, this does not mean that the government authorities would not inspect the content of the exhibition. The question now was to provide the eight banned artists with the opportunity to exhibit, not to mention awarding Wang Guangyi’s work first prize. I said at the Biennale that these artists’ works may be canceled, however, but the sponsors should return the RMB 300 yuan application fee to the artists. The boss of the Western Sichuan Company Luo Haiquan said that corporate practice was that such money was generally not returned, as is normally stipulated by contract. If the Cultural Bureau did not allow these works to be exhibited, the question was whether the Bureau could be invited to address the issue of returning the participation fee to the artists. This logic did not make any sense, of course, but at a time when all of society was becoming increasingly familiar with the market, people sometimes start thinking about and dealing with problems in accordance with market logic rather than ideological criteria. The Bureau’s leadership apparently was not prepared, nor did it know how to implement its will, and the standards for inspecting arts were not clear-cut and when they could only rely on themselves to address the specific situation, they did not adhere to standard ideological practice. In short, I can’t remember their final comments, but no one wanted to refund the application fee of the artists (which came to RMB 2400 Yuan) and eventually everything petered out into nothing, and all eight pieces went on display. Ref: Lü Peng, Remembering the Early Nineties, unpublished.
[7] Art·Market, 1992:6.
[8] Art·Market, 1991:1.
[9] Art·Market, 1991:2.
[10] Art·Market, 1991:3.
[11] Art·Market, 1991:3. However, at that time he predicted: “But when we compare the earlier and later circumstances of those artists whose work is recognized as successful, you can still find some problems. The so-called career peak when the successful work appears is often after they attract commercial interest. As soon as their prices rise or stabilize at a high level, they also lose their previous allure. It is difficult to say, in turn, that this has no relationship to money, because at the same time as money is a sign of success, it also signifies the end of an artist’s artistic life, or to say the least, is the end of a golden age”. The truth of this statement was demonstrated by later events. An important period for Chinese contemporary art was the 1990s and the earlier experimental period of 1980s. After the year 2000, and especially after the 2004 art price “blowout”, the whole group of artists ended their golden age.
[12] Art·Market, 1992:8.
[13] I described this phenomenon in a memoir：
In fact, I would like to stress that the core problem was establishing the market system. The Guangzhou Biennale was simply the beginning of critics attempting to establish a system of art. However, people had just woken from a political nightmare, and given the many years in which an ideological judgment regarding money and markets was in place (socialist countries had to reject the consciousness of the bourgeoisie and the capitalist system) and there was an incomplete understanding of the history of art, linking art and money made many people nervous. On October 26, according to Shang Yang, Li Xianting has expressed a different view at the conference at the South China Botanical Gardens Pavilion in Guangzhou, history has not changed and it is what it always was. He was of course referring to the political system. I also participated in the discussion that afternoon. I knew that the artists and critics who came to Guangzhou from other parts of China wanted to understand and discuss the Guangzhou Biennale before it opened and this created a lot of problems. Fan Di’an, for example, said: “This biennial exhibition is ultimately backed by a company that aims to make a profit. The participation of critics cannot be regarded as genuine participation, because the critics are actually employees of the company”. (See: Jiangsu Art Monthly, 1993:2) In this regard, I was hoping to take the opportunity provided by the conference to explain the issues one by one. I pointed out that at the Guangzhou Biennale there was no connection between the business investment or business purposes and the academic accreditation committee, to ensure that critics participating in the committee remained independent; at this time I referred in particular to how the relationship between the “market” and money was not simply an economic issue, but a problem of the particular time and was even a cultural issue. On that day the most memorable statement was that of Li Xianting. He was of the view that the Guangzhou Biennale and the Documentation Exhibition Wang Lin was at the same time in the planning at the Guangzhou Academy were both examples of malignant idealism. He said that Lü Peng sitting to his right had already “fallen into the trap of business”, while Wang Lin sitting on his left, “is too pessimistic, and wants to shut himself off. Before I came to Guangzhou I was enthusiastic but now I’m here I’m very disappointed and very concerned that modern art is being overwhelmed by business”. At this point Li Xianting stopped, and people in the vicinity could clearly saw that his eyes were filled with tears, and the whole meeting was alarmed. Ref: Lü Peng, Remembering the Early Nineties, unpublished.
[14] Jiangsu Art Monthly, 1992:10; Art·Market, 1992:8.
[15] After this article appeared in Jiangsu Art Monthly, the magazine received more than one hundred letters from readers criticizing it.
[16] Art·Market, 1992:8.
[17] From 1989 to June 1993 Chinese artists and critics had participated in a number of international exhibitions: in 1989 Fei Dawei curated a show in Pourrieres, France titled Chine Demain pour Hier and worked with Jean-Hubert Martin on the Magiciens de la Terre exhibition in Paris; in 1991 Leo Ou-Fan Lee and Zheng Shengtian collaborated on a show in New York titled I Don’t Want to Play Cards with Cezanne and Other Works: Selections from the Chinese New Wave and Avant-Garde Art of The Eighties; in 1992 helped curate Chinese works at Kassel Documenta and Kong Chang’an helped curate Cocart Bevete Arte Contemporarea in Milan, Italy; at the beginning of 1993, Shi Andi helped curate China Avant-garde in Berlin, while Li Xianting and Johnson Chang co-curated Post-89 New Art China in Hong Kong and Mao Goes Pop in Sydney, Australia.