I was at the Hong Kong art fair last weekend. It was not as big as the Frieze art fair of London for example, but this was the place to buy Chinese artworks it seems.
Christie’s had an enormous adjacent section, maybe even bigger than the fair itself. The quantity and quality of the Chinese contemporary art displayed was truly amazing. They also had ancient Chinese artefacts, watches, wine and many other things to sell, anything that is utterly expensive and related to the established idea of a cultural lifestyle.
Looking at the proportion of westerners salesmen in the art galleries, I wonder how much Chinese is the Chinese contemporary art scene. It is mainly a brand used to give an illusion of diversity in the art market, with some characteristics easy to recognize for the consumers. It works just like Stella Artois and Budweiser, they belong to the same group of people, and the rest is a question of market profiling.
With years, I appreciate more and more contemporary artworks, and I trust less and less the rationales that govern their production.
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