Monday, March 5, 2012

Entering Art Competitions - Nine Tips to Making Your Experience Rewarding

When you are ready to enter your artwork in local art competitions, here are nine art tips that can help make this a great experience.

Art Competition Jurors

One of the favorite pastimes of entrants is trying to predict the kind of artwork a particular juror will accept, based on that juror's painting style. Sometimes picking your entries in this way works and you get in, but I've also seen jurors choose an eclectic mix of styles and subjects, only some of which were like their own.

Art Tip # 1 - My advice is just enter your best work - art that shows skillful use of your painting medium, a well-designed composition and an image that shows creativity. These are three important criteria of most jurors.

When you enter your best artwork, you are showing your strengths. After that, it is up to the juror and his or her viewpoint. And you'll just have to accept the vagaries of the judging process. As a more extreme example of what can happen, I once had the same juror for two different shows. I entered the same painting in both art competitions and the juror rejected it from the first show and gave it an award in the later one. A nationally known artist told me a similar story about a painting of his. It was rejected from one national show and won Best of Show in another. I'm pretty sure he didn't have my juror.

Photographing Your Art

Art Tip # 2 - The second most important factor you control, after painting a great piece of art, is taking a good photograph of it. This is what the juror sees to judge your art; it needs to represent you well.

The picture should, of course, be in focus and show colors that closely match your art, so become proficient at shooting your own work or find a professional to do it.

What people who take pictures of their own art may not realize is the lighting conditions affect the color of your picture. Just like the old film cameras, shooting pictures with a digital camera using incandescent light bulbs will turn your picture more orange. Using fluorescent lights can turn the pictures greenish. Shooting outside when the sky is overcast can create a bluish tint, so look at your pictures closely before entering them.

A lot of people make the mistake of leaving their digital camera set on Automatic. To get the color in your picture to match your artwork, you need to understand how to set the White Balance. Every time you shoot under different lighting conditions you should reset the White Balance. Check your manual for how to do this on your camera.

Another award and entry killer is not submitting your entry in the required format with the required information. Always read the art contest prospectus. It's amazing how many people don't follow instructions, which instantly converts their entry fee into a donation.

Art Tip # 3 - Film is going away, so my advice is to become familiar with how to prepare and send digital pictures.

Art competitions that require digital entries often want your pictures to be formatted in a specific way. The prospectus will often say your entry should have a black background and be X number of pixels square. If you don't want to buy software (like Photoshop or Photoshop Elements) that will help you do that, there are free internet sites you can also use to format your pictures.

Framing your art

Okay, you've been accepted into an art competition. There is another important decision to make. How well are you going to frame your work?

Art Tip # 4 - Often, the juror doesn't pick the award-winning art until he or she can see the actual work. Your whole presentation affects that decision.

Matting and framing your art well are very important for two reasons.

Reason 1: If you have a nice piece of art surrounded by a cheap-looking frame or a frame that's scratched or dented, you've just reduced the award-worthiness of your work in the eyes of the juror.

If you also have your art surrounded by gaudy or inappropriately colored mats, you've lowered your chances of an award even further. It's best to be conservative. Use white or off-white mats.

Reason 2: If an art buyer likes your art and would consider purchasing it, he or she often wants to be able to take it home and immediately hang it on their wall. If she feels she needs to spend more money to re-frame your art more appropriately, she is likely to decide it isn't worth the wait, the cost, or the hassle.

Art Tip # 5 - My advice is to frame your work as well as your budget will allow. If your work doesn't sell, you can always reuse the frame for other art in other shows...but take into consideration Tip # 6.

Art Tip # 6 - Ask yourself: How experienced are the people hanging the show?

Let me explain. At one time I used to enter some of the smaller local art shows. The problem that changed my mind about this was I had so many frames scratched and ruined because they were badly handled. I use nice frames for my art - not the really high-end ones, but not the cheap ones either. In the smaller shows, what happened at times was the art was stored with the back of one piece of art leaning against the front of another. When that is done the screws on the back of one frame can easily scratch the frame or artwork behind it.

Small art shows and small organizations may have volunteers who have little or no experience handling art. In these small shows especially, you have to make a judgment call as to how expensively to frame your work.

I am much more trusting if the show venue is a professional gallery, since they have experience handling and hanging art.

Glass for Your Frame

If you create art that needs to be framed under glass, you've got another decision to make. Do you use regular glass or the more expensive, non-reflective glass?

Art Tip # 7 - Use the best glass you can afford.

As expensive as it is, let me explain why I'm a strong proponent of non-reflective glass. Some years ago I was accepted into an art competition at a gallery. Normally, galleries have track lighting that can be positioned to reduce reflections.

Unfortunately, my art (under regular glass) was hung on a wall facing the front windows. When the sun was shining on the street outside, the scene outside was all you could see reflected in my glass. This is a very effective way to guarantee you get neither a sale nor an award.

But, being a slow learner, I continued using regular glass until a weekend a few years later. I had registered to display my art in an art fair. Now in an art fair, the artist pays for space to set up his canopy or tent to show and hopefully sell his work.

Tents for this use are almost always white, as was mine. The white walls of my rented tent set up a reflective situation that the lights I was using could not overcome.

Standing in front of some of the art was almost like standing in front of a mirror. Again, the only way to actually see the art was to stand off to the side. I had one sale that weekend.

I may be a slow learner, but eventually the lesson does sink in. Since that disastrous weekend I have used nothing but non-reflective glass. It is almost as expensive as gold, but it works very well and eliminates a very important headache.

Shipping your art

You might decide at some point to enter an art contest in another area, where you will need to ship your art.

Art Tip # 8 - Total all your costs before you enter a competition, because the costs add up quickly.

First, you need to buy a sturdy box to ship your painting. Air Float Systems (www.airfloatsys.com) carry boxes made especially for shipping art. The boxes are very sturdy, but they are not cheap. Or, you can build something similar to the Air Float boxes by purchasing a mirror box (available at U Haul and other packing stores) and some foam.

Second, the art group organizing the show will designate a local shipping agent to receive your entry. The agent will unpack your art, deliver it to the show venue, pick it up after the show, repack it in your box and ship it back to you. The fee for this may be several hundred dollars in addition to the expense of your box and your original shipping costs.

Art Tip # 9 - Never enter more pieces of art than you are prepared to deliver.

If you call the art show organizer and try to weasel out of shipping one or more of your pieces that got accepted, you are not going to get a sympathetic ear. Or, if you just don't deliver all of the art that was accepted, you could, depending on the rules of that art competition, be banned from entering for several years.

So remember: Do your planning well ahead and follow these tips you are much more likely to have a rewarding experience when entering art competitions.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Western Painting - Art Brut - Beyond Boundaries

Art Brut-History
Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), a French painter and sculptor, invented the word Art Brut, which means 'Rough Art' or 'Raw Art.' 'Outsider Art' is the English synonym for Art Brut, devised by an art critic Roger Cardinal, in 1972. Jean was an avant-garde painter, who departed from the painting world for 17 years, from 1925 to 1942. Upon Jean's return to painting, his focus and painting style had changed into one of the simple and prehistoric images. He switched his focus towards art drawn by children, the insane, and schizophrenics.

The Details
The term Art Brut is used in a board sense. This creative Western Art form is beyond the boundaries and the rules of traditional or mainstream artistry. This art form is raw and pure. Art Brut artists have no influence of cultural complexities and art institutions. Their artwork is totally different and independent of the mainstream art form, such as drawings, paintings, sculptures, and the other outdoor creations. In effect, artists with no formal training or Naive artists create Outside Art and are categorized as a separate niche genre.

The main advantage of raw art is that it is ahead of the hierarchical and the historical horizons of mainstream art. It is attractive, appealing, and fascinating. These artists are original and have unconventional, innovative, and creative ideas, as they do not modify, alter, and mediate the unique creative expressions. These artists select enigmatic topics, and are least concerned about the good opinion of others. In addition, Art Brut artists live and work forthright. They do not even believe in keeping their work a secret.

The Correlations
Art Brut includes nearly all the art forms, such as Folk Art, Tramp Art, and Primitive Art. In fact, Raw Art, Folk Art, Intuitive/Visionary Art, Marginal/Singuiler Art, Naive Art, Neue Invention, and Visionary Environments are interchangeable terms in Outsider Art.

Scope
Fame comes with smart marketing, publicity, and a good platform. Art Brut lacks all this, as the artists are creating things for their own, personal pleasure. Therefore, art connoisseurs and art collectors have always been skeptical about raw art, due to its limitless scope. There is often a prevalent intrigue about the uniqueness and the worth of Art Burt. Art lovers are also left wondering regarding the levels of creativity an untrained mind can have. Despite all these arguments and question marks raw art grew, and is widely practiced today.

Art Brut Examples
There are numerous notable raw art or Outsider Artists, who have contributed towards this art form, such as Adolf Wolfli - a Swiss artist; Nek Chand - an Indian, who achieved high reputation for his sculpture garden called 'Rock Garden;' Ferdinand Cheval - a postal worker in Hauterives, was motivated by his dream, and spent around 33 years in constructing 'Palais Ideal.'

Ownership
Raw art is the visual formation at its best. It is an impulsive spiritual flow from brain to paper. In 1991, 'Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art' was formed in Chicago. The organization is dedicated to Art Brut. Its non-profit museum that helps the Outsider Artists research, exhibit, and promote their art. Henry Darger, Joseph Yoakum, Lee Godie, William Dawson, David Philpot, and Wesley Willis are some of the key Brut Artists associated with Intuit.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Why Replicate Art

Have you ever thought about why art has been replicated. What benefits has it given us, and has it hurt art in any way, because of it.

So lets get on the Soap-Box and get down to the nitty-gritty on the replication of art, and simply..... what it means to you.

Original Art

Lets go back to the time where there were no replications of art work; with the exception of the artist having to re-do another copy of their own art. So in a fact, you could hardly call it a replica, could you............. as any art re-done, will always be a bit different, by the artist hand.

Artists would painstakingly do their work and sell them piece by piece. Now, there were the times when someone would see this same art piece and want one for their very own. That's where the artist would have to go back to the start, and re-paint or sculpt their art work, all over again.

If you were an artist of means, and already had a reputation - you could get one of your (underlings), your apprentice artists to re-do your art work for you. And the main artist might just add the finished touches to the art work, to add their style.

Its no different to the writers of books in the Olden days. There were no printing presses in those days.

So it was the monks in the monasteries that devoted much of their time to hand writing all the pages of a book. That's right! - writing all those pages. Tedious work, when you think that you have just finished the last page of a book, and your instructions were to write the whole book all over again. Would make you feel as though you would want to through the book out the window. But being a monk, I'm sure they were devoted to their work, or they had a strong constitution.

So... as you could imagine, works of art would have been quite expensive for an original. Of course there were the exceptions, if you were an artist with no name. Selling your piece of art work for a pittance could well have gone on in those days and not so long ago either. Lets face it! the more well known an artist became, the higher the price they can ask for their art work.

Replicating Art

With the emergence of the Industrial revolution, the printing press and the like. Mechanization came about. Now, in the earlier days, they weren't clever enough to replicate forms such as art. And art replication didn't really come into full force, as it has done these days.

Compared to the written word. Books have been sold to the masses for many years now. With the printing press, came the ability to print off many a book at a cheep and fast amount. (beats writing a whole book over and over again).

Oh' I have neglected to say that the form of sculpture, had succeeded to be replicated into editions long ago in the form of "hot cast bronze". But I can say that even today, the process of casting in bronze is still an intricate and expensive business. I know... getting a cast finished bronze sculpture out of the foundry, still cost a pretty penny today!

So... books became cheaper, because of the emergence of the printing press, thus, books were able to be sold at a much cheaper price, and this lead to the average person with a meager amount of money being able to afford buying books. So more education to the masses. Yippee!

Its Advantages

So, as the emergence of copying came about with paintings, in the form of printers, and how they have advanced these days. It's great for the artist! now we can have reprinted art prints, in limited editions our art work, sketches too. Copies of our work to be sold at a much cheaper price, and this sells more of our art work. Making it so much more viable for artists to bring in more money.

But it also has its down side... every artist can sell their art in such a way, having their work reproduced fat very competitive prices. There are many companies popping up on the internet these days. Offering artists the ability to re- produce their art work in exquisite reproductions.

So here comes the masses. The competition, more and more art can be bought by the public, and there is allot to choose from. Artists compete with each other, especially on the internet, where you sell your art prints beside other fellow artists. Now don't get me wrong. There has always been competition when it comes to anyone doing the same thing, Whether it be blacksmithing or trade. And is comes down to the taste of the public, your style of work. and depicting what might sell at the time.

What is does give to the artist, is the chance to sell their works at a lower price and in multitude. Now being a buyer of art as well, yes.. us artists do love buying other artists works as well.

If I saw a piece of art work and wanted one for myself, I now have the chance to buy one. If the original had sold, no problem.... buying one of the limited editions is not only cheaper; its also just of the same quality. Bearing in mind..... once the limited edition is sold out, you have to go back to hunting around for someone who owns one of the prints and wants to re-sell it. So don't be complacent in ordering your limited edition copy of art when you see it.

What Art Replication means for the Future

The replication of art is here to stay, and it gives anybody the chance of owning their own beloved art piece, and that's really good. Not only does it gain a new following and appreciation of art with people who might have very well ignored the world of art, because they couldn't afford it. Or stand, with their faces staring up at the wall at galleries, admiring works of art they would otherwise not be able to own themselves..

And maybe we may cringe a little at not owning an original painting. But who would go out and mortgage their house for one of these famous paintings, don't think so.

Limited edition prints are gaining their own worth as well. So be proud to have one. And when the limited edition sells out, then you have an investment that will gain in price as it gets older. And if the artist becomes more well known.

I welcome the emergence of reproduction art, and the chance it has given everyone to be able to own their own art works. It not only make art more accessible to the people. It helps people gain appreciation of art.

Art and the replication of it has come of age, and there is no better chance for the person on the street to become an art collector in their own right. I for one applaud this!

Sure, its given the artist competition out there, sure there are reproductions out there that grace many walls and mantle pieces. And it opens up the opportunities for the public to own different art works for themselves.

No longer does the artist have to hard sell their work, because they have put so much work into their art; and a hefty price tag to boot! we can relax and sell our art work in the knowledge that it wont break the bank for people to buy a piece of our art work. And the spreading of so much more art work around the world can only make life not only much more colorful and interesting. It brings your senses more to life with such art work around their own homes.

With more of the appreciation of art going to the people, not only delights the senses, it also feeds our interests. Say if you were interested in landscapes, or a specific animal. Having those replications of you interests in the form of art, there for you to enjoy in your own space and show off to others, gives allot of self satisfaction.

So go out there, or surf on the web and get your next art piece, there has never been a better time to start collecting, at a more affordable price, variety and choice. Happy Buying! or should I say Art Collecting.

Permission to reproduce if byline stays intact, courtesy copy appreciated; not required.

Friday, March 2, 2012

Key Art Concepts in Various Ages - An Insight

Art is a human creative skill or talent, which is demonstrated through imaginative designs, sounds, or ideas. Key Art Concepts have always been an integral part of our histories. Lifestyles, Events, and Cultures, of an era or civilization have been the Key Art Concepts, depicted through the prevailing art forms of those times.

Different Key Art Concepts have evolved thorough different eras, with the changing artists' perceptions of processing, analyzing, and responding to various art forms. Their creative expressions have been explored by their creation, performance, and participation in arts. Each historical era has given novel contribution of historical and cultural contexts for developing the Key Arts Fundamentals of the relevant period. Visual Arts help artists assimilate the Key Arts Concepts of Symmetry, Color, Pattern, Contrast and the differences between 1 or more elements in the composition. The Key Art Concepts of Visual Arts help understand and distinguish between the dimensions such as, Symmetry & Asymmetry, Positive & Negative Space, Light & Dark, Solid & Transparent, and Large & Small.

A perusal of different ages, throws light at the diverse Key Art Concepts prevalent in those times. The Pre-Historic Art / Paleolithic (2 million years ago-130000 B.C) Key Art Concepts can be deciphered from the Stone Carvings on the ancient Cave Walls. The art works depict hunting, nomadic life, and the flora & the fauna of that age. Greek and Roman Key Art Concepts were considered the epitome of Art in the ancient period. The traditional Greek Key Art Concepts spread throughout Central Asia, due to the conquests of Alexander the great. This affected the existing Art Concepts of Central Asia for the next few centuries. The Hellenic influence in those times was extremely strong in these regions. Key Art Concepts of this phase include but are not limited to Column Bases and Architectural Details (typical of Greeks), Numismatics, Ceramic, Plastic Arts, and Terracotta figurines of semi-nude Greek and local deities, heroes, and mystical characters.

Medieval and Renaissance Art runs from Byzantine Period, to Romanesque, to Gothic Styles, to the beginning of Islamic Art, to Renaissance and to the acceptance of Christian Art.

The history of Modern Art started with Impressionism and continued its revolution with time. These artists preferred to paint outdoors and studied the effect of light on objects. These Key Art Trends continued until the early 18th century. Vibrant colors were introduced to Art to bring pictures to life. This Key Arts Fundamental was called Fauvism. Expressionism was the German version of Fauvism. The subsequent Key Art Concepts revolutions were Art Nouveau and Art Deco Movements. They were novice Art concepts with high decorative styles.

The Art Nouveau Concept stresses on decorative art. It was later termed as first modern Key Art Concept. For the first time, art dealt with modern Psychology and Sensuality. Art Deco was a design style, which was a follow up of Art Nouveau. These Key Art Fundamentals dominated the mass production of fashion, furniture, jewellery, textile, architecture, and interior decoration artworks.

Anon came up with Cubism, where images were converted to cubes, or other geometrical figures. Surrealism followed, emphasizing on the unconscious mind and the interpretation of dreams. A potential Key Art Concept, Abstract Art, then reached this. Abstract Art is all about creativity with abstract joining. Pop Art Movement and Optical Art Movement brought art back into the daily lives of masses, through simple sketching and comics. They considered abstract art too sophisticated and elite for the general masses to appreciate. Modern art gave way to Photography, Visual Graphics, and 3D Animation in the later years.

Through ages, Key Art Concepts have been in charge of the various art forms. These Art Concepts reflected the influence of Cultures and Psychology of all times. The Key Art Concepts help artists understand how the critics & the historians go about their practices, how they make selections, interpretations, and judgments.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Art Paintings From Your Photo

The market for Chinese contemporary art has developed at a feverish pace, becoming the single fastest-growing segment of the international art market. Since 2004, prices for works by Chinese contemporary artists have increased by 2,000 percent or more, with paintings that once sold for under $50,000 now bringing sums above $1 million. Nowhere has this boom been felt more appreciably than in China, where it has spawned massive gallery districts, 1,600 auction houses, and the first generation of Chinese contemporary-art collectors.

This craze for Chinese contemporary art has also given rise to a wave of criticism. There are charges that Chinese collectors are using mainland auction houses to boost prices and engage in widespread speculation, just as if they were trading in stocks or real estate. Western collectors are also being accused of speculation, by artists who say they buy works cheap and then sell them for ten times the original prices-and sometimes more.

Those who entered this market in the past three years found Chinese contemporary art to be a surefire bet as prices doubled with each sale. Sotheby's first New York sale of Asian contemporary art, dominated by Chinese artists, brought a total of $13 million in March 2006; the same sale this past March garnered $23 million, and Sotheby's Hong Kong sale of Chinese contemporary art in April totaled nearly $34 million. Christie's Hong Kong has had sales of Asian contemporary art since 2004. Its 2005 sales total of $11 million was dwarfed by the $40.7 million total from a single evening sale in May of this year.

These figures, impressive as they are, do not begin to convey the astounding success at auction of a handful of Chinese artists: Zhang Xiaogang, Yue Minjun, Cai Guo-Qiang, Liu Xiaodong, and Liu Ye. The leader this year was Zeng Fanzhi, whose Mask Series No. 6 (1996) sold for $9.6 million, a record for Chinese contemporary art, at Christie's Hong Kong in May.

Zhang Xiaogang, who paints large, morose faces reminiscent of family photographs taken during the Cultural Revolution, has seen his record rise from $76,000 in 2003, when his oil paintings first appeared at Christie's Hong Kong, to $2.3 million in November 2006, to $6.1 million in April of this year.

Gunpowder drawings by Cai Guo-Qiang, who was recently given a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, sold for well below $500,000 in 2006; a suite of 14 works brought $9.5 million last November.

According to the Art Price Index, Chinese artists took 35 of the top 100 prices for living contemporary artists at auction last year, rivaling Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, and a host of Western artists.

"Everybody is looking to the East and to China, and the art market isn't any different," says Kevin Ching, CEO of Sotheby's Asia. "Notwithstanding the subprime crisis in the U.S. or the fact that some of the other financial markets seem jittery, the overall business community still has great faith in China, bolstered by the Olympics and the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010."

There are indications, however, that the international market for Chinese art is beginning to slow. At Sotheby's Asian contemporary-art sale in March, 20 percent of the lots offered found no buyers, and even works by top record-setters such as Zhang Xiaogang barely made their low estimates. "The market is getting mature, so we can't sell everything anymore," says Xiaoming Zhang, Chinese contemporary-art specialist at Sotheby's New York. "The collectors have become really smart and only concentrate on certain artists, certain periods, certain material."

For their part, Western galleries are eagerly pursuing Chinese artists, many of whom were unknown just a few years ago. Zeng Fanzhi, for example, has been signed by Acquavella Galleries in New York, in a two-year deal that exceeds $20 million, according to a Beijing gallerist close to the negotiations; William Acquavella declined to comment. Zhang Xiaogang and Zhang Huan have joined PaceWildenstein, and Ai Weiwei and Liu Xiaodong showed with Mary Boone last spring. Almost every major New York gallery has recently signed on a Chinese artist: Yan Pei Ming at David Zwirner, Xu Zhen at James Cohan, Huang Yong Ping at Gladstone, Yang Fudong at Marian Goodman, Liu Ye at Sperone Westwater. Their works are entering private and public collections that until now have not shown any particular interest in Asian contemporary art.

"The market hasn't behaved as I anticipated," says New York dealer Max Protetch, who has been representing artists from China since 1996. "We all anticipated that the Chinese artists would go through the same critical process that happens with art anywhere else in the world. I assumed that some artists would fall by the wayside, which has not been true. They all have become elevated. It seems like an uncritical market."

One of the key artists buoyed by this success is Zeng Fanzhi, who is best known for his "Mask" series. Five years ago his works sold for under $50,000. Today he commands prices on the primary market closer to $1 million, with major collectors Charles Saatchi and Jose Mugrabi among his fans. Now preparing for his first solo show at Acquavella in December, he is considered one of the more serious artists on the Beijing scene because he works alone, without the horde of assistants found in most other artists' studios in China. Still, his lifestyle is typical of that of his equally successful peers. When asked if he owns a mammoth black Hummer parked outside his studio, he answers, "No, that's an ugly car. I have a G5 Benz."

This success has blossomed under the watchful eye of the Chinese government. Movies, television, and news organizations are strictly censored, but on the whole, the visual arts are not. Despite sporadic incidents of exhibitions being closed or customs officials seizing artworks, by and large the government has supported the growth of an art market and has not interfered with private activity. In the 798 gallery district in Beijing, a Bauhaus-style former munitions complex that has been transformed into the capital's hottest art center, with more than 150 galleries, one finds works addressing poverty and other social problems, official corruption, and new sexual mores. The icons of the former China-happy workers and peasants and heroic soldiers raising the red banner-are treated with irony, if at all, by the artists whose works are on view in these galleries, which are private venues generally not under the strict control of the Ministry of Culture.

On the eve of the Olympics, however, the government asked one gallery to postpone an exhibition until after the games. Considered unsuitable was "Touch," a show by Ma Baozhong at the Xin Beijing Gallery of 15 paintings depicting important moments in Chinese history, including one based on a photograph showing Mao Zedong with the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama in 1954.

The Beijing municipality spent enormous funds to renovate the 798 district before the Olympics, putting in new cobblestone streets and lining its main thoroughfare with cafés. Shanghai, which has benefited less from government support, now boasts at least 100 galleries. Local governments throughout the country are establishing SoHo-style gallery districts to boost tourism.

One person who seems confident about the future of the Chinese market is Arne Glimcher, founder and president of PaceWildenstein, who opened a branch of his gallery in Beijing in August. Located in a 22,000-square-foot cement space with soaring ceilings, redesigned at a cost of $20 million by architect Richard Gluckman, the gallery is in the center of the 798 district. "We are committed to the art, and we wanted to open a gallery where our artists are," says Glimcher. Adding that he normally eschews the "McGallery" trend of setting up satellite spaces around the world, Glimcher insists that it was necessary to establish a branch in Beijing because there is "no local gallery of our caliber" with which Pace could partner. He has, however, recruited Leng Lin, founder of Beijing Commune, another gallery operating in 798, to be his director.

Another Western dealer who has taken the China plunge is Arthur Solway, who recently opened a branch of James Cohan in Shanghai. "I started coming to China five years ago, and I was fascinated by the energy," says Solway, who wanted to introduce gallery artists like Bill Viola, Wim Wenders, and Roxy Paine to Asia but, like Glimcher, could not find a public museum or private gallery that he considered professionally qualified to handle such exhibitions. James Cohan Gallery Shanghai is located on the ground floor of a 1936 Art Deco structure in the French Concession, a particularly picturesque section of the city. The building was once occupied by the military, and red Chinese characters over the front door still exhort, "Let the spirit of Mao Zedong flourish for 10,000 years."

"From 1966 to 1976, during the Cultural Revolution, people had nothing, but now there are spas in Shanghai and people drinking cappuccinos and buying Rolex watches-it's an amazing phenomenon," says Solway, who believes it is only a matter of time before these same newly affluent consumers begin to collect contemporary art.

Chinese collectors-or the hope that there will be Chinese collectors-are the key draw luring these galleries to Beijing. As recently as two years ago, few could name even a single Chinese collector of contemporary art. It was a truism that the Chinese preferred to spend their money acquiring antiquities and classical works. Since then several well-known mainland collectors have emerged on the scene.

Most visible is Guan Yi, the suave, well-dressed heir to a chemical-engineering fortune, who has assembled a museum-quality collection of more than 500 works. A major lender to the Huang Yong Ping retrospective organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 2005, he regularly entertains museum trustees from all over the world, who make the pilgrimage to his warehouse on the outskirts of Beijing. Now he is building his own museum.

Another noted figure is Zhang Lan, head of the South Beauty chain of Szechuan-style restaurants throughout China; she also has assembled an enviable collection and displays pieces from it in her chic establishments. The film actress Zhang Ziyi is representative of a new class of collectors from the entertainment industry, while Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, chairman and CEO of the mammoth SOHO China real estate empire, have commissioned projects for their upscale residential properties.

Two collectors who are cheerleaders for the Beijing art scene are Yang Bin, an automobile-franchise mogul, and Zhang Rui, a telecommunications executive who is also the backer of Beijing Art Now Gallery, which took part in Art Basel in June, one of the first Beijing galleries to appear at the fair. These two do more than collect art. They have hosted dinners for potential collectors, organized tours to Art Basel Miami Beach, and brought friends with them to sales in London and New York. Zhang Rui, who owns more than 500 works, has lent art to international exhibitions, most notably the installation Tomorrow, which features four "dead Beatles" mannequins floating facedown, created by artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu for the 2006 Liverpool Biennial, which rejected it.

Zhang is now building an art hotel, featuring specially commissioned works and artist-designed rooms, outside the Workers' Stadium in the center of Beijing. "I am trying to think of ways of changing my private collection into a public collection," Zhang explained to ARTnews through a translator. It isn't financially advantageous to do this in China, as no tax benefits accrue from donations to museums or other nonprofit institutions.

Zhang Rui represents the handful of Chinese collectors who are public about their activities and are building noteworthy collections. Far more typical of buying activity in China is the rampant speculation taking place in the mainland auction houses. There are 1,600 registered auctioneers, and their sales attract hundreds of bidders. Chinese buyers are more comfortable with auction houses, which have been in business since 1994, than with galleries, which weren't licensed to operate by the government until the late 1990s.

These auction houses run by their own rules, generating what sometimes seems like a "wild, wild East" atmosphere. It is, for example, fairly common for a house to get consignments directly from artists, who then use the sales to establish prices for their works on the primary market. More often, now that China has hundreds of galleries, dealers come to a sale with buyers in tow, publicly bidding up works to establish "record prices" and advertise their artists. This kind of bidding ring would be considered illegal in the United States, but in China it is viewed as a savvy business practice. There is little regulation of auction houses and few developed legal norms in the field, so that even when buyers have grievances-with fakes and forgeries, for example-they do not feel they can resort to the law. Bidding is a social as well as a business activity, and buyers are happy to flaunt their status by paying record prices or quickly flipping artworks, not only for profit but so they can boast of their short-term gains.

As the domestic market for contemporary art matures, however, many of these practices are coming into question. "Two years ago it was more necessary for me to bring my artists to auction," says Fang Fang, owner of Star Gallery in Beijing, which specializes in young emerging artists such as Chen Ke and Gao Yu. "Now that the gallery market has increased, I find it is better to keep my artists out of the auction rooms, and there is much less reason to sell there."

Two mainland firms, Beijing Poly International Auction Company, and China Guardian Auctions Company, dominate the field of contemporary Chinese art. Their combined 2007 total of more than $200 million in sales represented nearly two-thirds of all auction sales in this category in mainland China for the year. Last spring Guardian achieved $142 million in sales of classical artworks, furniture, ceramics, silver, and coins, and $40 million in sales of contemporary material. The latter figure included the $8.2 million fetched by Liu Xiaodong's Hotbed No. 1, a record for a painting sold on the mainland. In a similar range of sales last spring, Poly sold $130 million worth of works, including $27 million in a single evening contemporary-art sale. (These figures represent a slight decline for the year because both houses held benefit sales for Szechuan earthquake victims, raising more than $20 million to support relief efforts.)

Poly and Guardian reflect two vastly different perspectives on the domestic market in Chinese contemporary art. Guardian is the oldest and most respected auction house in China, founded in 1993 by Wang Yannan, daughter of Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party leader who was placed under house arrest after opposing the government's use of force against demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989. If Poly is known for its vast resources and willingness to make deals to nab consignments, Guardian is known for its respected specialists and long-term client relationships. For example, when the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, decided to sell 20 pieces of Qing dynasty porcelain in mainland China, it consigned the collection to Guardian.

The atmosphere of a sale at Poly or Guardian is surprisingly similar to that in the salerooms of Christie's or Sotheby's. The catalogues are identical in design, and the bidding proceeds in an orderly, even sedate, fashion, despite the crowds of spectators in the room.

"From our beginning, we studied what the principles of an auction house should be, and we stick to these principles," says Guardian president Wang. She also serves on the board of the new nationwide auctioneers' association, which hopes to enforce regulations on the auction market.

Poly is an enterprise within the China Poly Group Corporation, a $30 billion conglomerate that is the privatized branch of the People's Liberation Army. Established initially to repatriate artworks and antiquities, Poly has spent $100 million buying objects such as the bronze animal heads from a water-clock fountain that were looted from Beijing's Summer Palace by British and French troops in 1860; the pieces later turned up in the West. The repatriated objects are showcased in the Poly Art Museum in the sparkling New Beijing Poly Plaza, a glass-enclosed tower designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.

The more freewheeling Poly is known for practices such as putting up for auction works from its own collection or having consignors guarantee that they will bring buyers to the sale to meet low estimates. Still, even here there are signs that the market is maturing and has become too expensive for casual speculators. "These collectors that you are talking about are actually quite small collectors," explains Zhao Xu, senior consultant at Poly. "They bought for several years at very affordable prices, but now that prices are skyrocketing, the only way they can afford to buy is to sell. The collectors that I know already come from a high social status, and they can afford to buy pieces worth $1 million or $2 million and are looking for the best works, the masterpieces, to add to their collections."

When asked if Poly follows the rules of the Western auction houses, Zhao sharply retorts, "Sometimes even Sotheby's doesn't follow the rules." Or as Gong Jisui, an art-market specialist who is a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, says, "The Chinese learned this game of speculation from the Westerners who played it first."

The incident to which both men are referring is the sale of the Estella Collection at Sotheby's Hong Kong on April 9 of this year. The event reaped $18 million for 108 works. (An additional 80 works will be up for sale this month at Sotheby's New York.) The collection was put together from 2003 to 2006 by New York dealer Michael Goedhuis for a group of investors that included Sacha Lainovic, a director of Weight Watchers International, and Raymond Debbane, CEO of the Invus Group, a private equity firm.

Last year the collection of approximately 200 works was sold to William Acquavella, who consigned it to Sotheby's. Auction house officials will not discuss financial details, but Sotheby's had a stake in the collection. After the sale it was widely reported that many of the artists were angered by the auction because, they said, they had sold their works to Goedhuis at discount prices in exchange for promises that the collection would remain together for public display.

"The idea was to keep the collection intact and to see it safely into some institution," says Goedhuis, who denies that any promises were made. "The ideal situation was to see it with an institution in China, because there is no such collection." The collection was published in a book, China Onward, with an essay by leading China expert Britta Erickson, and it was exhibited at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem shortly before the sale. According to Goedhuis, because of the rapid rise in prices, the investors chose to sell the collection with hopes that it would not be broken up.

"Since the museums in China aren't mature enough nor are they rich enough to do an acquisition like this, my hope was that Steve Wynn would do so for his sophisticated casino complex in Macao," Goedhuis says. He turned to Acquavella because, he says, he believed the dealer would bring the collection to Wynn; Acquavella paid a reported $25 million. Acquavella director Michael Findlay laughs at the suggestion that there was any indication that the collection would go to Wynn. "I think this whole thing is surrounded by so much rumor and speculation," he says. "We bought a group of paintings, and we sold a group of paintings, and that's the whole story."

According to Maarten ten Holder, Sotheby's managing director for North and South America, the firm received inquiries before the sale from several artists in the collection, wondering why the works were to be auctioned. There is disagreement about whether Goedhuis made firm promises to keep the collection together or merely made a sales pitch to artists that inclusion in the collection would enhance their reputations. Yue Minjun, who had two works in the sale, says no promises were made. And Goedhuis bought Zeng Fanzhi's Chairman Mao with Us from Hanart T Z Gallery in 2005 for the asking price, $30,000, no discount given. It sold for $1.18 million.

"You have to understand that there was no market for this work when I was buying," says Howard Farber, whose collection brought $20 million at Phillips de Pury & Company in London last October. Farber assembled 100 choice works by assiduously visiting artists' studios in Beijing in the late 1980s, accompanied by the Beijing-based critic Karen Smith, a leading author and curator in this field. A work for which he paid $25,000 in 1996, Wang Guangyi's Great Criticism: Coca-Cola, was sold at Phillips de Pury for $1.6 million. The buyer was Farber's son-in-law, Larry Warsh, who bid on several works at the sale, according to newspaper accounts. "I really didn't actually know I was going to buy the Wang Guangyi until that moment," says Warsh. "Howard has his collection, and it's not my collection, and there were many pieces I wanted from that collection that I would have wanted to buy but couldn't afford."

Many Beijing artists had agreements with Warsh to produce work for his collection and his art advisory business, which began in 2004, inspired by Farber's example in the field. "I was enamored by China, and then I was enamored by the art of China as I learned about important artists," says Warsh. "But what really hit me first was how the pricing did not make sense to me at all-everything was out of whack."

Warsh, who amassed a collection of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf in the late 1980s, was the publisher of the now-defunct Museums Magazine, which he sold to LTB Media in 2004. He stated at one point that his collection totaled more than 1,200 works; now, he says, he owns approximately 400 paintings and photographs. Part of his collection is managed by his new business venture, AW Asia, which has a gallery in Chelsea and intends to assemble collections of Chinese contemporary art for museums and major private collectors. The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently acquired 23 photographs from AW Asia.

With Farber and Warsh circulating in Beijing for a variety of purposes, it was easy for Chinese artists to become confused about who was buying for whom and for what purpose. In recent interviews, several artists-most notably Zhang Xiaogang, who had an agreement with Warsh-pointed to him as an example of a speculator.

Warsh replies, "While some artists are not so pleased with their decision to have sold quantities of artwork at what was then their current values not so long ago, there are many artists who are not resentful and actually pleased that someone has taken an interest in their work."

New York dealer Jack Tilton, who has worked with Chinese artists since 1999, says, "All of these artists are hoping that their work finds good homes rather than getting churned in the commercial market. But they have also played a part in this market, embracing capitalism more than we have, in funny ways. They are not naive about any of this stuff."

When asked about the artists' reactions to the sale of his collection, Farber was flabbergasted: "So what? Now I am the bad guy. That pisses me off!"

A number of major collectors of Chinese contemporary art who have been in the field for some time are holding on to their collections. Uli Sigg, Swiss ambassador to China, Mongolia, and North Korea from 1995 to 1998, has built a collection of key works that he has toured in the exhibition "Mahjong" to museums throughout Europe and, most recently, the University of California's Berkeley Art Museum (September 10-January 4). Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens have used their resources to establish the first nonprofit contemporary-art center in Beijing, where they are currently exhibiting their historic collection. So far, collector Charles Saatchi has been hanging on to his purchases in preparation for opening his new gallery in London on the 9th of next month with a show of Chinese contemporary art; he has also launched a Chinese-language Web site on which mainland artists can post their works.

In comparison with Western buying, mainland Chinese participation pales. Though there are many rumors about the power of the new Chinese buyers, their presence has not been felt in the major auction houses, where most of the records are being set. "Hong Kong right now covers the global buyers, especially those from across Asia," says Eric Chang, Christie's international director of Asian contemporary art. "I am not really seeing mainland Chinese buyers-less than 10 percent-a drop from around 12 percent." Dealers in China also have seen few mainland collectors among their regular clients. "I don't know yet about collectors," says New York dealer Christophe Mao of Chambers Fine Art, which recently opened a branch in Beijing.

Despite the current shortage of mainland art collectors, China is emerging as a major art center, having become a hub for buyers from South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia, and for overseas Chinese from all over the world. Reflecting this diversity is the wide range of foreign dealers among the 300 galleries in Beijing, including Continua from Italy, Urs Meile from Switzerland, Arario and PKM from South Korea, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects from Japan, and Tang from Indonesia.

"In Beijing it's getting increasingly difficult to talk about the Chinese market as a separate entity from the broader Asian art market or the international art market," says Meg Maggio, an American who came to China in 1988 and ran one of the first galleries in the country, CourtYard, in Beijing, from 1998 to 2006. Now she has her own gallery, Pékin Fine Arts, where she represents an international stable of artists. "How do you describe the market for a Korean artist showing in China or a Chinese artist living in New York?" she asks, noting that her business can come from South Korean collectors visiting Beijing or European companies doing business in China.

One factor in China's development as a center for contemporary art is the proliferation of art fairs. Beijing has two, the China International Gallery Exposition and Art Beijing; Shanghai has the newly created ShContemporary, now in its second year; and Hong Kong just launched ART HK. CIGE director Wang Yihan says her fair attracted 40,000 visitors this year, while the more high-toned ShContemporary brought in 25,000 and ART HK 08 had 19,000. These numbers may seem small in comparison with the 60,000 who crowd Art Basel, but dealers believe that the fairs in Asia are worthwhile because they attract new buyers and make Asian collectors feel more comfortable about acquiring art from galleries.

"Anywhere else, a fair is just a fair," says Lorenz Helbling of ShanghART, one of the oldest galleries in China and a participant in Art Basel. "But in Shanghai a fair feels like so much more because only there can it make an impact on several million people." He is referring not only to attendance but to the intensive publicity and official recognition given to ShContemporary in its inaugural year.

Just a few years ago it would have been impossible to try to sell contemporary art to Asian buyers, let alone mainland Chinese collectors, in the public forum of an art fair. Now, with the astounding success of Chinese contemporary art, collectors from across the region-and more than a few from the United States and Europe-are targeting China as a destination. According to Nick Simunovic, who has opened an office and showroom for Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong, it is only a matter of time before these regional buyers turn their attention to Western contemporary art.

"My sense is that wherever you have tremendous wealth creation, the collecting cycle goes through three phases," he says. "First, people collect their cultural patrimony, and then they collect their own contemporary art. I think the final stage is when they gain a more globalized contemporary-art approach."

Gagosian first considered opening an office in Shanghai but encountered obstacles to doing business on the mainland. The most formidable of these is a 34 percent luxury tax on art, which foreign galleries that participated in ShContemporary found difficult to avoid. Hong Kong, by comparison, is a duty-free zone. And Simunovic found that even Jeff Koons was a tough sell in Shanghai, whereas Hong Kong offers more possibilities for Western contemporary art. Just a year ago Hong Kong billionaire Joseph Lau paid $72 million for Andy Warhol's Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I). In May Christie's brought a Warhol portrait of Mao, valued at $120 million and for sale privately, for viewing in Hong Kong. (At press time it had not yet been sold.)

"Sure, China is hot, but that's just the peak of the iceberg," says Lorenzo Rudolf, former director of Art Basel and cofounder of ShContemporary. "This is not just about a group of Chinese painters. It's about a growing market going on in this continent."

With the sheer abundance of galleries, auction houses, and art fairs in China, the larger art world is recognizing the power of the Asian market. Standing in an auction house in New York or London watching paintings by Chinese artists sell for millions, one can grouse about this boom and hint that it will turn out to be a bubble. But strolling in a bustling gallery district in Beijing, with students and tourists crowding the cafés and boutiques and filling the huge art showrooms, few would predict a downturn in the near future.