Buying Cheap Chinese Contemporary Art Online
Over the last decade, it has been a rare occurrence to read anything about Chinese contemporary art that doesn't contain the words “boom” or “record prices” – but you don't have to be a millionaire to afford a piece of the action. Some of the best Chinese art bargains can be had online.
Chinese contemporary art prices have been driven sky-high by international collectors, as well as interest from an increasingly wealthy domestic market looking to invest in a piece of local culture. Simultaneously, the business of selling art has thrived in China's biggest cities, with both Shanghai and Beijing developing a multitude of galleries specialising in works by local artists. Unfortunately, the art for sale in the vast majority of these galleries is priced beyond what most of us can afford. This makes sense for the galleries, who are paying astronomically high rents for space in highly trafficked areas, and so tend to focus on established artists that they know will sell for the highest prices.
In a market such as this, there are two keys to finding Chinese contemporary art bargains. The first is to focus your search on young or as-yet-undiscovered artists. The second is to look beyond the physical galleries. In other words, the optimal combination is to find websites that specialise in young Chinese artists.
One such site is Paper Terrestrials, a company started last year by Beijing artist Yan Wei and her husband, Blake Stone-Banks. This online retailer of fine art sells pieces from some of China's most promising young talents, including Yan Wei herself, whose style has been influenced by manga, anime, comics and street art and is often tinged with horror.
“Most of the themes in my art are centred around childhood, memory, games and toys,” she says. “I read many comics as a child. As a result, my imagination and some of my artwork have been influenced.” One such work available for sale on the Paper Terrestrials is Yan Wei's 'Vivisection', a limited edition of 50 hand-pulled silkscreen prints depicting a smiling young boy slicing open his own head with a scalpel.
All of Paper Terrestrials' pieces are priced between RMB 700 - 1,200, not only giving the masses an avenue to buy work by exciting young Chinese artists, but also giving cutting-edge creators, including Chairman Ca, Ray Lei, Nod Young and Tang Yan, exposure to a wider potential audience.
“Art should be a part of life. It shouldn't be so far away,” Yan Wei says. Though, she adds, it's still too early to tell whether affordable art will catch on in China, particularly the strongly independent, sometimes violent and overtly sexual art being peddled by Paper Terrestrials. “It's original and it's unique. We'll [have to wait and] see if people will accept this.”
Another outlet making and selling original work from some of China's best young creative minds is NeochaEDGE. As both a Shanghai-based creative agency (known as the EDGE collective) and a bilingual web-magazine constantly bringing Chinese creativity to the fore, the NeochaEDGE community features a wide variety of talent.
According to NeochaEDGE CEO and co-founder, Adam J Schokora, although it is not their primary business, they often work as a middleman between artists looking to sell their works and interested buyers. If people like what they see of an artist's work in the web-magazine, they just get in touch with NeochaEDGE, who can give them an idea of prices and availability.
“Most of the work on our site is available for between RMB 500 and RMB 2,000 for a print,” Schokora says. “For original works, it can get a bit more expensive, but usually nothing over RMB 10,000. Most original stuff is less than RMB 5,000.”
If your tastes tend to skew towards more mainstream Chinese contemporary art – such as the colourful abstract crosses propagated by Ding Yi or the cynical realist paintings of Fang Lijun – but you can't afford the price tag, check out Chinese Avant-garde Artprints. This collaboration between Beijing gallery, Soemo Fine Arts, along with specialist online e-tail experts, Easy e-Sales, features prints of some of China's most famous contemporary art works at a fraction of the original's price. The prices of the prints are determined by market demand, so are prone to fluctuation. If you find something you like, contact Chinese Avant-garde Artprints for a quote.
Stories abound of lucky collectors who fork out little money for an unknown artist, only to see their investment returned many times over when they become a big name. We're not promising you'll make a fortune, but at the very least, buying affordable art online is guaranteed to add plenty of interest to your bare Shanghai walls.
Web: www.chinese-avantgarde.com, www.edge.neocha.com, www.paper-t.com
