Do you think that 798 has become something of a lightning rod for contemporary art in China?

Tell me what you mean by “lightning rod”?

Attracting the energy that was previously only latent before the 798 Art Precinct was established.

Hmm… yes, there are probably pluses and minuses – or should I say ‘potential minuses’? Obviously what 798 did was attract an influx of galleries in to China. Before 798 you could count on one hand the number of contemporary art galleries. And then, almost overnight, as the galleries saw the potential for using these then unused spaces where the factories had closed down and artists had moved in to take them over as studios. Because both artists and galleries could see the potential they came from everywhere; Europe, America and locally. That in itself set up an infrastructure for a market. Obviously that is not the only thing that happened, it didn’t happen in isolation and the whole Chinese Contemporary Art scene didn’t happen because of 798. But obviously 798 has been a major influence on the extent to which this has happened and the rapidity with which it has happened.

When you see large institutions like the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art and influential galleries from Europe and America, such as Galeria Continua (San Giminano), White Space (Berlin), PACE (New York) and Faurschou (Copenhagen), you realise the extent of international focus that the Beijing art scene has become. So now that these bigger institutions are investing heavily in 798, you have to expect that this art zone is going to continue to be a focus for that drive.

The potential downside of it for 798 is that it might just lose its way a little. What’s made this area work as an arts precinct, is the energy derived from the confluence of the galleries, the factories that have remained here and continue to operate…

In fact we can hear them now as background noise – there are still factories here.

… and artists’ studios. The smaller galleries and factories and the artists are being squeezed by the big-money galleries who pay for space. So it could be a different scene in a few years – for better or worse. 798 was a designated cultural site for the Olympics, and this year was given a complete makeover. Every square inch of land has been renovated, planted and paved. Gardens and fully-grown trees appeared almost over-night. For about three months we lived in a combination of a mud pile and a dust bowl, one day we’d have a crater-sized hole until a tree arrived next day on the back of a truck. Now it’s completed there are lots of cafes, in fact a coffee culture, which has grown from nothing two years ago. But there is a gentrification about all of this, and getting back to my point about energy, it becomes a bit easy, a bit nice and smooth. So there is always something lost as something else is gained.

Exactly! I almost feel guilty about being so comfortable here. After all it IS China, there ARE extremes of wealth and poverty… yet here we are in the appearance of a lifestyle that I could have in Sydney or Melbourne or New York.

Yes, yes… indeed. Now that means the culture is changing. It makes us comfortable but you certainly wouldn’t want it to happen all over Beijing so that it becomes another Singapore. There are big changes happening very quickly, the art scene is part of that and reflects it and is also driving it.

How do you see Red Gates role? Has it changed? I mean it almost seemed as though it was on its own when I visited in 2002.

Look, I don’t want to speak for Brian Wallace, the Director of Red Gate Gallery. I can only speak from my point of view. I have known Brian for about 12 years, I have been back and forth a couple of times but I have really only lived here for the past 12 months. Red is a highly respected gallery with an established reputation. Brian is acknowledged for what he has done over the last 20 years in the emergent contemporary Chinese art scene. The Red Gate stable of artists are well regarded in the Beijing and the broader Chinese and international arts industry. The gallery has an established position in relation to other galleries, it is well known by the art community and general public and by the local administration.

I have no idea of how Red Gate is set up but I wonder if it has a degree of independence that could be very useful. Last time I was here I saw that show that included the model in the China dress at the opening. There was also a painting that included an image of a hand with a severed finger that I understand is a reference to Tian An Men. Of course I don’t know the political situation here but that would seem to me to be fairly provocative. However it didn’t seem that Red Gate suffered any consequences.

The artist, whose paintings you referred to, Sheng Qi, had an exhibition here last October – just after I arrived, and the works contained images that were generally known to be controversial. Images such as Mao, Tian’ An Men and tanks in particular. They were in the catalogue and on the web site. They were available for sale and all of them were sold. Sheng Qi and I were interviewed by the ABC about this exhibition. There was a national congress being held in Beijing and there were party representatives from all over the country in the city – many of whom would not have comprehended how works which could seemingly be critical of the government and therefore of the Chinese people could be exhibited publically. Many people (in the West) talk about censorship as though it’s unique to China (or communist political systems). During the interview I reminded the interviewer that it wasn’t that long ago that an exhibition of the work of Robert Mapplethorpe was closed down in Massachusetts because the photographs portrayed sexual acts and genitalia. Recently the National Gallery (Australia) had to close an exhibition because of Serrano’s Piss Christ and even more recently, the Bill Henson exhibition this year at Roslyn Oxley9 gallery created a furore.

Do you have any sense of what Chinese art is being bought?

Most of our buyers are foreigners; expats living here and established and new collectors visiting Beijing. There is an increasing wealth in China at the moment within the emerging middle class. Historically when people have enough money to buy all the material goods they want, they start investing in cultural objects. At the moment I would suggest that there is a core of serious local buyers of contemporary art but as a proportion of total sales it is very small.

To what extent is contemporary China reflected in Chinese contemporary art? I ask that in the context of the “Free Tibet” attack on the torch relay - which seemed to catch the Chinese by surprise. But then overseas Chinese, including students and even migrants, quickly organised large counter demonstrations. This in turn seemed to catch the “Free Tibet” people by surprise and they were earnestly telling the Chinese “we were criticising your government, not you” – as though there was any difference.

I was just talking to the young daughter of a friend of mine from Australia who just arrived this morning – when I picked her up from the airport I compared the attitude of my Chinese friends towards Tibet to my Turkish friends who would no more consider allowing a whole chunk of eastern Turkey to be taken away and made into an independent state called Kurdistan.

Back to your first question; how much is contemporary China reflected in its art? Many aspects of it are, including this notion of change. In one way or another, change and a search for meaning and identity runs through almost every artists’ work. It is reflected in the type of materials used, it might be the subject matter and a technical approach that can sit somewhere between traditional Chinese art and a Western contemporary practice. The artists, critics and writers are generally aware of this and it is ever thus whenever art reflects what is going on in society. Artists do deal with political issues but it has to be understood in the light of the artist as a Chinese person aware of mianzi - the concept of face, aware of the relationship of the individual to family, to the broader cultural group and to the whole country. This may not the same for us with our supposed notion of individualism reigning above all else.

I have wandered into a couple of galleries and noticed the quite large prices – all in US dollars. Do you have any fear that the lure of the Yankee dollar will corrupt the core of Chinese contemporary art?

Many young, emerging or aspiring artists want to make work that will fetch high prices and seek out subjects that have already been successful in the market – such as big eyed, bright pink, smiling faces, red stars and Cultural Revolution uniforms and social realist references. It may be interesting to note that Chinese traditional imagery is based on the value and authorisation through replication and duplication. It is up to the buying public to be aware of what they are buying – especially if they are thinking of an investment in art.