Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: New World Order
There are a few foreigners with full bellies who have nothing better to do than try to point their fingers at our country. China does not export revolution, hunger or poverty. Nor does China cause you headaches. Just what else do you want?
Xi Jinping, 2009, Mexico
The Chinese nation has stood up, grown rich and become strong- and now it embraces the brilliant prospects of rejuvenation ... it will be an era which sees China moving closer to centre stage and making greater contributions to mankind ...
The Chinese nation is a great nation: it has been through hardships and adversity but remains indomitable. The Chinese people are a great people; they are industrious and brave and never pause in pursuit of progress.
Xi Jinping, 2017, Beijing, 19th Peoples' Party Congress
It was at a colloquium convened by the Bahrain Ministry of Culture in a hotel off Berkeley Square in London just before Christmas in 2017 that I had an opportunity to ask a panel of art experts the following question: Can they name any collectors today who have good taste? The replies expressed incredulity. Good taste? What is good taste? Taste is relative; one person's notion of tasteful is another's idea of gaudy or perverse. The consensus was that the ownership of taste, good or bad, belonged to another era. Curators and critics today use words like serious, important, ironic and significant to measure the merit of an art object. The trouble is that this very rarely has anything to do with aesthetics. Beauty, proportion, elegance, skill and intelligence play less and less of a role in the final value of the work of art. At the risk of appearing quaint, there is much to be learnt today from nineteenth-century aestheticians like John Ruskin, who spoke (A Joy for Ever – 1914) of the prevalence of societal pomp and how an accumulation of gold and pictures would end in these treasures being scattered and blasted in national ruin. Perhaps that time is upon us; certainly, if the art market fails to heed the call for greater universal utility it will become irrelevant. Fashion, which mothballs the collections of previous generations in order that the shock of the new – often constructed in haste and in poor materials – may project a cultured rather than a cultivated self, has impugned artistic integrity. When a thing of beauty is no longer a joy forever, to corrupt the opening lines of Keats' poem, its loveliness decreases and it will pass into nothingness. It is not a relative notion of beauty that has replaced a study of aesthetics; it is human pride. Beauty is still created, but today's buyers prefer to pay for something else. Very often too – and here again Ruskin has something very pertinent to add – the sum of enjoyment is measured in quantity and insufficient attention is devoted to a single, wonderful thing for the sake of itself. It was then, and is more than ever today, a symbol of rampant consumerism. 'For remember', writes Ruskin, 'the price of a picture by a living artist ... represents, for the most part, the degree of desire which the rich people of the country have to possess it.' The direction of this book is very firmly in opposition to this tendency. It discovers a new art in societies that reach back into the past and reject globalisation and, increasingly, nationalism in favour of deep-rooted, indigenous cultural traits. I will be looking at art that is inspired by an array of notions, from hereditary legitimacy and religious conviction to historical precedent. I encourage collectors to be discerning, and attempt to save them from the barrage of modern platitudes. In this book, the ideas of a global culture and an international artist are regarded as relics of clouded thinking. I have, therefore, decided to banish the term 'emerging markets'. This terminology was, after all, a response to globalisation. A thought occurred to me as I looked out at the educated and sophisticated group that attended our colloquium in Mayfair. What have the British actually to teach their former dominions about cultivation, good conduct and civil behaviour? And I wondered, how much longer would this elegant group seek approval and take its cues from the West?
The philosopher Oswald Spengler, writing during and just after the war to end all wars (1914–18), observed,
We men of the Western culture are, with our historical sense, an exception and not a rule. World history is our picture and not all mankind's. Indian and Classical man formed no image of a world in progress, and perhaps when in due course the civilisation of the West is extinguished, there will never again be a Culture and a human type in which "world history" is so potent a form of the waking consciousness.
It is ironic that by the time Spengler published his magnum opus on civilisations, the great war for (Western) civilisation had all but ended it. So, was Spengler a soothsayer? Did he sense the underlying fragility of Western civilisation or was he understandably blinded by the senseless carnage of the First World War? His time frame allowed for a far longer decline of the West; he erred on the side of caution. But his prediction of a period of Western globalisation dominated by one powerful nation, before the Fall, appears to have come to pass much sooner than he expected – except that Spengler's intellectual epiphany imagined a superpower untainted by money. Prophecies that are overly specific run the risk of undermining a valid thesis. Spengler may have been right in his overall assessment of the future: China may be the new America, and money may be a means to an end rather than an end in itself under a Sino World Order.
The passage that I have quoted above contains much of his thesis and supports the intention of this book. The historical sense of the West to which Spengler alludes is the numerical marking of past time and the separation of life from death; the invention of a world of something for the living and a world of nothing for the dead. How inelegant (and bleak) and unusual is that view compared to any other held before. Our picture of world history shows the all-too-human tendency to see it through a European, modern and rational lens. Where, asks Spengler, is the concept of equilibrium and rest in this assessment of civilisation? He continues, why do cultures have to be interconnected and related? Can they not just expire? In short, the collective principle of globalisation is a fallacy. Instead, it is simply the consequence of illegitimate, maritime conquests. Epochs of far-reaching civilisation are, by contrast, authentic because they connect to a proximate reality. Progress has replaced the notion of a cultural Kunstwollen – an epoch's tendency to drive artistic development, rather than a series of interconnected links in a chain of cultural evolution – with a feeling of false optimism that anything new, from technical wizardry to malformed ideas, is worth subscribing to. The faith that we have in human ingenuity to provide solutions to life's mystery is childlike. Finally, Spengler observes that self-consciousness – the centrality of the self, and the constant restatement of its position within the great pantheon of world civilisations – has never been as acute as it is in the era of Western domination. Spengler asks, what is the value oflooking at the world from the position of a fixed pole? Today, I would suggest that we may think that we have readdressed the imbalance of cultural perception, but in globalisation we have merely invented another Western pole. Yet the West persists in its delusion that globalisation provides a level playing field on which to evaluate a myriad of human activities. And what is the ultimate contribution of globalisation to human value? Spengler would say that it is money. Its global economy, he writes, simply wastes mankind away. In place of thinking in goods, we think in money.
Hong Kong is one of the world cities in which 'the remnants of a dying civilisation's higher mankind' concentrate. This is certainly how Spengler saw the global metropolises of his day, most of which still thrive. In a surprisingly prescient commentary, which seems to anticipate so much of the politics of the current moment, he defines an elite as 'a new sort of nomad, cohering unstably in fluid masses, the parasitical city dweller, traditionless, utterly matter-of-fact, religionless, clever, unfruitful' and 'deeply contemptuous of the countryman' (Spengler 1991 [reprint], p.25). On a stiflingly hot day at the height of a Hong Kong summer, a year before the Crown territory was returned to China, I marvelled at how truly Spengler had hit the nail on the head. Mei Yang and I arrived at the ground-floor entrance of one of the giant skyscrapers in Central, Hong Kong's business and retail heart. We had flown from Taipei with a precious cargo and a clear objective. The gaudy brashness of Hong Kong's mirrored and gilded high-rises, wrapped in serpentine and aerial walkways reminiscent of ivy clinging to trees, was in sharp contrast to Taipei, which had only just begun work on its massive urban-infrastructure project. Much of Taipei City would be a construction site for the next decade. In the summer months, the only parts of town that offered any relief from the searing heat were the meandering lanes of Ximending, home to massage parlours (referred to as 'Barbers' shops'), wholesale retailers, small fabric vendors and specialist snack bars, while the arcades of the Japanese quarter provided shade to shoppers and thrill seekers. Otherwise, locals were forced to the city's edges, which had yet to feel the full impact of development. So, the sea breeze and air-conditioned malls of Hong Kong were actually very welcome. Once inside the building's icy-cold reception area, we asked for the offices of T.T. Tsui (Tsui Tsin-tong).
Stepping out of the lift onto a level halfway up the tower, we were led into the interior. Behind an imposing desk in a large, light room with views over the harbour sat Mr Tsui. He had a summer cold, the downside of air-conditioning, and two assistants stood on either side of him proffering tissues. He smiled broadly, stood up and moved over to capacious chairs beside his desk, gesturing for us to join him. We settled down, accepted his offer of tea and admired the Chinese antiques and brush paintings that filled his office. At the time, T.T. Tsui's star shone very brightly indeed. He was extremely wealthy and had donated a substantial sum of money to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. His eponymous museum in the Bank of China Building housed one of the world's finest collections of privately owned Chinese art. There was even a rumour that he would be the first postcolonial Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Mei Yang reached for the bundle beside her chair, placed it on the table that separated us and pushed it in front of Mr Tsui. An assistant bent down to unwrap the package and reveal a large bronze buffalo head engraved with archaic symbols. The gift was quietly acknowledged and spirited away. It was only then that I noticed three other bronzes in the room very similar to the one that we had brought. The Hong Kong oligarch was a collector of the work of the sculptor Yang Ying-feng, Mei Yang's father, and we had just made a gift to him of one of the most impressive examples from the artist's middle years.
It was only weeks later that I understood the real reason for the visit and the gift. We received a fax, which simply said that Mr Tsui would be happy to contribute to the success of an exhibition of Mr Yang's sculptures in London by offering his (financial) assistance. An art transaction can often be quite oblique, and this is particularly so in Asia. A year later, at the beginning of the market for Political Pop oil painting in China, trading was more straightforward. A collector or dealer from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Europe or the United States might be introduced to a community of artists, dine with them and afterwards visit their studios, often based in an art academy. Within the hour, the visitor might leave with half a dozen canvases rolled up under his arm and the artist would pocket a bundle of dollar bills.
That was Hong Kong and Taiwan then. Mainland Chinese cities were, by contrast, dirty, confusing and troublesome. That was 20 years ago. Today, a visit to the best parts of Beijing or Shanghai transports the visitor into another world: not Hong Kong, London or New York, but a monstrous metropolis of fine roads, superb infrastructure and connectivity. But above all, one is struck by a sense of safety and the overwhelming self-confidence, almost insouciance, of its inhabitants. China, one feels, no longer heeds the West; it is set fast to engage and influence the world. The Chinese era has been 100 years in the making. Now it has arrived and, I argue, will be the bladehead that propels all new markets, influences and revives dormant civilisations and brings to an end the age of globalisation.
The early years of the Chinese art market illustrate how the sentiment of exchange in Asia has dramatically altered since the introduction of open-cry auctions to Japan in the early 1970s and, a few years later, to Taiwan, China and South Korea. Asian art, in common with Western art, now has a precise monetary value and, in addition, anyone – including artists – can see what something or someone is worth. Such a system was anathema to the conservative and protective Tokyo Arts Club, which since the beginning of the century had shielded dealers, artists and even collectors from the market's inequities. The traditional Japanese connoisseur expected to make a loss on any art he sold back to his dealer, and it was thought to be distasteful to seek financial gain from one's collection. Today this feeling extends to contemporary art, especially the world of the Japanese-dominated Nihonga community. Taiwan's Qing Wan Society, a latter-day Society of Dilettanti, also operates behind closed doors, and some of its members are avid collectors of contemporary art. Prices are never revealed. In South Korea, until very recently, art dealers had to agree to honour the high, gratuitous prices that senior artists invented for their work. It was their responsibility as the intermediary to carry the loss that resulted from the differential between the artist's valuation and the price that a collector was willing to pay.
Indonesia's market for art was ignited by the Dutch auction house Glerum, and India's by an American who sold his vast collection through Sotheby's in New York. The post-revolutionary global Iranian market for art came to life with the aid of Western-style galleries and art fairs operating out of the Gulf states, and the intervention of the two largest international auction houses. Its pre-revolutionary market had been the construction of a proto-Western kingdom that spanned but two reigns. China's oil painters, the most successful of all, rode a wave of American and European art speculation for half a dozen years. Wherever you cast your eyes, a different part of the world reveals its 'treasures' to the global community, where they are priced, categorised and digested – very often before being cast aside.
But today, the mood of these societies has changed, and this is reflected in the work of some of their most interesting artists. A sentiment that could not have been expressed with any degree of confidence before might now be openly voiced. Societies as large and influential as China's and India's are today declaring their cultural independence from the international art market. The global standard by which their 'unclaimed' artists have been judged is being questioned. The universally accepted 'gold standard' that judges the aesthetic properties of international contemporary art and measures those judgements by a market price may not, in future, be the yardstick by which the value of core art from new markets is determined.
Two developments over a relatively short period have contributed to this fresh mindset in the societies that comprise the new art markets. The first is economic. The city states of Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and Qatar are highly efficient conduits for the world's commodities. The 'Asian Tigers', South Korea and Taiwan, are now very wealthy. China, in particular, has been growing its economy at a rapid pace for 40 years and is now the engine room for international growth. Many states in the Middle East, in common with Asian countries and particularly China, have accumulated vast reserves of foreign capital, which they have invested in overseas assets and in their own cultural and urban infrastructures. Japan, which is clearly not a new market but still an extremely rich and sophisticated nation, sits propitiously close to some of the world's most dynamic economies.
The biggest change since I wrote A New Art from Emerging Markets in 2011 has been China's desire to engage with the world outside its national borders. China is not about to shoulder the world's responsibilities, but it is about to substantially increase its influence on its neighbours and on those states that form part of its 'One Belt One Road' economic, political and cultural vision. China can expand but still remain culturally insular. It will stay resolutely Chinese but also become an international force. India is the other economic giant. The chauvinism of India has a religious character, which is mixed with a degree of xenophobia. It is a condition that also colours the politics and culture of Iran, North Africa, the Middle East and the Gulf. South America and South East Asia are the losers in this changing order. But they, too, find stability through the legitimacy of religious creed and the hereditary principle enforced by authoritarian rule. In fact, varying forms of authoritarian government are the norm in new markets.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "New Art New Markets"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Iain Robertson.
Excerpted by permission of Lund Humphries.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
