A New History of Collecting Contemporary Chinese Art in Hong Kong

Abstract

Changes in the global economy since the 1990s are having an important impact in the art world in terms of promoting the commodification of art and the formation of new hierarchies of value. This study shows how Mainland Chinese participation in contemporary art world outside the home country has led to an acceleration of this process of commodification. Based on archive materials of important exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art in Hong Kong since the 1990s and multi-sited ethnography focusing on international art fairs held in Hong Kong since 2008, this study draws attention to the roles played by Chinese artists, dealers, and collectors in this global transformation, showing how their engagement with changing global hierarchies of value in the art world is closely linked to changes in Chinese society including increasing socio-economic stratification and expanding social and cultural inequality. Hong Kong acts as the gateway for Western art dealers to gain exposure to the new wealth in China and pick up promising local artists for the home markets; in addition to that and even more importantly, it provides an important training and testing ground to educate and integrate Mainland Chinese art world players into the global network. Exploring these local-regional-global intersections, the study shows how Chinese contemporary artists and dealers are actively negotiating for a middle ground between conforming to and reinventing normative rules traditionally dominated by Western actors. Little research has been done on the interplays of the various actors in contemporary art world of Greater China. I hope that this study will contribute to opening innovative dialogues and developing new theoretically informed and trans-disciplinary analytical frameworks to understand the recent development of contemporary art scene in Greater China and its integration into the global art world.