Hans Belting: The Art Newspaper, Vol. XX, No. 219, December 2010

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Hans Belting

Among the “benchmarks for 2000-2010” which record The Art Newspaper’s second decade, a short column about contemporary art and globalization summarizes all what has changed in the last ten years. Top museums have filled the ranks of their curators with specialists able to fill the gaps in the collection with Non-Western art. The museums, which have opened recently across the globe, the MOCAs outnumber by far the others. The international trade of contemporary art is due to the global auction houses. “There hardly was a market for Middle Eastern art until Christie’s held its first sale in Dubai 2006. Antedating such auctions […] are the biennials all over the world from Gwangju in Korea, the first big one in Asia, to the influential one in Sharjah.” Finally, there are the new art fairs, at Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Istanbul, Moscow, Melbourne, all “developing local markets and hoping to attract the big dealers” (p. 33).

New is also the trend to create cultural districts with museums and galleries, a project well on the way in Abu Dhabi, but also long in discussion in Hong Kong. As we learn from the December edition, two new sites are in preparation, one in St. Petersburg, the New Holland island an 18^th century naval dockyard. It is funded by Roman Abramovich as “a commercial and cultural center.” The money comes from the investment company Millhouse. It envisions the development of 103.000 sqm. of space. It has not been confirmed that Dasha Zhukova, the billionaire’s partner might open a branch of her Moscow gallery, The Garage (Cristina Ruiz, p. 1).

Another center, of a very different nature is to open in London’s East End, to coincide with the 2012 Olympics. The so-called Crossway Foundation is said to create “the first facility in the UK solely dedicated to Middle Eastern arts and education […] The foundation will feature a gallery, studios, educational facilities” and also sponsor an artist-in-residence program. The project, cooperating with the Regeneration Trust of the Prince of Wales, “is born out of a friendship between British and Saudi-Arabian artists and aims to encourage grass-roots collaborations,” as Fred Taggart, the project’s director of the Trust is quoted (Marisa Mazria Katz, p. 16).

As far as Abu Dhabi is concerned, the Louvre gave a press conference in the Emirates Palace Hotel, where the museum, due to open in 2013 and designed by Jean Nouvel, was presented by some of the key figures of the French team. But information remained on a low level. It was only explained that the museum will be “divided into 12 sections, showing art from the Neolithic period to the present day” and encompassing all the world religions. Emmanuel Coquery, curator of paintings, is reported to have talked about masterpieces without revealing details. “We would like the opening of the museum to be a surprise,” as he said (A. S. C., p. 22).

A project, which seems to have no precedence in Europe is a contract of the Chinese government and the Italian Government to create spaces of their art in Rome and in Beijing respectively. The cooperation concerns art of every age but the interesting part will be the one on contemporary art. The Chinese government “will oversee a 600 sqm space at the Palazzo di Venezia for the next five years,” whereas Italy, in return will have a wing of the National Museum of China. “Chinese press reports point out that the Chinese government was keen to strike a deal because collection-sharing agreements make up for the lack of international art in the museum collections” (Gareth Harris, p. 13).

Contemporary art today also leads to the difficult question of local modernities. A case in point is pre-Revolutionary Iran. In this respect New York’s Asia Society Museum announces an exhibition, which will cause controversies. Melissa Chiu, the director of the museum, explains that in order “to understand contemporary Iranian art you have to understand the modern period.” The exhibition will open in autumn 2013 and mark the beginning of a four-year focus on modern Iranian art. Layla Diba, the adviser to the exhibition thus hopes to reintroduce Iranian art between 1950 and 1980 as a “chapter of lost history.” The political dimension of such a project is obvious. Kamran Diba, the founding director of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMCA) complains that experts of Iranian modern art “were not asked to act as advisers.” But he agrees that the show will be a challenging project. Linda Komaroff, curator of Islamic art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, welcomes the Asia Society show as an occasion to reveal the “origins of modernism in Iran.” But there is one other aspect, which has to be taken into consideration, funding by the Iranian-American community. “Past private donors to the Asia Society’s Iran show include Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani, who after making a $10m donation to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art have a gallery (there) named in their honor (The Art Newspaper, Nov. 2010, p. 16), and Leila Tahinia-Milani Heller, owner of New York’s LTMH Gallery.” The interesting thing is to figure out, which period in Iranian history is at stake. (Marisa Mazria Katz, p. 18).

The Art Newspaper has recently expanded the section “What’s On” with reports about ongoing biennials. Thus, the eigth edition of the Shanghai Biennale, titled “Rehearsal”, is the subject of an overview in that section. Gao Shiming, the chief curator, also was the curator of the last Guangzhou Triennial and of the 2004 edition of the Shanghai Biennale. This time he explained that the event “is different” from 2004 when he had invited some famous names. “This time we are more low key,” he said. New is the emphasis on “off-site events and lectures, some of which are to be held as far afield as New York and Zagreb. Several Indian scholars have been invited to talk in Shanghai on such topics as post-colonialism and Sino-Indian relations” a term which has a new look in today’s discussions. The chief curator summarizes his intentions by saying that “this biennale is about rehearsals, the backstage, so I’m not really worried about the audience. It’s more about the impact on the artist community; they will go back having changed” (Chris Gill, p. 76).

Concerning the changes on the art market today, there is an interesting feature written by Michael Plummer and Jeff Rabin, principals of Artwest Partners, the art advisory company in New York. “The Capgemini World Wealth Report 2010 released in June, indicated a sea change in investor perceptions of art as a store of value,” art as a hedge against the crisis of the financial world. “Chinese and other Asian buyers are participating in western art auctions at a level not seen before. […] These new investor-collectors are not quite the same as the speculative collectors” who were looking for easy profits. “The collectors in today’s market are much more cautious and discerning” and “bid aggressively on under-valued works.” They are “ignoring overtly aggressive marketing and putting limits on what they are willing to spend.” But the two authors underline that “the auction houses now play a more critical role than ever as the only transparent venue in an otherwise highly opaque market.” The text underlines that the sensational Damien Hirst auction in 2008 “was a step too far”, and subsequently the Hirst market has performed not very well (p. 28).

Interestingly, the Maastricht School of Economics and Business is creating an “International Institute for Art Finance.” Rachel Campbell, who teaches at the school, is the prominent figure in this project. She is quoted with the statement that “our aim is to improve the transparency and professional standards of research and teaching in the area of both art and finance.” This program raises a number of questions. Who is profiting from an academic research, which aims at more transparency than markets usually allow for? Certainly, in the last ten year there is popping up a new literature on art markets, which did not exist before (G.A., p. 58).

To conclude this review of the December edition, I would like to add a report on the China art market, which, again, brilliantly is analyzed by Georgina Adam. “Based on sales by Sotheby’s, Christie’s, China Guardian and Hanhai, the global Chinese art market increased from $928m in 2008 to $1.21bn in 2009, a year-on-year increase of 41%. The strongest growth took place in the domestic market, with China Guardian and Hanhai reporting a 70% increase in volume from 2008 to 2009 (ArtTactic).” The author also points to the number of auction houses in the world’s top 20, relatively new ones besides Guardian, Poly and Hanhai. “All this is taking place in a country that only authorized auction houses a couple of decades ago.” But there is also the voice of Tao Wang of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London who insists that “this is a very new market and it is still unregulated” thus not offering guarantees for the figures which are published. “If the mainland figures remain subject to caution, there is no doubt about the growth in Hong Kong, which in 2007 ousted France as the world’s third biggest market” (p. 64).