Men Gallery has a history of nearly 10 years and is one of the longest-running and oldest professional galleries in Beijing. It mainly promotes Chinese contemporary art to foreigners stationed in Beijing. Brian Wallace is the person in charge, and the vast majority of its consumer groups are expatriates in Beijing and professionals from galleries, museums and other fields around the world.

Li Guosheng: Chairman of Huanbitang Gallery

Li Guosheng, who started his career by investing in futures and stocks, has different experience in the market and investment than other gallery operators. Since its inception, Huan Bitang Gallery has been an art company whose main function is to represent young contemporary Chinese artists. Currently, the company represents more than ten outstanding young artists, including Mao Yan, Xia Junna, and Zhang Jian. It also collects representative works by well-known contemporary artists such as Chen Yifei, Liu Xiaodong, and Chao Ge, as well as representative works by older generation artists such as Guan Liang and Wu Guanzhong.

Xiao Fuyuan: Chairman of Soka (Beijing) Art Center and Soka Contemporary Space

Soka (Beijing) Art Center officially settled in Beijing in September 2001. It is the first Soka Art Center in Taiwan. A branch of the Ka Art Center, Soka International Art Company was established in Tainan, Taiwan in September 1992. It mainly represents the works of outstanding Chinese artists. The person in charge, Xiao Fuyuan, was the first Taiwanese to open a gallery in mainland China, which marked the beginning of the long-term operation of Taiwanese galleries in the mainland as a company. Today, Soka (Beijing) Art Center is rated as the richest gallery in Beijing. Soka Contemporary Space was opened last year, and Soka Shanghai is about to open in the second half of the year.

Liu Ying: General Manager of Kechuangmingjiayuan

Kechuangmingjiayuan is an art salon founded by Mr. Li Xiaoke, the son of Mr. Li Keran. Committed to using a high level of aesthetic awareness and paying attention to contemporary art that thrives in the rich soil of Eastern culture. Since its establishment in 1996, in addition to continuously planning and launching various comprehensive and personal exhibitions for domestic artists, it has also focused on introducing the works of international artists such as France, Germany, Australia, Japan, and Russia. Kechuang Mingjia Art Garden has formed a clear artistic style that is oriental, cultural, creative, and modern.

Wei Wei: L.A. GALERIE Gallery, a partner of Forbidden City Gallery, founded by Albrecht in Frankfurt in 1990, is a showcase for international modern photography. The gallery is represented by Tracy?6?1 Famous artists such as Tracey Moffatt, Ken Lum, Naoya Hatakeyama, Oliver Boberg and John Hilliard. As the Beijing part of L.A. GALERIE Gallery, Forbidden City emphasizes introducing new trends in international art to the domestic art world while building a platform for young domestic artists to go global. Question: You are all agents of well-known domestic galleries. What do you think is the biggest dilemma when running a gallery? And the current market is very prosperous, but is there any hidden crisis?

Brown: The biggest difficulty? I have always thought that it is not particularly difficult. The domestic market has been so hot in the past two years that we all feel that there is a bubble. It will definitely break, but I don’t know when, maybe after 2008. Li Guosheng: What do you think of the bubble? Modern Chinese ink paintings, for example, did not respond particularly well to the market. Many people participating in the market entered the market in informal ways. I think the biggest difference between it and the oil painting market is that many participants in the oil painting market cooperate with galleries to promote and promote. At the same time, it has many restrictions and has a protective effect. However, the ink painting market is a completely spontaneous behavior of the market, which may cause bad trends.

As for whether there is a bubble, it is caused by some abnormal actions that suddenly stir up the works of some second- and third-rate artists, but most of them follow normal operations. Nowadays, buyers are becoming more and more mature. They can basically judge which ones are high-quality products and which ones are important in the history of art. They will not follow the trend casually. Whether it is galleries, brokers, or investment consultants, they should follow the laws of the market and should not mess around. They should protect the market. Collectors cannot be deceived, and galleries should first correct their attitude. There is some random behavior, but I think it is isolated and people who don't understand are messing around. For example, when well-known foreign galleries come to our fair, it shows that they are paying attention to the Chinese art market, which you cannot stop. Only by following the laws of the market can we protect the market.

China’s market has changed. The fundamental reason is that China’s economy has improved and the general environment has changed. Both artists and collectors have benefited, but many artists have changed their faces. As a gallery, That's what's confusing. I get very angry when I see an artist breaking a contract. If there are any problems that can be adjusted, we can discuss them without resolving them, but the phenomenon of breach of contract should attract everyone's attention, and there should be laws to protect our contracts. Question: Do we need to rely on moral protection to avoid breach of contract?

Li Guosheng: There must be legal protection. What is lacking in all walks of life in China now is morality, which can only be handled in accordance with business rules, laws and regulations. But our artists are basically good.

Xiao Fuyuan: Default is a normal phenomenon in the primary market. Our art market is now in a very irregular situation. This phenomenon will be relatively rare in more regulated foreign markets. In foreign countries, few buyers will buy paintings directly from buyers. If they want to buy a painting, they will first find out about the gallery where the painter works, what artists he has managed, and then Consider buying a painting. However, many people in China go directly to artists to buy paintings without going through the gallery process, which results in artists giving paintings to collectors at a lower price than galleries. This market is still quite chaotic. This is the inevitable extreme of the primary market, fishing in troubled waters in business practices.

As for bubbles, individual artists will have bubbles. Good artists should have good prices. This is certain, and they will continue to grow. There is no distinction between artists and painters in China. A good artist should have a good price, and it should continue to rise. But now there are many commercial painters. This is because of artificial reasons. They sell things better than artists. It’s still expensive, and some artists must have bubbles. But overall Chinese art will still rise.

Liu Ying: The bubble has little impact on Kechuang. When it was really high, we did not follow the trend. We were artists with our own style and relied on our own style to operate as a painter. What can be created is the collector, not the investor. This may be related to the fact that China does not provide a complete art education, no urban planning, and no aesthetics. In fact, the risk lies with investors. The reason why they buy paintings is to resell and make money.

But I think the bubble is a good thing. Although it will still fall back, it will still improve the overall art market. If it develops normally, the development speed will be very slow. Our top artists may be as good as Picasso in terms of artistic achievements, but their prices are much different. This is because we used to make small profits and were unable to collect art, but this brings us closer to good artists.

This process will have little impact on the gallery. The price is too outrageous. We can not do it and look for new painters. I think the best time for a painter is before he becomes famous. But the Chinese have a very serious problem, that is, they like to buy paintings at other people’s homes. They don’t trust galleries. What the gallery recommends to you is a professional one that has been selected and classified. I am not optimistic about whether the Chinese people can change.

Q: Is it because the prices are not transparent that this causes these problems? Liu Ying: No, it’s because the Chinese don’t respect intellectual property rights, just like decoration. Do you think it’s the workers’ wages that are more expensive, or the designers’ designs that are more expensive? Obviously, it's the designer who should be higher than this. But that's not the case now. China does not respect intellectual property rights. The gallery also invests in selecting paintings for you. There should be a service fee. We have long-term accumulation, so we are qualified to select this painting for you, but buyers only think that things are valuable. This is a matter of concept.

Q: Do you mean that the hype mainly occurs in the auction market, and also in the relationship between investors and collectors? Real collectors have nothing to do with investment? Wei Wei: Investors can only say that it is most obvious in the auction market. Now, in the entire art market, the most important ones are: artists, galleries, auctions, and curators. It is said that the Chinese art market is booming, but it was actually in 2005. In fact, 2005 is a year worth analyzing. Not only the emergence of domestic collectors, but also the entry and establishment of foreign galleries have led to an active market. When it comes to the difference between speculative investment and collection, 80% of our gallery is foreign collectors, so we take this issue very lightly. Foreign collectors even buy a work worth two to three thousand US dollars, and they will ask if they can pay it in installments. He may be just a small employee in the company, and his salary is limited, but he really likes the work. Such collectors are collectors in our true sense. However, there are some collectors in China who have a very strong mentality of speculating on art, and the proportion is very large. Nowadays, some collectors use the auction results to go to a well-known website, analyze all the results, and then analyze the artwork, and then someone takes such a result and gives it to the artist. After making a ranking, he went to the artist to tell him what ranking he had made. This only shows that he does not understand very much. The auction actually formed a false price. This is actually a hype price, and The price of the art itself is different. There is a special phenomenon now. The auction market has basically become the primary market of the art market. From my understanding, a painting should at least be exhibited in a gallery and at least exposed. After a few years Or if it has been in the hands of a collector for a few years, I think it is a normal process to go to the auction market, but now many people skip all the intermediate steps. Artworks should at least be met with the public first and auctioned in one step. There are many tacit things in such a collection. This will cause many artists to be impetuous. This actually has a bad impact on the art market, like previous Russian works.

Q: When did the concept of bubble come into being?