Artists Face Challenges in China’s Growing Art Market

Every day artist Wang Xia comes to the renowned Nanjing Road in Shanghai to look for customers. She walks up and down the pedestrian walkway with her colleague Xuang Zhao, eyeing every foreigner that crosses their path. Once they choose someone that fits their typical customer profile, they approach to ask if he or she is interested in Chinese art.

Tomany, it might feel a little intrusive to have someone stop you in the middle of the street to ask you about your interest in art. But for Wang and Xuang,practitioners of  Chinese painting, it is practically the only way theycan connect with customers on a daily basis.

Bothartists recently finished working at the big Shanghai Arts 2008 exhibit andtheir paintings are now on display at Sandy’s Art Gallery, a small one-roomgallery on the first floor of an office building about two blocks away fromNanjing Road. Because the gallery is tucked away on a side streetCK and notvisible to the tourists that account for the majority of their Shanghai customer base, they resort to working the street to get their clientele to visit the studio.

Bigexhibits like the one they just finished in Shanghai can be very lucrative.Wang alone sold over 40 paintings. But they do not come around every day. Showing their work in small studios allows the two women to work at sellingtheir wares every day, but can be logistically challenging and the governmentdoes not allow them to sell art on the street.

Accordingto a report in Shanghai Star Business newspaper, the Chinese market for contemporaryart is booming. Sotheby’s reported that auction values have tripled in just ayear. Wang, who specializes in contemporary painting, says Shanghai is theirnumber one market, followed by Hangzhou, because the cities draw so manyforeigners interested in Chinese art.

Xuang,whose métier is traditional Chinese panting, says they are able to make aliving because today more people are better educated with more disposableincome to buy art, two elements that help fuel the market in painting. Thereare also more foreign tourists in China now than in the past ten years. Butwith a growing market, there is also growing competition. Xuang, who earned adegree in art and calligraphy from Yingdao Art College in Beijing, looks downat her artwork on a table and with a sad tone says there are people who claimto be artists but trick customers by selling prints instead. Wang also earned adegree in English and Art from the University of Inner Mongolia.

“Todayour lives are better, but we also feel very pressured by the competition," says Xuang. "We need to promote our art and market it better.”

WangXia has been painting since she was seven. During the past eight years she hastraveled through China to sell her art and make a living as a nomadic artist.She has traveled with Xuang for six years. Wang is fervent about contemporaryart because of the variety of bold colors she can use in her paintings,compared to traditional Chinese art. “My passion is colors, like the rainbow,”she says.

InXuang’s case, her father taught her how to paint in the traditional style andencouraged her to refine her techniqueCK because, she says, he stressed that itis part of China’s history and should not be forgotten. She remembers that hewould always say, “If you know the past, then you know yourself.”

“Europeansask me for landscapes,” Wang says. “I also do [work on] consignment and ship itover to them through DHL mail service,” she adds.

Despitegrowing competition and government restrictions on how they market theirworkCK, the artists feel optimistic about the future. Xuang says there is alarge community of artists throughout the country and they invite each other todifferent exhibits and welcome them in their homes too. For now Wang and Xuangplan to stay in Shanghai until the next opportunity to display their work in alarge exhibitionCK comes up, maybe later this yearCK. Although Wang says sheoften misses the blue skies, endless grasslands and mountains of her nativeInner Mongolia province, she does not want to go back yet.

“My dreamis to become a good artist and show my art all over the world,” Wang adds.