Because of its spectacular growth, the Asian market may very well become the trendsetter over the next few years. According to Richard Polsky, Chinese contemporary art in particular will be “one of next season’s stars”, thanks to the way the market has opened up and to the country’s excellent economic situation. According to the latest report by French market analyst Artprice, between July 2006 and June 2007 sales at auction of work by artists born since 1945 accounted for 215 million euros in the USA, 125 million euros in the United Kingdom, and an amazing 105 million euros in China, taking it to third place in terms of sales volume.

 

China’s art and culture sector is increasing in size, sophistication and diversity in response to the country’s economic growth and the emerging new urban middle class with tastes and habits that are more open to the outside, according to a recent study published by the Spanish Foreign Trade Institute (ICEX). “In a climate of global price increases in the art market, Chinese art is the most dominant segment of the market: they are like the rock stars of contemporary art”, according to the report. With an increase of over 400% in the value of their work, one quarter of the contemporary artists rated in the Artprice Top 100 index are Chinese and one third of them rank within the top fifty. In fact, of the 30 artists born after 1945 whose work has generated the highest prices at auctions held between July 2006 and June 2007, eleven are Chinese, and two Japanese. In other words, over 30% of the highest-selling contemporary artists today are from Asia.

 

These are the young artists who are driving the Asian art scene forward, and for that reason they come to ARCO with great authority, to take part in the curated sections on emerging and cutting-edge art. In the SOLO PROJECTS section, many of the stands will be taken up by Asian galleries, curated by Tsutomu Mizusawa, chief curator of the Museum of Modern Art, Kamakura & Hayama, in Kanagawa, Japan, and Colin Chinnery, chief curator and adjunct director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, China.

Tsutomu Mizusawa has selected five young Japanese artists who will be showing the variety of techniques they use to form and transform images, and which mainly involve painting.“With the exception of photographer Tomoko Yoneda, the work of the Japanese artists I have selected for the fair is, at this stage in their careers, mainly focused on painting” explains the curator. They are brought to ARCO8 by five Japanese galleries - two of which are first-timers at the fair - that represent the most promising and active gallery projects in Tokyo.

 

The artist Shingo Francis will be represented by the Tokyo gallery HINO, with his project Blue’s Silence (memory of my heart’s dream). Naoko Majita is brought by the MIZUMA ART GALLERY, which works both with the great names of Japanese modern art and with emerging artists in its Mizuma Action project, in which the gallery presents work by young artists.

 

The emerging young Japanese artist Toshiaki Hikosaka will show his project Series of ‘Grope Drawing no.15’ at the stand of TAMADA PROJECTS, while Yasushi Ebihara, at the WADA FINE ARTS stand, will be showing a proposal inspired by filmmaking, in which moving images are frozen at random, then recaptured and transformed into paintings. Lastly, photographer Tomoko Moneda will present objective snapshots at the stand of Tokyo gallery SHUGOARTS.

 

The selection made by the second Asian curator of SOLO PROJECTS, Colin Chinnery, covers the latest emerging proposals by young Chinese artists. Transgression, provocation, protest and interactivity are all part of the mix in the work of these artists, an example of how dynamic and cutting-edge the Chinese market can be when it comes to contemporary art.

 

Chinese artist Jin Shan comes to ARCO with PÉKIN FINE ARTS, bringing a piece that reflects the everyday life of youngsters in China. His work has a highly poetic feel to it, while providing a reflection on consumerism and a critique of the new values inherent in the social and material changes that are taking place in his homeland. Another of the young artists chosen by Chinnery is Xu Zhen, one of whose latest works will be on show at Chinese gallery SHANGHART. The artist is best known for his controversial videos and provocative photographs of famous people being mobbed.

 

The intervention titledThe Outcast,by Liu Wei will be seen at BOERS-LI GALLERY from Beijing, with a piece on the nature of modern alienation and social anomy, while young artist Li Songsong is brought to ARCO by Swiss gallery URS MEILE, which has a branch in Beijing devoted to emerging Chinese art – a good example of Western galleries’ increasing interest in Asian art.

 

Asian galleries are, of course, present in the EXPANDED BOX section devoted to electronic and multimedia art. A large number of Asian artists choose to work in this medium, placing them at the forefront of 21^st-century contemporary art.

 

The selection here has been made by Paris-based Chinese curator Hou Hanru, who curated the 10th International Istanbul Biennial (2007) as well as over fifty exhibitions in both Asia and Europe. From Taiwan, he brings GALERIE GRAND SIÈCLE, one of the most well-known media-art galleries, founded in 1999, and which will be presenting young artist Yung-Hsien,Chen, whose project for ARCO8 is Grassing, from his Head on the Plate series. In the six minutes of Grassing, the artist skilfully expresses the subjective inter-relationship between the body, society and culture.

 

Emerging Asian art will also be an important part of the new ARCO40 section, a sub-section of the GENERAL PROGRAMME that features galleries showing work by very young artists. The galleries taking part in this section will show work at their 40m² stands that has been produced by a maximum of three artists within the last three years.

 

In this section, the CHINABLUE gallery will be exhibiting work by Wang Qingsong, one of China’s most internationally recognized artists, as well as two young Chinese painters, Xiong Yu and Chen Boy, whose work reconstructs the legends of both the East and West. 10 CHANCERY LANE, from Hong Kong, will show work by the outstanding British artist Simon Birch, and oriental artist Stanley Wong, alias Anothermountainman, whose works recreate the “soul” of Hong Kong in photographs and three-colour canvases.

 

The third gallery, Japan’s TAKA ISHII, will be exemplifying its twofold policy of introducing contemporary international artists into Japan, with a selection of work by US artists Sean Landers and Dean Sameshima, while at the same time serving as an international showcase for emerging and established Japanese artists. The gallery will show some magnificent large-format photographs by Japan’s Nobuyoshi Araki, whose highly erotic pictures have made him one of Japans’ most renowned photographers.

 

Last but not least, Indian gallery BODHIART will also be present at ARCO40 - the first time India has taken part in the fair. It will provide insight into what is likely to become a very promising market. The gallery will present a solo exhibition by Bombay-born Anju Dodiya, with her series All Night I Shall Gallop.

 

As well work by emerging artists, visitors to ARCO8 will be able to take a look at some of Asia’s leading galleries, in the GENERAL PROGRAMME. China will be represented by two prestigious galleries: BEIJING ART NOW GALLERY (BANG) and XIN DONG CHENG SPACE FOR CONTEMPORARY ART.

 

Since it first began, Beijing-based gallery XIN DONG CHENG has worked to promote the cultural link between China and the rest of the world. The gallery’s aim has been to overcome half a century of isolation, and offer the people of China a chance to widen their horizons through contemporary and modern Western art. At the same time, the gallery provides Westerners with a look at the most highly-acclaimed contemporary Chinese art on the international circuit. This is apparent in its participation in ARCO8, to which it will be bringing some outstanding works by Zhong Biao, Qi Zhilong, Feng Zhengjie and Lu Hao.  According to the Artprice index, all four are among the 300 artists born after 1945 whose work produced the highest profits at auction between July 2006 and June 2007. Feng Zhengjie, for example, ranks 62nd on the list, with a total of 1,668,396 euros-worth sold during that period. Alongside these established artists, the gallery will also show recent work by two emerging young Chinese artists, Wu Mingzhong and Li Yongbin. Both these video artists reinterpret their own work in painted format.

 

BANG is an international, professional business, specializing in cutting-edge Chinese art, and its main goal is to promote contemporary Chinese and artists, and help them to become part of world art history. At ARCO the gallery will be showing work by twelve young Chinese artists: conceptual photographers Benben Lei and Liang Zhao; installations by Mai Wang; two members of the new generation of painters from Sichuan, Liu Yang and Fazhi Zhang; the photographer Fengguo Qu, and the artist Bo Li who combines various techniques and textures in his work to reflect the nature of the human body. The gallery will also be showing recent work by Ling Wen, Haizhou Xin, Jinming Huang, Wei Zheng and Runshi Zhang.

 

The last stop on this tour of Asia at ARCO is South Korea. It is important to highlight that, since featuring as last year’s Guest County, South Korea has become a firmly established presence at ARCO, and will be the Asian country with the most galleries in the GENERAL PROGRAMME.

 

Five leading South Korean galleries will be presenting emerging art proposals from their country. ARARIO GALLERY, based in Chungnam, brings a didactic approach to the international exchange between the East and the West in terms of cutting-edge art. This will be apparent at the stand, where visitors will be able to see work by three Korean artists, Yoonyoung Park, Hyung Koo Kang and Osang Gwon, alongside Philippine artist Leslie de Chavez, who has taken part in a large number of Asian biennials.

 

ARTSIDE GALLERY has selected two South Korean artists, Bahk Seon Ghi and Sohn Jinah, and two of the most highly acclaimed artists in the world, Chinese artists Zhang Xiaogang and Yue Minjun. Xiaogang has in fact been described as a star of the contemporary art market, with his sales at auction in 2006 totalling almost 20 million euros, and increasing in 2007 to over 36 million euros, a figure that has taken him to rank third on the list of best-selling artists born after 1945, right behind Jean-Michel Basquiat and Damián Hirst. Yue Minjun is also superbly placed as fifth on the list, having generated almost 15 million euros and seen a record bid of over two million euros being made for one of his works.

 

KUKJE GALLERY also comes to ARCO with a programme of top-level Asian and Western artists. This South Korean gallery recently celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary. At its stand it will be showing works by a selection of the artists on its roster, including: Ghada Amer, Louise Bourgeois, Duck-Hyun Cho, Jae-Eun Choi, Alexander Calder, Gimhongsok, Seung-Hye Hong, Kyung Jeon, Yeondoo Jung, Kira Kim, Sora Kim, Bohnchang Koo, Hye Rim Lee, Kwang-Ho Lee, Julian Opie, Ki-Bong Rhee, Gerhard Richter, Ah-Bin Shim, Andy Warhol and YP.

 

CAIS ART will also have a stand in the GENERAL PROGRAMME. This gallery has expanded alongside the careers of many of the young Korean artists it represents, to become one of the best galleries on the Korean art circuit.

This year the gallery will be bringing work by Bae Zoo, Rhee Da, So Young Choi, Kyoung Tack Hong, Eun Jin Kim, San Young Kim, Kyung Mi Lee and Byung Hun Min.

 

The last South Korean gallery at ARCO this year will be HAKGOJAE, which opened in 1988 in the Insadong district of Seoul. The name means “a house for learning the old”. The business is based on an attitude of appreciating the old, while seeking out the new. With this in mind, it will be bringing to ARCO recent work by Lee Bae, Song Hyun-Sook, Chung Sang-Hwa, Yin-Qi, Ian Davenport and Chen Wenji.