日本最大展示場國立新美術館開幕

位於東京六本木的日本國立新美術館今天開幕，該館是日本最大的展示場，館方本身沒有收藏品，只進行企畫展或借展，經營模式堪稱空前。配合現有的森美術館及三月將開幕的三得利美術館，將形成「六本木藝術金三角」，預計一年可吸引三百萬名觀眾。

國立新美術館由享譽國際的知名日本建築師黑川紀章設計，去年五月完工，總工程費約新台幣一百億元，波浪狀的玻璃帷幕外觀奇特、壯觀。該館展示空間為一萬四千平方公尺，是一棟地上三層、地下一層的建築，從大廳、餐廳、咖啡店都可一覽無遺地看到外面的庭園，可望成為東京中心地帶的綠洲。

日本約有三十個團體向來都是借位於東京上野的東京都美術館的場地展覽，但從今天起全部移到這座美輪美奐的國立新美術館。目前，申請展示會的件數相當多，該館預估開展第一個年度的入館觀眾將有一百五十萬人。

第一波企畫展是開館紀念展「二十世紀美術探索—藝術家三個冒險物語」，展期至三月十九日為止，展出日本海內外國立美術館收藏的約兩百八十名作家的六百項作品，包括畫作、雕刻、照片、家具等。此展旨在表達二十世紀是藝術家突破仿實物作畫的框架，而是以自由奔放的表現創作。

此外，日本中央政府文化廳所舉辦的媒體藝術十週年企畫展「日本的表現力」，展期到二月四日為止，也同時登場，介紹日本的動畫、漫畫等媒體藝術從一九五零至二零零六年的年代紀錄、表現的源流、夢想與高科技的融合等。

另一方面，由知名建築師隈研吾設計的三得利美術館，預計三月三十日由赤（土反）遷移到在六本木防衛廳（現升格為防衛省，相當於國防部）舊址，此區是東京舊地新市鎮開發事業規模最大之處，由美國設計公司規劃設計，建築呈現地上五十四層高（兩百四十八公尺）、地下五層樓的大型綜合設施。

國立新美術館、三得利美術館、二零零三年開張的六本木山莊的森美術館，將使原本就富有國際色彩的東京六本木，成為日本藝術的發訊基地。

森美術館於上個月發行「六本木藝術金三角」導覽圖，介紹附近的藝廊、畫廊等，預估三館在彼此切磋、輝映之下，可吸引三百萬以上的人潮湧入。

日本國立新美術館網站：http://www.nact.jp/

資料來源：中央社

May we be brutally Frank?

From The Times

January 16, 2007

Frank Cohen's collection of contemporary art really isn't up there in the first rank

Morgan Falconer

There is a tradition — and one I would like to uphold — of beginning all articles about the Manchester-based art collector Frank Cohen by describing him as the “Charles Saatchi of the North”. Officially, Cohen is ambivalent about this, sometimes even hostile; unofficially he seems to be flattered. Either way, in the next few months we will finally get the chance to find out whether he lives up to his epithet.

This week he opens Initial Access, a new gallery space on an industrial estate outside Wolverhampton, and in the summer he will finally unveil the gallery that he has dreamt of for years, Frank Cohen Museum of Contemporary Art (FC MoCA), in the Spinningfields area of Manchester, which will be a showcase for even fatter slices of his growing collection of contemporary and modern British art.

Cohen started out flogging wallpaper from the back of an ambulance, and he went on to build the DIY chain GlynWebb Home Improvements, which he sold at great profit in 1997. It is apt, therefore, that his first salvo at Initial Access, an exhibition of about 20 works, should be entitled Design for Living and should unite art and interiors.

Cohen wants things to start with a bang, and they will: the first installation to greet you will be Powerless Structures, by the Scandinavian duo Elmgreen and Dragset, a removal crate that appears to have crashed from the skies. Then there is Dexter Dalwood’s wood-cabin painting Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and an amusingly self-generating installation by Nathaniel Mellors entitled Car Park Cosmology, which shows footage of people emerging from DIY stores clutching purchases, and replicas of those same products lined up in the gallery.

To effect the intersection with interiors more powerfully there are also examples of contemporary design, including an undulating table by Zaha Hadid, a landscape sculpture/seating design by Ross Lovegrove and two of Fernando and Humberto Campana’s toy-covered chairs — one seat is a mass of slightly inviting, slightly repellent green alligators.

It all sounds rather entertaining, if not quite substantial or purposeful, and given that the leading independent curator David Thorp has been taken on to direct this and future shows for Cohen (including Initial Access’s next one, LA/Beijing, which will advance the curious thesis that there is a similarity between art in the American and Chinese cities), it ought to be.

However, is it enough to anoint Cohen officially as “the Charles Saatchi of the North”? Well, there are some parallels. They are the same age; both skipped higher education to go into business; and both started collecting early. Cohen began with cigarette cards, stamps and coins, and moved onto art when he bought L. S. Lowry’s My Family. Soon after, he started spending on Hepworth, Frink, Paolozzi and Spencer, and then, some time in the mid-1990s, he discovered Young British Art (he loved their down-home materials — the household paint, MDF, buckets and basins), and his enthusiasm for this touched off a spending spree on young Germans, Americans, Japanese and Chinese. Everyone, in short.

Seeing his collection grow, by the late 1990s Cohen was thinking of finding a home for it. Here, apparently, things became more frustrating. None among Manchester’s museums seems to have been seriously interested in exhibiting the work and so he was forced to venture out on his own with a handful of temporary exhibitions. Critics weren’t exactly gleeful. There were questions over whether Cohen really owned anything significant at all, or just a lot of incidentals. He is said to own work by Polke, Warhol, Prince, Hirst — but are any of these important and central works? A shark in a tank, maybe, an embroidered tent? Well, not really, though Cohen says he owns plenty that could well be future icons. Fair enough.

But there are other causes for worry. Collectors’ proclamations of how much they own are, of course, open to a little, shall we say, aspirational calculating, but in 2004 Cohen was telling people that he owned around 1,000 works; today he says he owns nearly 2,500. That would have required him to have bought nearly two artworks every day since then in order to arrive at this figure, which is, conveniently, about the number that Charles Saatchi owns. And, as everyone who shops knows, when you really go to town, you come home with some duds. Upon further inquiry I was told that the collection has not grown in quite the way it seems, but I’m really not sure.

Don’t get me wrong. Any collector who opens his private collection to the public is a laudable and valuable public asset, and we salute and thank Cohen for doing this, but some assets are worth more than others. Cohen seems to be in a terrible hurry, and rich men in a hurry to show their wealth will always attract an eager audience in the media. Cohen would like to be seen as a bit of a personality, a northern geezer, even, and that helps, too.

Since Britain’s other major collectors — such as Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Denis Mahon, Sir Peter Moores — collect older, less trendy art, and do so more quietly, there can be few to steal Cohen’s limelight. But let there be no confusion: Frank Cohen is not the Charles Saatchi of the North.

Design for Living is at Initial Access, Units 19 and 20 Calibre Industrial Park, Laches Close, off Enterprise Drive, Four Ashes, Wolverhampton (01902 798999); www.initialaccess.co.uk), from Friday until March 4

Saatchi searches for artists in cyberspace

From Times Online

January 5, 2007

JJ O'Donoghue

Stuart – literally student and art combined - is a subsection of Your Gallery, the website Saatchi convened while his new gallery, due to open in 2007, receives its finishing touches.

Your Gallery has over 25,000 artists registered worldwide and this vast virtual gallery provides a place for buyers and sellers to deal, unhindered by intermediaries.

It is a non-profit enterprise and clearly, its success has been unprecedented; the website temporarily crashed in December as over 500 artists uploaded new images and millions of visitors toured the virtual gallery daily.

Saatchi famously launched Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin and the Chapman Brothers on to the art world of the nineties, creating sensation a plenty. Now with Stuart his search for hot young talent enters cyberspace.

Saatchi has stated that he will not buy any of the works on Stuart in the website's first year, but has stated that "there are a number of very interesting artists on Stuart that I have already passed on to dealers that I work closely with." Moreover, with his London gallery opening soon there is much for students to be hopeful about. Is the next generation of the Young British Artists a click away?

Stefanie Kirlew, 23, is a photographer and graduate of Goldsmiths College in London. Kirlew was initially attracted to Saatchi’s website because it offers “artists an excellent way to make friends and share ideas with those who hold similar interests to myself.”

Kirlew, in the throes of preparing for an upcoming group show, has received sales inquiries since posting her images online. “It is a great tool in regards to presenting my work to a global audience, and receiving critical feedback from others who utilise the site.”

Adrian Eckersley a painter shares Kirlew’s sentiments, enjoying the “sense of being part of something.” Eckersley, 59, a self-confessed renegade from the English literature world is impressed at the scale of Stuart, and it “even provides a sense of fun.”

Risham Shuja, a freelance artist living in London, was attracted to Stuart as it is another vehicle to display her work, plus “it’s particularly attractive because it’s very well known amongst artists, buyers and the public.”

As with so many of the present generation of artists awareness of creating a name and cultivating publicity, Shuja is adept enough to know that this “site is more useful for getting your name out there and perhaps getting an invitation from a gallery owner.”

Stuart allows the artist to be curator - compiling profiles, essays, musings and all sorts of personal details. Users can flit between emerging artists from as far away as San Francisco to Istanbul and make direct contact with an artist without ever stepping into a physical gallery.

However, is the proliferation of online art damaging the independent galleries dotted all over Britain?

Not at all says Tony Taglianetti, Director of the Brick Lane Gallery, who believes that the real world and virtual galleries compliment each other. “Overall the internet is levelling the playing field, making art more accessible by bringing down the price of art and helping ‘smaller people’ make a start in their careers.” Taglianetti founded the website Artshole, which predates Your Gallery by five years, essentially providing the same service to artists, buyers, and browsers.

In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism

Chang W. Lee /The New York Times

Yue Minjun with some of his smiling figures in his Beijing studio. One of China’s new breed of financially successful artists, he lives in a large walled-off compound. More Photos >

By DAVID BARBOZA

Published: January 4, 2007

SHANGHAI, Jan. 3 — After the peppered beef carpaccio and before the pan-fried sea bass there were raucous toasts and the clinking of wine glasses in the V.I.P. room of New Heights, a jazzy restaurant in this city’s most luxurious location, overlooking the Bund.

Wang Guangyi, one of China’s pioneering contemporary artists, was there. So were Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Zeng Fanzhi and 20 other well-known Chinese artists and their guests, many of whom had been flown in from Beijing to celebrate the opening of a solo exhibition of new works by Zeng Hao, another rising star in China’s bubbly art scene.

“We’ve had opening dinners before,” said the Shanghai artist Zhou Tiehai, sipping Chilean red wine, “but nothing quite like this until very recently.”

The dinner, held on a recent Saturday night in a restaurant located on the top floor of a historic building that also houses an Armani store and the Shanghai Gallery of Art, was symbolic of the soaring fortunes of Chinese contemporary art.

In 2006 Sotheby’s and Christie’s, the world’s biggest auction houses, sold $190 million worth of Asian contemporary art, most of it Chinese, in a series of record-breaking auctions in New York, London and Hong Kong. In 2004 the two houses combined sold $22 million in Asian contemporary art.

The climax came at a Beijing auction in November when a painting by Liu Xiaodong, 43, sold to a Chinese entrepreneur for $2.7 million, the highest price ever paid for a piece by a Chinese artist who began working after 1979, when loosened economic restrictions spurred a resurgence in contemporary art.

That price put Mr. Liu in the company of the few living artists, including Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons, whose work has sold for $2 million or more at auction.

“This has come out of nowhere,” said Henry Howard-Sneyd, global head of Asian arts at Sotheby’s, which, like Christie’s, has just started a division focusing on contemporary Chinese art.

With auction prices soaring, hundreds of new studios, galleries and private art museums are opening in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Chinese auction houses that once specialized in traditional ink paintings are now putting contemporary experimental artworks on the block.

Western galleries, especially in Europe, are rushing to sign up unknown painters; artists a year out of college are selling photographic works for as much as $10,000 each; well-known painters have yearlong waiting lists; and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Pompidou Center in Paris are considering opening branches in China.

“What is happening in China is what happened in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century,” said Michael Goedhuis, a collector and art dealer specializing in Asian contemporary art who has galleries in London and New York. “New ground is being broken. There’s a revolution under way.”

But the auction frenzy has also sparked debate here about whether sales are artificially inflating prices and encouraging speculators, rather than real collectors, to enter the art market.

Auction houses “sell art like people sell cabbage,” said Weng Ling, the director of the Shanghai Gallery of Art. “They are not educating the public or helping artists develop. Many of them know nothing about art.”

But the boom in Chinese contemporary art — reinforced by record sales in New York last year — has also brought greater recognition to a group of experimental artists who grew up during China’s brutal Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).

After the 1989 government crackdown in Tiananmen Square, avant-garde art was often banned from being shown here because it was deemed hostile or anti-authoritarian. Through the 1990s many artists struggled to earn a living, considering themselves lucky to sell a painting for $500.

That has all changed. These days China’s leading avant-garde artists have morphed into multi-millionaires who show up at exhibitions wearing Gucci and Ferragamo.

Wang Guangyi, best-known for his Great Criticism series of Cultural Revolution-style paintings emblazoned with the names of popular Western brands, like Coke, Swatch and Gucci, drives a Jaguar and owns a 10,000-square-foot luxury villa on the outskirts of Beijing.

Yue Minjun, who makes legions of colorful smiling figures, has a walled-off suburban Beijing compound with an 8,000-square-foot home and studio. Fang Lijun, a “Cynical Realist” painter whose work captures artists’ post-Tiananmen disillusionment, owns six restaurants in Beijing and operates a small hotel in western Yunnan province.

If China’s art scene can be likened to a booming stock market, Zhang Xiaogang, 48, is its Google. More than any other Chinese artist Mr. Zhang, with his huge paintings depicting family photographs taken during the Cultural Revolution, has captured the imagination of international collectors. Prices for his work have skyrocketed at auction over the last two years.

When his work “Bloodline Series: Comrade No. 120” sold for $979,000 at Sotheby’s auction in March, many art insiders predicted the market had topped out and prices would plummet within months.

But in October, the British collector Charles Saatchi bought another of Mr. Zhang’s pieces at Christie’s in London for $1.5 million. Then in November at Christie’s Hong Kong auction, Mr. Zhang’s 1993 “Tiananmen Square” sold to a private collector for $2.3 million. According to Artnet.com, which tracks auction prices, 16 of Mr. Zhang’s works have sold for $500,000 or more during the past two years.

Are such prices justified? Uli Sigg, the former Swiss ambassador to China and perhaps the largest collector of Chinese contemporary art with more than 1,500 pieces, calls the market frothy but not finished.

“I don’t see anything at the moment that will stop the rise in prices,” he said. “More and more people are flocking to the market.”

Mr. Goedhuis insists that this is the beginning of an even bigger boom in Chinese contemporary art.

“I don’t think there’s a bubble,” he said. “There’s a lot of speculation but no bubble. That’s the paradox. In China there are only a handful of buyers — 10, 20, 30 — out of a billion people. You only need another 10 to come in and that will jack up prices.”

He added: “Another astonishing fact is there is not a single museum in the West that has committed itself to buying Chinese art. It’s just starting to happen. Guggenheim, the Tate Modern, MoMA, they’re all looking.”

Representatives from those museums, as well as others, have made scouting missions to China. A growing number of international collectors are looking at Chinese art too.

“After the 2005 Sotheby’s show I just jumped in,” said Didier Hirsch, a French-born California business executive who has long collected American and European contemporary art. “People said the next big run-up in prices would be at Sotheby’s in March so I said, ‘Now or never.’ ” Mr. Hirsch purchased nearly his entire collection — about 40 works — by phone after doing research on the Internet. He said he went first for what he called the titans — the original group of post-’79 painters — including Wang Guangyi and Liu Xiaodong.

Some critics here say the focus on prices has led to a decline in creativity as artists knock off variations of their best-known work rather than exploring new territory. Some are even employing teams of workers in assembly-line fashion.

Christopher Phillips, a curator at the International Center of Photography in New York, has become a regular visitor to China, scouting young artists for the center and other places. On a recent trip “I went to visit the studio of a well-known Beijing painter,” Mr. Phillips said. “The artist wasn’t there, but I saw a group of canvases being painted by a team of young women who seemed to be just in from the countryside. I found it a little disconcerting.”

There are also complaints that some artists are ignoring international standards by selling works directly into the auction market, rather than selling first to collectors. And many experts here say that some gallery officials and artists are sending representatives to the auctions to bid on their own works to prop up prices, or “protect” the prices of some rising stars.

But Lorenz Helbling, director of the ShanghART Gallery here, said Chinese artists continue to produce an impressive array of works, and that talk about the market being overrun by commercialism is exaggerated.

“Things are much better than they were 10 years ago,” he said. “Back then many artists were commissioned to simply paint dozens of paintings for a gallery owner, who went out and sold those works. Now these artists are thinking more deeply about their work because they’re finally getting the recognition they deserve.”

台灣藝術人才 「設計」上海

2006.01.02　 中國時報
丁榮生

台灣大概有上百、上千位各類設計師在大陸發展，但殘酷的事實是，若在台
灣是阿斗，去哪裡都是隨波逐流，而真正能成唯一哥一姊的角色，通常在台灣已
是好傢伙了，「出走只是為了棲息更好的良木」在上海當代藝術館擔任創意總監
的實踐大學教授陸蓉之如此解讀，她是兩岸來來去去的典型，當然重點已移至上
海。

棲息大陸卻在兩岸發揮的，如陸蓉之身兼台灣實踐大學教授，分在兩岸當代
藝術領域策展，以引進國際主流觀念揚名，同時以「讓全球看到華人設計能量」
見長；空間設計，如室內設計師李偉?、建築師李祖原等都是兩岸並進佼佼者。
最後是最常見的跟著台商投資進大陸，如設計師林洲民以達芙尼鞋店設計獲德國
設計大獎、交大教授劉育東以大連電子深圳廠獲邀至各國亮相。


設計名家進大陸 邁向全球捷徑


真正落地上海發展的設計名家登琨豔，認為來大陸發展是聚焦全球的便捷之
道。他就是以保存蘇州河岸清代倉庫向全球發聲而獲聯合國教科文組織頒獎。他
說：「台灣人的才智，只有投入全球議題才更顯精明。」他要人才多多來大陸，
不要讓洋人獨霸，因只有同種族，才珍惜文化的同價感，而非任由西方來中國洗
腦。

「我認為台灣設計師無可避免得藉大陸市場國際化，所幸我們設計競爭力仍
強過他們，且台灣設計經驗到大陸仍有所為。」台灣設計名家姚政仲，也因設計
案而來往大陸，最近膺選國際建築室內設計師協會常務委員，常奔波於大陸之外
的亞洲各國。他樂觀地認為台灣設計師有明天，因為台灣發展早，且設計價值受
西方訓練模式為多，且有本身的東方文化影響，且比起大陸發展早個一、廿年，
所以前往大陸發展，仍有相當地優勢。


只在台灣兜圈子 長遠有如自殺


但競合有優勢嗎？與常聽到的看衰台灣有別，姚政仲認為台灣人未來藉大陸
進軍國際無所避免；而剛開幕的上海當代藝術館，所聘的創意總監為台灣藝術時
尚教母陸蓉之。她認為，當全球聚焦大陸，台灣無可避免要將東京、紐約、倫敦
、巴黎，再加上一個上海，才能清晰體會全球的變遷，但所幸西方文明到中國的
質變，台灣可藉東、西文化的融合優勢，而早早打入國際，她說：「因為台灣現
代化得早，所以在文化融合有優勢且競爭力一流，從雲門舞團的現代舞、趙無極
的畫打動人心，可知優勢在哪裡。」

他們也都點出，台灣設計競爭力優勢在於大陸生活經驗雷同且文化差異不大
。因當前大陸市場胃納大，設計能量不限國際一流好手，連台灣過去的生活鑿痕
在大陸也有相對容量，姚政仲說：台灣「不應小看去大陸發展的國際化經驗，如
只在台灣兜圈子，碰上發展高原期，長遠來說不啻自殺。」

但如何藉中國市場，發展台灣設計能量？基本有直接移民大陸、兩岸奔波與
跟台商蜻蜓點水三類。如登琨豔常駐大陸，以空間與古蹟保存議題取勝，其世界
觀與在地共鳴讓人刮目相看；張毅與楊惠珊的琉璃工房獲亞洲設計獎後，也可說
是台灣人才外流的典型。


台灣Know How 藉大陸平台發展


未來如何強化設計能量？林洲民認為，台灣的設計以輕薄短小著名，以空間
為例，目前在大陸以餐飲、咖啡廳與中小型賣店取勝，如上海南京東路徒步區，
就有台灣西門町的城市風格；但大陸則普遍尺度超大、風土多元與國際活動多（
如奧運、萬國博覽會）為要項。

如何因應？姚政仲強調，台灣的設計Know How雖有，但未來得藉大陸平台發
展整合型、超大尺度及建構自我美學等設計觀的挑戰。林洲民以為，設計對仍在
開發的大陸而言，常被以為是昂貴的選項，但他強調，設計的重點在於深度是否
觸動人心，因此如何體會大陸的生活環境，再藉設計反應未來生活空間，都是台
灣設計要進大陸保握的方向。