Between the Real and the Fabricated: A View on Contemporary Korean Art

by Sook-Kyung Lee, Exhibitions & Displays Curator, Tate Liverpool

Abundant opportunities to encounter foreign art and culture seem to have created a kind of rediscovery of what is authentic to Korean sensibility. Such inquiries into the tradition and history of their own culture have generated among Korean artists a renewed interest in the definition of cultural identities and their differences. The author focuses on Kijong Zin, Kyungwon Moon, Hyungkoo Lee, Jin Ham, Yeondoo Jung, Do Ho Suh, Joonho Jeon, Kyung Jeon and Yoonyoung Park whose works commemorate the humble and seemingly insignificant moments of social and personal history and emphasize an outlook that is at once meditative and private and socially engaging.

Bewitched #1 By Yeondoo Jung (b. 1969), Seoul, 2001 C-print photograph diptych, one of an edition of five Variable dimensions (Photograph courtesy of Tina Kim Gallery, New York and Kukje Gallery, Seoul)

By Hammad Nasar, co-founder of the not-for-profit arts organization Green Cardamon and the advisory firm Asal Partners, and a Clore Research Fellow at Goldsmith College, London

The `extremes' of the title refer to the two most vibrant strands of art-making in the country – innovating through tradition, as exemplified by the army of young talent from the National College of Arts, and the art of the everyday coming from highly divergent sources. This article discusses some of the issues that contextualize the visual culture of Pakistan, and then focuses on the two highlighted themes as a framework for exploring recent contemporary art practice by looking at the works of Imran Qureshi, Aisha Khalid, Iftikhar and Elizabeth Dadi, Rashid Rana, Bani Abidi, Naiza Khan and Hamra Abbas.

Viewpoint By Aisha Khalid (b. 1972), 2008 Watercolour, glue and paper Site-specific installation view at `Living Traditions', Queen's Palace, Bagh-e-Babur, Kabul, 2008 Variable dimensions (Photograph courtesy of the artist and Corvi-Mara, London)

Lessons on Love (detail) By Hamra Abbas (b. 1976), 2007 Resin (originally Plasticine) Height 230 cm, width 170 cm, depth 140 cm Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels (Photograph courtesy of the artist and Green Cardamom) (Photography by Serkan Taycan)

by Alonzo Emery, Harvard-China fellow and writer based in Beijing

The author compares a recent article by American art critic, Jed Perl, with Karen's Smith's updated edition of Nine Lives to explore the critic's role in today's contemporary art market and looks at the following artists, Cai Guo-Qiang, Fang Lijun, Geng Jianyi, Wang Guangyi, Zhang Peili, Qiu Xiaofei, Hu Xiaoyuan and Aniwar.

Inopportune: Stage One By Cai Guo-Qiang (b. 1957), 2004 (exhibition copy installed at Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008) Nine cars and sequenced multichannel light tubes Variable dimensions Seattle Art Museum, Gift of Robert M. Arnold, in honour of the 75th Anniversary of the Seattle Art Museum, 2006 (© Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York) (Photography by David Heald)

by Wu Hung, Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor, founding director of the Center for the Art of East Asia, and Consulting Curator of the Smart Museum at the University of Chicago. He is also an elected member of the American Academy of Art and Science.

The Three Gorges Project has provoked sharp controversy since its inception and inspired numerous articles, news reports, books and sociological and environmental studies on the subject. There are, however, other kinds of responses to the Three Gorges Project that have less to do with policy issues and which reveal a more personal approach to the changes – artistic representations of the project. The author examines the role of contemporary art in society by looking at the exhibition `Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art' at the Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago and the powerful works by Chen Qiulin, Yun-Fei Ji, Liu Xiaodong and Zhuang Hui.

Detail of Water Rising By Yun-Fei Ji (b. 1963), 2006 Scroll, ink and colour on paper Height 57 cm, length 1.173 m (Photograph courtesy of the artist and James Cohan Gallery, New York)

by Sanjyot Mehendale, lecturer in New Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley

The author places the travelling exhibition `Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul' in the modern context of the warfare that has befallen the country and discusses the Afghan antiquities trade.

Head From the temple with niches, Aï Khanum 2nd century BCE Unfired clay Height 21 cm, width 15 cm National Museum of Afghanistan

by Iside Carbone, PhD candidate at University College London, Department of Anthropology

The author reviews highlights of an exhibition of the most representative and precious objects borrowed from more than 30 Chinese museums dating from the Qin to Tang dynasty at Museo di Antichità in Turin, Italy.

Mirror Excavated from Qujiang new district (Chang'an site), Xi'an, Shaanxi province Tang period (618-907), 736 Bronze with inlays of mother-of-pearl, turquoise and malachite applied on lacquer Diameter 24.5 cm (Photograph courtesy of Sabrina Rastelli and Maurizio Scarpari)

A Note on John Huntington's The Record of a `Broken Date' in Paris: A Review of the Catalogue `Art of the Ganges Delta'(in Orientations, October 2008, pp. 34-45)
John Huntington's article reviews the catalogue Art of the Ganges delta: Masterpieces from Bangladeshi museums, Paris, 2008 (originally published in French as Chefs-d'oeuvre du delta du Gange: Collections des musées du Bangladesh; Paris, 2007).
After praising the quality of the catalogue, particularly the masterly photos, Huntington feels: `The section "Bengal sculpture: syncretic images" by Adalbert Gail is, I am afraid, not up to the standard of the rest of the catalogue' (p. 42). The author rejects the term `syncretism' and argues: `In essence, there is no syncretism to be seen in the art of Nepal, and any possibility of its existence would have to be identified in ideas and attitudes maintained in the human mind. Obviously, nothing of the sort is possible for the works in question'(pp. 42-43).
We are, of course, discussing objects from Bangladesh (East Bengal), not from Nepal. Yet before we come back to Nepal, let me briefly have a look at the nine sculptures discussed in the reviewed section of the catalogue. I might add here that I am not at all responsible for the printed title of my article, which I had simply called `Bengal sculpture'. Moreover, I had no opportunity to read the proofs of the French version of my article.
In my understanding, only the image of Vishnu-Lokeshvara in figure 4 (cat. p. 79) and that of Marttanda-Bhairava in figure 8 (cat. p. 82) are syncretic, in the sense that in the first, features of Vishnu characterize an image of Avalokiteshvara, and in the second, traits of Surya form part of an image of Shiva. The purpose of both images might have been to encompass deities of a rival religion in order to make proselytes (since Vishnu as Buddha-avatara `includes' Buddhism; Paul Hacker would have coined such images as `inclusivistic'). A further mode of interpretation of the image of Marttanda-Bhairava in figure 8 could be that it indicates a decline of the sun cult (of the Sauras) in Bengal and, at the same time, an absorption of their religion by the powerful Shaivas.
On page 44, Huntington argues: `However, the most misguided statement of all is Gail's assertion that the elephant vahana, or "vehicle", of Akshobhya in Buddhism, Indra in Hinduism and the planet Brihaspati demonstrates syncretism. While the motif is, of course, used in various religious contexts, it by no means implies any syncretistic notions.'
In my article, however, I have nowhere depicted the elephant as a vahana of several deities within the sphere of syncretism. My intention was to indicate that the idea of a vahana, a vehicle carrying a deity, migrated (from the matrikas and the regents of the directions of space [dikpala]) to the set of graha (ashta- or navagraha) and to the set of the Buddhist Pancha Tathagatas (as well as to the pancharaksha deities etc.).
Huntington rejects my (generally accepted) identification of figures 2 and 3 (cat. p. 78) from the Varendra Research Museum in Rajshahi as two different types of Akshobhya, one wearing a pleated robe and embellished with hara and keyura, the other wearing a smooth garment and no ornaments. On their vishva-padma seat lies a vajra, and both socles are marked by elephant heads and forelegs.
Huntington interprets both figures as Vajrasana Shakyamuni on account of the vajra and the flanking Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya in figure 3 (p. 44; but how can he know that these side figures are missing in figure 2?). The latter image is very similar to that shown in figure 223 in Susan Huntington magnum opus The `Pala-Sena' Schools of Sculpture (Leiden, 1984), which she identifies as Akshobhya. Even the crowned Buddha never wears the keyura, as attested in the same book by various stone and metal sculptures (ibid., p. 284). The vajra does not turn Shakyamuni's seat into a vajrasana, but is a common feature of objects belonging to the Vajrayana movement of Buddhism. While Shakyamuni has no special relationship to the elephant (except for depictions of the dream of Maya), the elephant is a must regarding significant marks of identification of the Pancha Tathagatas in Tantrayana, or Vajrayana (hundreds of examples are preserved in the Kathmandu valley: see, for example, Niels Gutschow, The Nepalese Caitya, Stuttgart/London 1997, passim).
So we come back to Nepal, where, according to John Huntington, no syncretism is to be seen. On the contrary, the fate of Newar Buddhism seems to be the most emphatic paradigm of a religion that was almost swallowed by the prevalent religion of the area, in other words Hinduism, with regards to the non-celibate sangha, the cult practice and the imagery. Halahala-Lokeshvara is mentioned on page 79 of my article. Here we have a perfect example of Avalokiteshvara and Prajna in the guise of Uma-Maheshvara.
Concerning most questions and aspects of syncretism in Nepal, Siegfried Lienhard's excellent study `Problèmes du syncretisme Religieux au Népal' warrants careful study (originally in BEFEO 65, 1978, pp. 239-70; now reprinted in Oskar von Hinüber, ed., Kleine Schriften, Wiesbaden, 2007, pp. 252-83).
The identity of the Vajrasattva, the glorious bronze from Mainamati (p. 35, fig. 1), is beyond any suspicion – except perhaps for that of John Huntington. Yet this subject would require a more detailed discussion.
Adalbert J. Gail
Free University of Berlin

The Landscape of Words: Stone Inscriptions
from Early and Medieval China
By Robert E. Harrist Jr
University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 2008
424 pages, 153 illustrations, three maps
Hardcover
ISBN 978-0-295-98728-6
Price: US$60

Robert E. Harrist Jr's much-anticipated book presents the results of his research on a special area of the long history of writing in stone in China - inscriptions on cliffs, mountainsides and boulders, which make use of the stone at its source. He covers a wide range of such works within their art-historical and cultural-historical contexts, and makes focused studies of particular genres and examples from the 1st to the 8th century, devoting special attention to the spatial contexts - the location, directions of approach, positioning and arrangement. While many of the inscriptions have been collected and studied in the past as rubbings and transcriptions, in that form they cannot fully be understood as they were designed and intended. In this new book, Harrist presents them in terms of their regional, political, ritual, religious and historical landscapes.
Katherine R. Tsiang

New York
The winter exhibition at Joan B Mirviss Ltd, `Lyrical Images: Poetry and Japan's Visual Arts', which runs until 24 January, features more than 35 examples of woodblock prints, screens and hanging scrolls demonstrating the interplay between text and image, as well as the ways in which literature and poetry informed the visual arts in Japan in the 19th and 20th centuries. For example, a painting on silk by Watanabe Seitei portrays Murasaki Shikibu, the author of the Tale of Genji, seated on a balcony under a full moon, while a print from Famous Places of Snow, Moon and Flowers by Utagawa Hiroshige depicts the poetic theme of `snow, moon and flowers', an allusion to love and the changing seasons. Two Zen ink paintings by Hakuin Ekaku and Otagaki Rengetsu illustrate the combination of calligraphy and traditional Buddhist images as a meditative device and tool for proselytization, and the show is rounded out by a selection of surimono (New Year cards featuring poetry) and some contemporary Japanese ceramics.

After a hiatus of several years, Moon Hee Kim has reopened her street-level gallery Koreana Art and Antiques, Inc. at a new location, 22 East 84th Street, between Fifth and Madison avenues. Kim was among the first to introduce Korean antiques to the American public at her previous gallery, and after a break, has decided to make her huge collection of Korean furniture, paintings and ceramics available once again. She offers a vast selection of chests and other furniture dating from the 18th/19th century, as well as folk paintings of birds, flowers and ch'aekkori (scholar's accoutrements). Also featured are Korean ceramics and folk objects. In conjunction with the gallery's reopening, Kim has launched a website, www.koreanaartandantiques.com.

Leon and Karen Wender of China 2000 are making a move in the opposite direction. As of 1 December, they will be at 434A East 75th Street, a townhouse between First and York avenues. They were previously open to the public, but their new space will be by appointment only, and they will no longer hold shows or participate in art fairs. Instead, they will relaunch and expand their website, concentrating on the Internet side of the business, and spend more time travelling. `We have had a public face for many years, and we are happy now to be operating this way by showing specific things to private clients on a one-on-one basis over a cup of tea or a glass of wine,' Leon Wender says. The Wenders will also take in works on consignment in response to special requests from their clients, as well as assist them in selling their pieces if the need arises. The new gallery is conveniently located very close to Sotheby's.

Monterey
The grand opening of Jerry Janssen's new gallery, Orientations at the Marsh, took place on 25 October in Monterey. Specializing in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian antiquities, the gallery was relocated from San Francisco to the historic Marsh building, which Janssen had dreamed of owning since he was a boy of eight. He finally fulfilled his wish when he purchased the building in 2006 and restored it to its former glory. The Marsh building was constructed in 1927 by George Turner Marsh, an Australian businessman, and was home to Marsh's Oriental Art Store from 1928 to 1998. Modelled on an ancient Chinese mercantile compound and blending northern Chinese and Japanese architecture, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007/08. (For a detailed profile of George Turner Marsh and the history of the Marsh building, see Orientations, April 1998, pp. 47-57.)

London
`Making Gods – Gade', at Rossi & Rossi from 3 December 2008 to 16 January 2009, will be the gallery's fourth solo exhibition of contemporary Tibetan artists. It will feature ten new paintings from Gade's Mandala Series, New Buddha Series and Diamond Series, in which he fuses traditional Tibetan painting with symbols of modern consumerism and pop culture icons. Gade's work, which is often full of humour, expresses his fascination with these themes and, he says, seeks to evoke the same kind of richness as that found in ancient Tibetan murals.

Hong Kong
The owner of an established antique gallery on Hollywood Road, Oi Ling Chiang is expanding into a new arena with the opening of the Gallery of Contemporary Arts (GOCA) at 52 Hollywood Road. The new space will present both internationally recognized artists and newly emerging talents. Two ongoing solo exhibitions feature the works of Paris-based Buddhist artist and calligrapher Lu Gao and Shanghai sculptor Zhu Kefeng. Lu's ink paintings fuse the aesthetics of the Song and pre-Song periods with a taste of Western Expressionism. `Diversity & Harmony' is Zhu's first solo exhibition in Hong Kong, featuring a collection of 23 sculptures in scrap metal – the only material he uses – representing his utopian ideal of harmony.

Amsterdam
`Stars of China – Past and Present', an exhibition and sale organized and curated by Feng-Chun Ma, a consultant in Chinese and Japanese art, will be held in the museum of modern art near Amsterdam <196> Museum Jan van der Togt – from 29 January until 22 March. The exhibition will display more than 100 works of contemporary Chinese art, representing forty artists, alongside Chinese sculptures in terracotta, stone, wood and bronze from the 8th century BCE to the 15th century. The sculptures are intended to show the viewer how contemporary artists are inspired by the rich cultural, religious and political life of ancient China. Most of the contemporary works were acquired directly from the artists, and refer to China's historical past on the one hand, while looking towards its modern and consumer society on the other. The selection features artists of international fame, such as Yue Minjun, as well as young, up-and-coming talent. The contemporary works are mostly paintings, but also include sculptures and photographs.

Margaret Tao and Orientations

New York Ceramics Fair
The 10th annual New York Ceramics Fair will take place from 21 to 25 January at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts on Fifth Avenue, and will feature museum-quality antique and contemporary ceramics, glass and enamels from over forty international dealers. Among the exhibitors this year are regulars Cohen & Cohen, whose collection of export Chinese porcelain includes several pieces from the Qianlong period, such as a large famille-rose pear-shaped ewer decorated with European figures, circa 1740, and a pair of vividly enamelled court lady candleholders from circa 1750. They will also show a famille-rose cistern and basin decorated with a `Doctor's Visit to the Emperor' scene after a design by Dutch artist Cornelis Pronk, circa 1740. Their new catalogue, Tiptoe Through the Tulipières, featuring 52 fully researched and documented items, will be available at the fair.

54th Antiques and Fine Arts Fair of Belgium
The 54th Antiques and Fine Arts Fair of Belgium (BRAFA) will run from 23 January to 1 February at the Tour and Taxis building, the venue since 2004.
Gallery Tanakaya of Paris will present ukiyo-e and shin-hanga prints, mainly by Katsushika Hokusai and Hashiguchi Goyo, and 17th to 19th century Japanese tea-ceremony ceramics, including chawan, chaire and misusashi. Among their No theatre masks from the 17th to 19th century is one depicting a young aristocrat, or chujyo.
Philippe Riché of Galerie Asian Art Brussels specializes in 15th to 18th century Chinese and Japanese porcelain and works of art, and is particularly interested in items showing a Chinese influence. He established the gallery as a continuation of a family history that started in Paris in 1965. One of Riché's highlights this year is a Qianlong period tripod incense burner and lid in gilt bronze and cloisonné enamel.

Brussels-based Corinne Van der Kindere of Artcade Gallery exhibits at many fairs in Belgium and overseas. This year she will show some classical Chinese archaeological finds and Song period ceramics. The star pieces of her collection, however, will be two examples of Qidan nomadic art from northeast China. One is a Tang period parcel-gilt `deer' silver bowl with repoussé and incised designs of a medallion with crouching deer on the inside and two pairs of mandarin ducks surrounded by floral patterns on the outside. The other is an early Liao set of six gilt-silver ornamental saddle fittings with repoussé decoration featuring a flying-horse motif, which would have been used to decorate a Qidan wood saddle.

BRAFA regular Marc Michot, also based in Brussels, will participate in the fair for the 30th time. He will present three groups of primarily 17th to 20th century Chinese ceramics, which come from three renowned Dutch and Flemish private collections. Many of the pieces can be previewed on his website at www.marcmichot.com. Highlights include a Wanli period kraak porcelain dish with an egret mark on the base, one of only 45 such pieces known.

Georgia Chrischilles from Brussels will show pieces from Bactria, China, Tibet and Burma, including a carved Bactrian `column idol' in chlorite inlaid with white chalk, from the late 3rd/early 2nd millennium BCE. Although explanations as to their function are speculative, it is believed such objects were used for ritual purposes. She will also show a set of Tibetan dignitary's jewellery in gold, carved turquoise, ruby and lapis lazuli from the 19th century, usually known as `moon eater's' jewellery.

Paris-based Christophe Hioco's collection of Chinese works this year will feature a Sui period terracotta amphora with a design of entwined moulded dragons around the neck, and a Wei period standing bodhisattva in mica-flecked marble from a French private collection. His Indian works will include a pink sandstone Saraswati statue from Madhya or Uttar Pradesh dating to the 10th/11th century. The eight-armed standing figure is accompanied by four attendants, two sitting at her feet playing the flute and vina, and two standing at her sides holding a fly whisk and garland.

American International Fine Art Fair 2009 and Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antique Show
Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida will play host to two successive international art events this winter. From 4 to 8 February, more than 100 dealers, including several specializing in Asian contemporary art and antiquities, will exhibit the best of their collections at the American International Fine Art Fair 2009 (AIFAF). The preview on 3 February will benefit the Norton Museum of Art, also in Palm Beach. Just a few days later, more than 200 dealers from around the world will show artefacts ranging from antiquities to 20th century works at the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art and Antique Show (JAAS) from 13 to 17 February. Proceeds from the preview will go to the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.

Sundaram Tagore will show a selection of Asian contemporary artworks at the AIFAF. He believes that contemporary Asian art is ideally viewed side by side with Asian antiquities and classical art. `Anyone who has studied Asian art history knows that contemporary art takes a great deal of inspiration from the past,' he says. `For us, this fair offers the opportunity to create a dialogue between the past and present, which of course offers viewers a better opportunity to understand these modern works.'

Fresh from participating in the New York Ceramics Fair in January, Cohen & Cohen will show Chinese export porcelain and works of art at the AIFAF. The husband-and-wife team, Michael and Ewa, exhibit regularly at the major fairs in London, New York, Maastricht and Palm Beach. Their collection this year will include a circa 1740 famille-rose wall plaque of European rococo form, decorated with Chinese figures, and a pair of Dutch dancer groups, also from the Qianlong period, circa 1760. The Cohens are passionate about Chinese porcelain because, says Michael Cohen, `no other porcelain offers the immediacy of appeal, vibrancy of colour, quality of painting and originality of design'.

The collection of Mary Hunt Kahlenberg and Robert Coffland of TAI Gallery in Santa Fe, on view at the AIFAF, will include textiles from Japan, India and Indonesia. They will also offer baskets and sculptures by contemporary Japanese bamboo artists, as well as their new collection of contemporary Japanese photography by Naoki Senju, Seiju Toda and Masaru Tatsuki.

Susan Ollemans will exhibit at the JAAS again this year, because she feels it is an ideal time to meet with a broad cross section of American collectors. She will show a collection of Mughal jewellery, with a focus on finely enamelled kundan pieces inset with diamonds, from north India. Highlights include a 19th century gold kada bracelet from Rajasthan. A similar bracelet in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London was shown at the city's Great Exhibition of 1851 as an example of `modern' work from Dholpur, Rajasthan, and is published in Susan Stronge, Nima Smith and J. C. Harle, A Golden Treasury: Jewellery from the Indian Subcontinent, London, 1988, p. 90, no. 84.

TK Asian Antiquities has amassed an extensive collection of Eurasian gold and silver artefacts, which they will show at the JAAS. One of their star pieces is a Chinese gold-on-silver cockscomb flask attributed to the Tang period. Made from hammered sheets of silver highlighted with gilding, the flask is decorated with intricate scrolling-vine patterns and running deer. Although the shape is relatively common in ceramics, only one other similar piece in silver is known.

Arts of Pacific Asia Show and Tribal & Textile Arts Show in San Francisco
Now in its 13th year, the Arts of Pacific Asia Show (APA) will take place at the Festival Pavilion of the Fort Mason Center for Asian Art and Culture from 6 to 8 February.

Randall Morris and Mariko Tanaka of New York's Cavin-Morris Gallery will curate a special exhibition, `New Asian Textile Tradition', featuring seven contemporary textile artists from Asia and the West, and exploring the relationship between fabric and dye. The gallery will also have a booth presenting studio ceramic art from Asia and the West, by artists who have apprenticed or exhibited in Japan, and whose designs, ranging from traditional tea ware to abstract sculpture, retain a Japanese influence.

Along with a selection of Japanese antiques, The Zentner Collection of California will show a large temple painting of Radha and Krishna in the Garden. The legend of the deity Krishna and his consort, the gopi (cow-herding maiden) Radha, is a prominent motif in many Indian paintings, especially those from the north. This interpretation of the legend, painted in traditional mineral colours on cotton, depicts the two bejewelled lovers as larger-than-life figures surrounded by birds and animals, standing in a lush garden in front of a sacred mountain.

Based in Santa Fe, Alan Scott Pate will show a group of traditional Japanese ningyo dolls, mostly dating from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. They were originally consigned by a Kyoto collector to Yamanaka & Co, who auctioned them in New York in 1916 as part of a sale of imperial art from China and Japan. The collection, which has been in The Cleveland Museum of Art since then, includes yusoku-bina, gosho-ningyo palace dolls and a large isho-ningyo depicting a lion dancer.

The highlight of Xanadu Gallery's booth will be a large group of Gandharan sculptures. `Many of these pieces have been in our private collection for over 20 years, so this will be the focus of the exhibition,' managing director Marsha Vargas Handley says. The San Francisco-based gallery will also show Khmer and Himalayan bronzes and sculptures, Chinese snuff bottles and Japanese netsuke.

Among the offerings from Tokyo-based Nankai Gallery is a 12th/13th century Khmer statue depicting the Buddha seated on a coiled naga.

Antique silver expert Wynyard R. T. Wilkinson of London will participate in the APA for the first time. He will focus particularly on pieces from India and Burma, his areas of speciality because, he says, `it is in this field that I feel I can make the most unique contribution to the show'. A large two-handled silver `Raj' vase made by Krishna Chetty is one of the centrepieces of his display. Almost identical to one shown at the Delhi International Exhibition in 1903, the vase is decorated with a typical south Indian chased design of Hindu deities and their animal `vehicles', with two figures of female deities, cast and chased in the round, forming the handles.

At the APA for the fourth year, Laurence Paul of Fleurdelys Antiquités will show a selection of Chinese works of art and wood stands. Pieces of interest include a pair of 19th century Chinese carved rosewood stands with burl tops.

Chinese jade, scholar's objects and decorative classical paintings have consistently proved strong sellers for Knapton Rasti Asian Art Ltd, who will attend their eighth APA this year. A highlight among the jades they are offering will be a russet-skinned white jade boulder carved with a design of three rams among rocks overlooking breaking waves. The gallery says their core of loyal local buyers has been expanded recently by the influx of mainland Chinese who have started visiting the fair.

Back at the APA for a second time, Leiko Coyle's collection will include sculptures from Tibet, India and Nepal. She will also show some Tibetan thangkas from the 15th to 19th century. Among them is a detailed and vividly coloured painting of the female deity Prajnaparamita from east Tibet.

Marc Richards will show ancient Chinese ceramics from the Han to the Tang dynasty, including a Tang period recumbent ox in earthenware. He will also present a selection of Chinese contemporary art.

Dalton Somare of Italy will show a selection of their acquisitions from north India, Nepal and Tibet. Highlights are a large bronze figure of the great Sakya scholar Lowo Khenchen Sonam Lhundrup, seated on a lotus bearing an inscription, and a 14th century gold embossed image of Padmapani, made by a Newari master for a Tibetan patron and found inside a stupa. They also have one of the few existing anthropomorphic figures from the Gangetic plain which, says Leonardo Vigorelli, dates to the 2nd millennium BCE, and is considered `a pre-iconic image of a supernatural being and therefore one of the first autoctonous expressions of art in north India'. Having spent the past year searching for the best examples of Chinese textiles, Wenhua Liu will again emphasize minority costumes and jewellery at the APA, especially from the Li minority. She will also offer a selection of embroidery samples.

Erick Schiess of Jadestone Fine Asian Art, Appraisal and Consulting will exhibit a group of Chinese snuff bottles from several US collections, as well as Chinese jade, porcelain, bronze, enamel, glass, scholar's objects and miniatures. Also on view will be a small group of Japanese objects, including an Imari jar with celestial images and a pair of bronze figures.

The Festival Pavilion will also host the 23rd San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Show (TTAS), from 13 to 15 February. The 2009 show will also feature two special exhibitions curated by Randall Morris of Cavin-Morris Gallery: `Conversing with Culture: Paintings and Drawings by Jose Bedia' and `Indigenous Drawing: Work by Self-taught Artists from Non-Western Cultures'.

Thomas Murray will be at both fairs this year, offering masterpiece sculpture featured in his new catalogue, Animistic Art of Island Asia (Mill Valley, 2008). Highlights will include the cover piece from the catalogue, a megalithic female ancestor figure from central Sulawesi, which possibly dates to the 1st millennium.

Murni will be the only exhibitor from Bali at the APA and TTAS. She will bring a large number of prized pieces from her own collection of Balinese and Indonesian textiles, amassed over three decades, to both shows. She has exhibited at the APA before, but will join the TTAS for the first time this year. She will show ceremonial objects, including tribal jewellery, combs and silver boxes from Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma.

Many of the dealers in Asian Art in London had much to smile about, like Ben Janssens, who sold three quarters of his Chinese lacquer exhibition during the event. Giuseppe Eskenazi says: We were surprised by the way in which our exhibition of Chinese ceramics and stone sculptures was received under the present circumstances. Three quarters were sold by the end of the first week, the most important pieces, such as the Northern Qi vase, having been snapped up first.' Caroline Chiu's photographs of sculptures from the Nyingjei Lam collection at Rossi & Rossi were also well received, with several purchased by UK collectors. At Simon Pilling, a demonstration of Japanese lacquer craft by Wakamiya Takashi was quickly oversubscribed, and drew interest in the contemporary lacquer pieces from collectors and museum curators. Ten of the 23 miniature paintings offered by Oliver Forge and Brendan Lynch were sold, including one to the Museum Rietberg in Zurich. Michael Backman was pleased with sales and the increase in attendance, and feels that his exhibition – which included not-for-sale Southeast Asian, Himalayan and Indian gold and silver items from a private collection – achieved an educational purpose. The first client arrived at Sydney L. Moss's new premises when the paint on the walls was not quite dry and it was still littered with moving cases, but purchased two netsuke. In fact, two thirds of their netsuke collection found new homes, with mainly European collectors, while the Chinese paintings and calligraphy sold to American and English private collectors, as well as American museums. Malcolm Fairley had a most successful exhibition, with almost all the major pieces in the Japanese works of art catalogue selling, including to new buyers. Financial crisis or not, the results of the event would have been considered favourable in any year, showing the steadfastness of the art market.
Y. L.

On 10 November 2008, the Palace Museum in Beijing, under the directorship of Zheng Xinmiao, and the World Monuments Fund (WMF), headed by president Bonnie Burnham, officially unveiled Juanqinzhai (the Studio of Fatigue after an Assiduous Reign) after a five-year restoration project sponsored by the World Monuments Fund with support from the Freeman Foundation; The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston; British American Tobacco; the Robert W. Wilson Challenge to Conserve Our Heritage; Tiffany & Co. Foundation; and Mr and Mrs Peter Kimmelman. The opening marks the first phase of a 12-year, multimillion-dollar project to restore the entire complex of the Qianlong Garden in the Forbidden City. The two main rooms of Juanqinzhai, the theatre and the reception hall, will be open to the general public for the first time ever in 2009. (For further details on the restoration project, see Nancy Berliner, `Juanqinzhai Revisited', in Orientations, June 2008, pp. 31-40.) A travelling exhibition featuring eighty to a hundred objects from the Qianlong Garden and its pavilions will open at the Peabody Essex Museum in September 2010, in cooperation with the Palace Museum and the WMF.
Oliver Watson has been appointed director of the new Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, which opened on 22 November. The museum's inaugural exhibition, `Beyond Boundaries – Islamic Art Across Cultures', brings together some 25 institutions from around the world, each of which lent a single artwork from its own collection.

Sotheby's recently announced four new appointments. Caroline Schulten was named Head of Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art Sales, North America. Schulten joined Sotheby's, London in September 2007 as Senior Specialist in Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art. Supporting Schulten in her new role will be Christina Prescott-Walker, who has been appointed Department Director of Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, New York. She will also continue as Head of Department for European Ceramics and Chinese Export Porcelain, New York, a position she has held since 1998.

In addition, Sotheby's welcomed Fanny Hsu as Senior Specialist, Taipei. Based in Taipei, she will continue to develop the Chinese art market in Taiwan, as well as provide support to the New York team. Philippe Delalande has joined Sotheby's, France as International Specialist of Asian Art, based in Paris. He will work closely with Christian Bouvet, who runs the Asian Art department at Sotheby's, France, as well as with the Hong Kong, New York and London offices. Delalande worked with a major Asian art gallery in Paris for 20 years before joining Christie's in 1998.

China's growing fascination with connoisseurship was reflected in the first Chinese Collectors' Convention in Shanghai on 8 and 9 October 2008. Close to 800 international collectors, dealers, critics and experts gathered at the Shanghai International Convention Centre for the event, themed around `Collection – Civilization and Self-Cultivation', and sponsored by the Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation. Some thirty scholars, collectors and connoisseurs were invited to present papers discussing, among other things, the role and responsibility of collectors in preserving China's cultural heritage.

The art market has thrived in recent years as never before, thanks in a large part to booming stock markets and flourishing economic and financial markets. The BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and other emerging market economies grew strongly, adding weight to the growth of the established economies. The global economic growth generated unprecedented individual prosperity, and the art market was one of many sectors that benefited from the massive increase in the number of HNWIs (High Net Worth Individuals) and UHNWIs (Ultra High Net Worth Individuals). The combined worldwide net sales of Christie's and Sotheby's grew by more than 150 per cent during the period 2000-07, from US$4.3 billion to over US$11 billion, while the worldwide art market today is generally acknowledged to be worth in the region of US$50 billion per annum.
It seemed at the time – in fact until early 2008 – as though it would never end; but it did. It seemed too good to be true – and it was. Now the economic prosperity is unravelling, and we have to wonder in what manner, and to what extent, the economic crisis has impacted the art market, and how that influences the attractiveness of art as an investment.
Economists are fond of prefacing their forecasts with the caveat `other things being equal...', but the truth of the matter is that other things never are equal. Investment regulatory bodies insist that any investment opportunity offered to the public come with the warning that `past performance is no guarantee of future performance'. However, reference to the past is the only lifeline we have to hold on to when facing an unknown future; even sophisticated investors look to past performance or track record when making a decision about whether or not to invest. Fortunately, the history of the art market offers a considerable degree of comfort when we seek to evaluate market opportunities in the face of today's very uncertain economic climate.
In fact, history demonstrates that the art market is exceptionally resilient, thanks largely to the ability of principal participants to `roll with the punches' – and sometimes even to take advantage of the situation – through a remarkable talent for putting a positive spin on events, and also because the cultural consensus which underpins the value of most categories of art holds strong through such events. The art market survived the Great Depression of 1929-30. It went on to survive the first Oil Crisis in the early 1970s, and subsequent economic downturns and recessionary forces in the early 1980s, the early 1990s and the early 2000s. Based on the art market's response to past economic crises, then, we have every reason to be confident that it will survive the current situation.
That said, the lessons learned from past recessions also tell us that on each occasion, the art market tended to emerge with a different focus. Prior to the downturn of the early 1990s, the main interest was in the Impressionists and post-Impressionists. As the market recovered, the focus of collecting and speculative investment attention started to shift away from these sectors and towards Western (mainly North American and European) contemporary art. In turn, this is the sector that is proving the principal casualty of the current meltdown. This category of art was increasingly acquired by very wealthy buyers, whose speculative activities over the past few years sent prices to unprecedented, and ultimately unsustainable, levels. These collectors have been among the most prominent victims of the financial tsunami, and the loss of their disposable wealth has quickly led to a decrease in the market for the art they are no longer in a position to support.
When the art market begins to recuperate, then, the one thing we can be reasonably sure of is that Western contemporary art will no longer command the prices it did previously. We cannot be quite so confident about what will take its place, but there are some possible clues. To the extent that the current economic crisis may result in a gradual global realignment of wealth in favour of the Eastern economies, we might look to the collecting tastes of those who may well be the new HNWIs in the second decade of this century. The clear art market winners in this case will be contemporary artists from these and other emerging market economies, especially those who have already gained a strong local following.
However, this doesn't mean that Western art should be ignored. While media attention has, not surprisingly, been focused on the rapidly changing fortunes of the West's fashionable young contemporary artists, we must not forget the much larger pool of Old Masters, and 19th Century and Modern Masters, whose fortunes have been advancing in a steady, unspectacular fashion over a very much longer time horizon.
All of this is good news for the investor in art at the present time. One of the many strengths of art funds is the relative lack of volatility of this asset class compared to conventional asset classes. The resilience of art prices is a consequence of the limited downside risk associated with such hard-asset classes (excluding speculatively purchased Western contemporary art). This is one of the features that allows the proponents of such funds to point to the advantages of a diversified asset allocation strategy, in which art has a place alongside stocks and bonds in a balanced portfolio. The recent wild gyrations of the world's leading stock markets have fully demonstrated the validity of this strategy.
Continuing volatility in stock markets, fuelled to some extent by uncertain economic prospects, thus provides an ideal opportunity for investing in art, and there is a broad spectrum of sectors from which to choose. Based on the expectation of a global shift in wealth as the markets emerge from recession, artists from emerging market economies offer significant investment opportunities for Western collectors seeking something new. At the other end of the spectrum, traditional Western masters also make sense as an investment because they are largely unaffected by the `roller coaster' of contemporary art, and continue to offer highly attractive, risk-adjusted returns. Ultimately, the range of opportunities on offer from art funds allows investors to buy what they like, at the same time as making an informed decision based on sound investment considerations.
Jeremy Eckstein is Head Investment Strategist of Meridian Art Partners.