Alone and Together

Image: Crouching Spider, 2003. Courtesy of the Easton Foundation. Christopher Burke, copyright Louise Bourgeois Trust. Licensed by VaGa, NY

 

Faurschou Foundation 

Until March 24

Pain and love, self-entrapment, tenderness and vulnerability are the poetic and reverberating threads that tie together the tapestry of the late Louise Bourgeois’s work. The tension, the oscillating energy of opposites that pervades her weighty, beautiful pieces, is impossible to ignore. Sharp and soft textures sit side-by-side, and the sexual is depicted to reflect the pleasures of the flesh, its burdens and its pains.

Alone and Together has been curated by the artist’s long-time assistant Jerry Gorovoy. The title refers to Bourgeois’s own fear of abandonment and loneliness, so the selection is a species of biography; her work is, almost without exception, intensely personal.

‘In and out’ (1995), like many of the works here, incorporates a form that became a motif as its presence came to be found in more and more of her works. This time, the waxy, sinuous female figure, her back and lower body arched towards the ceiling as if in a convulsion of pain or orgasm, is encased in a metal cage. The association between pain and sex has not gone unvisited by artists through the generations, but there is nothing clichéd about this rendition.

There is a strange and tender beauty to the piece: the intermingled tracery of old and broken glass windows outside the cell; the shiny, round mirror globes positioned around the body. But there is also a sense of violence – the armless and headless figure, easy to miss at first, is surrounded by the mirrors, which let you view it from every angle. her mottled, brown-beige form is set on a dirty old corduroy mattress, trapped and vulnerable. outside one corner of the cell is a rubber-like, abstract pink sculpture, radiating warmth and otherness as it appears to caress the cage-like structure.

In a long cabinet are some of Bourgeois’s small, cloth pieces: figures of women becoming flowers or in various stages of pregnancy. She began making sculptures from soft materials when she lived with her three small children, so as to avoid excessive noise. ‘The arrival’ (2007) continues this practice. here an armless hessian doll giving birth is mirrored by the smaller head of her baby as it is born. The figure is then cut off, or perhaps protected, by a glass dome –-the kind that is used to cover stuffed, dead animals.

As a child, Bourgeois was severely distressed by the experience of watching her father pursue an open affair with her English teacher. In her writings she referred to her hate for him, and this pain never stopped haunting her. ‘Crouching Spider’ (2003) is from the Maman series of spider figures, the biggest of which is more than 30 feet high. The series is a tribute to Bourgeois’s mother, who was a weaver. Sharp legs and the facelessness of this spider, which is a little bigger than a man, suggest violence, but a spider is also protective of its silken home and can rebuild it, something her mother did as she endured her humiliation.

It is a rare privilege to see this stunningly intellectual, emotional and expressive artist’s work in China; a body of work that needs no stepping back from, but which draws you entirely into Bourgeois’s sensual, topsy-turvy world. Clare Pennington

Originally posted in Time Out Beijing

No Fruit at the Root

Beijing Commune

Until January 28

No Fruit at the Root is set out as a maze that moves between dark and light spaces, and through three works that focus the viewer’s gaze so intensely on texture and surface detail that the subjects and sculptures themselves are effaced. The effect is not so much disorientating as displacing.

‘Initially, my interests in reflecting on the differences, appearances and unanimities between surface and essence came about from the split personalities inside myself and some of the people around me,’ says artist Hu Xiaoyuan of the wood-and-silk sculptures she has been creating in recent years. The pieces, also titled ‘No Fruit at the Root’, are placed carefully across the floor – geometric shapes in silent conversation with each other. Each discarded block, pillar and joist is partly whitewashed; the surface is then shrouded by taut silk, upon which thin traces of black ink have been laid, mimicking the texture of the wood grain underneath.

The two video works that accompany this are also about the translucency of surface. In ‘See’, the original subject is almost imperceptible – an undulating, white, liquid-like shape, moving across a creamier white background. ‘Drown Dust’, the three-channel video on display in a darkened room, looks closely at corals, the warp and weft in the edge of a fabric and a board that, in close up, is spiked with splinters and rough edges. all of these works are vestiges of wider experiences – other films shot by the artist; objects found in the city or in her studio – but the sense of fleeting impressions is one that can leave viewers pleasantly spooked. The jarring and even limited nature of the works does not diminish the overall sense of otherness, of deposits, left by this intriguing exhibition. Clare Pennington

Originally posted in Time Out Beijing

Ready for collection

For the devoted collector, developing an art collection can be the journey of a lifetime. But it is journey that must begin somewhere, and you certainly don’t have to be a multi-millionaire or an art expert to get on board. In fact, with a surfeit of galleries in the city and an art world that has cooled since the white-hot days of 2011, there is no better time or place to start nosing around chinese art than Beijing today.

Step 1: Do your research

You won’t find your dream artwork without some effort, so make a point of visiting galleries around the city. as well as seeing what’s on display, you can find out what artists they represent (their websites often say this too), and ask their staff for recommendations for other galleries to visit. Do remember that, generally, only galleries sell original artworks; art centres, such as the UCCA, (for the most part) do not; similarly, museums and foundations do not cater to collectors. and be aware that galleries sell more than the work on display; an extra selection of works by artists they represent may very well be kept hidden away in a locked room, to show to interested buyers on request.

The advice of Urs Meile (pictured, above), the founder of Caochangdi’s Galerie Urs Meile and one of a long line of art professionals, is to take your time and ask a lot of questions. ‘There should first be a little bit of time for exploring,’ he says. ‘It is important that you listen to your own feelings and ideas, and that you do a kind of pre-selection for yourself of works that meet your personal taste. Then it is very important that you go to the gallery and talk. People, especially beginners, are very afraid to talk, because they think that if they talk, maybe a gallery director will expect a certain knowledge about art.’ This, he insists, is not the case.

Indeed, gallerists generally agree that it is a gallery’s job to give clear, thorough information about an artist and his or her work to potential buyers, and that enquirers can ask as many questions as they like. This puts galleries in contrast with auction houses, where less information is provided and snappy decisions are a must. and you should never feel under pressure to buy a work just for asking about it, adds Meile. ‘If I was to sell a work every time I spoke to someone about the works, then I would be unbelievably rich,’ he laughs.

Step 2: Ask the right questions
Once you’ve found an artist you like – and the gallery that represents him or her – Pékin Fine arts director Meg Maggio (pictured, below) says there are certain things to look for: ‘[collectors] are curious about where the artist has participated in exhibitions, who has collected his work and why he has a certain relationship with a certain gallery.’ and, she warns, if you only want to decorate your house, then ‘don’t spend a lot of money’.

She continues: ‘a good collector might not care about the market price of a piece, but they always care about the artistic merit of a piece. For something to be identified as an artwork [rather than decoration], it has to have a lot of recognition, whether it’s from museums, curators, critics or auction houses. It has to have third-party, objective, expert recognition.’

Step 3: Budget
Perhaps the most obvious challenge for many collectors is money. Many of us worry about how to budget when it comes to acquiring original art, especially as prices at respected galleries can be astonishingly steep. however, Maggio insists that, if you look hard enough, it is possible to hunt out original works starting from 1,000-6,000RMB: ‘You can find some really interesting things to buy, like drawings or little sculptures.

‘Look for something that isn’t mass-produced, because then you start to get into [the area of] decorations. You need to make sure the works are single productions, and that they are shown in the right galleries. If it’s photography, you should also be looking for a low edition number, and ask how many formats the work will appear in.’ Too many, she says, could damage the value of the work.

Despite this, both Maggio and Meile agree that it’s a mistake to buy art with the intention of making money; it can be a very risky business, and it’s not easy to understand or appreciate the factors by which an artwork’s monetary value may be judged in the future.

Step 4: Delivery
Once you take the plunge there are other expenses to consider. Framing can be costly, but dodging a pricier framer recommended by the gallery for a cheaper, self-sourced one can result in a damaged work of art, whether by clumsy craftsmanship or poor materials that fail to protect the piece against Beijing’s dust and glaring sunlight.

Another issue to consider is that shipping the work abroad is never included in the price. The gallery should be able to recommend a specialist art shipper, and can often help you with the customs forms. It can then take up to a month for an artwork to arrive – including a few weeks to get your application cleared by Chinese customs.


Step 5: After-care
On the bright side, if the gallery is delivering a work to your home in Beijing, it will probably even help you hang it, and, should you want to take it abroad later, a good gallery will continue to give you advice. ‘We consider it an ongoing relationship with the client,’ says Maggio. ‘We hope it’s the start of encouraging the client to build a collection, so there is this whole service that accompanies the purchase of a work.’

Enquire whether the work is insured while it remains in the gallery or is being transported to you, and ask for a certificate of authenticity. ‘We’ll typically give a certificate of authenticity, signed by myself as the gallery representative and by the artist,’ says Maggio, who adds that gallerists should keep up with the provenance of the work they sell. ‘our relationship with the works should be ongoing and dynamic,’ she says, explaining that good gallerists will stay in touch with clients to give them any further advice needed on the work they have acquired – including current estimates on its value, which are necessary for collectors so that they can update their insurers.

A final word
Though there is no shortage of issues to consider when buying art, it is absolutely worth making the leap now, while the art market is moving a little slower says Meile. ‘collectors and art lovers now have the time to think about it because they are no longer afraid that if they don’t say “yes” it will be gone tomorrow.’ and he has one final word of advice for buyers: ‘never buy something just because a gallerist says you have to make a quick decision or it will be gone. Don’t worry if it will be gone. There will be other things.’  Clare Pennington

Originally published in Time Out Beijing