Chair

Anne Dunlop (University of Melbourne)

Panellists

Gloria Guirao Soro (Université Paris 8 and Universitat de Barcelona), Chenchen Zhu (University of Amsterdam), Shen Qu (Arizona State University, Tempe), Tsukasa Kodera (Osaka University)

Place-based networks and international success: Spanish contemporary artists emigrating and their access to gallery representation

Gloria Guirao Soro (Université Paris 8 and Universitat de Barcelona)

Geographical mobility is part of the career of artists aspiring to access the international dissemination circuits of contemporary art. The calendar of the “global” art world, as it has developed since the 1970’s, is rhythmed by a series of international events with a growing geographical scope, including biennials and fairs. Artists, along curators, dealers and collectors, travel in order to visit exhibitions and art fairs or to participate in residencies. This “global” art world is, however, still organised around artistic centres that serve as nodes for networks and as places where artistic recognition is decided (Quemin 2013, Buchholz 2022) and validated (Sapiro 2007). In such a setting, the migration of artists from peripheral regions to the global artistic centres can be understood as a career development strategy, used to promote the internationalization of their careers (Guirao Soro 2022).

While the phenomenon of artistic migrations is not new, some sociopolitical trends have accelerated it in recent times. In the case of Spain, the country’s integration in the European Union has had a visible impact in the migration of Spanish artists to cities such as Paris, London, or Berlin, artistic centres in the European country and on a global scale. Nevertheless, such migrations have not always translated into greater international visibility for these artists. On the contrary, by leaving their original artistic scene to join a new, bigger, and more competitive one, these artists can find themselves in a situation of “double absence” (Sayad 1999).

This proposal aims to focus on the importance of place-based networks for artists and, more specifically, on their chances to achieve stable gallery representation as migrants. Drawing on over 60 interviews with Spanish artists living abroad, we look at the motivations for their emigration, the choice of the destination, and the strategies they put in place to internationalise their careers. A mixed-methods approach, including ethnography and statistical analysis, allows us to question the territorial anchoring of artistic recognition in the “global” contemporary art world and to better understand the contradictions that are at the heart of the careers of artists from the peripheries, between the pressure to internationalize and the forms of disaffiliation from their place of origin linked to migration.

Creating art in diaspora: Network building of young Chinese artists in France and the Netherlands

Chenchen Zhu (University of Amsterdam)

The overall aim of this research paper is to study how do young Chinese artists perceive and build their career networks in French and Dutch art worlds. Through in- depth interviews with 12 young Chinese artists living in France and the Netherlands, this study investigated and analyzed their pressures and strategies when it comes to network-building in the two European art worlds. This study first identified four different types of networks which the young Chinese artists have endeavored to build: applications for art grants, representations by galleries, collaborations with institutions, and active organizations of collective art projects. In most cases, artists expand networks through multiple ways at the same time. However, impacts of the different types of networks vary at different stages of artists’ career development. For young art graduates, successful applications for grants and residency programmes turn out to be the most efficient way to enter the art world and be noticed by curators and gallerists, while connections with art institutions usually come at a more established phase of artists’ careers because more exhibition records and art recognitions are required by gatekeepers from art institutions. This reflects a need for young artists to accumulate networks for more sustainable career development in the art world. Further, this study finds  a  transnational  effect  in  diaspora  Chinese  artists’ career  that  networks  and recognitions the young Chinese artists have gained in Europe would wield positive influences on their career opportunities in China. At a time the Chinese art market has seen an unprecedent growth, the young Chinese artists in diaspora tend to maintain their networks with galleries, curators, and artists in China for more career opportunities. In particular, social media has played an important role in facilitating such transitional connections. At the same time, this study looks into the difficulties of building networks for the young Chinese artists. The barriers for the young Chinese artists developing career networks not only come at a practical level, such as financial hardship and language difficulties, but also are caused by local gatekeeper’s selection bias that the young Chinese artists need to constantly negotiate with a long-standing “Western” imagination about contemporary Chinese art since 1990s.

By analyzing the abundant information from the 12 in-depth interviews, this study contributes to three aspects. First, although as international mobility of creative professionals has been catalyzed by the global development of creative industry, the entry to the local art circle remains as a secret. By unveiling the process of migrant artists establishing networks for their career, this study presents a more dynamic picture regarding creative professional’s strategies and negotiations when facing multiple external pressures. Second, by looking at experiences of the young Chinese artists endeavoring to build artistic career in western art contexts, this study provides empirical evidence to test the notion of a more globalized, open, and inclusive contemporary art world. Third, this exploratory study examines the transitional effects of network- building by analyzing the impacts of establishing cross-border career networks, such as exhibitions in the museums and art fairs in the “West”, on the artists’ career development in home country.

Rediscover Ching Ho Cheng

Shen Qu (Arizona State University, Tempe)

In this paper, I will examine the evolving landscape of the contemporary art market, contrasting it with the 1980s era, with a particular focus on the impact of identity politics in the realm of broad social history through a case study centered on the iconic artist Ching Ho Cheng (1946-1989). By delving into Ching Ho Cheng's life and artistic career, my paper unveils the pivotal role that museum donations have played in elevating both the artist's visibility and market value.

Ching Ho Cheng was a Cuban-born Chinese-American queer artist active in 1960s-1980s New York. In the 1970s, Ching Ho Cheng was already a superstar among other well-known artists including Andy Warhol. Although not represented by big-name galleries, Ching’s works sold well among the collectors such as Princess Caroline of Monaco, Alfonso Ossorio, and Peggy Cooper Cafritz. Notably, his work received high acclaim from curators, with Henry Geldzahler, the inaugural curator of twentieth-century art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, staunchly endorsing his creations. However, due to Ching's Asian Queer identity, his oeuvre remained excluded from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection and other major museums’ collections in the 1980s. After Ching's death of AIDS, his sister, Sybao Cheng-Wilson, has since taken charge of his artistic estate.

A significant turning point began in the 2000s when Sybao initiated the donation of select works to major art institutions, including the Whitney. In 2020, Xin Wang, a fellow at the Whitney, serendipitously re-discovered Ching's works in the archive, subsequently incorporating them into public lecture series. This initiative captured the attention of prominent galleries, most notably David Zwirner, which hosted an exhibition dedicated to Ching Ho Cheng, thereby catapulting his market value to new heights. As a result, Ching's works are once again showcased in major art institutions as part of group exhibitions. Currently, Sybao is working with different museums and galleries to plan global retrospectives for Ching.

Sybao's donation reflects the important role that museums play in the increasingly complex contemporary art market. In this paper, I will research closely how Sybao selected works and donated certain works to different museums including SAAM, CMA, and the Whitney, and see how these works play different roles in these different institutions that help continue Ching Ho Cheng's legacy.

The “global” diffusion of artworks and their prices: Van Gogh, French modernism, and Japanese art

Tsukasa Kodera (Osaka University)

Since his death in 1890, Van Gogh’s works have been diffusing to vast areas of the world through the art sales and exhibition (loan) markets. Based on my thorough quantitative research on exhibitions and museum acquisitions, I want to survey the number of exhibitions in which Van Gogh’s works were shown worldwide from 1890 until 2020 and the number of Van Gogh’s paintings acquired by museums. The results of my research will be analyzed chronologically, geopolitically, and geoeconomically and compared with French modernism and Japanese traditional and contemporary art.

Exhibitions: In principle, the number of Van Gogh exhibitions has been increasing over the past 130 years, but naturally, there have been ups and downs and geographically uneven distribution according to cultural, religious, political, and economic factors. War, financial crisis, and iconoclastic politics or religion were decisive negative factors. Still, there were also minor negative factors, such as the opening of the Van Gogh Museum in 1973, which refrained from organizing Van Gogh exhibitions abroad. Positive factors were economic growth or imbalance, political thought like German annexationism (Germanic art), and the privatization of Dutch national museums in the 1990s.

Museum acquisitions: The diffusion of works occurs first through exhibitions and then through acquisitions by private collectors and museums. Chronologically, museum acquisitions arise a few years or even decades later than exhibitions and acquisitions by private collectors, and geographically, the diffusion area is smaller. Positive and negative factors of the diffusion by museum acquisitions are similar to those of exhibitions. The diffusion of Van Gogh’s works in the loan (exhibitions) and sales markets is characterized by its earliest diffusion to Scandinavian countries, the rapid expansion of markets in Germany after 1900, and its slow diffusion in South European countries. After the 1920s and 1930s, when the French francs were extremely weak, Van Gogh’s works, like many Impressionist works, entered into German, American, Australian, and Japanese collections.

Prices: The mechanism of the price increase of Van Gogh’s works will be discussed based on comprehensive research into prices. The price of his works did not gradually rise throughout the decades but jumped up on specific occasions, first after Helene Kröller-Müller started to collect Van Goghs in 1908 at exceptionally high prices, then when Germans and Americans came to purchase them in the 1920s and 1930s, and more recently during the bubble economy in Japan in the late 1980s. These were all periods of geoeconomic imbalance when “outsiders” participated in the sales market and auctions.

In addition to the world distribution maps of Van Gogh’s paintings, I will briefly analyze the diffusion of French modernism and Japanese traditional and contemporary art and show these artworks' supply and demand areas. Despite the multiple and “global” market expansion, there are still vast blank areas we should not ignore in our approach.