Three-point advice to evaluate Chinese art

Dear friends,

This article was published in 1988 by the Beijing Scientific Daily. I have condensed it for you.

There must be tens of thousands of art galleries in the world, but very few would bother to show Chinese paintings. As far as I know, there are no Chinese art courses offered in any of the universities's art departments in the entire Western world. This is a proof that Chinese art has very little meaning or value in the world.

Actually, there is nothing wrong with Chinese art. The big problem is that Chinese art speaks only in its own language, and therefore western people don't understand it. For this reason I have devoted myself to try to rectify this problem by making Chinese art capable of speaking a universal language, thus enabling it to enter international art circles.

In order to be accepted by the Western art world, we have to pay attention to the following three aspects:

1. The recognition by any major museums: If an artist's work is acquired by a world-famous museum, such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, the British Museum in London or the Louvre in Paris, his achievement would be equivalent to an athlete receiving a gold medal at the Olympics.

2. Praise from an authoritative art critic: If an artist's works are being reviewed and deemed worthy for public viewing by a well-known and qualified art critic like Robert Hughes of Time magazine, or one of the art critics of the New York Times or London Times, his accomplishment can also compare to that of the Olympic winners.

3. Esteemed gallery membership: De Kooning is a member of Janis Gallery in New York City, Zao Wu-Ki is a member of Gallery de France. In other words, they both have reached the apex of their profession in the world of art.

In my opinion, a truly excellent artist should be able to achieve all three points (some luck would help, of course).

In order to help Southeast Asian artists enter the competitive art circle sooner, I suggest the following:

A. Establish an art critic system: Art critics are not judges. They should be art educators teaching the public aesthetics, art history and art education. The only way to achieve this is to implement these courses in the universities of their own countries and encourage more students to take them. Once the have a basic knowledge of aesthetics, art history and education, they can then further their studies abroad -- either in America or Europe. Once they have achieved better knowledge from both the East and the West, I am sure they would be fully qualified to teach and to lead the public in the right direction of understanding art and thus appreciate it.

B. Establish art galleries: Art galleries should not be gift shops, they must serve as bridges between the artist and the collector. At the same time, they have the responsibility to cultivate artists.

C. Establish Western art museums: To purchase original paintings is too costly, but we can easily acquire some fine reproductions of the great masters. Once a few thousand good prints have been collected, a galleries or museum can be opened where seminars and lectures by experts can be held regularly. The public will then have a place to visit and learn about Western art. At the same time, tourists will have more places to visit. (see illustration)

Until next time, and good luck.

-- Kwo Da-Wei