In a few short years, New Yorker Eli Klein has become one of the most energetic promoters of contemporary art from China, representing artists as diverse as Shen Shaomin, Zhang Dali and newcomer Li Hongbo. Klein recently achieved blanket coverage of chameleon performance artist, Liu Bolin, including in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and on CNN. Having recently opened a sister gallery in Beijing, Klein took the time to discuss with Randian 燃点 how he became a dealer and how he views the Chinese art market now.
Chris Moore: Eli Klein, thank you for agreeing to speak with Randian. Perhaps you could start by talking about how you got involved with Chinese art and how you set up your gallery.
Eli Klein: Before I opened the gallery, the plan was always to have a focus on Chinese art. It wasn’t planned in the beginning to focus exclusively on Chinese art. For example, the first exhibition that I had was called “Representing Alexander Calder” and it was a collection of works by Calder and his contemporaries, original works in addition to contemporary Western artists who were influenced by Calder in a kinetic way.
So that was our first show, and the second show was of course Chinese contemporary photography. It was basically just photographs in China.
CM: Who were some of the artists?
EK: It included Liu Bolin, Zhang Dali, Zhang Peng, and Huang Yan.
CM: You are only 33 now, aren’t you?
EK: Yes.
CM: So how old were you when you first set up the gallery, when you started planning it and so on?
EK: Oh, I began planning it probably when I was twenty-six.
CM: So this was something you wanted to do after you finished college and university?
EK: Twenty-six is probably more accurate. You know, I’ve always had a passion for art. I certainly didn’t anticipate doing a gallery when I was a kid. I probably was leaning more toward the field of law. For the most part, my entire family are lawyers and that’s certainly the direction in which I was headed. I went through law school and I simply didn’t enjoy it, and I knew pretty quickly that it’s not what I wanted to do. And then I turned to art.
CM: You’ve been running the gallery for a number of years now. Could you tell us a little bit about your roster of artists and how you developed that? There are a couple who particularly interest me, such as Zhang Dali but also Shen Shaomin. I think Shaomin is one of the most interesting conceptual artists and sculptors in China today; certainly he’d be in my list of top five or ten most undervalued artists in China.
EK: I couldn’t agree more — and you know what? I believe we corresponded maybe years ago about him, and at that point you said the same thing and I totally agreed. I think since then he’s probably achieved more recognition, but it is still the same thing. He does not have the level of recognition that he deserves, but I think we also have to take into account that Shen Shaomin’s artistic career didn’t start when he was twenty, and his past was a bit different from other artists. So that might account for some of that.
But what I’d like to say about him is, current recognition aside, when the dust settles, Shen Shaomin will certainly be one of the Chinese contemporary artists still standing.
CM: Could you talk a little bit about the Chinese art scene in America, and in particular New York?
EK: I think, I know, in America, Chinese artists are extraordinarily underrepresented. And while there are some of the blue chip galleries signing some of the blue chip artists, they don’t nearly account for what the level of exposure of Chinese contemporary art in America should be, — and New York is still the center of the art world, no matter what anyone says. One would expect the center of the art world to have a lot to see in Chinese art because China is obviously almost a quarter of the world and the Chinese contemporary art scene has been so popular and so talked about, but in fact it’s not the case. While more and more American museums embrace some Chinese artists, it’s still a big barrier often for some Chinese artists to break into Western institutions and Western galleries.
CM: Would you say that these days the moniker “Chinese contemporary art” is a help or a hindrance? The fact that something is defined specifically as “Chinese contemporary art” — does that pigeonhole it a little bit?
EK: I don’t think so. I think often people will try to generalize Chinese art but, when it comes down to it, you have to look at each artist. It tends to be different from the art market in China. They are two separate things but once you begin putting people into groups like that it really doesn’t work. The art market is global and I think eventually places like New York will have an appropriate and adequate representation of artists from all over the world.
CM: Did you see any significant dip after the financial crisis in 2008, and how long did it last? Do you feel as though the market has re-emerged now? Is it back to where it was before, or what’s the state of it now?
EK: What happened is that the market corrected. It’s not just Chinese art that experienced the declines; it’s most art. But Chinese art certainly did experience it. Again, it’s not the same for every artist. Many of my artists persevered through it just fine and prices didn’t go down whether with that auction or that specific gallery, and they’ve begun going up again.
There were a lot of artists that had out-of-control prices and it was a problem. That’s no longer nearly as much of a problem as it was, and people aren’t spending the kind of money that they were, prior to the crash, on decorative art. They were artists that we consciously stayed away from; even though they are terrific artists that we showed before the economy crashed, they were overpriced and their markets corrected. It’s a real problem in China now for some of those artists because they can’t bring their prices down to what they should be, because it undercuts all of the collectors or galleries that have acquired work at a certain level and they can’t sell it at what they used to. So it’s an unfortunate situation that some of the artists are in. I think that they are still trying to figure out ways to get around this problem, but when it comes down to it, it is a substantial problem. Wouldn’t you agree with that?
CM: I would. Though quite a lot of artists’ prices have not dipped at all. You look at people like Zeng Fanzhi, for instance, and his prices are dramatically up, if anything. I don’t think that the dip had any effect on him whatsoever.
EK: And Liu Ye and maybe Fang Lijun. There’re certainly artists that that’s the case with.
CM: How would you define your clients, your collectors?
EK: Well, we serve collectors from all over the world, and, really, there’s no way for me to generalize them. I mean, I have buyers and collectors from everywhere around the world who do everything, some of whom are new to Chinese art, some of whom are extremely experienced in collecting Chinese art. What’s nice about having a gallery in New York where there’s still little Chinese art is that we are really able to deal to some of the great collectors who haven’t had any experience in Chinese art, and open the collection to that and open their minds to that. We can really spend a lot of time with them showing them the market and explaining everything to them and making them comfortable in it. Unfortunately, most of what people know about Chinese art is what they read about it or hear about it and often, as you mentioned before, it’s just generalized as one kind of art.
CM: You sure have a very broad range of artists, right? I am wondering how, for instance, Zhao Kailin and his traditional genre pieces fit in with people like Lu Bolin or Shen Shaomin? How do you define the artistic profile of your gallery?
EK: We represent emerging artists and established artists in all different mediums. So if an artist has a different aesthetic or a concept that doesn’t mean we are not open to representing him.
CM: Even though his style is quite different?
EK: Yeah.
CM: So you would have the traditional directly alongside very contemporary art, such as the sculpture of Li Hongbo?
EK: Not necessarily in a show together, but certainly at different times.
CM: Let’s move into the territory of the economics of the Chinese art market. I notice that in a couple of recent articles it’s been mentioned that you are planning to launch an art fund. Of course China still has a number of art funds and some of them are quite large; China appears to be one of the places where art funds work better than in other parts of the world. What’s your view now? Of course, there’re quite a few traditional galleries and I have been talking recently with people like Ben Brown and Fabien Fryns, and they have a great deal of skepticism about the art fund model. The basic criticism is that if you have the money, why wouldn’t you just buy the art yourself rather than participating in a fund?
EK: I think one of the major reasons for that — and this is very important — is that people investing in funds, whether it’s for art or another thing, want to diversify their portfolios to a certain percentage in art, whether that be contemporary or modern or Chinese art, and they don’t have the itch in them that loves artwork. They are not art buyers. There are a lot of investors and incredibly wealthy people who don’t care much about art. So as a pure investment tool, I think that what you said is certainly not the case. Absolutely there are people who want to buy a certain piece for themselves and know what they like, and others who want to collect and know what they think is going to be a great investment. That’s terrific and that’s a lot of what drives the changed contemporary art market. But I don’t think that it takes away from a huge potential of the Chinese art market.
CM: I am wondering how you establish an art fund. Are you buying purely blue chip works, where the opportunity to beat the market is limited, or is the focus on emerging artists where the risk is much higher?
EK: I think we have a massive opportunity to beat the market in both blue chip and emerging art, and that’s certainly one of the main things behind the fund, of course. But more than that, to be honest, I’d rather not get into.
CM: Could you talk a little bit about the Chinese art scene? Are you selling to Chinese collectors or is it still mainly non-Chinese collectors?
EK: I would say mainly non-Chinese collectors. We certainly do sell to Chinese collectors and we are increasing the number of Chinese clients we serve. One of the great things about having a gallery in Beijing is that it opens up that opportunity a little more, but for now the majority of our clients is actually not Chinese.
CM: So how do you see the auction scene in terms of Chinese art? Of course China has a number of very large auction houses that are extremely successful and they are not part of the Sotheby’s or Christie’s or Philips de Pury side of things. How do you see the role of the auction houses in terms of defining the Chinese art market? Quite commonly in the Chinese art market the work of young artists can be picked up and then collectors return those works to the market via the auction houses within a relatively short period of time — it can be two years, sometimes even less than that. What do you think about the Chinese auction phenomenon?
EK: Well, I think, from the gallery standpoint, it’s important to protect your artist. You don’t want to put yourself in a position where you are opening up the opportunity for your collector to take a specific artist and put him up to auction [prematurely]. There are ways of protecting yourself against that, and I certainly use them with some of my artists. It’s not something that makes the artist happy, to be auctioned [prematurely], and they certainly don’t want to feel as though their work is going directly from the gallery to an auction house.
CM: If you can share them with us, what would be your top three methods of trying to discourage this auctioned flipping?
EK: I come to agreement with my clients. It’s in their invoice and it’s in the agreement not to auction, for example, for three years.
CM: And what happens if they breach it?
EK: I haven’t had that happen.
CM: What do you see as the risks and problems in the market? Is there anything in particular you’d like to see changed, or are there certain structural problems that you just have to deal with?
EK: I think like most things in China, you just have to deal with that. You have to adjust to the way that they are doing things and if you don’t do that, then you are going to have a problem. So I’m not someone who’s going out to change China. That’s not something that I want to do; it’s not something that I think is appropriate at all. I have a respect for China as a government and as a country that’s succeeding, whereas a lot of people often only talk about negative aspects of China. The positive things aren’t addressed as much.
CM: But do you see any particular problems with the Chinese art market specifically? What would you like to see improved?
EK: I think the major thing that I want to see improved already happened. When the market collapsed there was a correction on a massive scale that was necessary and that’s what I think the most important thing was.
