Interview with Brian Wallace

Australian Brian Wallace has been in China for nearly 25 years, and since 1991 has been the director and owner of Red Gate, the first foreign-owned commercial art gallery on the Chinese mainland. Dan Edwards wrote about Red Gate for China Today. He interviewed Wallace at Red Gate in the Dongbianmen Watchtower, Beijing, on 31 January, 2008.

Can you tell me what first brought you to China?

In 1984 I came backpacking and travelled all over the place, via Lanzhou to Kashgar, over a five-week period, mainly by train. I was really impressed by some New Zealand backpackers I met who had bothered to learn some of the language along the way. That helped them get by. Then I went back to Australia, and decided I wanted to study China language and have a go at it. I came back for five months and did a short language course, and really, really enjoyed that. I went around the world and back to Australia, where I had a job waiting. Then I found a scholarship and came back to Beijing in 1986.

What was it about the country that initially drew you in 1984?

Well I'd been into what was called "adventure travel trips" back in those days. I'd been backpacking and hiking in New Guinea on one of those trips back in 1981. I'd been working for some time and I wanted to have a holiday and a big adventure, and I thought China was probably more exotic than many other places at that time. So I got myself to Hong Kong and then came in over the border to Guangzhou. I didn't know that much about China. But I could get here, I was used to backpacking, so I was confident I could get around. And I had my Berlitz phrasebook for travellers – that helped me immensely.

Was it difficult to get a visa to study in those days?

No it wasn't. Actually when I came back in '85 to study I just landed here on a tourist visa, and managed to piggyback on some other organization's course at the Beijing Language Institute. It wasn't difficult getting a visa.

You write quite evocatively in your book To the Watchtower about the early days of the Beijing art scene in the mid to late 80s, with artists exhibiting on couches in people’s apartments and so on. What was it that drew you to the Beijing art scene at that time?

My Chinese friends were artists. So we were always going around to exhibitions in people's apartments, and later in places like the Old Summer Palace and the Temple of Longevity. So very quickly you could see something was happening. There was no official support for these young artists, and there was no infrastructure – there were no galleries as such. Many of these exhibitions were just organised by the artists themselves and put on over a weekend or a week. So with my artist friends we thought 'why don’t we take it to a higher level?,' and actually send out proper invitations and have cocktail parties for the openings, and make it a bit more organised. So that’s what I started doing. Again those exhibitions were over a weekend or a week, and we were renting spaces, mainly at the Ancient Observatory.

Did your involvement start fairly quickly after you came back and started studying again?

Ah.... yes. During '87, after being here about six months, picking up some of the language and finding it much easier to negotiate my way around here, I started going to exhibitions, and more and more artists became known to me. They needed help, and I liked organizing things so it just flowed from there. Right through to '89.

Were most of the artists of that time people coming out of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing?

And Hangzhou Academy…from all over the country actually. Of course it was different to what's happening today – now there are so many artists here. They were from all over the country, and different art schools. The Central Academy was of course the most important, and still is.

Were you directly involved in the China Avant-Garde No U-Turn exhibition in February 1989?

No. That was done by the Chinese curator… in fact I wasn’t even here for that. I was holidaying in Australia. But I did see the one before it – the first nude oil painting exhibition at the National Art Museum of China. That was of note for the crowds, queuing around the block.

How long before the U-Turn exhibition was that?

That was in January 1989.

In 1990 you did a one year course on Chinese art history at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. How did this experience enhance your understanding of contemporary practice and what you were seeing around you?

Well, it put everything in perspective by giving me an overview of Chinese art history – "Going back 5,000 years" was the official line. But it was more than painting and calligraphy – it was sculpture, it was gardens and buildings and furnishings, as well as what we would call the more 'fine arts.' So it gave me a very good introduction in quite a short period to Chinese art history. And then my concentration was post-revolution; the 1950s onwards. Really the more interesting work started after the Cultural Revolution. Being there in the 1980s, it was those kids coming through the Cultural Revolution that were the artists I came to know.

Was that contemporary work, which was very new at that time, covered in the course at all?

Ummm... very little, because it sort of went up to the Cultural Revolution. People were sort of catching up, but it was all happening at the time. So that was the late 80s – '85 onwards. 1979 was when the Stars exhibition was on, then the next period was 1985 onwards – New Wave Art. So since then there's been another 20 years. So now there's a lot more history there – around 35 years to look back on.

What was the atmosphere like on campus at that time, so soon after the events of June 1989?

Well, I guess it was similar to the larger picture of society in general. Everything was very subdued. After '89 I actually worked for a year at the Foreign Languages Press, and then decided I wanted to do the course. So everything was a bit subdued, no-one wanted to do anything. But then towards the end of the course, in the summer of '91, I could feel things were relaxing again, people were coming back to do business – the days of the sole traders were just starting up. So things were picking up.

In To the Watchtower you talk about things "crashing to a halt" with the events of '89, and then picking up again in about '91. Did the events of '89 change contemporary art practice in Beijing? Were things different when they started moving again in '91?

I think that whole period made these young artists grow up. For the first time they'd seen something tough, so I guess going through that couple of years of thinking about that made their work maybe a little bit more sober – certainly more mature. But they continued talking about social issues, but probably with a finer, more objective eye I think. They were growing up – they were in their 20s or at most early 30s then, and we call them post-Cultural Revolution babies, because they were very, very young during the Cultural Revolution. Their families may have suffered, but they themselves didn't see too much. So their life experiences were being formed at that time – during the 80s and 90s. And that was coming through, and is still coming through, in their work.

After initially opening in the Dongbianmen Watchtower in '91, Red Gate spent most of the 90s in the China World Hotel. The gallery was asked by the Bureau of Cultural Relics to return to the Watchtower in 1999. What was it that prompted that invitation?

Well they remembered us from when we started here in 1991-92. In those days they really didn't know what to do with the Watchtower. I guess their assessment was that we were pretty good – trouble free – and we could probably pay the rent. In '91 we were just on the top floor. So when we came back that's what they gave us, but within six months they gave us the ground floor, because what was in here was a collection of scholar rocks and treasure stones, which was really just collecting dust. It wasn't attracting any people to the building, and they knew that we could. Within that first six months more people were coming here than China World, so we knew we had 'pulling power.' So they very kindly offered this place to us.

Was the building very different after the renovations that were done in the 90s?

No, but the old exhibition facilities up there were very old-fashioned, so we just replaced them. All we've done is put in the panelling and the lighting. On the top floor we’ve left half of the exterior wall so you can still take advantage of the views, and half of the interior wall, so you can look into the building, which works really well and takes advantage of the building.

Have the Chinese authorities generally been supportive of Red Gate's activities over the years?

You'd have to say yes. For a long, long time that kind of support was – apart from letting us rent this space – was that they didn’t worry too much about us. For a long time in the 80s and 90s, except for some petty meddling at different exhibitions, I'd say the two greatest things in terms of the top-down support from the government, was the education system, and the fact they sort of ignored all these young artists. That gave the artists a tremendous amount of freedom to produce work. Once you get to the exhibition stage it was, and can still be, a different thing. But over the last, say, 15 years you've seen the government allow art fairs to development, auction houses to operate. They're introducing these structures which are needed for the industry. Personally I think they should come from the industry themselves, but in those days that just wasn't happening. So the government allowed entrepreneurs to set these up. Initially they were Chinese work units essentially – now they're independent companies. Now you have biennales, cultural districts, creative arts industries… So a lot of the typical infrastructure that you might find in a more mature Western art scene is here now – and still learning the ropes – but it's good for the whole industry.

Also places like 798 and Caochangdi, and all the studio areas on the north side of the city and outside the city... it's just blossomed. And a lot of it is coming form the artists themselves. 798 was discovered by the artists, the studio areas have all been set up by artists themselves. So it's got a very grassroots base. And then Beijing has so many others gravitating here, it’s continually enriched by younger artists moving in.

I guess once you have that kind of infrastructure in place it becomes self-sustaining?

Yeah, and that debate about whether Shanghai or Beijing is the cultural centre is so passé now – it's definitely Beijing. And it's mainly, from our point of view, because you have so may artists gravitating here.

I was at Shanghai's Morganshan Lu art district recently, and a lot of the art seemed to have a more overt political content that what I've seen in Beijing. Being based in the capital, have you ever felt restricted in terms of what you could and couldn't exhibit?

I think all the gallery owners – and artists themselves – know what can go up on the wall. We've had a couple of instances over the years... one show was slightly compromised, but in the end worked out to our advantage. And then another one, we had to take it down. But that was more bad timing than anything.

In conjunction with this building up of infrastructure around the city, the commercial interest in Chinese contemporary art has skyrocketed over the past couple of years, and a lot of works are fetching astronomical prices on international art markets. Do you think this level of commercial interest has had a healthy or detrimental effect on contemporary practice in China over the past half-decade?

Well, the boom has only been here for three years. Up until four years ago there were only three galleries really doing something in Beijing, and one in Shanghai, in the contemporary art scene. We all had our own market base – our customer base. But then the larger market arrived, and coincided with 798 and then Morganshan Lu. And then the tremendous interest from overseas, which had been growing steadily for a long time – and then some domestic interest as well – all kicked in together. There was a lot of money being passed around, and a lot of artists played to that, and either put their prices up or just turned more commercial. Including some of the most senior artists in the contemporary art scene. And they're people who don’t have to do that. We would just like them to sort of step away and rethink what they want to do in their art practice. And they can do that, because they're independently wealthy now. But some of them are not doing that. So, yeah, there are people who are playing to the market for sure. But when the market goes, those people may go as well. And the same with the galleries. So all of this input is absolutely necessary to mature the whole industry, and make artists more aware of their own practice, rather than just producing work which sells.

Do you get a sense that there is enough of a critical mass in Beijing now that the scene will continue to develop and mature once Chinese art is no longer the most fashionable thing on the global art market?

Definitely. We're always looking for new artists, or younger artists, but I keep coming back to the people in their 40s, who are the same age group as the bulk of our artists. It's a different generation to the people in the 20s – that's evident. Different work and different attitudes, different loyalties – whatever. For us, for me in particular, it's very hard to find a good young artists – someone in their mid-20s for example.

Why do you think that is? Is it a result of the inflated market?

Well, they’ve come onto the market when the market is ready to 'pay up,' so their whole experience is this commercial, consumer culture… particularly young kids, they've come through a very consumer culture in the last few years, so everything's money, money, money. That's hard for us to work through [smiling]. It's relevant to them on one level, but they're also very opportunistic. But that could be part of the psychology of 'make the killing now.'

I read a comment in an online interview with Chinese art collector Guan Yi, in which he said: "The general audience in China doesn’t really understand contemporary art. Their understanding of art largely refers to Chinese tradition and classicism. As many people still do not embrace modernism, contemporary artistic forms and media remain alien to popular aesthetic canons." Based on your experience of audiences here at Red Gate, would you concur with that claim?

Yeah, very much so. But it is changing. People have more experience, more education. People of his generation – Guan Yi is in his 30s I think – have access to so much more. They're able to develop interests. And people who are slightly older, they've got their families out of the way. The one child is probably in a school overseas. They're doing ok – they've got the house, the car – all of those things. And they can develop more interests. And that is the middle-class which is coming up. They might be coming in and buying an artwork because so-and-so bought one, but at least they're getting beyond posters on the wall. It's going to take time, but we are seeing it happen.

The disjunction between the level of appreciation in the domestic audience and local artistic practice since the 80s – is it purely a product of the education the artists have gone through in the art schools? There seems to be quite a big gap between the audience's conservatism and artistic practice in China.

Well, I think the artists perhaps are a bit more worldly, and looking at many different issues. Whereas people who are in, say, more conservative or routine lives, are concerned about earning enough money, or more money, looking after their one child, and all of that. Different priorities I guess.

My impression of Beijing's contemporary art scene is that it seems very much rooted in more traditional mediums, such as painting and sculpture, as opposed the kind of screen-based practice and installation work that tends to dominate contemporary practice in places like Australia. Would you concur with this, and if you do, why is it so?

Going back a bit – five or 10 years – photography, video, installation work, was very, very popular. Some of the greatest artists now have come through that, and they're wonderful practitioners, particularly in conceptual photography. But I think the balance has swung back towards painting. And recently we've seen more interest in sculpture. And that, I think, is in part due to the Chinese market coming on the scene with more conservative tastes, and you certainly see their much greater interest in oil painting, or acrylic on canvas, rather than any other medium, except for a handful of collectors who can do whatever they want and cover a whole range of work. And then the auction markets that have kicked in as well, and again it's paintings that people are reselling or buying in the auctions.

Can you tell me who you regard as the key Chinese artists that Red Gate has helped bring to Beijing through its residency program?

We've had probably 12 to 15 Chinese artists come in through the program. One of the criteria is that they don’t live in Beijing – those artists living here really don’t need studio facilities. So we're bringing in artists from outside the capital. Most of them ended up staying here and setting up their own studios. Which many of the foreign artists have done as well. But the other big thing that happened to them was they were picked up by curators, they were included in exhibitions, they were picked up by other galleries. Their relationship with the market started to take off. I think one of the best examples is Chen Wenling from Xiamen, who I guess was fairly well known, but since landing here has become a very successful artist, both through exhibitions and curatorial programs.

It seems quite important for Chinese artists to operate in Beijing or Shanghai – one of the cultural centres.

Ummm, yeah, although when they were working in the provinces they were sort of 'out of it,' and so blissfully ignorant of what was happening up here. But once they landed – wow... it really opened up their opportunities.

We're in the process of trying to set up a foundation that will take over the residency program and keep it quite separate, legally and financially, from the gallery. We're able to do it at the moment because the gallery is doing pretty well, but we want it to grow and continue. One of the things that will be promoted is international exchange. And because it will be a separate legal entity, hopefully it will be able to attract its own funding from funding organizations, that a commercial entity like the gallery can't get. Hopefully it will take on a life of its own and just keep going on and on.

Do you intend remain personally involved in it?

Oh definitely. But rather than a committee of one, there will be a board of directors... and all of the crap that goes with that. So it will become more bureaucratic, but hopefully it will be as incisive. For all intents and purposes, it needs to be run like proper foundation.

Finally, can you tell me a bit about your plans for the gallery for the next couple of years?

Just keep doing what we do best, which is presenting good artists. We’re becoming more international by travelling to different art fairs, linking up with more galleries, getting artists represented by other galleries around the word. But our core business is here in Beijing, with a pretty good collection of artists and a good exhibition program each year.

Is your main focus the group of artists you have, or are you still actively looking to represent new artists?

Many of them have been with us for nearly 15 years, and a couple have been here since the beginning. But during the last 18 months we took on three new artists. We're taking on one new one in the first half of this year – who was in our Tibet show – and another one in the second half of the year. There is a small turnover of artists, but we look after 15 or 16, and that's more than enough. We're different to some of the other galleries who do exhibition after exhibition of new artists, and very quickly run up a huge number in their stable, but how much work they can do for each one beyond their first exhibition, who knows?

Dongbianmen Watchtower in the southeastern corner of Beijing,

home to Red Gate art gallery.