The new Saatchi Gallery in London has an inaugural exhibit of Chinese contemporary art. A review of the gallery from the Telegraph:
So sensational is the vast interior that it took me a while to calm down and focus on the intrinsic quality of individual works in the inaugural show New Art From China.
The record-breaking prices some contemporary Chinese artists achieve at auction simply mystify me. The only plausible explanation I’ve come up with for the popularity of the trite paintings of laughing men by Yue Minjun is that they must appeal to the same people who pay good money for the work of Jack Vettriano, but I still don’t understand what is so exciting about the repetitive group portraits Zhang Xiaogang seems to turn out by the score.
Then, too, for all their technical assurance, a lot of Chinese artists produce nothing more significant than skilfully disguised imitations of commercially successful Western art.
The article also has a video of one of the installations and a review of the exhibit. Read also a review from BBC. The Saatchi site has images from the exhibit. The footage below is from Sky News:
