Made in China
Guy and Myriam Ullens are the creators of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing. It will draw on their great private collection in Geneva, which Mr Ullens showed to Louise Nicholson.
Louise Nicholson, Wednesday, 23rd April 2008
Our next path has works by Wang Guangyi (Fig. 8), both early and more recent. ‘He’s a star of the contemporary scene. We try to follow an artist but unfortunately when they go up to $300,000 and more we stop. Suddenly, you have collectors and museums saying they want Chinese because it’s important and new.’ We speed past works by Huang Yan and Rong Rong (Fig. 6), both of whom Mr Ullens has collected for some time but now ‘everyone’s buying them’. Then we arrive at Li Tianbing’s Glacier painted in 2005. ‘We are now seeking out young artists, like this, promoting them. This is really our job in the future.’ He contrasts it with a portrait of a couple painted by Geng Jianyi in the 1980s (Fig. 7). ‘Ça, j’adore!’, he cries again. ‘The atmosphere, it communicates like hell. They were coming out of different, difficult times. She’s already adjusted, facing forward, frank; he’s more intellectual, troubled.’ He thinks back to the 1980s. ‘Those were the best years, going around with those young unspoilt artists. I never felt I was a collector. I went for business, saw exhibitions. Then I was visiting the artists, sometimes buying up to a piece a day. It was so exciting. Then the idea came: let’s promote these guys.’
Strangely, Mr Ullens does not need to live with his collection. He does not mind that most of it is locked up in Geneva Free Port. Indeed, he almost relishes it: ‘Here we are off-shore, we are nowhere! I don’t pay vat and I can borrow pieces.’ But he wants to make it clear this collecting has not been about investment. ‘We collected with our heart. Now, unfortunately, it has become an investment. With UCCA I want to leave in Beijing a museum that is self-sustaining, a rolling thing for younger artists. Now we are starting an education foundation there, an art library, a little auditorium…The se things don’t exist in China.’
He will be back in Beijing this summer, to enjoy the 150 pieces from his collection on display during the Olympics, to share them with the culture that produced them. ‘The Chinese thought the centre was too extreme. When we launched it we said its success would depend on the reaction of the foreign art world. In five years’ time it should depend on the Chinese.’
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