January 2009

In this month's issue

Explore the Apollo archive

Look back over two vibrant years of Apollo: browse every issue from January 2006 to the present day.

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Sir David remembers the excitement of those years. ‘In those days there were no proper studios or galleries, so we went to see the artists. There were two or three where we just scooped everything up. I loved everything by Liu Wei, for instance, and Fang Lijun and Zhang Fanxi, perhaps the most versatile artist of this generation, and absolutely wonderful. I bought seven or eight Zhang Xiaogangs without thinking too much about it. I bought purely what I liked. The only one question I asked myself was “would I like to see this in my bedroom when I wake up?’’’

Yang Yi-ping’s painting of Tian’anmen, for instance, came from the Stars Group show, Fang Lijun’s Series ii, No. 7 (Fig. 7) and Lui Wei’s Spring Dream in a Garden: Dad in Front of TV (Fig. 8) were part of the seminal ‘China’s New Art Post-1989’ retrospective that was first staged at the Hong Kong Arts Festival and travelled to Sydney and Vancouver before touring the US in 1995-97. It was the first major survey show of mainland Chinese contemporary art seen abroad. Both were supported by Sir David. As famed as a socialite as he is an entrepreneur, he also pulled off a great promotional coup by inviting the most famous woman in the world, Princess Diana, to visit the 1995 Venice Biennale and have her photographed looking at the work of mainland Chinese artists who were exhibiting for the first time. He gave a dinner in her honour at the Palazzo Grassi – ‘I think I am still paying for it,’ he quips.