The year long event features the history of Chinese art and culture by introducing Chinese music, film, opera, literature and art exhibitions to German audiences including more avant-garde offerings.
In addition to many musical events of Chinese music with its special percussion instruments, more than 1500 artists and scholars will attend events at the Year of Chinese culture in Germany. One project, China! China? China, will be held in six German cities, including Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Leipzig and Munich. It will bring together Chinese artists and scholars to talk about poetry, music, art fashion in a pavillion made of bamboo. Fan Di’an, director of National Art Museum of China says three solo exhibitions by Chinese artists Xu Jiang, Zeng Chenggang and Yin Xiuzhen will also take place.
A large scale public art exhibition will be held at Kassel From October to the spring of 2013. The city known for its Kassel Documents Exhibition, will see a comprehensive art exhibition from Chinese artists, especially young artists.
We hope Sweden will take after this kind of event soon.

A giant gray Mao-style suit hangs on a red hook from the face of a massive rock. This sculpture by Chinese artist Zhu Yu is one of more than 200 contemporary works on display at Yuzi Paradise, a 1320-acre outdoor sculpture park surrounded by mist-shroeded limestone pinnacles in southern China.
The park, a 45 minutes drive from the city of Guilin, embodies the new China – the one that displayed cosmopolitan, cutting edge art and architecture to the world during the recent years, but it also reflects a centuries old tradition. Since ancient times, emperors and other patrons have commisioned gardens carefully designed to encourage visitors to ponder their place in nature. Similarly the founder of Yuzi Paradise, Taiwanese entrepreneur Tsao Rhy Chang, envisioned a place of natural beauty that stimulates the mind of art. His 21st century garden features works by 140 artists from around the world, including foreign sculptors.

Though Zhong Gallery Berlin should become a magnet for locals interested in new art from China, it may also find a receptive and active audience in the ever-increasing number of Chinese students, artists and professionals living and working in the German capital.

Last year China’s art market exceeded US$ 31.75 billion, primarily because diversification away from China’s stock market and the real estate sector that will fuel the art market even more this year. The chinese Auction power houses like Guardian and Poly foresee  continued strenght in the domestic Chinese auction world in the year ahead, though excess speculation could see some bubbles within the traditional Chinese art and antique but less on the contemporary art.
Jing Daily says
“An art market can not thrive without a booming economy. Despite weak external demand due to wobbly recovery in US and the sovereign debt crisis in the EU, China’s economy managed to expand 9.2% in 2011.
Experts say that when the per capita GDP reaches 1500-2000 US$ its citizens create demand for art investment. When it hits 5,000 US$ in a country, the art market will enter a fast expansion period. China’s GDP per capita has just reached 4,000 US$ and is in a early stage but market experts believe the art market has huge potential.
China’s art market is facing tremendous opportunities, underpinned by the prosperity of the cultural industry and the gradual maturity of consigners, buyers and other market players.
There is also a growing interest in art funds in China, noting that China had more than 70 art funds as of November last year, with an initial capital of US$ 14.6 million, noting that excess speculation in nascent domestic art funds could cause a problems.
The holding power for art funds is a key factor in generating returns. Generally it should be 3-5 years but art funds in China hold only for 1.5 years in an average, because investors have no patience to wait too long. It takes time for an art fund to establish a position, wait until the price of the works rise and then close the position. As illiquid assets, art suits investors rather than speculators, according to experts.

Invest in Chinese Art or at least it should be part of your collection.

Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds installation will be held at Mary Boone Gallery in New York now until February 4th. The show will feature 5 tons of the hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds, previously shown at Tate Modern in London 2010. The artist remains travel-banned and Beijing-bound. His Zodiac Heads are shown at Paul Kasmin Gallery (see above).
Recently it was reported that the Chinese authorities have agreed to review Ai’s tax case. It is known that he has already paid a fine with help by Chinese people donations. With the highly international interest, we hope a satisfied solution will be considered by the tax authorities to close this matter and let the artist focus on his artistic life.

Chen Wenling will be holding a solo exhibition at Art Stage 2012 from January 12-15. It is organised by Ode to Art Contemporary gallery of Singapore. This exhibition showcases artworks from his two renowned series of sculptures; “Red Memory” with the Red Boy series as well as “China Scene”. The two themes of Chen Wenling’s sculptures are the manifestations of extreme humanity and immaterial images. The “Red Boy” is a self expression of Chen Wenling himself when he was making figurines out of clay to entertain himself when his parents could not afford to buy him toys.
In his latest work ” China Scene” the sculptures are blending and transforming the natural, traditional and modern images, so that creating a kind of surrealistic and fantastic scene of the so-looked mountain and stone. It is shaped, like a melting iceberg, or gigantic deer in a sense of realistic alienation.
Through Chen Wenling’s sculptural language, we can move further to the value and meaning of Chinese contemporary art in the mixing process between the traditional and the modern world.

Beautiful Asset Advisors LLC runs the Mei Moses All Art Index, a composite index tracking art markets across the globe. The firm collected data from 300 Sotheby’s and Christie’s auctions around the world in 2011, in which 3000 lots were “repeat sales” allowed the art trackers to update their indices for the year. The Mei Moses All Art Index rose by 10.2% in 2011, outperforming both the MSCI World index, – 6.08% in the last 12 months, and the s&P, down 0.64%. Then we should remember that in 2010 the index rose 16.6%.
Here are the analyst’s final art index results;
World All Art Index + 10.2%
World Chinese Works of Art index + 20.6%
NY based Latin America art index + 16.0%
World impressionist and Modern index + 14.0%
World post war and contemporary index + 6.4%

London based British works of art index  + 5.7%

Worls Old masters & 19th Centuryindex + 4.8%