I’m defiantly not going to be lonely or stuck for people to talk to, there are always people coming in and out of my studio. So far it’s a real rag-tag bunch of miss fits (rich man, journalist, oil baron, art students, mistresses, ex-pats) and we seem to spend a lot of time eating/drinking/talking which is useful for research.
For my first and Jenny Steele’s (previous resident) last day in Chongqing we were taken out for a big lunch by Yanyan’s friend known simply as “rich man”. Following little eating and much drinking and “Gan bei” (cheers) we lulled into an afternoon of studio visits, then dumpling for dinner and more drinking. I’ll do a post which details the artists in the various studios once I’ve seen more.
“Rich man” is in property development, the main industry after weapons manufacturing in Chongqing. He owns a restaurant, Karaoke bar and massage parlour nearby to Chongqing and became friends with Yanyan as he’s interested in art. His interest is not as I first predicted as a buyer, but as a student (although he does own a couple of Yanyan’s paintings). He applied to the nearby Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts last year and after being rejected Yanyan has taken “rich man” under his wing, giving him lessons from what I’ve observed so far consisting of life drawing, using his mistresses as models. I had been told before arriving in Chongqing that because of the high technical standards students must achieve to enrol at an academy, there are many wannabe art students looking to build their portfolio. My first meeting with “rich man” saw him disconcertingly follow me into my studio with his motley crew and proceed to rifle through Yanyan’s paintings whilst his mistress tickled out a tune on the piano without so much as an introduction.
After getting used to the many comings and goings of my studio I’ve quickly learned not to treat it as my space. Shortly after the motley arrival came Yanyan, with Jenny, Rose, and his usual crew of students in tow. Rose is an old art school friend of Yanyan who currently lives New York working as a writer and journalist previously for CNN and the Economist. While “rich man“received an art lesson from Yanyan and Jenny packed up her exhibition, I had a chat with Rose about the history of art education in Chongqing and how the situation has shifted since she was studying here nearly 30 years ago. Her parents are both artists, now in their seventies, and like her they studied at Sichuan Institute. Rose studied not at the Institute proper, but the ‘attached school’ which runs a four year diploma type course for students younger than university age. She describes the course as “an amazing nursery” for teenagers and it was offered at her time without fees. Since the 1980s a number of crash courses have emerged which take a quarter of the time of Rose’s diploma which was forced to charge fees by this time. Students were given a choice of paying for four years or only one and now the president of Sichuan Institute Zhongli Luo has made the decision to close the lengthier course in the midst of criticism over the quality of his student’s out-put. After working in Hong Kong and Austraila Rose has settled in New York where she has recently discovered and started to take classes at the Art Student’s League.
