“If you are a collector, let other people share your pride and joy. Don’t sprinkle your collection out of sight…”

(Dorothy Draper, 1889-1969)

This latest IAC exhibition, “Hidden Treasures”, began from a similar premise:  seeking works of Chinese contemporary art hidden out of sight to allow others to appreciate some examples of collectors’ pride and joy.

This collection featuring 30 artworks created by 21 different artists contains paintings in oil, acrylic and ink, drawings in pencil and ink, sculptures in wood, ceramic, stainless steel and resin, and woodblock and digital prints. There is work produced by a master of ink and water paintings at the age of 70 at the height of his fame and there are works produced by a then 23-year-old from Yunnan who was a founding member of the Yuanmingyuan artist village in Beijing. Many of the artists have become famous in Australia and beyond and indeed several now call Australia home. Others in the exhibition will be relatively new or unknown.

The focus of this virtual gallery is not to tell the story of the last four decades of Chinese art trends but rather to showcase the choices made by a group of private collectors: what kind of Chinese contemporary art has made its way into Australian collections from the mid-eighties onwards and how and why.

Each of the artworks is accompanied by text, audio or video created by the collectors to introduce the audience to their hidden treasure. The stories behind the artworks are fascinating, placing the artworks in a particular time and place and revealing the collector’s association with the artist. Some of the stories will make you chuckle—Guan Wei’s collection of a painting, for example, was greatly appreciated by the artist of the work for a comical reason—others will make you reflect on the messages that the artwork embodies, all will make you see the work through the eyes of the collector.

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Artworks

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