Chinese Cultural Invasion

Formerly despised, today very appreciated, Chinese artists are starting a cultural invasion

Naked Chinese immigrants have hung on the hooks from gallery´s ceiling in the east Beijing up to several months, after which they have been wraped in nylon, put in the boxes and sent for London.

It is not about desperate Chinese peasants wishing to illegally enter England in search for better life. Their arrival in England is part of cultural invasion paid by one of the biggest English collectors of works of art. That means the obvious growth of interest for the Chinese art.

Waxworks in the natural size is work of Zhang Dali, one of the leading Chinese artists. In order to point out the importance of role of Chinese farmer in general bloom of Chinese economy, Zhang has taken the casting of hundred people, changed their names into numbers and offerd them for sale as if they are pieces of animal meat in the shopwindow.

Because of the huge demands for Chinese art, price of one figure doubles in previous two years so now it costs 10 000 pounds. That price will grow even more if works will be exibited on the opening of Charles Saatchi´s new gallery.

Saatchi has grabbed about fifteen artist from the Chinese modern art scene, and spent more than million dollars on two pictures of Zhang Xiaogang, who is the best-selling Chinese artist.

The British collector, whose sponsorship ejected on the scene careers of artist such as Damiena Hirsta and Tracy Emin in the nineties, now shows the great interest for east artists.

This years he started the Chinese version of his web-site getting over four millions of visits daily.

"During the last few years I have been searching for Chinese modern art and noticed that the small percentage on the world level is good as anywhere else", said Staachi for the The Guardian and added that "there is the huge gap between real modern arts and usual kitsch that appears in the most cases".

During the first auction of Chinese modern art works held in New York on last April, telephones of auction house Sotheby's has been blocked by calls literally.

"I am expecting that the price will grow even more in the next five years because demands are so huge and offer is small, there are no many Chinese artists so the price will grow",