Highlights from Beijing’s Jingart 2018

The inaugural edition of Jingart took place in Beijing from May 17 to 20, 2018. The modern and contemporary art fair was organized by the team behind Shanghai’s Art021 and was similarly aimed at a young and fashionable crowd. Jingart is capitalizing on the distinct lack of solid fairs in Beijing, with the capital’s other two main offerings, Art Beijing and the China International Gallery Exposition, losing much of their luster and support from galleries in recent years. The event’s exclusive location was a talking point: Beijing Quanyechang is a grand structure, a stone’s throw from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Built in 1905, it was one of Beijing’s first commercial complexes; in 2014, the structure was refurbished as part of a government-led, design- and culture-focused regeneration of the Dashilan area. 

Despite being in its first year, Jingart drew heavyweight international galleries, most notably David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth and Perrotin, who hosted large booths on the ground floor. Spread across the rest of the three floors was a mixture of China’s most well-established galleries, including Long March Space and ShanghArt, plus younger Chinese establishments such as PIFO Gallery and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space. Galleries from the wider East Asian region, such as Sokyo Gallery from Kyoto and Taipei’s Eslite Gallery were also present. 

To complement the gallery booths, a series of talks was organized. The program included a panel discussion on collecting in institutions, led by Carol Yinghua-Lu, director of Beijing’s Inside Out Art Museum, and others; “Finding Wu Dayu” with Vanessa Guo, Hauser & Wirth’s senior director in Asia; and, “Art and Fortune Inheritance” with Zhao Longkai, professor of finance at Peking University Guanghua School of Management.

Here are some highlights from the fair.

Tom Mouna is ArtAsiaPacific’s Beijing desk editor.

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