Red Gate Gallery Founder Brian Wallace shares how and why he started the gallery and what the future has in store for Chinese art
Interview by Ophelia Ren, photo by Sui

Dongbianmen – the Ming Dynasty- era watchtower located on the southeast corner of the Third Ring Road – is home to an equally iconic tenant, the Red Gate Gallery. Having recently marked its 20th anniversary, Red Gate has the distinction of being the earliest contemporary art gallery of its kind in China and has helped launch the career of many prominent Chinese artists.

 What brought you to China and how did you become interested in contemporary Chinese art? I came to China to travel in 1984 and ended up studying Chinese at Renmin University two years later. At the time many of my Chinese friends were artists, many of whom were coming out of the Central Academy of Fine Art. This was the first group of people to graduate from university after the Cultural Revolution and they were really trying to be more creative and more critical of what was going on in society in those days … They were eager to talk about the changes happening in China and what it meant to them, which we thought was very exciting … but in those days there were no galleries, so from 1988-89 I started to help them organize exhibitions. In 1991 we decided to open a gallery and were introduced to the management of the Dongbi- anmen watchtower. They had a plan to display cultural relics inside the tower and agreed to let us have the top floor.

What sets the Red Gate Gallery apart from others in Beijing? We are certainly the oldest by far and have held many exhibitions for many, many artists, both domestic and international. For the past ten years we’ve also been running a residency program with artists from China and around the world and have always been ahead of the pack in this area.

Can you tell us a bit more about this program? The idea is to bring them here to work in a studio in Beijing. They want to come here because they know that this is a really stimulating environment … It is amazing to see what they not only produce but also show here in China. The program has been very well received overseas as well. Yesterday we hosted a group of American artists and discussed even more ways to engage in cultural and residency exchanges. There will be many more American artists coming here as well as Chinese artists going to US in the future.

How do you choose artists for your gallery? They must possess excellent technique and produce work that is fresh and distinctive – work that says something and addresses an issue, like the changes occurring in Beijing for example. Their work must be genuine and not just a copy of some other artists’ work or simply following a market trend.

You once said that you actually don’t worry if some artist’s works don’t sell well in your exhibitions. Why is that? Whether we sell their work or not is not important thing – the important thing is that they are exhibited and appreciated. For some artists it may take a couple of years for them to find their particular market and their work might go on to be shown at a museum exhibition or even another gallery. Even though an artist may not sell well for the present, it doesn’t mean they lack the potential to sell well in the future.

“They were eager to talk about the changes happening in China and what it meant to them, which we thought was very exciting … but in those days there were no galleries”

Who are you r favorite Chinese contemporary artists? Su Xinping, Tan Ping and Liu Qinghe, Zeng Fanzhi and Zhang Xiaogang are all among my favorites – I’ve followed their careers closely over the past twenty years. I like their works for the way they depict what has been going on in China from the 1970s to now – they each have their own particular insights into what has been taking place, which was very different from what had previously been done in contemporary Chinese art. I’ve watched many of them grow from their early 20s into middle age, and they have always been very consistent in what they do. Where do you see The Red Gate Gallery in ten years? The plan is to continue what we are doing now and to continue doing it well. I think the profile of the gallery is already quite high and can still get even higher internationally. We will also continue to do more cultural exchanges and artist residency programs.

Where do you see the Chinese contemporary art scene in ten years? The art scene has remained stagnant since the financial crisis [but] I think it will evolve into a much more mature industry in the next ten years – there will be many more Chinese people who will become more educated in contemporary art, as opposed to the current situation in which most people are new to contemporary art. I see the growth of the Chinese domestic market and the general gaining more appreciation of contemporary Chinese art as the next major development.