The China Post explores the ex-pat community of Chinese artists in Berlin:

A growing number of Chinese artists and art students have been moving to Berlin in recent years, lured by the German capital’s rich mix of cultural life and conveniently low-priced studios and work facilities.

In 2010, 70 Chinese art and music students are enrolled at Berlin’s elite University of Fine Arts in Charlottenburg, while 772 Chinese students are registered at the nearby Technical University — a record at that school.

[… I]n Schoenberg’s Motz Strasse, Chinese curator-historian Zhu Ling, 28, has this year opened a gallery in Berlin “specializing in emerging young Chinese artists.”

She says her aim is “to promote individuality and independent spirit in contemporary Chinese art.”

Currently, the curator is back in Beijing. But she says that while her gallery is not the only one in Berlin to feature the work of Chinese artists, it is probably the first to “deliberately turn away from the existing clich about contemporary Chinese art.”

Five Chinese-born contemporary artists — Zhang Hui, Lui Yan, Fu Rao, Wang Chu and Jiang Jun — have been showing their work at the gallery’s latest exhibition, with oil and acrylic canvas paintings, and bitumen works on paper, offered at prices up to 15,000 euros.

“Such prices are moderate compared to those fetched by big name Chinese artists at Christies and Sotheby auctions,” she points out, when noting that artist Liu Ye’s “Bright Road” sold for US$2.5 million earlier this year.

“Whether my artists’ prices will rise dramatically in today’s art world will depend in large measure on the speculators,” says Zhu Ling. “Quality is not the only factor.”

Cheap Berlin Rents Attract Chinese Artists (China Post)