The FT had lunch with Wang Wei, the founder of the Long Museum in China who is married to Liu Yiqian, to talk about their art collecting and lives together. The result won’t tell you much you don’t already know about the couple. But it is noteworthy for being the first publicity for the couple that begins to voice criticism of their collecting behavior:
“We need to collect foreign art so that our museums can be on a par with their foreign peers,” she tells me as my translator and I peer at her through the steam from the pot of mushroom broth boiling on the table in front of us. “Foreign countries have really a lot of museums, big and small, public or private. But we think China is lacking something when it comes to art … Even if we have enough food, we will be empty inside if we don’t have spiritual fulfilment.” […]
One veteran of the Chinese art world I spoke to — who did not want to be named — was rather dismissive of the couple’s current buying spree. “Yes, they are making some trophy purchases and they thrive on the publicity. For new money in a very immature stage of art patronage, this is par for the course.”
Some art world insiders also mock Liu’s publicly stated strategy of buying art based primarily on its price tag, with a strong preference for items on the cover of auction catalogues. Does this approach really work, I ask Wang? “The art on the cover is verified. No [reputable] auction house would use fake art on their cover … ” she explains. “And they put the best art on the cover.”
Lunch with the FT: Wang Wei (FT.com)
