Pocket-Friendly Picasso: Affordable Art Beijing This Weekend

Art is to be enjoyed, not branded – this is the thinking behind Affordable Art Beijing (AAB). For the past five years, the art fair’s co-founder and director, Tom Pattinson, has worked to bring art back to the most important question: Do you like it? For most people, this simple question tends to be eclipsed by the opinion of experts, which is why words like “stuffy,” “pretentious” and “irrelevant” tend to come to mind when we think about contemporary art.

When Pattinson worked in an office in the 798 art district during the boom years for Chinese contemporary art, he found himself growing more and more annoyed at how prohibitively expensive the art had become. “There was nothing really I could afford,” he explained, “and I realized there were a lot of people who wanted art, who had disposable income, but there was no way to buy good, original and unique works of art.”

Pattinson had a meeting of the minds with Tamsin Roberts, a friend and gallery owner, and Affordable Art Beijing was born in 2006. In every subsequent year, the contemporary art fair has expanded, both in terms of attendees and the number of works available.

This year, with 600 works (selected from over 4,000 submissions) in mediums ranging from ceramics and paintings to prints and photography, it’s no exaggeration to say there’s something for everyone. In keeping with AAB’s goal of fairness and transparency, artists set the prices and receive a 15 percent commission for each piece sold. Prices are capped at RMB 10,000, but the majority of artworks fall well under the RMB 5,000 mark.

Whether the artist is an amateur or highly established, AAB makes no distinction in how the artworks are displayed, meaning that buyers can stumble upon exciting new talent or great deals on works from renowned artists. Last year, Pattinson reveals, a painting by Sheng Qi didn’t sell for hours – which is remarkable, considering that Sheng’s pieces regularly command tens of thousands of dollars at auction.

Sometimes there are pieces worth much, much more than RMB 10,000,” Pattinson mused. “And I like that.”

Affordable Art Beijing runs from Apr 24-25 at The Orange in Sanlitun Village. To enter a competition to win a painting by Liu Zhonghua (pictured above), go to www.affordableartchina.com