Opening ceremony of the “Jeux de mains” exhibition by the Comité Colbert, in the old district of Zhang Yuan, in Shanghai, November 4, 2024. COMITÉ COLBERT Impossible to miss them. On the facade of the Shanghai Exhibition Center, two illuminated panels, bearing the logo “Dior Lady Art”, eclipsed, at the beginning of November, the banner of the Art021 fair, in which a handful of French galleries such as Mennour, Chantal Crousel and Almine participated. Search In this imposing building crowned with a red star, a gift from Stalin to the young People’s Republic, the flow of visitors was incessant, selfies were required. But the air remained gloomy. “For a year, it’s been catastrophic, the galleries haven’t sold anything. There is a big crisis of confidence among Chinese buyers,” says Magda Danysz, who was participating at the same time in another show in Shanghai, West Bund Art & Design. The Parisian gallery owner speaks like a connoisseur: since 2012, she has branched out into the Chinese megacity and closely followed the curves of a seesaw market. Abandoning painting by the kilometer, the trendy audience of Art021 had also gathered in the darkness of the Dior stand, where bags customized by plastic artists paid at high prices were exhibited on pedestals, like fetishes. This unabashed splendor may come as a surprise, in a country where displaying one’s wealth is considered unwelcome, to the point that analysts now speak of the “shame of luxury.” A sign of Beijing’s regaining ideological control, the Chinese Internet regulator even banned from social networks, in April, any content exalting “extravagant lifestyles and ostentatious wealth”. But in China dogmas are changeable, rules are subject to interpretation. So we quickly learn not to be moved by any paradox. Not even the comical proximity of the Colbert Committee logo and the Chinese communist flag in the interior courtyard of a 1930s building in Shanghai. The union, which brings together nearly a hundred luxury brands and eighteen cultural institutions, organized the “Jeux de mains” operation there from November 4 to 10. To pull Chinese consumers by the sleeve without irritating their leaders, who disapprove of bling-bling, designer Jiang Qiong-er cleverly brought Chinese and French artisans into dialogue. Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers The designer Jiang Qiong-er, apostle of a “simple and splendid life” Read later The masters in the art of bamboo lace or filigree have thus competed in skill with the precious little hands from Christofle or Louboutin. “I wanted Chinese visitors to discover the excellent craftsmanship behind the luxury products they see in stores, and after understanding how it is made they would say “oh! It’s not expensive!” », Assumes the former graduate of Arts Deco in Paris. The objective is clear: to transfigure the product into an art object, to place French and Chinese know-how on the same level, to relaunch struggling French luxury, in competition with local brands. You have 73.34% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
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Author : News7
Publish date : 2024-11-30 02:02:23
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