Interview｜Art Patrons: You Jin (collector)

2018/3

You Jin: Belong to a kind of old middle generation of artists, why I choose him, because from my collection inside I can talk about my track, my own collection is relatively extensive. First of all, I have a collection of Chinese contemporary artists, I also collect early Southeast Asian artists, I was in early, because recently it became popular Japanese and Korean artists. But I have already collected some works of the older generation of Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese artists before they became popular, besides this, I also collect some contemporary artists from Europe and America, including the French post-impressionist artists. Different colors, red, blue and green are changing all the time, very deep and interesting. Because I collect some Japanese and Korean artists, at that time I did not know this trend, I just like, I collect artists, first of all, I hope that the artist in the local art history is a trajectory, for example, Japan, he is a very famous everyone in the history of art everyone knows that he exists. Secondly, I will spend a lot of time to study his work in the end this person’s work in his own works in the end belongs to the middle, upper, fine or general, of course I hope that I collect are fine, because of this reason there are several very good artists I have received his fine. At that time, they were very cheap, but now they are many times more expensive. Basically, I collected this artist from these artists.

Li Qi: I think this time there are more than 30 collectors and patrons, I think you are unique because you have your own creative background, how does this relate to your collection, or how do you see your collection from this perspective.

You Jin: I feel very lucky and unique, unique because I was born in Beijing and went to Hong Kong with my parents when I was about 18 years old, my father was an Indonesian Chinese and came to China during the Chinese exclusion. But luckily, I had spare time to study at the Beijing Children’s Palace in middle school, which was the best elite training for some students at that time, and there were many famous ones like Yu Hong and Zhao Gang. So it was a cultural foundation. I was born with it, I liked art too much at a very young age and painted a lot of works. After I arrived in Hong Kong I tried to live with painting, but it was difficult. I taught in Hong Kong, I taught night school, I taught art. I had a column in several very famous newspapers in Hong Kong, drawing an illustration to write something, and then I tried to have a year to package a theater, is the painting line, the theater meter by meter out of about 3 meters, 5 meters, but every meter in this painting are spelled up, but in the end it did not work, so I changed to study advertising design. This kind of love and affection for art, of course, I am still painting now, because I myself also published, there are some magazines I still insist on painting something, so this kind of affection after slowly become about a dozen years ago, about 2000 years later, may have a certain ability to buy some good things to appreciate, I have been buying, so many years to now my collection of works including shelves Painting, sculpture, photography, some simple installations, a total of nearly 600 pieces, so it is a very large collection in Hong Kong. I think the organizers are very smart to bring them out this time, because a large part of these people were Ullens’ patrons in the past, and they are all very distinguished collectors in China, so it is very attractive for them to take something out at random.

Li Qi: You just mentioned that there are many art patrons here, in fact, this exhibition itself is also very interesting, it has two aspects: on the one hand, it is an exhibition of Chinese contemporary art collectors, and at the same time, the title has to be patronized and related to certain institutions and ecology. In your opinion, what role does this group of Chinese collectors or patrons play in the whole art ecology? For example, what role does it play, especially with creators and even with galleries and auction houses and institutions that form a large ecology, and I think that in recent years it has become particularly prominent to look at this issue from a more horizontal or vertical perspective.

You Jin: As a collection, I have a different view, the collection of the past two years is very prosperous, very lively, Shanghai we have been feeling great, ART021, the West Coast is now a bit hot, like running to Beijing to this gallery week, Hong Kong is even more exaggerated, a couple of days feel like every moment of the day in the party. Some people really like art, they can cope financially, some people are purely do not understand art, he is doing an investment. But all right, everyone has a purpose in it, but originally this kind of art investment should have a different collection line for each collector, and all have different works, and these works should not be one or two years, two or three years, should be five years, ten years, twenty years, thirty years, and then we take out to compete with each other, this is very important. For example, if you have an exhibition, within a year everyone knows that this is the gallery sold, that is the one sold, so there is no point. For example, one time our Ullens director went to Brazil, which is very close to China. The culture is very shallow, that is, there are ten artists here, there are ten businesses in which you have seven, you have five, you have eight, all those few, very meaningless. Every year I go to Basel and visit some old collectors, it’s great, his works are the essence of 50 years to collect. I’ve never seen those artworks at all, it’s great that this is called collecting. I think I am unique in this respect, unique is not good, but I am unique in my own main line of collection, because I have been collecting Chinese artists for a while, basically not much, I am going to Europe and America instead. And I have several lines, such as the French Post-Impressionist line, about these artists were born in the 1920s and 1930s, and the 1950s and 1960s, the 1970s was the most glorious time, these works are fantastic. Or some contemporary artists like Picasso or Damien Hirst or Antoine Gemley, you have to remember some lines to collect these things. Ten years later we all take out, we are all different, you are A, you are B, he is C, we all have a lot of differences, just like this exhibition. This exhibition is a very good example, we are all different. In fact, the collection should be different in every place so that it is wonderful.