I am almost 30 years old. I have not yet planted a tree, neither did I father a child (as far as I know) and I have not built a house.
However, since yesterday I have risen into the collector’s stratosphere. I bought art. Not the bit of art, say a photography of a Chinese rikscha or the little hand-carved Buddha, Mr and Mrs Smith normally bring home, no, I walked the whole 10 miles.
My friends and hosts in Beijing, Maxito and Valentina, told me about a city of artists within Beijing. I wanted to go there, but the train to Lhasa was leaving and I had to postpone striving through the art world. When being confronted with the art district “798” in the in-flight magazine of Air China once more, I took it as a sign and decided to go there.
Before I could realize my plans, I welcomed Mr zimtkorn (Adrian Locher, Panmundo’s main sponsor) at the Beijing airport on the next day. Adrian since long wanted to join Panmundo.com, but his various business ventures always kept him busy in. However, finally here he was and we headed straight for China’s most spectacular monument, the Great Wall. Don’t expect me to write about this – latest since David Copperfield you all know what it is about.
Once we had finished our Great Wall visit, I told our driver to head for the art district called “798”. We sat like Pashas in our black limousine (an Audi 100 remake – the concept of a 1984 car produced once again in 2006 in China) and I liked to tell the driver “wait here, we will be back in an hour or two”.
The 798 district was once a fabric for grenades called “Fabric No. 798”. It is a true village of art shops, galleries, art bars and exhibitions. We visited a couple of galleries, marvelled at the “Wave ‘85” exhibition (only since 1985 Chinese artists were more or less free to do whatever they wanted), drank formidable wine and finally, when we were about to join Maxito and Valentina for a Beijing Duck for dinner, I saw a very special painting. We went into the art gallery, and I had to laugh. This painting was really funny! I knew that I would laugh even when I would see the painting for the 100th time and decided that I wanted it.
Even though the clerk in the “Ahead” gallery spoke no English at all, he was able to communicate the price of the painting. I acknowledged it but in the same moment I know, that this was not the guy to negotiate with. I would have to come back.
The next day I called before and spoke with a girl. Her English was, hrrm, let’s say, existing to a certain extent, and I was told that they would expect my visit to “talk about the painting”.
This time, Adrian and I were invited to enter the atelier through a small door in the back of the gallery. We were due to meet Mr Artist Wu Gong himself!
His English was about as good as my Chinese but he smiled a lot and we sat down to have tea. It later turned out that negotiations in China are mainly about drinking tea.
The gallery girl translated and we spoke a bit about the artist’s education, his aims, his techniques, and about Switzerland. He told me that in summer 2008, he would have an exhibition in Berlin. “Going international!” I thought and that this maybe was just about the right moment to buy some work of his before his prices would rocket through the roof.
After some more tea, we hit the topic “price” and I told him that I really liked his work but that I also felt it was a bit pricey. He said that the price was low, especially since the US-Dollar was weakening all the time. I said that I had spoken with a friend of mine (Manuel, see the Panmundo adventures in Peru) who knew a great deal about Chinese art and that he thought the price was too high (in fact, he had not said so). Like this I was able to communicate that I basically would pay any price for such a supreme painting, but that the expert’s opinion told me differently.
Wu Gong understood and came into my direction by 10%. I pretended to think about this for a long time (meanwhile I got more tea), and then I said I had to make a phone call. I talked for a while, got more valuable information about how to buy art in China from Manuel and finally came back to the table with an offer of about 70% of the suggested price. I explained that the VAT in Switzerland for art would be very high indeed and that I really could not go any higher. Wu Gong understood and lowered his offer by another 5%.
This seemed to go well. After we got some fresh hot tea, I suggested to meet in the middle of where we were right now (this would be about 78% of the original price) and I could see that Wu Gong thought that this was a bit tough on my side.
We made some gesticulating jokes and I told him that I understood how difficult it was to agree on a price and to say good-bye to such a marvellous work of art and that I also would agree to wait a couple of days to get his final offer (which should match my final offer). I started to gather my things, emptied my tea and waited while Wu Gong left us alone to think behind one of the huge canvas-paintings in the atelier.
He then came back and said “ok”. I asked whether the shipping was included too, and again, he said “ok”. There we were! I was the proud owner of a real Wu Gong!
Some more points to remember when buying art (thx Manuel):
- check whether the painting is signed
- make sure the year of production is on the back of the painting
- don’t declare the original value on the shipping papers or customs will rip you off
- make sure you have a certificate of ownership-
 get a buying contract between the artist (not the gallery) and you since then you don’t have to pay the VAT in Switzerland 
- take a picture of you and the painter – arm in arm – for your photo album