My collection covers a variety of media
As long as I think it’s interesting
There’re over 150 in total
They’re arranged in my home and my wife’s company
There’re even big ones that can only be stored in the gallery’s warehouse
I always feel I should have a large wall
My name is Shi Yong
I’ve been engaging in art for around 30 years
I live next to the Suzhou River at the opposite of M50 creative park
The house covers an area of 150m2, and all the walls and the floors, are white
I arrange the works on walls with a certain rhythm
The majority of my collection are from my artist friends
We grow up together
Ding Yi, Xu Zhen, Zhang Enli, Shen Fan
We swap work with each other
Or give a work as birthday gift. It’s so easy
A part of my collection are the works of the masters who had a great impact on me
When I studied western art
I tried everything to obtain a small piece
The third category consists of works by young artists
Because I can’t afford the works of the big names
The piece by Qu Guofeng is abstract
It can control the atmosphere of the whole living room
Takesada Matsutani, the representative artist among the second-generation members of Japanese Gutai group
Two works by Hu Zi
Her first oil painting named Edie
And her portrait of David Bowies
Other artists include Liao Guohe
Gao Hongwei
Zhao Yang
Works in a small size
I like them and I can afford them
Works in this part are created by renowned artists
All of them are given to me
This one is by the minimalism and conceptual American artist in the 1960s
Sol LeWitt
I went to New York for it, only to find out I had no foreign currency
Lorenz sent the money to me and refused my repayment
He gave it to me
I was like ‘oh my god’
In the dining room, I arrange a work by Kishio Suga, the representative figure of Japanese Mono-ha
A mixed-material work in the 1980s
The red piece by Chen Ying is the smallest one
Another one I bought is as high as 1.6m and as long as 3.6m
I place it in Madein Gallery because I really have no space for it
An interesting piece in the kitchen is a work by Wang Xingwei
He lost to me when we played cards, so I took back that piece
It’s a collage like an anonymous letter
The green one in the passage is also by Kishio Suga
I really liked it and asked one friend to buy it for me in the auction
The girl who lay down on the grass in dress
That is a picture by Nobuyoshi Araki, the Japanese master of erotic imagery
I also bought several of his other pictures which are not suitable for hanging here
I have an early work of Ding Yi in my bedroom
He painted with a ruler in the early times and later he turned to hand-painting
It’s an important work in his transition period
A photo by Yang Fudong is arranged beside my bed
And a group of pictures by Birdhead
One of them shows our boss in his young age
I also hang an oil painting by Ouyang Chun in the room where my child and the nanny live
The two little guys are fighting with each other
In my wife’s bedroom, there’re works by Shen Fan and Chi Qun
In the late 1990s, I visited an artist
I went to his home and put the cash on his desk
Saying ‘I like your painting very much. I want to buy it’
I spent around 4,500 RMB, over a month’s salary
But I really started collecting consciously in 2013
The Shuangfei Group, I instructed them in their graduation portfolio with Xu Zhen
Yang Junling and Lin Ke went to Shanghai
They collected some garbage paper bags on the high-speed train
They painted on them and started an auction on WeChat
I thought they were really meaningful, and I bought them all
Since then, I suddenly realized that I began to have an addiction
After all I’m not rich. I earn salary.
If the work I like is being sold, I will get excited
I will see if I can buy it
After purchase, it usually takes me a long time to bring myself again
But sometimes
I think it’s a part of the art history and I have to collect it
As for young artists, I don’t buy their works because they’re poor
I admire talented people and interesting works
If I get a chance, I will introduce their works to people
The first time I saw your works
They reminded me of Clemente, a contemporary artist from Italy
You were similar to each other in a way
Then I always thought you should cooperate with him
Yeah, you introduced me to him
He wrote a preface for your exhibition
Nice. You finally become friends
It thanked to your call
I realize that he is a senior collector
Each piece of his collection is really special
The rudiments, the vague and unshaped works
You collect them all
Zhou Tiehai said ‘you should hold an exhibition of your collection’
My aim is simple
If you really like art, you can collect even though you don’t have much money
I’ve collected so many works although they’re small in size
My home is not big enough to contain them. So I think of my wife in the first place
I’ve occupied her company
There were a few people doing contemporary art in the 1990s because it was too hard
And no gallery invited us for exhibitions
We used to sleep in the studio
Shanghai artists went to Beijing by the old green trains
But we were excited
We gathered together to discuss art
We gathered in the ShanghART Gallery as long as there were activities
When I’m creating, I have clues and conceptions to follow
I keep asking
And I would be really nervous
But collecting is different
You see lots of different things from another world
It’s like a tour to balance your body and mind
I stayed up a lot when I was young
It was normal for me to stay up all night for 3 days a week
Now I never work after 6:00pm. In no case.
I listen to music, read and drink
There’s a story behind each piece of work
When you look back several years later
The stories of me and the artists
And my feeling about the works
I have memories about them and they’re really valuable