The first gallery street in Beijing opened for business last
month in Culture Road of Guanyintang. There are nearly 50 galleries
on the 1-km-long street, all of them looking like art museums,
exhibiting many oil painting masterpieces of famous modern
artists.
The price of the galleries varies from RMB tens of thousands to
even millions. Nearly none of them are cheap enough for ordinary
people, though many people come here to hunt for something of a
reasonable price to decorate their homes. Mr. Li came here on a
weekend to buy a landscape painting, only to find none cheaper than
5,000 yuan. As a matter of fact, there is something cheaper in the
corners of some galleries waiting to be found by someone with
enough patience.
The owner of a gallery told our reporter that this street was
designed to meet the needs of professional collectors, and this is
the key difference between the galleries on this street and other
galleries in Beijing. That's why there are only the works of famous
artists here. Though there are some cheap paintings in most of
galleries here, they are kept in the storehouses to make space for
those masterpieces.
Though visitors to this street are not rare, not many of them
are really interested in buying the paintings. The owner of another
gallery told our reporter that just paintings sold during trial
business operation alonge were enough for them to pay the rent and
to keep the business running. "Dealing in oil painting is different
from other trades. Though the chances for clinching a deal are
rare, every single chance gotten means the return of a large sum of
money, " said he.
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(Chinanews.cn July 14, 2006)
