While Zhang Baoquan has made millions through his passion for developing real estate, he hopes his passion for art will reap even greater rewards.
Zhang Baoquan is one of China's most successful businessmen. In his early 50s, he leads a well-off, adventurous life few people could dare to even imagine.
Born into a farming family in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, the real estate giant worked as a carpenter, a correspondent and a film director before venturing into big business in the early 1990s.
The developer of massive Beijing real estate projects such as Space Montage and Pingod and the luxurious Yalong Bay Mangrove Tree Resort in Hainan Province, Zhang also founded the Today Art Museum in Beijing which is China's first privately owned, non-profit museum.
Most recently in June, Zhang received the 2008 Montblanc de la Culture Arts Patronage Award, presented by the German luxury goods manufacturer to honor those who have dedicated time, energy and financial support to the arts and cultural development around the world.
"As a matter of fact, the museum enjoys a higher reputation overseas than it does in China," Zhang tells Shanghai Daily. "Hopefully the award can help gain public recognition for the museum and support for the development of Chinese contemporary art."
Founded in 2002, the Today Art Museum in Beijing's central Chaoyang District is dedicated to showcasing cutting-edge Chinese contemporary art by both established and emerging artists. Chinese contemporary art has recently experienced a phenomenal rise in popularity on the international market, but it still remains neglected to some extent in the country's mainstream art scene.
"I felt obliged to do something for Chinese contemporary art when I made the decision to establish the museum six years ago," Zhang says. "It's more like, I would say, a social responsibility."
Despite its increasing popularity in Western countries, Chinese contemporary art was once spurned by some local art critics who described it as "a display window of overseas cultural junk in China."
On the contrary, Zhang thinks Chinese contemporary art takes advantage of China's unique society structure in recent decades.
For example, the turbulent 1960s-70s inspired "political pop" while the lust for materialism in the wake of the reform and opening-up policy generated the "cynical realism" style.
Today Art Museum boasts a collection of more than 1,100 Chinese contemporary artworks, according to Zhang. The exhibit includes a 36-meter-by-4-meter painting by Fang Lijun, one of the biggest Chinese names in the international art scene.
Whilst following the local contemporary art scene closely, art lover Zhang also sees the importance of discovering and nurturing new, young talent.
The museum organizes regular exhibitions for college students to seek new talent in the hope of transforming them into contracted artists of the museum.
In addition, Zhang has set up studios in his private villa, the Persimmon Garden, in suburban Beijing. Artists are invited to reside in the studio for a period of time to look for inspiration and devote themselves completely to their art.
