I got a sneak peak of Fairy Tales, an exhibition at Opera Gallery, which is opening tonight. The 25 works are not for sale, as they’re part of a private collection known as MaGMA, put together over the last 10 years by two private collectors. MaGMA consists mainly of Asian contemporary names, and has a good selection of big Chinese names like Zeng Fanzhi, Liu Ye, Wang Guangyi, Guo Wei, Yue Minjun, Li Shan, and Zhou Chunya, along with Indonesian artist Nyoman Masriadi and Singaporean artists David Chan and Justin Lee. The collectors have decided to present some of the artworks in portable diptychs especially designed for each picture. These stand on the floor, like partly opened books, making the works especially inviting. The works are also presented with a fairy tale narrative which closely mirrors the collectors’ lives. In the same venue, Opera Gallery is simultaneously showcasing their own in-house exhibition, Tales of China, which features works by some of the top names in Chinese contemporary art. This is certainly very interesting to anybody needing a crash course to understand the last 10 years’ art craze for Chinese art.
