Chinese whispers
Sir: The 'Chinese' paintings that were on show at the Marlborough Gallery are a complete chimera as Chinese art (And another thing, 4 December). A few of them may rank as a rather belated response to western art trends in the past century or so, and several may be of local cultural inter- est, but they are emphatically not Chinese art, any more than casting a production of Turandot with ethnic Chinese trained as western opera signers would result in Chi- nese opera. The market, however, is so unsophisticated and confused at present that it thinks they are Chinese art and buys them for prices which would only be appro- priate if they were the cutting edge of mod- ern Chinese art. In my humble opinion they are not.
David Davies
906 World Shipping Centre, Harbour City, 7 Canton Road, Hong Kong
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