The risks run by Chinese artists critical of the country's government became a hot-button topic last year when Ai Weiwei was imprisoned for 81 days, but the challenges posed by the country's labyrinthine bureaucracy for workers in its art industry are only beginning to emerge. Last month two employees of IFAS Solutions — a company that specializes in art handling, storage, and installation throughout Asia — were arrested and charged with "trafficking." Now, more than 40 days later, the company's Beijing general manager and operations manager both remain in custody, and Chinese customs officials have offered no explanation or information regarding their status.
The two men, one of whom is a Chinese citizen while the other is German, were arrested after customs agents raided the company's Beijing offices (it also maintains bureaux in Shanghai and Hong Kong) on March 30. They were held them for questioning for 36 hours, IFAS director Torsten Hendricks told ARTINFO. The exact nature of the charges against them remains unclear.
"According to the German Embassy," Hendricks said, "they have been accused of under-declaring the value of the artworks for importation purposes, despite the fact that they should have had the knowledge of the 'real' value of the artworks."
The arrests are another symptom of the great disparities between Western and Chinese business practices, a clash of corporate cultures that has only become more problematic as Chinese authorities have sought to control the flow of art into and out of the country's booming art market. "Each artwork needs to be disclosed to the cultural authorities," Hendricks explained, "and [could] be declined from being imported or exported from China with such strange arguments [as] 'this painting is ugly,' 'Mao has not been in New York,' 'the painting is vulgar,' 'that does not represent China.' It makes it very difficult to work on the Chinese market."
IFAS isn't the only international art transportation firm being challenged by Chinese authorities' methods. "Many companies are currently being investigated and the focus switches now also to the collectors, consignees, and buyers of artworks," Hendricks told ARTINFO. "Various people have been arrested and according to some information in recent articles the investigation on the art world will last up to the end of this year." German gallerist Michael Schultz echoed Hendricks's sentiment in a recent Sueddeutsche Zeitung interview, saying that the level of bureaucratic "arbitrariness" in China was increasing. "They’re tightening the screws."
In addition to worrying for his employees' well-being, Hendricks is concerned about what this tightening of Chinese art shipping channels could mean for the continued growth of the country's art market. "China is already one of the most expensive countries in the world to ship art to or from," he said, "and with the new hurdles, it will become even more expensive."