Chinese Art: The Impossible Collection

Over the last century, China has experienced a period of growth more rapid and utterly transforming than any other nation has experienced in modern history. How can we begin to understand the country that has emerged from such a dramatic era of change? Perhaps the answer can be found in China’s art. Certainly, that is what renowned art collectors Adrian Cheng and John Dodelande argue in their forthcoming volume, Chinese Art: The Impossible Collection. After all, China’s history as a land of enormous influence stretches back to its dynastic past, and the nation’s art has always been in conversation with its customs.

The most highly anticipated volume in Assouline’s exclusive Ultimate series, Chinese Art: The Impossible Collection spotlights 100 works of contemporary art that reveal the social, political, and cultural evolution of a nation on the rise. Thoughtfully curated by Cheng and Dodelande, the 100 works are presented in chronological order, beginning with traditional paintings from the turn of the twentieth century and culminating with some of the most cutting-edge works by China’s “new generation” of artists, whose creations explore and often critique the politics that have defined China’s rapid growth into a new world power. The particular themes and conversations that these 100 works raise are glossed in essays and commentary from three of the world’s foremost experts on Chinese Art—Philip Tinari of the UCAA in Beijing, Alexandra Munroe of the Guggenheim in New York, and Karen Smith of OCAT Contemporary Art Terminal in Xi’an.

While readers will come away from Chinese Art with a nuanced understanding of Chinese culture, the volume is also a work of art in its own right—a must-have collectible for any devotee of Chinese art and culture. Assouline’s Ultimate Collection is an homage to the art of luxury bookmaking—the oversized volume is hand-bound using traditional techniques, with several of the plates hand-tipped on art-quality paper and housed in a luxury silk clamshell.

Complimentary white gloves and a signature canvas tote bag are included with each purchase from Assouline's Ultimate Collection.

194 pages
Over 100 illustrations
English language
Released in May 2021
W 35.56 x L 43.18 x D 7.49 cm
Handcrafted edition in a luxury clamshell case
ISBN: 9781614288848

Adrian Cheng is a prolific and dedicated collector of contemporary Chinese art, and a powerful force on the global art scene. In 2020, the journal ArtReview ranked him twelfth in its list of the 100 most influential people in the art world. That influence is due in part to his K11 Art Foundation, a non-profit organisation that promotes emerging artists internationally. Cheng also holds positions with some of the world’s leading art institutions, among them the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Met in New York, and the Royal Academy in London.

John Dodelande, technology-art entrepreneur, businessman, and investor, is perhaps most well-known as a leading collector of Chinese contemporary art. Dodelande has spent the last decade amassing a collection from many of China’s most significant living artists, members of the post-1980s generation who experienced a rapidly urbanizing China.

The same age as many of the artists, Dodelande feels as if the artists speak the same language he does, a relationship strengthened by his travels to meet the artists in person. “I know them all,” he says. “To be in their studios, observe their body language, and feel their internal force – that helps me make sense of the art.” He feels an especially intense connection to pieces with hidden elements of humor, poetry, and humanity.

Dodelande uses his collection to attract well-deserved recognition for the young generation of Chinese artists, from staging events to lending artworks to museums. Dodelande was the first to arrange a contemporary Chinese art exhibit in Georgia. He is convinced that the universality of art is one means to forge a new Silk Road, a meaningful web of commercial and cultural connections between East and West.