What is the state of studies in Chinese art? Has scholarship increased?
GE: Immensely, yes. In the early days you could study Chinese history, archaeology or art without any background in Chinese language. Today, you certainly cannot do that. Language skills are encouraged much more, and there are more student exchanges. The systematic excavation, rather than just pilfering of tombs, has brought a lot of knowledge. And we had a lot of very wrong information—wrong on purpose—which was quite criminal. When people were stealing out of tombs in the 1920s and 1930s, even before, a lot of them didn’t want their sources known so they would confuse us by saying it came from a different site. It took a lot of time to unravel.TAN: What is the status of art fairs? GE: That is something new again. It creates a market for people who are nervous about walking into an auction house and bidding—they can go and look at something and discuss it with the dealer. I have heard stories where Chinese collectors have asked the price of the entire installation, and bought it as an
