Emerging art of China finds a settled home at La Trobe

Geoff Raby wants his donated works by contemporary Chinese artists to be used for teaching.

Geoff Raby is a former Australian ambassador to China who has collected a substantial amount of modern Chinese art. Picture: Aaron Francis

In 1986, when Geoff Raby arrived in Beijing as first secretary in charge of the economics division at the Australian embassy, he was drawn into the emerging art scene in China.

It was a time when China was opening up economically and ­socially and when young artists were beginning to emerge in the heady years that led to the events of June 4, 1989. Raby and others at the embassy, including cultural counsellor Nick Jose, developed connections with young emerging Chinese artists who were unable to show their work in official galleries. Before long, the Australians began using their apartments to host the artists’ exhibitions.

Raby become a friend of many of the artists and an enthusiastic collector of their work. “We used our apartments to show their work because they couldn’t show it anywhere else as there was no officially sanctioned exhibition space,” Raby recalls. “It was like the late 19th century in Paris. These guys were not part of any academy — they were outside the academy.”

When he returned to Beijing in 2007 as Australian ambassador to China, then as a business consultant from 2011, Raby continued to acquire work.

His three decades of collecting modern Chinese art have produced a unique collection that will on Tuesday be handed over to Raby’s alma mater, La Trobe University. Although the collection is estimated to be worth more than $2m, Raby says its true value is in its record of a dynamic period of Chinese history when newly liberated artists were reacting to the economic opening up of the country while navigating its political changes.

Dialogue by Xiao Lu.

The single largest cultural gift made to the university in its history, the collection of more than 170 objects including paintings, photography, work on paper, ceramics and textiles mostly features work created by Chinese artists since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.

“The collection maps 35 years of Chinese economic reform and social and political development,” Raby says. “The artwork reflects the changes which took place over that period. There is a lot of didactic value in the collection. People will be studying this in 50 years’ time as it was an incredibly important period of China’s history.”

The collection includes works from artists such as Guo Jian, a Chinese Australian detained by Chinese authorities in 2014 for commemorating the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square tragedy. Then there is Chen Man’s striking picture of a girl on a bike peddling past the Forbidden City called Ms Wan Studies Hard; Li Dapeng’s red pigs in astronaut suits and wearing green Mao caps; Guan Wei’s monsters coming out of the sea; and works by Tibetan artist Jhamsang depicting an eerie blue robotic Buddha-like figure with a gun to its head.

One of the most disturbing is Dialogue, a black and white photograph of artist Xiao Lu pointing a gun. Made in 2004, it recalls an event in February 1989 when she walked into an exhibition in Beijing and shot her own installation, which led to her ­temporary arrest and a move to live in Sydney.

Community No 1 by Chen Wenling.

One of Raby’s favourites is a Soviet-era carpet made in 1942 that he bought in the western autonomous region of Xinjiang.

“It dates back to a period when Xinjiang was under the Kuomin­tang,” Raby says. “The warlord was a Soviet sympathiser and this was a classic ­Soviet realism carpet made in Xinjiang.

“The collection goes from there to the Cultural Revolution, including one porcelain piece and a political agitprop piece calling for the smashing of the Gang of Four. Much of the new Chinese art movement was incredibly influenced by the early years of propaganda art in China.”

Raby, who has three degrees from La Trobe — a bachelor of economics (honours), a masters in economics and a PhD — says he chose to give the collection to La Trobe because of his history with the institution.

“La Trobe gave me the knowledge and life skills to achieve the things that were unimaginable to me when I first walked through its doors in March 1973,” he says.

He says the university also agreed to his conditions: that the collection be kept together for all time, to eventually display the works in full and to use them for teaching purposes.

“There were other public institutions interested but I chose La Trobe because, apart from it being my alma mater, it ticked all the boxes of how I wanted the collection to be held and studied for ­future generations,” he says.

Stop Staring at Me by Chen Wenling.

Sandra Bruce, the director of the La Trobe Art Institute, says contemporary Chinese practice holds a prominent position on the international art stage. She describes as “highly significant” the collection that Raby has brought together over the years.

“The collection has importance as both a contemporary fine art collection and as a resource for international social commentary and associated research and teaching, including comparative cultural studies, social history and Asian studies,” she says.

La Trobe vice-chancellor John Dewar says the Raby collection will be “a dynamic and engaging addition to La Trobe’s highly regarded art collections”.

He says it will be “recognised for its historical, cultural and ­community contribution as well as its importance to teaching and research”.

The Geoff Raby Collection of Chinese Art will become the seventh discrete collection held by La Trobe University, which has combined holdings of more than 10,000 objects covering fine art, artefacts and social history.

Its fine art collection predominantly comprises Australian art, with some international works ­acquired over the decades, including some from visiting Chinese artists in the 1970s and 80s.

The university’s collections include the Stewart E. Fraser poster collection developed by a long-serving academic with family ties to China that includes many ­objects from China during the Cultural Revolution.

La Trobe University sees the Raby collection as an important counterpoint to the Fraser ­collection.

Raby, who still divides his time between Beijing and Australia, says he will continue to collect modern art from China.

He recently bought several more pieces by Wang Yawei, whose work is included in the collection going to La Trobe and which features young Chinese on the subway. He says his plan is to eventually give all his modern Chinese art to La Trobe “but for now I have some walls in my home in Sydney I need to fill”.