A legacy in progress

Twenty years ago, hard though it may be to believe in these crowded days, you could easily count the serious galleries in Hong Kong on the fingers of one hand: Alisan Fine Arts, Plum Blossoms, Hanart TZ. Into this sparse landscape there arrived a German called Manfred Schoeni who loved food, wine and cigars, and came here to work in the hotel industry. He married a Hong Kong woman, through her became interested in antiques, and started travelling to China. In 1992, he met a group of young artists who were camped in the ruins of Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace outside Beijing. Their names were unknown and their stomachs were empty. They were hungry for what Schoeni could offer.

"People were starving," says Nicole Schoeni, Manfred's daughter, sitting in the Old Bailey Street gallery that bears the family name. "My father came from a humble background, he'd had to work very hard and he understood, and sympathised with, artists struggling. He tempted them with food and money."

Two decades later, the Schoeni Gallery is marking its 20th anniversary with an exhibition, "Latitude/Attitude", in both Old Bailey Street and the original gallery on Hollywood Road, as well as with Saturday workshops in its project space in Chancery Lane.

If you want a crash course in the recent history of Chinese contemporary art, this is the place. Liu Wei is here, so is Zeng Fanzhi, Yue Minjun, Fang Lijun and Yang Shaobin: even if the names aren't familiar, you'll probably recognise their style because the masked faces, the manic grins and physical contortions say much about the body politic of 1990s China, and have been much imitated. Seeded among these stalwarts are newer artists, using newer art forms (video, photography), that the gallery is cultivating.

Also on display is a cigar case belonging to Li Guijun, whose 1998 painting, Red Wine, hangs nearby. It was given to Li by Schoeni who, by 1998, opened a restaurant called Ashanti in Beijing. It took its name from the vineyard he co-owned in South Africa, and you get the impression that an entire generation of Chinese artists was introduced to tobacco and alcohol there.

A lively documentary film about Ashanti, called Fly! Fly!, which was shown at the 1999 Venice Biennale, is in the exhibition, along with one of the restaurant's menus. But it's a little Li painting, hanging next to Red Wine, although not listed in the catalogue, which perhaps holds the greatest poignancy: Sketch of Annecy depicts the house in France that Schoeni bought and spent years renovating, and where Li spent several weeks one summer.