YOU could be forgiven for thinking Kylie Ying is a model, such is her elegance, style, grace and movie star looks, instead of one of China’s most prominent collectors of art.

The 30-something has had an eclectic fledgling career so far, including being a co-founder of ART021 Shanghai Contemporary and JINGART, an art collector and an investor in the media, design, fashion and health care industries.

That might explain why she and her ART021 team have been working around the clock to set up an online auction since February 17, despite the novel coronavirus threat.

Together with Shanghai How Art Museum, Shanghai Soong Ching Ling Foundation, Yitiao and Modern Media, ART021 has initiated “Stand Together,” an online charity auction from March 2 to 5 to raise funds for 80 primary schools in the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in China.

How Art Museum and How Store donated nearly 30 items worth an estimated 1 million yuan.

“We also donated a group of artworks to go under the hammer and used our advantage to approach collectors for support for the auction,” Ying said.

Last week, Ying canceled the third edition of JINGART, an exhibit planned from May 21 to 24 in Beijing.

“Based on all the uncertainties and advice we gathered from different experts in the health and safety concern of all the exhibitors, partners and the general public, we made this extremely difficult decision,” she said.

The eighth edition of ART021, however, plans to go ahead as normal. The application process and promoting campaign began online last week. The show will be held from November 12 to 15 at the Shanghai Exhibition Center.

Ying was born and raised in a Shanghai family highly involved in the art and culture industry. And it was in the confines of the family home where she developed a natural sense of art.

As a little girl, she was invited to perform a role in a movie titled “The Children’s Restaurant.”

Her education and early career in the media later shaped her professional skills. And after holding a deputy publisher’s position in a famous media group, she decided to leave the business and follow her true passion — art.

She has built up a developed catalogue in diversity. Some pieces from her collection were exhibited at the prestigious New Museum in New York and the Biennale di Venezia. She also donated an installation work to the Centre Pompidou in 2015 by Xu Zhen, one of China’s most famed contemporary artists.

She co-founded the ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair in 2013, which has become one of the biggest highlights in the global art calendar.

JINGART, as the expansion of ART021, was launched in Beijing in 2018. Her brand has become an art scene calling card in two of China’s most important cities.

“Supporting emerging young artists is a vital mission for me, including buying artworks from them, sponsoring and funding them directly,” Ying said.

In 2017, Ying started the “Young Artists of the Year” campaign, generating corporate sponsorship and providing media coverage for many young Chinese artists.

Today, a successful art fair organizer, a collector, a fashion icon and investor, she is frequently under the spotlight and regularly appears in fashion magazines.

She was listed as one of the top 100 most powerful people in the art world by artnet (an art market website) and in the top 100 most influential people” by Art Power (China’s top awards to recognize outstanding artists and institutions).

As one of the most significant figures in promoting Chinese contemporary art, she has been actively involved with a wide variety of international art projects, a sponsor for Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a member of Design Trust, a founding member of May Foundation Art Project, and a board member of Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Q: What makes you plan the online “Stand Together” auction?

A: We hope to try our best to help people battling the epidemic. We are quite concerned and worried about them, while at the same time we also feel that art is powerless especially when confronting such a disaster.

ART021 is an influential art platform in China and we hope that we can galvanize people in the art community to promote hope and belief through the power of art.

Q: Will the cancellation of JINGART in May cause a big financial loss to your plans in 2020?

A: The impact of the cancellation is huge, because most of the preparation work had already been completed. As an ongoing art fair, it is a loss in reputation and finance to us. It is also a loss to the galleries because, different from other industries, the trading of galleries rely on the joining of several important art fairs every year. It is pitiful that if we cancel JINGART, artists miss an opportunity of public exposure and selling their work at this year’s top art fairs.

Q: What strategies did you come up with to tackle the difficulties for this year’s ART021 in November?

A: The first move was to cancel the application fee for all Chinese participating galleries. Although the application fee might only be a small amount for one gallery, the total amount of all application fees is not small for a fair organizer.

Each year, we select about 100 galleries from 300 to 400 candidates. In fact, the workload of the selection process is quite daunting. We invite a group of veteran gallery owners and art experts to act as our reviewers. Sometimes we pay for their accommodation fees, which becomes a cost for ART021 to cover. But we hope that this little move would initiate more support from the art community to overcome the tough time.

Currently we are discussing with our partners and the local government in the hope that more policies would be applied to offer tangible benefits for those involved in the art area.

Q: What feedback have you received so far about the ART021 fair?

A: The outbreak of coronavirus has had a huge negative impact on the first half of this year. But according to some experts the epidemic situation might be under control at the end of April, which won’t affect ART021 in November.

Many galleries have approached us for exhibition space and some collectors also showed interest in purchasing artwork in the second half of the year. So up to now nearly all the feedback is positive.

Q: ART 021 is now one of the best art fairs in Asia. Which elements do you think account for its success?

A: Right time and right place is quite critical for being successful. We grasped the opportunity and moved forward. Today when looking back, the past decade was a fast-paced golden development for China’s culture, entertainment and art scene.

We are fortunate to seize this chance. The three founders of ART021 were quite young. Bao Yifeng is an expert in public relations and David Chau, with an academic background in art history and international relations, is also an investor in multiple industries.

Perhaps echoing the traditional Chinese saying — “They who know nothing fear nothing.” We adopted some new strategies in running an art fair.

Q: Some are pessimistic of China’s art market in the future. What’s your pre-judgment?

A: I don’t expect an obvious fall-down or rebound.

The art market is different from the stock market and it is common that the art market always responds lagging behind the economy. I don’t think there will be a big change in the short term. For the second half of 2020, I still believe that people need to consume art either for self-comfort or self-relaxation.

Of course, what I now predict might not be 100 percent correct, but a similar case is the price rebound in the luxury industry and art market in the country after the global SARS outbreak in 2003.

Q: Did this epidemic situation force you to slow down?

A: I stayed at home for nearly a month, which I think is quite good. Sometimes you need to press the pause button on your life path. But few of us actually do it. We probably wouldn’t slow down if we weren’t given the chance.

It seems that because we were forced to have a long vacation, we then began to care about the people and things around us and do some things that we would seldom do.

To tell you the truth, I really benefitted a lot from this long vacation.

Q: Many would like to rewind the clock this year, as the virus was so unexpected. What was your original plan for this year’s Spring Festival?

A: I planned to go to Los Angeles before Chinese New Year, as we have projects to discuss with some museums there. I also wanted to stop by Frieze LA, expecting to see some of the most significant and forward-thinking contemporary galleries from across the city and around the world.

But, due to the outbreak of coronavirus, we responded to the call of the government and stayed at home to arrange our work for the second half of the year.

Q: Can you use three adjectives to describe the future of ART021?

A: I would say “globalized, sustainable and win-win.”

ART021

Established in 2013, ART021 is widely recognized as one of the biggest and the best art fairs in Asia. Last year’s event attracted almost 80,000 visitors in over four days.

Co-founded with David Chau, Bao Yifeng and Kylie Ying, ART021 gathers premier galleries and institutions across the globe.

It aims to provide a platform for gallerists, collectors, art patrons and museum associates to communicate and share. It commits to its founding principal–guarded standards with professional hosting and leveraging local recourses with a global perspective.

Because of the wide connection of its founders, many celebrities have visited ART021 and bought artworks, including Zhang Ziyi, Jay Chou and Adrien Brody.

JINGART

Established in 2018, JINGART aims to combine the dynamic culture of Beijing with the international art market. Presenting the best quality art and design of different eras and genres, it aims to build a diverse platform for local and international exhibitors, collectors, artists and art lovers. It is managed by ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair and held in Beijing in May every year.

Located in the commercial district of Xizhimen, the Beijing Exhibition Center, covering an area of 100,000 square meters, has become the new venue for JINGART since 2019.

The center was completed in 1954 in the Sino-Soviet style and established as the first large-scale exhibition venue in Beijing. The building echoes the atmosphere of its sister fair, ART021’s venue, Shanghai Exhibition Center.