A collector had used his money to buy the artist Su Xiaobai’s paintings instead of other things. And when asked why, he couldn’t give a clean answer. Only fragments, “Maybe I saw... maybe I saw... I don’t know why.”

But something in those small ink wash paintings held him. He ...couldn’t leave it. He had to possess it.

He loved the calligraphy. The composition. And then, almost quietly, he said this: “In a small frame, I feel there is the compositional method of Song Dynasty painting.”

Zhangfa. A structure centuries old, alive in a tiny frame.

The complete discussion is now live on YouTube.

This week on the Pearl Lam podcast, Artist Su Xiaobai discusses on the unseen forces shaping his work.

He never consciously thought about the Tao Te Ching or the Heart Sutra while painting, yet they are present, because he comes from a country shaped by Chinese culture. But he is also a ...Christian. And so his paintings carry a great deal of Christian spirit, Renaissance elements, and even something scientific, especially in the colors.

The question he leaves hanging in the air is both simple and profound: Where do these colors come from?

Continue the conversation on The Pearl Lam Podcast.

Glitzy art fairs, slick white-walled galleries, seemingly obtuse artworks and endless conversations – these are some of the stereotypes that come with working professionally in the arts. Taking that even further is the world of cinema, where the art world remains the central subject for numerous ...satire films. (2026’s dark comedy thriller ‘The Gallerist’ comes to mind.)

As someone who’s been in the industry for over twenty years, it’s interesting to see cinema use the art world to explore ideas of wealth, artistry, and the absurdity of modern life. Yet, I’d say that exaggerations abound.

Certainly, there are moments of wonder when collaborating with an artist just clicks and when an exhibition comes together perfectly, almost like magic. But working in the art world can be more mundane than modern media makes it out to be. Many overlook that professionals spend days navigating logistics and shipping; poring over exhibition build plans; and doling out invoices.

But looking back on my journey through the arts, I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s been incredibly rewarding, opening my eyes to the many cultures and ideas that shape our world. I’d encourage anyone whose impression of the art world has been swayed by the glamour of TV and film to try to learn more about the industry in practice.

If you’re interested in learning more about the numerous ways that film depicts the art world , I’d recommend Brittany Rosemary Jones’ story for @ocula.art here: https://ocula.com/magazine/opinion/the-art-world-has-become-cinemas-favourite-joke/

Image Credit: Natalie Portman and Jenna Ortega as Polina Polinski and Kiki in Cathy Yan’s The Gallerist (2026) (Still) and Olivia Wilde and Cooper Hoffmann as Elliot and Erika Tracey in Gregg Araki’s I Want Your Sex (2026) (Still).

“I managed to earn a little money because I didn’t jump straight into contemporary art.”

That’s artist Su Xiaobai’s own humble version. But the question put to him was far less modest: Are you the most financially successful artist among all German and Chinese artists?

...His answer sidesteps comparison altogether. He calls himself a lone wolf, not based in Berlin, not chasing trends. Instead, he leaned on what he brought from home: the painting techniques he learned in his home country. He created beautiful works, desirable, decorative, made for living spaces. And German families, he found, were willing to hang original art on their walls.

That, not market hype, became his quiet success.

Catch the full episode of the Pearl Lam podcast on YouTube.

Rome has always had a certain energy to it. Elegant, cinematic and endlessly inspiring. One experience stood out in particular during my most recent trip this May: visiting VENUS at PM23, the exhibition space founded by Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti.

Presented by the ...Fondazione Valentino Garavani e Giancarlo Giammetti and curated by Pamela Golbin, the exhibition places monumental installations featuring 33 archival Valentino garments. The result is a fascinating conversation between couture and contemporary art, where craftsmanship, scale and emotion all intertwine.

What remains most inspiring was learning how many different communities contributed to the making of the exhibition, from students and artisans to refugees, patients and women supported by social initiatives across Italy – beneath the grandeur was a true sense of humanity.

Considering Valentino Garavani and Giancarlo Giammetti first met in Rome back in July 1960, it felt particularly fitting to experience an exhibition so deeply connected to the cultural and creative spirit of the city itself.

#Valentino #Rome #ArtsAndCulture #FashionExhibition #PM23

In the latest episode of The Pearl Lam Podcast, artist Su Xiaobai reflects on an obsession that lasted three years, a single shade of blue so unprecedented he named it Ulysses Blue.

The name came not from a color, but from James Joyce’s famously impenetrable novel Ulysses, a thick, ...celestial tome he’s never been able to finish.

Set in 1920s France at Shakespeare and Company, this story weaves together reading, longing, and the desire to invent a color no one had ever seen.

Listen to the full conversation on The Pearl Lam Podcast.

Living in remote rural Germany, long quiet nights come with no pastimes or entertainment at all.

Artist Su Xiaobai reflects on that period, and how ink painting began to emerge from that stillness – not out of intention, but out of time, repetition, and a certain kind of boredom.
...
After painting all day, he still had plenty of spare time in the evenings.
He turned to reading, then began creating simple ink works on rice paper brought from China, cutting each sheet into small 30cm by 30cm pieces. What started purely out of idle time slowly became a quiet artistic routine.

Listen to the full conversation on The Pearl Lam Podcast.

The Art Basel (@artbasel) and UBS Global Art (@UBSglobalart) Market Report 2026 by Dr Clare McAndrew of Arts Economics dropped recently, and there are a couple of key points that caught my eye.

The news that has everyone talking: global art market sales grew 4% in 2025, rebounding to a ...cool $59.6 billion. In terms of genre popularity at auction, postwar art came out on top, accounting for 31% of sales value, with Modern art not too far behind at 24%. Interesting to note that Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art grew the most rapidly, surging 47% year over year.

Additionally, the report revealed that you don’t need to fork out eye-watering amounts to be a collector, with 77% of transactions at fine art auctions last year went for less than $5,000.

Also worth mentioning that the U.S., U.K., and China still remain the top three art markets, with sales $26 billion, $10.5 billion, and $8.5 billion respectively.

Beyond the report itself, I also thoroughly enjoyed Dr. McAndrew’s reflection on developing the report over the past decade, and it’s impressive to see how much the art market has grown from the ‘90s onwards: https://www.artbasel.com/stories/what-a-decade-of-research-reveals-about-the-global-art-market

Image credit: Pearl Lam Projects, Art Basel Hong Kong 2026.

#PearlLam #ArtWorld #artmarket #artmarketreport #arteconomics

Artist Su Xiaobai reflects on spending a decade stepping away from the contemporary art sphere, feeling alienated and disillusioned by its landscape.

His mentors offered a refreshing perspective: not every creator is meant to adopt a contemporary approach, and encouraged him to remain ...faithful to his innate artistic style.

Join Su Xiaobai and I for the full episode of The Pearl Lam Podcast.

Nothing in his training prepared him for what he saw in Düsseldorf.

This week on the Pearl Lam podcast, Artist Su Xiaobai reflects on arriving in a completely different artistic environment, where his background in realism offered little entry into the abstract works around him.

...Trained purely in realism, focusing on portraits and landscapes, he found himself completely unable to comprehend the abstract works around him.

As a Chinese artist immersed in a wholly unfamiliar visual language and artistic system, he struggled to embrace abstract art at first, left feeling humbly inexperienced and utterly new to this different creative world.

Explore the full conversation on YouTube and Spotify, only on The Pearl Lam Podcast.

Artist Su Xiaobai reveals his surprising life decision in Germany in the latest episode of The Pearl Lam Podcast.

Rather than spending his funds on a tiny urban parking garage, he acquired an expansive 10,000-square-metre former school nestled in quiet countryside—roughly 200 kilometres ...outside Düsseldorf.

He renovated two buildings on the grounds into his private art studio. Now he’s often playfully labelled a “recluse”, as he rarely leaves his rural retreat.

Stream the full episode now on YouTube and Spotify.

In this episode of The Pearl Lam Podcast, artist Su Xiaobai shares his decades-long collaboration with a master lacquer craftsman from Fujian.

Pursuing an exceptionally pure, custom grade of lacquer beyond commercial standards, he invested repeatedly to refine the formula layer by layer, ...raising his budget time and again for greater purity and clarity.

Today, he still commits to sourcing 1,000 to 2,000 kilograms of his bespoke lacquer every year.

Listen to the full conversation on The Pearl Lam Podcast.

Sometimes the decision is not where you go, but how long you stay.

For artist Su Xiaobai, it was Düsseldorf.

Su reasoned that a one-year program would be too short to master the language and art, while four years allowed ample time to learn German and refine his painting skills ...for a future career. Recalling his extraordinary journey: a seven-day and seven-night train ride across the vast Russian plains, back when it was still the Soviet Union.

Discover more on this week’s episode of The Pearl Lam Podcast, now available on YouTube and Spotify.

With the age of AI fully upon us, many of us have been turning to nostalgia and history to find not only comfort in the familiar, but also what it means to be human. And contemporary artists are no exception, with many explicitly drawing inspiration from the art historical canon. But what does that... mean for the art that you and I might see in galleries today?

On one hand, some might call the constant references to art history and recycling iconic motifs uninspired. Lazy, even. Getting stuck in ideas of old might deter artists from looking ahead, or discovering their own creative voice. In some cases, those insisting on drawing on history might also find themselves guilty of using precepts from a dominant culture to understand a vastly different one, without nuance.

On the other hand, historically charged art could prove a salve to our dwindling attention spans. It demands that we closely examine what we are looking at, and try to understand the past from how it’s represented – offering a starkly different way of engaging with media in a world where endless scrolls on apps remain the norm.

For further reading on this topic, I thoroughly enjoyed this @artnet essay by J. Cabelle Ahn @cabellerina, linked here: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ultra-contemporary-old-masters-2744796

#PearlLam #ContemporaryArt #AI #VisualArt

The decision was immediate.

For Su Xiaobai, encountering lacquer changed the direction of his work. While his mentors recognised this as his authentic path, they also pointed to the role his earlier paintings could still play in building a life.

Instantly captivated by its unique ...charm, he turned away from oil painting, only to receive overwhelming praise from his Düsseldorf mentors. They reminded him that while lacquer is his authentic artistic path, his earlier works still hold practical value for building a steady life and family.

Continue the conversation on The Pearl Lam Podcas