Guan Yi Standing in front of Huang Yong Ping’s sculpture ‘‘Factory of the World’’ at a temporary exhibition in the grand Soviet-style halls of Beijing’s Agricultural Exhibition Center in the fall of 2002, Guan Yi decided to become an art collector. The son of a wealthy chemical-manufacturing magnate, he has amassed in a few years an impressive trove at once sophisticated and adamantly Chinese. While he does own a few works by auction darlings like Zhang Xiaogang and Wang Guangyi, Guan Yi’s passion lies not with the painters but with the experimental collectives — Huang’s Xiamen Dada, Wu Shanzhuan’s Red Humor, Gu Dexin’s New Analysts and the Guangzhou-based Big Tail Elephant Group — who are the real art heroes of the last two decades. And while a stop at the private museum (photographed here) has become de rigueur for every group of visiting art-world dignitaries, his most important role may be figurehead and tastemaker for the emerging generation of Chinese collectors, who, if they follow his lead, may help turn Chinese art history away from the smiling faces and remade propaganda posters of the current buzz. (photo Song Chao) (courtesy www.nytimes.com)