LONDON—"Swimming against the tide is part of my personality," says the veteran contemporary Chinese-art dealer Michael Goedhuis. "I’m very contrarian." But that is only the first explanation he gives for his latest move: expanding during a recession. On May 9 the British-born Goedhuis, who has operated out of a space on New York’s Upper East Side for seven years, will reopen the intimate gallery that he ran from 2003 to 2005 in his London residence, a well-appointed private apartment in Cadogan Square, with an exhibition of ink paintings by Zeng Xiaojun that runs through June 5.

The second and third reasons Goedhuis offers for his transatlantic expansion are strictly business. "I think the European economy is looking a lot more resilient right now," he says. And although he believes that Asian collectors will eventually take the lead, Europeans now are the biggest buyers of Chinese contemporary art.

Long a supporter of the school of painters who are updating traditional brush-and-ink techniques, Goedhuis chose the Beijing-based Xiaojun for the branch’s first show because "he’s the quintessential contemporary ink painter. He is connecting with the classical past, but treating it in an updated way." The 10 works displayed are priced from $22,000 to $100,000 — modest numbers, Goedhuis says, compared with those for other Chinese paintings. "Open House" originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2009 Table of Contents.