Category Archives: Zhong Biao

by

Zhong Biao is in Venice

Recently received the following announcement from Zhong Biao:

 

8B69B84A@14839768.8F7A9F51

 

The curator is Xu Gang 徐钢. He’s a new figure in the Zhong Biao pantheon, near as I can tell, and professor of Chinese literature at University of Illinois.The principal sponsors are Today 今日 and Winshare 文轩美术馆 galleries, the latter of which being an appendage of Xinhua media group.

The concept is a reprisal of previous work by Zhong, who has not been inclined to change his approach much since I’ve begun following him in 2005. His artistic ideas, in other words, are repetitive, if also impressive, a curious blend. In this case, an even more simple dichotomy is at work than the one’s he’s used before, namely Reality/Fantasy, or more properly, the “unstable relationship between the two.”  A cosmic element is also there, as the relationship is explored (exhibited) within “the primordial mass of the universe” 在混沌宇宙, and I wonder how the cosmic plays, through painting, other installation and video screens, within a Venetian church. Exhibiting Zhong’s work in refurbished urban warehouses, or sparkling new annexes of modern museums (the last two shows I’ve seen) seem to offer more congruency than 17th century Italian architecture. But this is difficult to say from afar. Sure do wish I was there….

 

 

by

night cities– by Yan Li and me

Spring time and therefore doing some spring cleaning of my hard drive (simply so that I can use it). In process I

stumbled across this painting by Yan Li:

02

I think the painting captures well the phantasmagorical quality of night in Chinese cities, when darkness does one the favor of eliminating all the jagged edges and rebar of rapid construction, leaving behind only light and shadows of not only what is already realized, but moreover what’s fanaticized to come (this effect usually enhanced by the atmospheric effect of smog). Yan Li’s painting of the Shanghai Bund captures this very well, replete with loving couple, and historical juxtaposition of turn of then century buildings dwarfed by turn of the (next) century buildings.

And then, further along in my “locate and destroy” trip through the hard drive I came upon this image taken by me at Denver Art Museum on occasion of Zhong Biao’s 2009 exhibition EMBRACE.

brand new snow just outside of opening of "Embrace," a show of 17 artists including Zhong Biao in November, 2009.

brand new snow just outside of opening of “Embrace,” a show of 17 artists including Zhong Biao in November, 2009.

I thought it might be good companion piece to Yan’s painting.

by

art documentaries : Chimeras in the mix

Another year another China art documentary, focusing on questions of identity, or, as Wang Guangyi asks in Finnish film director  Mika Mattila’s Chimera: “what are our roots?”

The question itself continues to inspire new documentary work, but not, perhaps, much discussion or even interest (at least not for me). I remain intrigued, however, by filmmakers who are able to take this topic as the subject of their art, in other words, film artists who make art the fodder for their art. The arrangement is curious in that so much of what is compelling about such work is derived, if not flat out stolen, from someone else’s creative work. Where would, in other words, Mattila really be without Wang Guangyi and Liu Gang, who in most media reports (LA Times, for instance) are the headliners anyway, with the ‘real’ artist–the filmmaker–relegated to round about paragraph three. Journalists can see proportionality in this case of creative production, anyway.

The question is somewhat personal, I suppose, as I’ve endeavored off and on to tackle Zhong Biao in documentary format. Whether or not the project ever comes to fruition, I am certain that the better part of what emerges as watchable (耐看) will stem from his painting, or other products from his fundamentally creative hand. The structure, rhetoric, even cinematographic dimensions of my work would all rightly be upstaged by the artist or artists in question.

Robert Adanto’s work, discussed elsewhere on this blog, is also a case in point, but in watching that work we are forced to admit a certain spectrum of truth to the proposition that the documentarian of art is a thief of sorts, particularly when compared with Alison Klayman’s work on Ai Weiwei, a more modest, and therefore artistically thin operation. Yet in either case there is something there, in the art of the art, something beyond mere convenience (documentarian travels to locales we cannot in order to bring back the goods of what’s good), something expressive and individual, self-deprecating by design, but occasionally aesthetically there in the mind’s eye of the viewer.

And so it will be with Chimeras, I expect. I’m looking forward to seeing it when it comes to town.

by

Choking on beauty

 

Arriving in Beijing at pinnacle of worst air ever (technical term: “beyond index”) a while back I must confess it never occurred to me that a wholly different “view” was right in front of my eyes (they were in fact largely closed because it hurt to have them open):


6feb73c7gw1e19cn342d2j

Of course, I’m not responsible for them. These are from Zhong Biao’s microblog. Source of all that’s good.

http://www.weibo.com/artistzhongbiao

by

Zhong’s micro-posting

The image posting is part of Zhong’s artistic process, which I’ve discussed previously on this blog.  He uses the following site, a typical photo bucket, http://weibo.pp.cc for perusal, and then comments and labels images which become subsequent fodder for his own painting. Following the micro-blog is a bit like watching his paintings taking shape in Zhong’s mind, although the question is not actually one of shape as that seems to come by other means.   I expect this image, posted yesterday, to emerge in some form at some point :

人的外表都是别人能看见，自己不一定看得见的；内心是别人看不见，自己不一定看得见的。

[one's outer appearance is visible to others, not necessarily one's self; one's inner mind is invisible to others, and not necessarily visible to oneself]

by

Zhong Biao (for those who read Chinese)

At long last finding Zhong’s “Official” website.

I note as well that under “critics” tab at left appears, among 20 others or so, my article

But the real treat on the site are the various “view points” that are included (4, to be precise). These do get across Zhong’s mode of thinking in a manner entirely suitable to his pace, namely online, “clickable.” 3 of the 4 are only in Chinese, and I’ll endeavor to do some translation in near future. Meantime, the first still fully indicative:

我仅有一个梦想，就是让我笔下的同志们带着这一团乱麻的世界，在许多年以后，替我去看望未来的人们。^_^

I have only one dream, that the people under my brush might take this world of confusion and in years to come look out at the people of the future on my behalf.

by

Zhong Biao on weibo 微博

For those who don’t read Chinese weibo (micro blogs), I thought I’d take a look at what Zhong Biao has been talking about recently. He’s active, as are many of his generation, and their collective discourse increasingly a major part of contemporary Chinese cultural fabric.

So what does he write about? In the MB format, short posts are the not only the norm, but the only option. Of late in particular, though formally speaking his standard mode, Zhong prefers the striking photograph with his own caption, ala:

眼睛如此美丽而神秘，就像未知星球的表面！
Eyes this mysterious and beautiful are just like the surface of an as yet undiscovered planet!

Or, this:

幸福就是这么简单！
Good fortune is just that simple!

But from these, I think we can learn a lot about what people are thinking, with Zhong’s characteristically broad, interplanetary view of aesthetics, and his ongoing rumination on happiness and human relationships (I won’t speculate that old age is part of this rumination as I’m not at all certain that’s the case). Nonetheless, there’s a reason why certain images make enough impression to result in the copy, paste and comment.

Most striking then, as I do believe that consumption, excess, and degraded health are a major part of the contemporary picture, particularly for highly social artists such as Zhong, the following struck me as particularly current:

什么样的饮食习惯得到什么样的身体！
You are what you eat!

In any event, this is what Zhong has been talking about this week.

by

last words, an image by Zhong Biao

As part of a back-to-school ritual (belated, as usual) I’m sorting through papers in the house,  most of which being the scribblings/paintings of two small children, and I find the following image:

And while my daughters clearly have nearly superhuman artistic talent, I’m guessing neither of them is responsible for this picture, particularly given Zhong’s signature upper left.  Thus, we find ourselves proud owners (at long last!) of a Zhong Biao original, watercolor on paper, 8 1/2 x 11 inches.  I guess that’s “merry christmas.”

addendum (2/29):
just found this video

by

Zhong Biao, Commercialization, Liu Wei, and what is good in contemporary Chinese art

Liu Wei image from here

During Zhong Biao’s visit in December I found myself casting about for good questions to ask him. Once the “What are your influences?” “What materials?” “What process?”   –type inquiries were all behind us, there seemed to be need for going deeper into how he views artistic practice, particularly in China.  Never did I think  that such an obvious question (posed not by myself, for what its worth) would be so productive in this sense: “what’s good?”   I suppose I may have avoided such a question expecting Zhong to be difficult to pin down in terms of his likes and dislikes.  True enough, dislikes are not the type of thing he’s inclined to discuss, and I saw no point in pressing the issue.  What a surprise, then, when he effortlessly and emphatically took to the question of who paints well in China today.  He said, without missing a beat, Liu Wei 刘炜.

The ensuing conversation brought to mind the criticism leveled against Zhong from a number of quarters (that I wont identify in this setting), namely that he is too market oriented.  I’ve wrestled with this a bit, given that I would like to consider myself disinclined to interest in–much less promotion of–the blatantly commercial, and yet I’m fond of Zhong’s work.  In this regard, Zhong’s remarks about Liu Wei brought to light an important difference in his mind at least between what he does and what Liu Wei does.  Liu Wei is, according to Zhong Biao, purely a painter.  Zhong Biao, meanwhile, is an artist.  Liu Wei’s work is limited to the canvas, while Zhong’s extends out, to intercourse with the community, to performances of all kinds, to “projects” that are part installation, part promotion and finally part painting.   Zhong Biao is constantly engaged in what’s next in terms of the showing, the scene, the event.  What happens outside is at least as important as what happens on the canvas.

By contrast there is Liu Wei.  His work begins and ends on the confines of the canvas.  What happens there, though, and clearly what Zhong most appreciates, is the abandon, the transgression, the discovery of boundary, and the effortless, creative, and for Zhong even incredible disregard for the boundary.  Liu’s work speaks to Zhong’s creative spirit, and does so in ways Zhong cannot.

I had been vaguely familar with Liu’s work already, having an impression of ruddy faces and ill-kept teeth.  As I listened to Zhong, however, I realized that the artist is indeed extraordinary in his mercurial-ness: from those faces, which no doubt secured him some degree of audience, he moves to landscapes, and mixed-media. He moves, in fact, all about. And yet, as Zhong well observed, he remains on the canvas, where he belongs.  A painter’s painter whose work I will now be following along with Zhong Biao.

from here