Monthly Archives: November 2010

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Architectural ‘copycats’

 

 

 

And following the architectural theme, a post by Jonathan Glancey has caught my eye as well.  The piece, written for the Guardian, is entitled “British architects at the mercy of China’s copycats.”  Glancey expresses typical outrage at infringement of intellectual property and, in this case, outright fraud found rampant in contemporary Chinese society.  Apparently, some Chinese firms hoping to land large architectural projects often find it expedient to use the names and reputations of major British architectural firms as their own in order to obtain contracts.  When discovered, perpetrators of this clearly illegal practice simply disappear, only, no doubt, to re-emerge under a new name, equally fraudulent sometime thereafter.

Certainly, it would be difficult to defend perpetrators of such mendacious practice. What’s missing from Glancey’s piece, however, is context.  It does not take a great deal of inside or even direct knowledge about building conditions in contemporary China to realize that such fraud has its reasons.  Given the sheer volume of building, the availability of a great variety of new models (from public to private and all in between) is necessary, while the availability of established providers of such models are no doubt having a hard time keep up with demand.  This is particularly true for something as complex as the built environment, which involves utilitarian (functional) as well as aesthetic demands.  Most important, I expect, would be a concern about safety and other standards which are present but often very difficult to enforce. This is a basic feature of all rapidly developing societies, and China is simply the best example–for better and for worse–of rapid development the world has seen.  That a few architectural firms get ripped off in the process is little wonder.

Meanwhile, for each an every example of a stolen contract (if we call them that), you can be sure a fully “original” and often outlandish architectural wonder is in the works, particularly in China’s urban centers.  Perhaps the most noteworthy of late is none other than I.M. Pei’s new museum in Suzhou (images above and here). More on this later.

 

 

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CultureGrrl Goes to China

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I have been reading Lee Rosenbaum’s excellent (and award-winning) blog of late.  I was not surprised earlier this month to note that she had visited China, particularly given the frequency of her posts regarding Ai Weiwei.

After some rather predictable (though eloquent) observations about China’s contemporary building boom (“architecture on steroids” apt indeed), she moves on to limitations on discourse and expression with the likes of:

It seems to me that the form of press censorship most dangerous to a dictatorship is partial censorship, allowing people to get a tantalizing taste of what they’re not supposed to see, and then frustrating and demeaning them by denying free access to the rest of the story.

But it is the essence of China’s thought control as practiced throughout the twentieth and now twenty-first centuries. As usual, I’d advocate a more complicated (or perhaps just the opposite?) view: in the current media/technology climate, TOTAL blackout is simply impossible, or at least not worth the effort.  Creating conditions whereby some information comes through while periodically and often randomly obstructing, deleting or suppressing other content flow slows the pace of inevitable change, allowing public opinion to be channeled in directions which seem (to bureaucrats sadly shackled with the task, anyway) “best” for society.  That Lee Rosenbaum cannot understand this method or deems it “dangerous” is really a function of provincialism–that one path to more open discourse experience is the only way to get there. Truth is, China is demonstrating an alternative as we speak.

And speaking of provincialism, I’m afraid I can’t let the following comment go without comment:

This brings us to the CultureGrrl Blackout: The first site that my tour group visited after arriving in Beijing was Tiananmen Square, perhaps best know today for the famous pro-democracy protests of 1989. We arrived there only a week after Liu had been awarded his Nobel Peace Prize—an honor decried by the Chinese government as rewarding a convicted criminal.

Truth is (for reasons I mention above) few Chinese are aware that “Tiananmen Square is best known for famous pro-democracy protests”.  In fact, a large portion of the Chinese population does not know that there were protests in 1989.  And more to the point, many of those who do don’t much care.  Whatever one thinks of this fact (well documented, by the way), it is important to remember that spaces/places have meaning, and that that meaning may not be universally understood.  Perhaps while Lee was there, she might have considered what else “Tiananmen” might mean.

And finally, I was in Tiananmen earlier this fall and, it so happens, there was a fire on the street.  It was in fact a burning trash can, the type used to deposit remains of cigarettes, one, apparently, not sufficiently extinguished.

 

 

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Ai Weiwei the polemicist

Ai Weiwei is profoundly, by which I mean probably “too,” polemical.

In an interview on CNN, the artist takes the extraordinary position that, historically speaking, China has neither “humanity” nor philosophical traditions.  He is also broadly dismissive of all art produced in contemporary China. The fact that this is rather self-serving position (no art in China but his own) seems not to cross the radar of his interviewers, who are too busy being shocked that life is possible without Twitter, Google and CNN.  (That there are alternatives to such news sources in and outside of China does not come up in the conversation.)

 

In Ai’s own defense, I take his position to mean that even he is unable to really create art due to a combination of philistine viewership and government authoritarianism.  But even so, last I checked, I’d say there is a great deal of art going on “in China,” particularly as the equally murky dividing line between “in” and “out” of China further approaches erasure.  What, in other words, makes a gallery situated in Beijing but autonomously run and staffed by Europeans and visited almost entirely by European and North American tourists an “in”-China gallery?  In fact, such a place is likely to get as many if not more Chinese visitors if situated in New York given that that’s where Chinese people are all headed these days—abroad!

 

That is, of course, unless one takes to collecting and ciruclating the names of dead children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, or corrupt officials in you-name-it Chinese city, etc.  For these one gets censure in China.  Go figure.

 

But the spirit if not the letter of Ai’s remark is still an important one.  His is a strong, independent voice and I do believe that he wants to be joined by other Chinese artists in serious (if often playfully serious) conversations about art and life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Ai Weiwei and the “River Crab”

This man has been busy.  It is increasingly clear that Ai is a one-man force for change in China, a force which is only marginally rooted in contemporary Chinese art.

But as an artist, Ai is certainly adept at metaphor, and the ancient Chinese art of punning.  In this case, “river crabs”—河蟹 this is a pun on the word “harmony” 和谐 which is currently the Chinese government touchstone for what society should be: “harmonious.”  The ongoing joke for Chinese people, particularly those inclined to political dissent, is that those brave enough to speak out are always in danger of being “harmonized” (against their will).

Ai, who was recently placed under house arrest, this time for proposing to hold a large gathering at the site of his Shanghai studio now slated for destruction, managed to put together a “river crab” party in Shanghai a few weeks back.  This video depicts the “harmonious” servings of (rather tasty looking) crabs, and then a crowd of diners chanting “harmonious society.”

Ai Weiwei / River Crab Feast @ Shanghai Studio

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Nobel Prize

Blog composed 11.13.10. 1

To set the record straight:

The New York Times, on November 11, runs an editorial by KISHORE MAHBUBANI on Liu Xiaobo that voices succinctly and cogently another opinion.  This reaffirms (in my mind at least) the function of the NYT as platform for dissemination of information about topics relating to contemporary China, particularly where politics are concerned.

Not that I would concur entirely with this particular view either, and critics Mahbubani’s view are abundant.

Ed Friedman, in a post to a Chinese-culture related list-serve, makes the following observations:

This is an old and long-discredited tune. The song is not about Deng’s

achievements or Bush’s crimes. The lyrics are: China will naturally evolve

into a democracy. Therefore anyone who tries to promote democracy stirs up the authoritarians and thereby delays democracy. As a result, the true

friends of democracy tomorrow are the enemies of democracy today.

(By the way, it is a fact that many parents in spring 1989 tried to talk

their children into leaving Tiananmen, saying that it was best to wait for

the old guard to die off and a new generation to rise. The old guard has

died off. China is not becoming more open, however.)

In reality, no government ever evolved into a democracy. None. Ever.

Authoritarians do not voluntarily abandon the political stage. Power does

not give way without a struggle.

It is, however, interesting to find Mahbubani arguing as if democracy were

a universal human good. I cannot remember him ever before doing that. Is

this a change of heart or a rhetorical tactic?

Ed Friedman

Nonetheless, Mahbubani articulates the possibility that awarding the Nobel Prize to Liu is counterproductive in terms of advancing democracy in China.  The reason, if not already obvious enough, is that governments (like the people that comprise them?) are less inclined to substantive change if not compelled by outside pressure. Again, it seems a comparison is in order: when has “international pressure” had any impact on particularly domestic politics in the United States?

Hopefully, but not likely, a final observation on the issue.  This is not the first time the Nobel Prize would rankle presiding governments, or even just the Chinese government (Dalai Lama).  Although it is perhaps noteworthy that in a case like Nelson Mandela (1993), would be jointly awarded with F. Willem de Klerk, making the award a recognition of some actual peace among conflicting forces rather than the potential for peace.  In Liu’s case, it would be useful if his intercourse with the Chinese government could result in something other than imprisonment and silence.