Monthly Archives: February 2011

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of politics and art

Forgotten Garden, 1986–89, Wang Huaiqing,

The political is everything (particularly if you’re a New York Times correspondent) when reporting on China. It is the air Chinese artists, poets, not to mention mere citizens, breathe every day.  Yet with this reified fact comes clearly the desire to find a non-political space, a sense of “freedom”.  Yet the ambivalence in this desire emerges just as quickly and directly against the draw of the political.  When the ideological gravity recedes or is effectively evaded, or when the political blast from State media, ideologically inclined friends, family and random strangers somehow falls silent, we often find that the would-be escapee from China’s political atmosphere often comes back to the fold.  What draws the artist (broadly writ) to the political is, I think, the association between politics and China, the Chineseness of the expression is, in other words, its rootedness in political condition without which one is not a “Chinese artist” but, merely, an artist, a more difficult positionality in most respects.  To put it this way seems already a bland observation, though, in perhaps the same way that an Chinese artist devoid of political import seems in some sense vapid.  The speciousness of the dichotomy then presents itself as well, as the divergence cannot ‘really’ be between freedom, a mere abstraction, and nation, in many ways also abstract.  The glocality of a given Chinese artist is closer to home than that.  Thusly paradoxical: the closer the artist to home (provincial, city-level, prefecture and so on) the more aptly launched into political discourse (and back).

That, unless you’re Wang Huaiqing painting “5000 Years”. Robert Ayers, in his description of Wang Huaiqing’s exhibition in Seattle (SAAM) for Huffington Post, points to the non-political as an important element in exhibition, one transcends a more limited frame of reference.  As Ayers has it:

The political and economic history between Mao’s infamous cultural revolution and present-day China’s overeager capitalism provides a recurrent touchstone in their art’s imagery. In fact this shared material is so common that it provides a handy starting point for a comprehension pretty much any contemporary Chinese art.

Wang Huaiqing, by contrast,

If there wasn’t any meaning in art, then we wouldn’t really need it.” The meaning in Wang Huaiqing’s art is nothing less than the entire history of Chinese culture. I cannot think of another artist east or west who is attempting anything quite so ambitious right now. That alone makes this Seattle show too important to miss.

 

In my response to Ayers I note that many, from XU Bing to Wenda GU and others, have been at least as ambitious.  In fact, the entire Root-Seeking phenomenon more or less conforms to what Ayers is describing. Perhaps the difference is between what artists (writers, etc) intend to accomplish and what they accomplish in fact.


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of intellectual properties

Of course we have ongoing and by now rather tired conversations concerning China’s (collective) theft of the world’s intellectual properties.  Certainly, the postmodern notion that origins are pointless, and authors are themselves more the product of textual production than the agent does not resonate well in global commerce law offices contracted by Microsoft, Miramax and the like.  (We may be tired of hearing about intellectual property infringement, but the corporations’ prosecutor divisions are not likely to let up the hunt for perpetrators anytime soon.)

Nonetheless, the newer chapter in this conversation is the China-on-china copying, pilfering, our out and out stealing that seems very much on the rise.  So much for the well-rehearsed notion that to copy is to pay a form of respect.  A notable instance of such borrowing with which I’m familiar is the Sichuan artist Wang Niandong 王念东.  When I first encountered his work roughly two years ago, I was simply flabbergasted by the clear similarity (not the best word here) to Zhong Biao’s work.  More striking is the fact that Wang is a graduate of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, where Zhong Biao is on the faculty.  According to Zhong, Wang (who is 10 years younger than Zhong) came to him for some guidance and direction.  It would appear that Wang listened intently to what Zhong had to say.  Or, he just looked at what Zhong was doing, and, shall we say, followed suit:

Wang Niandong (link here to his Hallmark Gallery in Calfornia)

Urban Cries, 24 x 18 1/8 inches, 61 x 46 cm, 2006, Oil on Canvas

Urban Cries, 24 x 18 1/8 inches, 61 x 46 cm, 2006, Oil on Canvas, WND1

Urban Desire

artwork: Wang Niandong Urban Desire

Put next to some famous work Zhong Biao:

黑镜头Dark Lens 200 x 15 cm 2002
福到广州 Happiness Arrives in Guangzhou
130 x 97 cm 2001
All I can see that distinguishes them, apart from an intellectual and aesthetic program which to me seems much richer in Zhong’s work, is the fact that Wang works more or less constantly in oil, and Zhong, since about 1996, in acrylic.  Hardly enough to warrant the blatant infringement that Wang’s work demonstrates, in my view anyway.
Most notable, though, and no doubt highly uncharacteristic of others in China, much less the rest of the world, this is not a major concern for Zhong. Though he didn’t say so explicitly, I did get the sense that he was almost flattered.
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follow up to the previous

 

 

SceneAsia reports today that previous reports regarding Ullens and Ai Weiwei may be faulty on various points.  The concern seems to have become whether or not Guy Ullens is selling his entire collection, and therefore washing his hands of contemporary art scene, or part of it, and remaining in the game, so to speak. Not in dispute is the fact that he is handing supervision of the Ullens Center (UCCA) over to associates, a decision here attributed to “health reasons.”  The SceneAsia report also includes Guy’s denial that the cancelation (or is it just postponing) of Ai Weiwei’s exhibition had nothing to do with either the management transition at UCCA or politics, as Ai has claimed.

 

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not exactly encouraging news

’85 New Wave, installation view.

image here

News from China’s contemporary art scene would appear somewhat disappointing, namely that the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, an art facility with gallery, education center, restaurant, etc. will be handed off to new owners in the coming months.  As reported on Redbox Review here, Guy Ullen’s has given up on the project of developing an independent center for the display of contemporary Chinese art.  Indeed, according to the article, he has given up on the project of collecting Chinese art at all, shifting his attention, after an April auction of a significant portion of his collection, to Indian and other artists.

The issue of the physical location of contemporary Chinese art has long been a major concern of artists and viewers in contemporary China.  Since at least the 1980s, the majority of collectors have been foreign, and pathways to exhibition led largely out of China.  The Ullens collection was notable for its in-China prsence (since 2007, at 798)  Without it, there is one less venue for not only displaying but also for holding in perpetuity of a significant portion of new art produced in China.

Also of note, one of the first UCCA exhibitions to be canceled is one by Ai Weiwei, whose retrospective is either too complicated or too political depending on whom one asks.

 

 

Ai Wei Wei retrospective cancelled for being 'too politically sensitive'

 


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back from China, almost

colors in Cixi

for those who travel there and back at New Year’s time, the collision of cultures (and they do collide) is felt not only in sleep(less) patterns, but in the very time frame that frames them.  no other time during the year do the Chinese and non-Chinese calendars contend than at 过年， when one begins a new year not only with the first day, but roughly 15 festival days following.  As this year’s New Year fell on a Gregorian Thursday, we’ve had “weekday 4″ (Chinese for Thursday), + New Year Day 1 (初一), + February 3 giving way to “weekday 5″ + “New Year Day 2″ + February 4 and so forth.  Finding our way to an airport at the right moment was a major trick.

other headspins of this trip include the almost astounding cost of things ($1000 for a bottle of wine anyone?) in urban areas such as Cixi where I was visiting for 10 days.  that coupled with the ever-present pace of change.  Above a typical neighborhood that once was backdropped by what its about to become in the distance.

 

 

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Happy Rabbit!!!

 

Happy New Year from 慈溪

where, word has it, 600,000 of the roughly 1,000,000 migrant workers who  make up a significant population of this city decided to stay here rather than endure hassle of arduous by-whatever-means-necessary trip home these past weeks.  Result was a very rambunctious New Year’s eve replete with enough fire power (that’s fire-cracker fire power) to terrify even the most stalwart street dog. That we didn’t go up in flames last night is a true miracle.