in China for a couple of weeks. Not sure that I’ll be posting much. hope to return with good material in June.
Monthly Archives: May 2011
not much to suggest that Ai was tortured
On Monday the New York Times reports that Ai was able to meet with his wife, Lu Qing, who apparently confirms that Ai looks well enough and that conditions of his detention are not all that bad. This isn’t to say that its enjoyable to be in prison, even if prison is some form of ‘house arrest.’ It might suggest, though, that reports of Ai’s torture and forced confession, such as those appearing in Epoch Times, might be a bit overstated （艾未未受酷刑认罪？中国人权揭黑幕). Ai, in the 30-minute (and no doubt well-supervised) meeting, showed particular concern about the health of his mother. His mother, in turn, responded to reporters, as the NYT’s has it:
Mr. Ai’s mother said on Monday that she was relieved to learn that her son
appears to be in good health but she said the family remains in the dark
about why authorities are holding the activist.
“It is a huge relief to know that he was not tortured,” Gao Ying, 78, said
in a telephone interview. She said Ms. Lu told her that “Weiwei seemed
healthy and calm² and that ³they seem to be treating him a civilized way.”
Ai’s family’s prominent position in the PRC government actually predates the PRC, and, perhaps, will outlive it as well. The focus here on Ai’s wife and mother is indicative of their ongoing stature, an influence best exerted, I expect, behind the scenes.
Zhong Biao’s “Complex”
Here is the one completely abstract image from Zhong’s recent exhibition. The element of abstract expression in Zhong’s work is particularly interesting given the acute realism of the better part of his art. The realism, a result of his use of digital photographs which he projects on to canvas, and then paints in acrylic with or on top of charcoal rendering, is the mainstay of his imagery. In recent years, though, these realist slices of life are increasingly accompanied by non-representational imagery, masses of colors, swaths of texture. This is a bold maneuver for an artist who was already completely successful with his method. In other words, continuing indefinitely on the path he’d pioneered was not only a viable option, it was the obvious choice. Nonetheless, he undertook a new direction, albeit on which is entirely integrated into his juxtapositionary method.
The San Francisco exhibition (mentioned below) contained one purely abstract image. Even with the departure, entirely abstract pictures are still very rare in Zhong’s work. They are a rarity, indeed, at all in artistic practice, and China is no exception. Indeed, given the fact that the value of Chinese art on the market of late–and by that I mean now already a few decades, though the recent surge is worthy of note–has mostly to do with the fact that these are Chinese art works. Once an artist begins to work in the solidly abstract mode, though, such “Chineseness” falls out of view. Below is “Complex”
I find his abstract work successful, and this painting especially. (Its worth noting that the lighting at the top of the image and blurriness center left is due to my bad photography and not the canvas itself). This is because I still se a good deal of Zhong’s stock imagery, the flowers blooming, the explosions, human flesh both adorned and not, and so many material objects of the “solid poetry” of China’s built environment. Yet, of course, there is nothing here to actually suggest this much less represent this. It is, instead, a representation of “complex,” in the psychological condition sense, and as such remains subterranean. Such representation properly defies symbolic treatment, something which we do not expect to emerge until figures provide avenues of legibility. The gesture is thus a purifying one, opening a clearing in preparation for the next time meaning comes around.
so nice to be ‘noted’ (Alumni notes from Indiana University East Asian Studies Center newsletter)
(so much appreciate that IU would think to feature yours truly that I’m cutting and pasting here).
Alumnus Profile: Paul Manfredi
EALC Ph.D., 2001
Considering that Paul Manfredi has been “inclined to ponder various subjects at great length” for as long as he can remember, a career in academia seemed like a good fit. An early interest in the arts led him to pursue an undergraduate degree in theatre at the California Institute of the Arts, where he ended up in a Tai Chi class to fulfill a curricular requirement. Tai Chi immediately sparked Paul’s curiosity about Chinese culture, which led him to an overseas study experience in China and a growing desire to master Mandarin Chinese. He came to the decision to focus on modern Chinese culture, specifically poetry, by reasoning that “China is the type of civilization that bears a great deal of its tradition in all its cultural products, no matter how modern or avant-garde (an observation which can’t easily be turned around). Thus, learning about modern Chinese poetry would perforce entail recourse to literary tradition which always remained an area of interest.” As Paul delved more deeply into the subject, he became intrigued with the notion of the modernity of the poetic lyrical subject in the Chinese language. This interest, which developed during his first year as a graduate student at IU, has been with him ever since.
According to Paul, one of his most memorable experiences at IU was attending classes “where I felt a very high degree of camaraderie with my classmates, a kind of pure intellectual enterprise that perhaps much of graduate study aspires to, but rarely achieves.” Additionally, the pedagogy training Paul received from EALC Professor Jennifer Liu while he was an associate instructor in the Chinese language program proved to be invaluable preparation for his career in teaching.
Since receiving his Ph.D. from the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures in 2001, Paul’s academic career has flourished. Now an associate professor and chair of the Chinese Studies Program at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA, he is currently working on a project that connects word and image in modern and contemporary Chinese poetry, having increasingly turned his attention to contemporary painting. He recently published two articles in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art concerning the Sichuan painter Zhong Biao 钟飙 and will begin working on a documentary film on Zhong Biao and other contemporary artists this summer. Additionally, an article titled “Between Word and Image: Luo Qing and the Visual-Verbal Self Portrait” is forthcoming in Chinese Literature Today.
Paul’s advice for current students and recent graduates? He recommends devoting as much time as possible to learning the language because once one accepts an academic position, time for language study becomes scarce. He tells recent graduates not to look askance upon spending a few years in visiting positions at different universities. While sometimes perceived negatively, Paul believes visiting positions offer a prospective faculty member the opportunity to not only experience other institutions, but also develop oneself as a scholar, teacher, and colleague.
Zhong Biao’s second coming
Zhong Biao had his second opening at the newly situated Frey Norris Gallery in San Francisco this weekend. The exhibition was titled “Reflections on Air” (selected by the gallery) in English and 漂 in Chinese. The distance between these two effortlessly (as ever) spanned by Zhong’s prodigious generosity, answering questions, chatting up one and all at the post-opening party, and generally making himself popular. Of course, his longtime translator Shi Shi and others, myself included, facilitated conversation with those who did not know Chinese. In such circumstances, though, I rather feel Zhong could handle the matter on his own. Not because he speaks English (he does not), but because he’s so infectious in his enthusiasm that it almost doesn’t matter.
This one (“Blank Pages”), was clearly the major work of the 10 or so on display. Situated rather unfortunately behind the service counter (though this did make lingering over the painting while filling one’s wine glass a convenience), it drew the most attention and conversation.
I found myself, nonetheless, drawn to the image “Leisure”
Though rather inscrutably titled, I find the treatment of light in this painting to be a significant departure for Zhong Biao, an almost Monet-type obscurity to the figures, something recapitulated in the 19th-century aesthetic of the train station itself. This is in Zhong’s case characteristic time bending (or collapsing), but it is so without, ironically, much pretense to innovation. Modernity coming home, late at night and with few to greet it, and calling it a century.
