Monthly Archives: July 2011

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Zhong Biao, photography, reality, and … the rest.

Working as well, of late, on a documentary film concerning Zhong Biao and the soon-to-be-demolished Blackbridge (Heiqiao) art district in Northeast Beijing.  The documentary project, its own configuration of possibilities and pitfalls, at the very least calls to mind the problem of re-presenting “reality” in some sense. And this “reality” leads me back to Zhong Biao’s method of using photographs as the basis for his creations.

The photographs, many of which he has taken himself, are like a database of raw information–elements or building block that form the basis of his. However, unlike bricks of concrete structures, the images are abstractions (excerpts), snapshots from “reality” on the other side of the lens that float freely in time and space. In years past, the photographic snippets appeared mostly in urban settings, often painstakingly reproduced in minute detail. Now, as Zhong Biao has moved to abstract method, the figures of his paintings appear amidst dynamic swathes of color and texture, as in this unfinished work:

Still the question arises: how do particular images rise to the forefront of the artist’s mind? In just a few short days during his visit to the Seattle area in 2006, Zhong Biao took 100s of pictures, a few of which are of my children:


 

Some of these have ended up in paintings, like “Mirage” 海市蜃楼 from 2009:

 

 

while others have not.  The key to his creative process lies in his selection, at any given point in time, of one image over another.

 

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“People don’t want to buy an object, they want to buy a story”

From commentary on Nicholas Chao in ARTINFO:

1. PEOPLE DON’T JUST WANT TO BUY AN OBJECT, THEY WANT TO BUY A STORY

It’s not just about the object, the vase, or the seal. “Lost Treasures” was a high point for us, the greatest sale we ever put together. Handling a great collection is wonderful, but putting together a sale that tells a story is very exciting. Of all the sales I’ve witnessed I’ve never seen so much electricity in the room. That’s when you can really feel the excitement, when people aren’t just buying commodities.

But what, we may ask, IS the story, particularly for the contemporary Chinese artist? The notion itself is deeply flawed, but is flawed also in a highly poignant fashion.  In the literary world, at least, by and large stories are the province of the authors who create them.  Indeed, the job of the “author” is to invent or re-create, refashion, or at least in some sense “retell” a story.  By contrast, artists must somehow embody this story, one which, regrettably for the artist and so very unlike the writer, ENDS with its telling.  The artists’ story is therefore terminal, disposable, a command performance that no one really wants to read twice.

But here I am perhaps setting the bar too high. Mr. Chao’s opinion that “the story” deepens the experience of those who purchase art work is unassailable to be sure.  I’m just hoping that the openness of the artistic text can be kept in someone’s view, if not necessarily the one who put down the money to buy it. Truth is, of course, there are a multitude of stories at work in/on/around-about virtually every canvas.

My current “story,” Pacific Northwest (Chinese) artist Z. Z. Wei :

                                    

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The Self Portrait

These days I’m back to work on an article concerning the poetry and visual art of Lo Ching (Luo Qing 羅青) with a special focus on self-portraiture in his verbal and visual work.  This has me considering self-portraits of a number of artists I’m often writing about, and self portraiture in general.

There are of course some notable instances of self portraiture in the Chinese visual art tradition.  Most spectacularly, perhaps, those of Ren Xiong 任熊,

More recently, but still early in the modern period, Li Jinfa 李金发 and Ji Xian 纪弦 both worked in genre.  Here is Li’s “self-sketch on a Rome Night” from 1925:

And one of many self portraits done by Ji Xian (this one 1934), who used the medium as a kind of punctuation for the various pauses and sometimes full-stops of his long career:

More recently, Yan Li 严力 created a few self portraits shortly after taking up painting in the late 1970s. This one is from 1982:

 

Coming to the contemporary era, the “self” shows itself to be a fully flexible concept, bound and also rent from identity in various ways, as suggested in the series by Cang Xin 苍鑫.

So what of Zhong Biao’s self portrait? He does not, as far as I know, much take himself as central focus of any painting.  His abstract work, though, can be seen as a self-portrait of such, a depiction of the mind’s interior, the “psychological fishbowl,” so to speak.  But even in the partially abstract, as in the image “Climax” from 2009, I think an argument can be made for self-same representation, particularly with Zhong’s deft use of the frame:

What, of course, transparent bowl shows us is an open question.

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Zhong Biao, Money, News

from 99ys May 16, 2011 report

Speaking of firsts.

As reported by 99 Yishu, one can now buy stock in a series of 23 paintings by Zhong Biao. One buys such stock, moreover, not in the entire series, or even an entire canvas, but instead in one square foot of canvas.  The total package, comprised of paintings executed between 2007 and 2010, amounts to 3000 square feet.

The goal of such an operation is to give the up-and-coming class of Chinese investors in art an opportunity to partake in the contemporary Chinese art market even though most of them do not have the type of funds elite (and by-and-large non-Chinese) art collectors have.

Zhong Biao is the first contemporary artist to be listed in this way. The reason Zhong Biao was selected, according to Su Yang, spokesperson for the group, has to do with his ability to combine international vision that spans East and West a traditional sensibility expressed in an entirely contemporary idiom.

There is no official word on current value, but “knowledgeable sources” estimate roughly 50,000,000 RMB. This, at the current moment, amounts to 7 million 726 thousand 898 dollars and 38 cents.  Give or take.

继前不久成都文交所推出的总价值达5000万元的首个艺术品资产权益份额产品《汪国新·朋友》后，昨日，成都文交所和成都733文化艺术发展有限公司又联手推出了“艺术财富I号-钟飙当代艺术”资产权益份额产品资产包，准备把四川当代艺术家钟飙的23幅油画组包发行，这将是国内第一起把当代艺术家的作品“打包上市”的案例。

钟飙组包的23幅油画作品的画面尺幅共计3000平方尺左右，为钟飙2007年-2010年的代表作。

成都本土当代艺术家中有不少人名气更大，为何国内首个当代艺术品份额交易落在了钟飙的头上？733负责人苏阳向华西都市报记者解释，钟飙的作品中西合璧，有传统文化的血缘，同时也具备国际视野，他的作品市场价格目前在不断攀升，可以给投资人最大的收益。据了解，钟飙作品资产包将于近日在成都文交所挂牌上市，虽然目前还未公布整个资产包的总价值，但知情人表示，不会低于汪国新的5000万元。