Christmas is Approaching at Zendai Museum

This Saturday Zendai Museum is hosting an exhibition.
“Christmas is Approaching” will examine the Chinese concept of
Christmas – an interesting mutation of the Western holiday. The show
opens 3:30 pm at Zendai Museum.

This group show features 5 artists and 4 designers. There will be three other shows, “The Dieter
Jung Solo Exhibition: The Passion of Light”, “New City Vision Creation” a Mixed Media Group Show and “Out of the Internet” a
multimedia show which features the works of Ian Mott. There will be wine (imported not dynasty) and finger food catered by the hotel.

Exhibition: Christmas is Approaching!
Artists: Chen Hangfeng, Gao Xiaowu, Lee Hwan Kwon(South Korea), Zhou
Fan, Zhu Jingyi
Designers: Perk, Helen, Eve & Anna, Gao Xin
Venue: Radisson Hotel Pudong Century Park 1199 Ying Chun Lu,
accessible through the Zendai MoMA
Zendai Moma, Zendai Thumb Plaza, No. 28, Lane 199, Fangdian Lu, by
Dingxiang Lu, Pudong, Century Park Metro (5033 9801) From the Century
Park Metro you can take a 12 Kuai cab or a 5 Kuai pedicab. It’s
really not that far and worth it since there are four exhibitions
going on at once.

Exhibition Dates: 2nd December 2006 - 20th January 2007
Opening: 2nd December 2006, 15:30

展览名：耶诞来袭
艺术家: 陈航峰, 周范, 高孝午, 朱敬一,李桓权(韩国)
设计师: Perk, Helen, Eve & Anna, 高欣
地点: 上海证大丽笙酒店 (迎春路1199号, 也可从艺术
馆进入)
证大当代艺术馆，证大拇指广场，芳甸路近丁香路199
弄，28号，世纪公园地铁站。(5033 9801)
展期: 2006年12月2日至2007年1月20日
开幕: 2006年12月2日 下午3:30

In and Out: Exhibition on Contemporary Chinese Art

Art is extremely complex in a country with rapid social transformation and imbalanced social development. Gradual acknowledgement and adjustment is necessary of contemporary social development and art media from a government perspective awareness and structured policy alteration. As for the people, history still dictates and directs society’s understanding of the value of art to the aesthetic desires of the common individual. China exemplifies this situation with its continuous progression of art history throughout the years. In contemporary China, traditional aesthetic perception and historic models of art have a strong presence whether it is an artist’s creation or the public’s acceptance of art.

However, since the 1980’s, new artistic conceptions are born and new artistic explorations occur. This new wave of ideal illustrates the passionate pursuit of expression, the clear recognition of modernity and cultural relevancy. It endlessly crashes against convention and established boundaries to break through and reveal a vastness of possibilities. While reflecting Chinese social transformations this new wave of ideal promotes and increases the expansion and revolution of Chinese art to uncharted horizons. In the rigidity and boundaries of history and tradition, a group of young Chinese artists surpassed the chains of culture and established their authority in individuality. Through the representation and expression of individualistic intellect and experience, these courageous challengers exemplify the spiritual prowess that is now known as “avant-garde.”

Art history is made when individuals transcend rooted restrictions and plant a new milestone in the course of artistic expression. The impact that they make in a social and aesthetic context to present a cultural representation through multiple facets of perception allows them to relate globally. The Stars Exhibitions of 1979 and 1980 are both indicative examples of highlights in Chinese and global art history. By freely articulating their voices and ideals through art, the members of the Stars Movement such as Huang Rui, Ai Weiwei, Ma Desheng, Huang Yongping and many more surpassed the great walls of Chinese culture and tradition. Their resonance of individuality excels the restraints emplaced. Works such as Huang Yongping’s installation “The History of Chinese Painting and the History of Modern Western Art Washed in the Washing Machine for Two Minutes” (1987) shows his transcendence beyond traditional Chinese art in the illustrative methods and the ideals embodied.

To translate and represent an art exhibition so that it may communicate with a global audience with different and independent backgrounds, the art exhibit must portray itself through multiple angles and perspectives utilizing manifold methods and media. The Alors, La Chine? Exhibition (2003) illustrates the works from two perspectives: looking outwards from a familiar standpoint and looking inwards from a foreign standpoint. Using buildings, film, music, and other media to strengthen and improve the exhibition, the curators allow for the art to embrace audiences of any context. The emphasis on integration is representative of contemporary Chinese art. It encourages Chinese to see and reach beyond to the boundless world beyond and it welcomes foreigners to witness China’s exotic appeal. Jia Zhangke, a Chinese director, films his individual experience and details in daily life and appeals to the audience with his individual emotions and experiences. By presenting all of this in a Chinese context, he addresses the cultural significances in Chinese society and sheds light on the good and bad while trying transform Chinese society away from the bondage of all the negatives of tradition. And since the film focuses on the experiences of individuals, it connects with a global audience—Western especially—and opens China to them.

Supported by exhibition catalogues, art magazines and journals, and the extensive online database provided to me with media instruments such as Google, I present the exhibition research I have here.

Yang Zhenzhong and Phillip Tinari at NYU Shanghai Center

Museums vs. Chinese Art Market

The current state of contemporary museums in Shanghai is a complex web of funding and weaving of resources to attempt to provide a feasible museum to the public. With the emerging interest in the collection of Asian art, galleries and collectors have often times made quick assertions about the perceived value of contemporary Chinese art. In Shanghai alone, dozens of museums and galleries have emerged with the goal of not only advancing artistic ideas, but pushing, and literally selling these ideas to the rest of the world. In this new emerging world of Asian art questions begin to arise as to whether or not contemporary museums and galleries in Shanghai are taking the ethical steps necessary to provide the proper reciprocal benefits to the artistic community, as well as valuing art for its creativity, and not simply its capitalistic market worth.
Currently in China today, the government lacks a cohesive plan that would allow for non-profit organizations to feasibly exist. As a result, this situation makes the various museums and galleries come up with creative means to sustain and fund their artistic ventures. Unlike in the United States, where a system of donations allows a tax benefit and unlike in Europe, where the governments provide cultural budgets to stimulate the arts, a void exists in China to the extent that neither of these two forces are present. With the lack of government support and philanthropic tradition, Chinese galleries and museums have resorted to various means of raising capital, such as finding corporate sponsors, selling the art being displayed, providing professional services like graphic and concept design, and in some cases receiving donations from private individuals.
As a result, many galleries have been forced to find a business solution to allow for the continued existence of their organization. In the case of BizArt, which opened in 1996, an innovative solution had to be found. According to the director of BizArt, David Quadrio, “BizArt is a self-supported and not-for-profit art center that combines artistic and commercial pursuits with the ultimate goal of advancing contemporary art in Shanghai and beyond. The name ‘BizArt’ refers to our straddling the duel roles of business and art, and the ‘bizarre’ nature of our existence.” Although BizArt advocates its non-for-profit status in the pursuit of artistic creativity and development, the harsh reality is that BizArt needs to receive revenue to survive. This gray area, or as BizArt would say, “bizarre” nature of its existence, points to the conflicts that exist within its not-for-profit status and its need to create revenue through business endeavors such as graphic and concept design. Despite this juxtaposition of values, BizArt recognizes the growing imbalance of the cost of Chinese art in relation to funding allocated to artists and creative organizations. BizArt acknowledges this growing hyper-inflation of Chinese art, and strives to reinvest in the artistic community by the creation of Arthub. Arthub supports a process of creative contemporary art free of pressures resulting from the hyper-inflated contemporary Chinese art market.
Another contemporary art space in Shanghai, the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, better known as the Shanghai MoCA, has experienced many of the effects of commercialization due to the lack of a philanthropic tradition. Opened in 2005 from the support of Samuel Kung, who contributed US$1.5 million, the museum quickly needed to find a way to bring in extra revenue that would allow for its continued existence. Endorsed by the Shanghai Municipal Government, the MoCA has become a notable tourist attraction in the heart of Shanghai. Despite its not-for-profit status, the MoCA contains a restaurant, as well as holds private functions. Thus the MoCA’s status of non-for-profit is tainted by its need to bring in income. A perfect example arises from personal experience when we visited the MoCA, the staff members were preparing to move a famous clay pot exhibit by Ai WeiWei to make space for a Ferrari that was to be shown at a private party later that evening. In addition, an AirFrance model for their new first class seating was blocking Miao Xiaochun’s “Last Judgment” exhibit, which already had poor visibility and viewing space. These two examples force us to question what is the priority of the MoCA - is it to make money, or display contemporary art? The MoCA claims to be the first not-for-profit contemporary art museum, but what line is to be drawn between where art ends and profit begins?
Likewise, the Zendai Museum of Contemporary Art brings to mind similar ethical questions. The Zendai is funded by the Zheng Da Property Group, which is the largest single property developer in Pudong. Although the Zendai is willing to take chances and exhibit edgy, more controversial pieces of art, the fact is that Zendai is entirely funded by a single organization, thereby creating a potential conflict of interests. In addition, the future plans are to create a center for contemporary art, called The Himalaya Center, which includes a five-star hotel, commercial space, and office space for creative businesses. The Zendai therefore represents the current commercialization of contemporary art, and the current hyper-inflation that threatens artistic creativity. Despite being free from having to look for outside contributors to fund its space, the relationship between Zendai and the parent corporation is in need of scrutiny. The fact remains that Zheng Da is a developer in Shanghai, and the Zendai may not be free to take truly creative measures in displaying art. It may instead be forced to display art that would appeal to the hyper-inflated art market and bring in tourism money to create a profit for the parent sponsor.
In our examination of these three major players in the Shanghai art world, there is a lack of definite boundaries between art for its intrinsic value, and art for its commercial value. There lacks a sanctity in the use of an art space such as the MoCA or Zendai, as compared to museums in America and Europe, which believe that art should be displayed for intellectual and cultural value. Understandably, the realm that these art spaces exist within is inextricably bound to the need to attain financial viability due to lack of proper societal contributions. However, these museums and galleries should strive to limit the influence of the commercial art market to maintain their integrity as public art spaces. As the Shanghai art scene develops and expands, one can only hope that the true spirit of art will be preserved from an ever growing capitalist influence.

Contemporary Chinese Art - Piecing it Together

Last Thursday we were privileged to have three active members of the contemporary Chinese art scene who live in Shanghai arrive and present our small class with a lecture on the emerging and evolving performance art scene in Shanghai and China today.
The first of these specialists was Yang Zhanzhong, who was the curator an exhibition “Art for Sale”, which was compiled over half a year in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. The exhibit resembled a supermarket, offering up art in wholesale quantities. One could possibly imagine Wal-Mart adding an art arm, as it were. After discussing the “Art for Sale” exhibit for a short while, and presenting a film highlighting his role as an “employee”, he showed a short film entitled “I Will Die”, in which people are recorded saying, “I Will Die”. This work, like the rest of Yang Zhanzhong’s work is rather lighthearted, and simply asks us to examine death from a less morbid sensibility.
The next speaker was Philip Tinari, a writer living in Shanghai, although he also has extensive experience living in Beijing. Philip’s lecture highlighted “The Long March Project” (www.longmarchspace.com), in which various artists retraced the stops during Mao’s own Long March. These artists often created site-specific pieces along the way. In an exampled that remembered the violence that occurred in one stop, knives were used to highlight the events at that locale. The key element for the artist involved has been to keep a unique Chinese social tradition as an intrinsic part of their works, going back to the Chinese countryside to find “roots”. Lastly Philip brought up the Yan’An Project, which has set out to help future artists in China, as an adequate art education system is something that has been seriously lacking in China today. This education system will become increasingly important as China moves towards a goal of creating one thousand museums by 2015.
The last speaker, Liu Ying Mei, is another curator who has lived both in Shanghai and Beijing, and is well known for working with artists who push the limits of what is to be tolerated in modern China. Liu began by presenting us with a history of modern art in China, starting in 1750 with an Italian priest, moving towards the 1979 Stars Exhibition, the 1989 Modern Art Exhibition, and finally into the 1990s with the beginning of solo exhibitions as a way to present contemporary Chinese art. After giving us a general history of art in China, she moved on to discuss the creation of Shanghai’s first art school, an oil painting school in Xu Jia Hui. The Catholic Church can be attributed to the creation of the school, which was founded in 1860 as an orphanage, but was converted to an art school in 1864 by Juan Ferrerra. Shanghai’s first art school lasted around ninety years, from 1864 – 1949, ending with the accession of Mao.
Interspersed between illuminating us with the fascinating history of contemporary art in China, Liu presented us with pictures from the various art exhibits she has been associated with. Her most fascinating story comes from 2002, when during one of her works at a library, eight artists had to removed their works and offer less “offensive” creations, due to disapproval from the organizer.
Although these three speakers touched on different topics, all wove together to give an underlying presentation of what is happening today in contemporary Chinese art. Liu Ying Mei highlighted the history of the contemporary art movement, as well as serious issues facing the Chinese gallery scene, where an organizer has too much power over their sponsored artists. This strangulation of artistic creativity is a worrisome possibility in some of Shanghai’s new museums, such as the Zendai. This new building spree is also worrisome because of an acute lack of art education in China, upon which Philip touched upon, as well as the attempt by contemporary Chinese artists to find their own, indigenous inspiration with his discussion of the Long March Project. Finally Yang Zhanzhong highlights issues of China’s inflated contemporary art market with his work “Art for Sale”, which while being shut down shortly, also highlights the still restrictive nature of China in relation to allowing artist freedoms. These three artists brought together all of the critical issues facing Chinese art through their own personal experiences of working in China in a thoroughly thought provoking manner.

Yang Zhenzhong Review

Yang Zhenzhong uses the video, and goes through a lot of experiments, putting his personal special view on the simple object in the daily life to present a different meaning in order to gradually become the avant-courier in the visual art field in China. One of his great works, “I will die”, is very impressive collection of different people’s narrating the simple truth. A tiny difference showing on the face before and after one said the truth, the tone coming from different background people, give people one deep think and conjecture. He is also very good at combining two seemingly unrelated things together to form a unique visual meaning, as in the work named “Blow”, once exhibited in 2002 Shanghai Biennial. A girl blows in one screen, and on the opposite screen the artist uses the technique of rewind to show a shoot in one busy street. When seeing the two screen together, it seems as if the air the girl blowing moves the street back, the exaggerated blowing indirectly reveals and accentuates the strength coming out of the girl. His creative idea is not only on technique, some earlier works of him also show a human wisdom, like the “922 rice”. He recorded a couple chicken to eat the rice and count the number when one chicken nods. He uses the nod to count the number of the rice and in return, to criticize the emphasis on number instead of the real things, which human recently represented. In his recent works, he becomes more and more focuses on the equipment and also the works are more delicate. It can be said that Yang Zhengzhong smoothly progress in the field of visual art, and make his own characteristic more visible.

Lecture notes on Qiu Anxiong presentation- dated 11.3.06

Class notes following visual artist Qiu Anxiong presentation in the classroom- dated 11.3.06, provided by NYU student Erica D Swallow. Thank you Erica for sharing your notes with us.

• “Jian Nan Cuo” (2005)
o Time: 13:10
o Birds on branches (flying onto and off of tree at times)
o Shot in black and white to mirror traditional Chinese painting that used black and white ink
o Constant beat is heard in the background (percussion/bongo)
o Heavy bass sound as if in a dungeon; haunting drone sounds
o Interestingly, he gives mention to the cast as: “Cast: Wind Cloud Tree Bird”
o He says that this piece is about Time:
• Modern people see time as a very fast thing
• We seldom look for natural development. We always need stories.
• This is a natural time flow, but in the film it seems very slow and much longer. Actually, however, it is just a normal progression of time.
• This is a basic Chinese philosophy used to look at the world, especially during the Song dynasty – One should try to blend in with the environment instead of taking a third person point of view. This is very typical of traditional Chinese art, as well. The artist will blend in with the environment.
• From a distance, you can’t see the movement of the trees as they gently sway in this video, but if really focus, you can see it. In this way, we should look at the natural progression of time in everyday life. From a distance, we may not see things moving, but if we put our soul into it, we can see how everything is moving and changing.

• “In the Sky” (2005) (This is the first animation that he ever made.)
o Music Tchaikovsky/Stockhausen
o Time: 8:18
o For this piece, he had no special plan. He did it out of pure feeling.
o All hand-painted
o He was influenced by an African artist, William Kentridge. Kentridge does not use complicated techniques. He uses simple elements and does not focus on a huge, complicated production. Anxiong admires this.
o He thinks Chinese animation was better before the 1990s. This is due to the current marketization and importing of ideas from foreign countries and companies, like Japan, for example.
o 1930-1940s: The first animation to ever be made in China was “Journey to the West” by two brothers.
o 1950-1980s: Ink animations develop in China
o “This work is not a story-telling work. Its like a dream of snapshots,” he explains.
o In one image, two heads on sticks protruding from a grassy hill are depicted, and one is taken away by a bird. When Sonia asked what this meant, he said that this signified the time upon creating the piece when his wife was gone and he missed her.
o He has no clear thoughts about the piece of art in theory, but reiterates that he made it just from his feelings.

• “Flying to the South” (May 2006)
o Time: 9:12
o Soundtrack of voices in background
o Flying books
o This piece was an installation at an Expo in May in Shanghai. It had statues installed along with the video, but the government shut the show down. The statues and film are prohibited to be shown together.

• Anxiong’s Ideas on the Point of Art
o Instead of looking at the history and progression of art as a form of expression to understand art as a media, we should look at the world. When we look at the world, we look at true history.
o We look at the world with a whole system of symbols. We have lost the instinct to see the world in a direct way for what it really is in essence. Instead, we see an expressive world, rather than a truthful one. We use too many symbols to define it.
o We only know part of existence. We don’t know all of it.
o Today we have so much knowledge. Knowledge has cut the world into pieces. We no longer have a world in its entirety. Our world is categorized and humanized.
o We need an original way of looking at the world: an origin. It is important to every culture to have this type of origin.
o Although China is developing into a very complex system, we still ask ourselves the same elementary questions about our origins. Still, we are puzzled.
o For example, we look at a computer and think it is easy to understand. We know what it does and we can use it. But we can’t see what is inside it and we do not know how it really functions. We look at our world in this way. We think we understand the world, but really we do not know its truths.
o Unfortunately, we look at our world from a point of knowledge and understanding, not from a participatory point of view. We distance ourselves from the world, and we no longer have a mutual relationship.
o He uses art to connect with the world in a more intimate way. This is his general understanding of art.

• “The Book of Mountains and Sea [1]” (2006)
o The song at the end, to him, was very “human”. It conveyed a different perspective than his own. He feels that it did not convey the same ideas and feelings of his art shown before it in the animation. It does not have the same sacred and objective feeling of his work. His friend from Chengdu wrote it after reading the book he wrote. The credits at the end mention “Jin Wang” and “Ou Bo” as the musicians credited in the film. I’m not sure which one created this song.
o He quotes Confucius from a story about Confucius and three of his students. They are all discussing the goals of the students. Confucius asks the first one what he wants to be. He says he wants to be a general. Confucius then asks the second student, who replies that he wants to be a secretary. When the third student is asked what he wishes for his, he says that he would like to go swimming in the river with his friends. The song is like the third student, an ordinary perspective. He thinks that if everybody had this perspective, maybe our society and world could reach its’ pinnacle. In this perspective, the ordinary becomes the ideal. The simplest goals bring the greatest successes.
o Some images discusses from the animation include:
• The explosion of New York City. It is not caused by an external force, such as a bomb. Instead, one may notice that it explodes from within. This symbolizes internal problems with society.
• The singular person that remains standing after the other terrorists fly away. Before class began, Anxiong told Eric and I that this guy does not represent anything in particular. Instead, he represents the many possibilities. He challenged us to think about it ourselves, expressing that it is up to the viewer to ponder over this matter. There are so many possible ways the story could end, and the viewer must consider these options. In my opinion, this is part of the beauty of this piece as it leaves us asking questions and challenging our views.
o The refrain from the song at the end is:
• “Who is sighing? Who is lamenting the parting of geese on autumnal journey?”

Museum Review

As we utter the word “Shanghai,” images of 88 story glass towers penetrating the hazy gray sky and stretching shadows across many bustling streets filled with rushing cars and shuffling pedestrians flash in our minds. Or perhaps it is the dazzling gold lights on the colonial Bund constructions fusing with the sparkling rainbow brilliance of the Pearl Tower in the Huangpu River to radiate an entrancing symphony of colors.

If we shift our attention away from the surreal beauty of Shanghai’s modern architecture towards the developing modern art community, we can proudly affirm that we bear witness to the growth of contemporary Chinese art scene in Shanghai. Since the turning of the millennium, an intense passion and desire for modern Chinese art spread across Shanghai. Spanning the city, reaching from corner to corner, museums, galleries, and exhibitions increasingly become an essential evidence of Shanghai’s progression into modernity. Even though the increase in art institutions justifies Shanghai’s success and promise of further growth—to more than 300 art museums—current museums still face various problems that challenge their aesthetics, authenticity, and subsistence.

Money. Like any institution or individual in a modern society, museums also require financing to maintain their establishment. Museums in Shanghai have various methods to acquire financial support to continue museum operation. Through our inquiry with some of the directors and curators of museums in Shanghai they informed us that they gather funding through donations and patronage. For nonprofit museums such as the Shanghai MOMA and MOCA—both conveniently and fittingly located in People’s Park—in order for them to finance exhibitions they seek funding through donations. There are often individuals and groups that willingly finance exhibitions in order to exhibit contemporary Chinese art to a wider domestic and foreign audience. With patronage and support, nonprofit museums in Shanghai such as MOMA and MOCA can then allocate resources to invite artists and host exhibitions. However, when budgets are tight, these museums often face pressures and the unease of not being able to host an exhibition. Ironically, the Shanghai government proposes adamantly for Shanghai to establish a high number of museums to portray the city as a modern Chinese equivalent of developed Western cities such as New York and Paris but does not support Shanghai museums with sufficient funding. With inadequate government funding and weak government sponsorship, nonprofit museums often struggle to successfully open an exhibit through sheer determination. On the bright side, nonprofit museums have gradually developed a larger audience of both foreign and Chinese backgrounds even with lethargic government support. Private museums such as Zendai in Pudong face similar concerns. However, because of Zendai and other private museums’ privately owned nature, they have more flexibility and deeper financial resources than nonprofit museums. For privately owned museums such as Zendai, they may distribute earnings from exhibited work into construction and preparation for future exhibitions. A basic system to recycle appropriated funds is the foundation for privately owned museum operation.

Museum locations in Shanghai formulate an intricate part of the city’s restructuring to correspond with international standards of a modern developed city. As with any modern city, tourists are always attracted to alluring landmarks and sites. Shanghai museums—such as MOMA, MOCA and Zendai—are all located in accessible and tourist-friendly locations. For example, the MOMA and MOCA are both located in People’s Park. People’s Park is the central hub of Shanghai that links the busy subway lines 1 and 2 together. Along either line, an array of tourist sites awaits visitors; as the centrally located People’s Park, the flux of tourists—local and foreign—provide museums with a steady financial income. Museum sites not only act as tourist attractions, they also integrate Shanghai into a structurally modern city. As the MOMA and MOCA are constructed in People’s Park to exude serenity and culture in the modern city, Zendai in Pudong reflects economic success and improved living standards. Part of the Zendai Shopping Plaza in Pudong, Zendai museum of modern art is conveniently and thoughtfully located near boutique upscale restaurants and the large Carrefour mall. Whereas MOMA and MOCA illustrate intellectual development and aesthetic appreciation, Zendai portrays aesthetic accentuation within economic prosperity. Both types confirm Shanghai as a representative modern Chinese city with characteristic Chinese culture complimenting globalization.

When we visit museums as observers we wish to discover or understand emotions and intellect hidden from our daily routines. That is why museums and the art work they exhibit should be aesthetic or creative. However, as China has only recently begun to develop art in a continuous and contemporary context, many of the artworks exhibited are experimental. Similarly, museums in Shanghai are also in a trial stage to establish their existence in the modernizing city. From a present perspective, the effort of museums to host exhibits in short intervals and the city government’s oath to construct hundreds of museums both seem like exaggerated efforts to portray Shanghai as a rapidly modernizing city. However, I believe that this extravagant endeavor is a phase for Shanghai to find its own identity in the artistic world and in the global community. Museums in Shanghai are coursing through a necessary series of events and activities to find and evolve their presence as an integral part of the artistic community and also as a part of the city. By first establishing museums in easily accessible and widely visited areas, their presence would slowly but surely fuse with the city and the populace. And through these museums, art in China—whether it is contemporary or classical art—would root itself in the population and mature.

Even though museums and the art scene in Shanghai are evolving like the city, there are still obstacles and flaws that need to be overcome before museums will be able to fully embrace art. Government censorship and control still has a tight hold on contemporary Chinese art. Explicit or politically sensitive material or art would often and swiftly be censored by the government, preventing complete and open growth for the museum and art. A select audience also prevents museums from developing fully. As the current museum audience in Shanghai is erudite local intellectuals, young white collars, or Western influenced individuals, museums and their respective art have not reached the masses. This prevents museums from branching out and finding their identity. Hopefully with the gradual relaxing of government censorship on art and an increase and expansion of audience, museums in Shanghai would be able to flourish and join Shanghai with the modern world.

Modern Chinese Art: A Prism of Perspective

First thing’s first: Thursday’s class was definitely a challenge for a giddy college student like me. The extended 5 hour class stretched my patience and focus beyond its average academic capacity. However, naked Chinese male artists locked in cages grasping bottles of beer and drunkenly designating prices on a female mannequin a few feet across and oblivious chickens ravenously but rhythmically thrusting their heads towards the rice in a duel for rice can be considered some of the most entertaining art I have observed ever. But to have seen these works in class with the artist and other elite members of China’s contemporary art community, I felt honored.

Aside from the humor, cheerfulness, and cordiality exuded by each of the speakers, the concepts and concerns that they expressed have significant value and insight into Chinese contemporary art. The speakers possessed different backgrounds such as artist, critic and curator respectively, but each of them voiced concerns and beliefs on the same topic. Chinese contemporary art and contemporary art in China have reached the intersection in which artists deviate from the same origins as some pursue art as passionate expression and some as profitable marketing.

Our first speaker is renown contemporary artist Yang Zhenzhong (the very person that reflected curious irony in his work “Light and Easy”). During his lecture segment he showed video clips of his past work as a collaborator with other artists or as a solo performance artist. Through his media presentations and his speech, Yang expresses his inclination towards art as a means of communication. In his films “Art for Sale,” Yang collaborates with other artists and strangers alike to accentuate the jovial atmosphere of his performance art as well as convey to the larger community the existence and evolution of art in modern Chinese society. Even though the exhibition was shut down 3 days after opening, the impact and symbolism that it represented of modern Chinese society and contemporary Chinese art both had great influence on the broader populace. Yang believes that art is a form of expression and communication that may be broadcasted to the larger community through exhibits or purchases. Profit is not his primary motivation.

Philip Tinari solidifies Yang’s position by showing and explaining to us the artists’ Long March. Participating artists in this event travel the original route of the famous communist Long March and visit significant stops. At each stop, artists contribute works or performances to the community as a gesture of goodwill and introduction to modern Chinese art.

In her speech, Liu Ying Mei explains in detail the historic course of contemporary Chinese art from the 1970’s Stars Movements to present day contemporary Chinese art. She confirms the beliefs and impressions that Yang and Philip suggested when she remarked that in 2001 Beijing held its first public contemporary Chinese art exhibition in the Xinhua Book Store.

Even though artists such as Yang Zhenzhong, members of the Long March event, and members of the Beijing Bookstore exhibit create art as a means to bond with the larger population, many other artists produce art for the sake of profit. Attracted to returns of material wealth and fame that an auctioned painting at Sotheby’s may offer, many artists produce works driven by material rewards. However, monetary benefits may only rise to a certain amount as an inflated and speculated market loses its steam and infatuation of contemporary Chinese art. On the other hand, spiritual and cultural understanding and exhibition of contemporary Chinese art shall flourish as an increased population comes into contact with art and artists develop more insightful and ingenious works.

luchunsheng premiere

> Tomorrow Lu Chunshens new video premiers in the Paradise cinema, if
> you have time, please come, most welcome.

----------------
History of chemistry 2

Excessively restrained mountaineering enthusiasts

Premiere of Lu Chunsheng’s film
Premiere: November 18th, 2006, Saturday (19:00-22:00)

Venue: Paradise Theatre, 308, AnFu Road, by Hua Shan Road

(Seats are limited) first come, first seated

Exhibition Dates: November 19th- 24th, 2006 (2 showings per day 13:00/
15:00)

Venue: Shanghai BizArt Art Center, Moganshan Rd 50, Building 7th, 4th
Floor. 200060

Tel: +8621 62775358

Contact: Li Xuehui xuehui@biz-art.com

Alexia Dehaene guanchaoqun@yahoo.com.cn

The “company” moves with enormous difficulty. “He” is at the edge of
bankruptcy "mountaineering enthusiasts” from three “companies” have
been tracking A…..

A, who has already left the “company” ,is holding a pivotal “contract”
for a large business transaction.

In order to obtain this “contract” for themselves, at “the last
moment”, the tide could be transferred to some areas of the city which
were surveyed time and again by the “mountaineering enthusiasts””.

Thereupon a new “climate” formed ……

This “climate” would compel A to g to the Highlands ……

This unfinished “contract” which has the “power of prediction” would
ultimately be taken to the mare liberum and be traded on a gambling
ship………

Subsequently the “company” gradually reduced the heavy
burden caused by the debt.

Finally, the project to exploit future terrain went into action and
grew vast and mighty……

As the story goes，A is the descendant of John Dee. ……

Contemporary Chinese Performance Art

Contemporary performance artists in China today have a tendency to seemingly go to extremes with the content on their work. If one is to simply judge the work at face value without seeing the underlying critique, however, there will result a failure in truly seeing what is being performed.
The artist He Yunchang, in particular is known for several acts bordering on extremity. During a performance in 2006 entitled, “A Rock in Niagara Falls”, He decided he would find a rock in Niagara Falls and stand there for an hour. However, within twenty minutes of the performance, he was detained by the police on misdemeanor charges of “inappropriate behavior in public”, as well as “indecent bodily exposure” as a result of not wearing clothing during the experience.
In this work, He is really attempting to get at the issue of “the head-on collision between an individual’s mortal flesh and an overwhelmingly forceful external element”. He is never truly looking to die in a performance, although he does prepare a will beforehand. As He is focused on a dialogue between human flesh and our environment, which includes natural as well as man-made elements, he thus does not feel content to limit himself to “preventing death”, as it were. This lack of fear from death allows him ultimate freedom to pursue his artistic desires. Although he does set a time limit for himself, as is the case with “A Rock in Niagara Falls”, He seems content even when the audience intervenes to save him, cutting his performance short.
To more fully understand “A Rock in Niagara Falls”, however, one must look more deeply into He’s work in performance art. His earlier work in 1999 entitled, “Dialogue with Water”, was staged in the Liang River and in this work, he actually inflicted harm upon himself by hiring a local butcher to make two symmetrical incisions on his arm. Then, hanging upside down, he let the blood drip down his arms as he took a knife and cut the river. He was therefore not limiting the bodily harm to himself, but was taking on the river in a sense of parity by issues an equitable, and perhaps inordinate amount of damage upon the river itself. This was perhaps a social critique of the massive damage humans infect into nature. However, unlike He, humans are unwilling to offer up any part of themselves – they prefer a level of non-parity.
Another artist who has thrust himself into extreme performance is Zhang Huan. One of his most famous performances, performed on June 2, 1994 and entitled, “12 Square Meters”, involved him covering himself with honey in the middle of a twelve square meter toilet, and allowing flies and other bugs to cling to his body, and strain the limits of human endurance while sitting still for an hour. Zhang’s performance, however, contained more than a human testing his endurance. The real story behind the performance reflects the site chosen to stage his self-exhibit – the “East Village”, a squalid section in eastern Beijing, really reflecting the living conditions in the area, including the toilet which was truly only fit for flies – and not human use.
The experience then offers two themes. In the first, Zhang is offering up a social critique of the living conditions experienced by many Chinese. In the second, Zhang is creating a personal experience in which he lowers himself the position of human excrement and refuse. These two themes underlie the performance, and are what gives it such strength. Zhang is not only offering up a limited version of testing one’s own limits, but presenting a social critique by lowering himself to the most impoverished and destitute among us, thus giving them a face.
Both Zhang Huan and He Yunchang offer a glimpse into the large world of performance art in China. Both go to extremes in order to promote their artwork, and present a message. Many in the western world seem to be shocked by such performances, however. What good can be accomplished by self-mutilation? Such a simple question does not take into account the exteriority confronting many Chinese artists. In a country where free speech is still restricted, one cannot simply “speak out” about environmental and social issues. An artist is therefore limited to what many would deem “barbaric” actions to highlight these social issues. And surely, before offering a critique of barbarity, one should really ask oneself, “If the artists did not perform such outlandish activities, would I care to look at the message at all?”

Bridging The Gap- 4 Conference in Shanghai

with Participants :
Stefano Boeri (Architecture/urbanism), Chen XieJun (Museology/philosophy), Thomas Demand (Art), Olafur Eliasson (Art), Gu Jun (Sociology), Huang YongPing (Art), Shigeru Ida (Planetology), Li WuWei (Economy), R. Beau Lotto (Neuroscience), Ma QingYun (Architecture), Rafael Núñez (Cognitive Science), Kazuo Okanoya (Cognitive Science), Israel Rosenfield (Neuroscience), Anri Sala (Art), Tay Kheng Soon (Architecture/urbanism)
Rirkrit Tiravanija (Art), Wang JianWei (Art, Beijing)

Curated by Akiko Miyake, Hans Ulrich Obrist

Coordinated by Zhu XiaoYun (Shanghai)

Organized by
[Kitakyushu] City of Kitakyushu, Center for Contemporary Art CCA Kitakyushu
[Shanghai] City of Kitakyushu, Center for Contemporary Art CCA Kitakyushu, Center for China Shanghai Art Festival (for Public Discussion), Creative Industry Research Center of Shanghai Academy of Social Science

Nell Freudenberger on The Dissident

Nell Freudenberger on The Dissident

When I was in the tenth grade, a Visiting Scholar came to our school. I went to a single-sex, private, non-sectarian preparatory school in Los Angeles, which celebrated its centennial while I was a student there. We wore violet, pink, yellow or white button-down dresses with the school’s initials monogrammed on the sleeves, or else pleated flannel kilts. The required footwear, in the late eighties and early nineties, was the saddle shoe. It was as if an enthusiastic Angelino had read “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” and decided to found a school—but hadn’t gotten it quite right.

The Visiting Scholar was from China. (At that time, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to ask where in China). I don’t remember his name, but I know he had three of them, and that to my fascination, they began with “X,” “Y,” and “Z.” He painted traditional Chinese ink landscapes of bamboo, rocks, and trees, very fast, on a pristine, white tablet. Everyone was eager to use the hollow bamboo brushes with fine horsehair tips, the blue-black ink in tiny glass bottles, and there was a long line to paint with the Visiting Scholar. I decided to be patient. Sooner or later the other girls would lose interest, and Mr. XYZ would be mine alone.

My strategy paid off, and soon I was one of only two or three girls who continued coming to the demonstrations, as Mr. XYZ’s stay was extended from two to three weeks, and then to another month. We progressed from rocks to bamboo, and finally, the crowning achievement—to lobsters. A bamboo had three leaves on its top stem, and two on each of the subordinate branches. Similarly, a lobster’s body had three or five segments, but never four or six. I brought home large, thin sheets of paper, spotted and sometimes torn, where I had pressed too hard, which my parents dutifully admired. (To say I was not a gifted art student is to be tactful). And yet, Mr. XYZ’s instructions, delivered in the few words of English he knew, were a kind of revelation to me. You did not have to wait for a bolt of inspiration. (Who had the time, particularly if you were only in America for two months, and were possibly trying to slip the bounds of your exchange visa?) Mr. XYZ did not tell us to “be creative” or “use our imaginations;” perhaps he didn’t know those words. There were, rather, instructions: three leaves, not two; five segments, not four. In other words: there was a way to do this. There was a place to start.

I never learned whether Mr. XYZ stayed in Los Angeles, or eventually went home. I hadn’t thought of him for many years when I began studying Mandarin, in 2001. A few years later I made my first trip to China through the State Department’s generous cultural exchange program for writers, where I met university students in five cities around the country. That summer, I also saw the excellent “Between Past and Future” show of photography and video art from China, curated by Wu Hung and Christopher Phillips. Most interesting to me were the photographs from a place called the “Beijing East Village;” I lived in the New York East Village, and wondered what its Chinese sibling might be like.

That exhibit was my introduction to Rong Rong and the artists of the Beijing East Village, who appear in this novel somewhat disguised. The neighborhood, a ghetto on the eastern edge of the city, became an accidental haven in the early nineties for aspiring artists, some of whom had come to Beijing from the provinces with very little money. The photographer Rong Rong arrived there with his sister in early 1993, and wrote in his diary: “This place is actually a garbage dump for Chaoyang District. All sorts of people, such as garbage collectors, construction workers and the unemployed, live here. I don’t know how we are going to survive here on my income from limited and occasional shots for newspapers, and when my sister’s paintings can not even be sold for one RMB.”

Soon, however, Rong Rong and his sister discovered that they weren’t the only artists living there. As a way to meet people, he began taking portraits of some of the other young artists; together they nicknamed their neighborhood, “Dong Cun,” or the Beijing East Village. Rong Rong’s portraits of the performance artist Zhang Huan, the aspiring rock star, Curse, and the beautiful, effeminate painter, Ma Liuming, started a tradition of collaboration, which lasted until June of 1994. That month, the Beijing East Village was raided by police, who interrupted “Fen-Ma’s Lunch,” a performance by Ma Liuming in which he cooked fish in the nude. The performance landed him and several members of his audience in a detention center, and forced the other artists to flee their homes. In 2000, the village was razed to make way for a public park.

In January, 2005, I went back to China and interviewed some of the artists I’d been reading about for the past few years. I didn’t expect to meet Rong Rong—one of the most successful artists in Beijing, whose photographs sell for upwards of $10,000—but when a friend offered to introduce me, I couldn’t say no. During a long cab ride in the dark, to a village just outside Beijing’s Fifth Ring Road, I was thrilled and also a little worried. I was writing a novel that took place at a girls’ school in Los Angeles and an artists’ ghetto in Beijing. To me, the novel was about confusion—the way Americans determine our own identities, and about the way we imagine foreignness—Chineseness in particular. Would meeting the person on whom I’d based my character make the story I’d been writing seem wrong, or fake?

I visited Rong Rong and his Japanese wife, inri (both are “art names”) at their live/work studio in Caochangdi. The very modern main living space was dominated by a large, steel worktable, and an oversized antique enlarger. The couple works together, and their pictures line the walls: the most striking series was taken in Japan, on their honeymoon at Mount Fuji, where they’d used a tripod to photograph themselves in front of the iconic mountain in the snow. Rong Rong and inri often work naked; the series shows the two of them progressing further and further toward the mountain, until they are just black twigs in a vast expanse of frozen whiteness. “The irony is that even though we wanted to photograph Mount Fuji, you couldn’t even see the mountain,” Rong Rong told me.

I asked about the East Village of course, but the artist wasn’t especially interested in discussing such old work. Even today it’s difficult to see truly contemporary Chinese art in the U.S., since curators take some time to bring shows here. Chinese artists and curators have complained to me that American audiences are biased in favor of work that is recognizably political; oddly, we seem to prefer the reverse in homegrown art.

The day after I met Rong Rong and inri, I visited Chaoyang Park, which lies on top of the old East Village. In that season, it was a bleak, brown public space, with abandoned amusement park rides and only a few old people, walking briskly or practicing tai ji. I thought of something inri wrote in “Tui/Transfiguration,” a catalogue she published with her husband last year:

“People who go visit those places cannot perceive the world of our experience. That world does not exist anywhere in the real world. You can only possess that world with us in our photos.”

To say that this is a novel about identity and cultural misunderstanding seems a little pretentious—or as my tenth grade English teacher would’ve said, “highfalutin.’” I think that I write fiction to force myself to remember very simple things about the world: for example, that any description of character has more to do with the person observing than with the one being observed. To me, this is a book about learning to write, in particular about learning to make fictional characters. “The Dissident” is also a story about copying and faking -- which is the way I believe a person learns to make any kind of art.

-Nell Freudenberger
Message Edited by LitEditor on 11-10-2006 05:22 PM

Dialoges with Death: Chinese Performance Art

In the recent decades when Chinese contemporary art shed the cultural and political chains binding it and stretched forth to voice itself among the resonance of Western and Asian art, there is a group of artists that distance themselves from the norms and conventions of artistic creativity, aesthetics, and expression. These artists that challenge traditional social and cultural acceptance in their own national boundaries had their passionate pursuit exemplified on a global platform. Performance art, or Xingwei Yishu, is the radical artistic expression developing in China that confronts the social constrictions placed on individuals by rigid government authority and restrictive social and cultural traditions. Dealing with themes of death and sculptural/visual dimensions, these live performances redefine perception and shock reality into the viewer’s accepted awareness. The categorization and condemnation of performance art as a “violent trend” propels its fame in a wide context. The extremity of performance art may be found in the intense responses—ranging from fascination through ambivalence, suspicion and resistance, to condemnation and censorship—the performance and its illustrative and resulting art form has received from a vast audience directly and indirectly exposed to yishu.

Two primary groups define Chinese performance art. One group utilizes the resources and establishment of the exhibition to capture the attention of the audience as intimate third party observers and orchestrate responses to exemplify recognition. Artists of this genre include Qin Ga, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu. These three artists are noticeable examples of Chinese performance artists that use human corpses as the instrument and product of their performance. The other group focuses on actual artist performances to incite and intertwine audiences as part of the medium to accentuate their beliefs. A definitive example of a performance artist is He Yunchang. Through unusual assemblage of ordinary components in one setting for a planned sequence of behaviors, displacing them into a startling new context and by allowing death into his calculation, he frees himself from any inhibition that may prevent him from pursuing his live artworks to their predetermined conclusions. His repeated sites of performances transformed from extreme life experiences include The General’s Command and A Rock in Niagara Falls where he risks physical and mental endurance to battle normally overwhelming obstruction. In such performances He Yunchang tests human fortitude and gauges human perseverance.

Regardless whether it is performance art through installations or live performances, whether these performance arts are held in artificial settings or natural backdrops, these performance art and artists all intend to incorporate the audience in their artworks. Although the audience do not always act as the artist plans but it is their presence at the site and the truthful expression of their emotions—shock, fear, disgust, ambivalence, etc.—that expands the intensity and awareness of the art. Photos and videos are only records. Without the infusion of the art’s appeal and the audience’s response enacting and impacting in the present tense, the performance art would not surpass normal contemporary new media and permeate human pathos. As the quickest method to influence human psyche is to contact Death, it is these performance arts and artists who gamble their lives in search of deeper meaning and clearer understanding of their individual physical and psychological limitations and compositions that tightly grip our hearts and influence our understanding.

“Mantis City” at Doland Museum

The current exhibit (October 27, 2006 – November 25, 2006) at the Doland Museum of Modern Art in China features the works of Swedish performance artist Tobias Bernstrap, highlighting his current work, “Mantis City”. “Mantis City” is his new exhibit, which becomes available to the viewer upon their immediate entrance into the “museum”, or in the Doland’s case, is really more of a gallery space. The first floor is generally dark, although you can make your way over to a seating area to watch Bernstrap’s “Mantis City”, produced in 2006, projected on a 16:9 screen from a HDV DVD, running on a 12 minutes and 50 seconds loop. “Mantis City” itself focuses the city of Shanghai itself, in which Bernstrap presents the audience with a replica of the Pudong skyline at 1:1000th scale. Two preying mantises climb the Oriental Pearl TV Tower and the Jin Mao Tower, and eventually slowly descend, have a fight, and the winner climbs to the top of the Oriental Pearl once again. The video itself often features only shadows of the mantises, and often blurs out the background. According to the Doland’s statement, “The dramatic lighting recalls the atmosphere of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and Carol Reed’s “The Third Man” (1949)”.
The nearly 13 minutes of watching “Mantis City” pass by easily enough, and one is free to head up to the second floor of the Doland. Surprisingly, it is even darker here, and reading plates for works can be quite difficult. Moreover, a large main room is supplied with projections on two of the walls, with a large space in between. On the first wall that comes into view upon arrival on the second floor is Bernstrap’s work, “Freidrich Passage”, made in 2001, running on a 6 minutes and 30 seconds loop. This work entails going through a tunnel, to the mood of gothic music. The work is rather reminiscent of a horror videogame, which is what seems to be the inspiration.
On the opposite side is a projection of “Walking Ego”; a soundless, continually looping girl that walks that was finished in 2003. Passing by, one ventures into a side room featuring another work, “Killing Spree”, a video completed in 2006. In the video, a man, perhaps the artist, is dressed as a character from a modern video game, while performing rock music in front of gothic fans. This video is the longest running of the group at 14 minutes and 36 seconds. One can easily decide to move into the last room, entitled “XSeed 4000”, completed in 2004 as a modification of a computer game. Although it is the most interactive of the exhibits, you are still limited in your explorations to a green space inside of what is presumably the inside of a modern building. Most intriguing is the ability to control the character with a mouse, and listen to random comments that reflect upon a totalitarian society. Yet the inside of the building is apparently gorgeous, with green grass and a fountain surrounded by water.
In all of his works, Bernstrap is presenting a contrast between virtual space and real space, the physical representation of body and architecture in fiction and reality, and the blurred borders between fiction and reality that result as a consequence. Or perhaps a quote by the artist himself, "Today I see a lot of paradoxes in our concepts of reality, such as when looking at architecture in computer games and in real life. The software developers keep pushing limits to achieve more and more realism in the games; at the same time, architecture and design moves towards fiction, i.e. the skyline of Shanghai's Pudong district looks like a scene from an early Sci-Fi movie... There's no clear border or difference anymore - fiction or reality, virtual space or real space, it's all blurred."
The current exhibit “Mantis City” is not to be missed. Bernstrap presents a unique blend of gothic and special effects, producing work that is very much his own. The space is also well suited for the works, with the darkness allowing full visibility of all five. Although not many pieces are on display, it does make it much easier to sit back and fully take in all the pieces – and play around with “XSeed 4000”.
No. 27, Duolun Road, Shanghai, China www.duolunart.com

Shanghart on Moganshan

For this week, I visited Shanghart on Moganshan Road for the solo exhibition by contemporary Chinese performance artist Yang Zhenzhong. Revisiting this elusive gallery again brings back memories of the first time. The distasteful cappuccino with drops of hardening black goo, the rumbling and cumbersome warehouse elevators, the cordial and welcoming foreign gallery owners and the storage and exhibition of many impressive works of modern art all return to my memory.

I arrived at Shanghart after striding through the familiar alleys lined with art galleries and walked into the spacious solo exhibition gallery to witness the photos and videos made by Yang Zhenzhong. Born in Xiaoshan in 1968, Yang Zhenzhong now lives and works in Shanghai. He graduated from the oil painting department of the China Fine Arts Academy in Hangzhou in 1993, and started working with video and photography in 1995. Yang Zhenzhong’s works have shown in all major biennales and triennials such as Venice (2003), Shanghai (2002), Guangzhou (2002), and Gwangju (2002). Yang’s solo exhibition in Shanghart is his first cooperation with the gallery.

Different artists have different preferences and perception. Yang emphasizes the focus and compliment of the subject in his artwork with the background. Using photography, Yang manipulates the background and the subject to portray ordinary people and daily life. Vibrant colors and entrancing settings enrich and accentuate the central characters in the photography and animation. Through the implementation of the environment and present objects and subjects, Yang illustrates contemporary China through a snapshot. As if fusing culture, modernity, psychology and existence in a single image, Yang reveals our world in one picture. As one of the audience, I felt perplexed but captivated by his photos. In his series titled Light and Easy, Yang has his characters upholding the immeasurable weight of urban and material society.

Fascinated by the photograph of a man lifting a reversed Pearl Tower and Pudong Financial District, my eyes refused to leave the picture. The complex combination of building colors contrast with the simple but effective dark sweater of the man. Visual contrast strengthens the contrast of the subject and setting. As if holding a feather, the man easily lifts the urban structure with his palm. Yang employs photography to scrutinize contemporary Chinese society. Yang emphasizes individuality over the intricate urban composition. As if the contemporary material and urban growth is a mere façade and holds little weight and impact, Yang accentuates the merit of the individual. Such an emphasis shows both his contemporary deviation from communist ideals and also his criticism of current modern Chinese dependence on material wealth and gain.

Using metaphorical imagery, Yang challenges contemporary normality through the splendor of contorted reality. As a picture is worth a thousand words, each viewer will no doubt interpret the images differently. Let us join our thoughts and share our experience to divulge our world beneath contemporary materialistic desires.

Tobias Bernstrup performs with Cosplayers