Xmas Greetings from HangFeng!

Currently at Zendai Museum.

NYU urban tour: Shanghai

If you ask people living in Shanghai, ‘have you ever climb the LuPu Bridge?’ nine out of ten would definitely say no. Even stayed in Shanghai for more than three years, I never heard there is a platform on the top of this river. Thanks Defne, as well as Giel, for giving us such a fully planned urban tour, offering us a great opportunity to view and apperceive this traditional and reformed modern city.
Our first site is Pujiang town, one of the nine satellite towns that are supposed to relieve the pressure from the downtown residential areas. Associated with the LuPu Bridge and coming Metro Station, this area is recognized as a large, under developed foreground. However, the 5 bn yuan’s investment and Italian architecture’s design do not bring us a bran-new, attractive idea of combining Venice and Chinese concepts. Instead, those gray, humdrum light colors give us an uncomfortable, disharmonious feeling, making both foreign people and Chinese dislike it. The impractical river, close style traditional design, and few residents extraordinarily criticize the urban development. The most amazing thing is the first-phase apartments and villas have all been sold out. One sentence by Professor Shi still swings in my mind, ‘Chinese always know to build, they do not care whether they (the houses) will be sold, they believe there will be buyers.’ The pressure from the house in Shanghai indeed needs newly developed apartments; but the market urges not only the land, but also something more deep, like culture and art environment, which will more reveal the urbanization.
Our second site is LuPu Bridge of Shanghai. If it is not the fog, the platform will be the best location to view the 2010 world Expo site that day. Besides the factor of traffics, this bridge outflows the aesthetics of modern architecture. Born under the foot of Mount Tai, climbing this bridge brings me one widely different feeling. Stand above the river, all the buildings are all in the sight. The bustle traffic is under the foot, unlike the steady feeling brought by a mountain; it is more like standing in the air of a noise city. Maybe this is just the one time experience, quick impressive feeling. Maybe it’s the result of fast pattern in metropolitan.
Our third site is Yangshupu Lu. I love the title ‘Urban Regeneration’ in the booklet. The old warehouse lying near the river, secret quiet location, and simple traditional materials’ creatively reused, all of this gives me a sight of perfect integration of west and east. This is a place full of creativity. The designer is so smart to use the stuffs, such as using the tiles to make the floor, the steel tube to be the handrail near a modern commode, and a large mirror to board and puzzle people’s eyes. In a word, the designer successfully adds the modern convenience into the primitive and simple traditional structure.
Furthermore, Mr. Giel gave us a meaningful short lecture. In his vivid presentation, I viewed the huge contribution by the artists, who successfully exert the contemporary visual art into public places. Like the pure white tube in the subway, that simple and particular idea of design solved the headachy graffito problem. We also cognize the operation of art in the commercial area, by advertising in the online world. I realize those artists looked like living leisurely, in fact, they burdened more social obligations than ordinary people. The traditional culture needs them, the urbanization also needs them.

Up Close and Curious

A warm and welcoming voice beckoned me in after I knocked lightly on the turquoise wooden door. As I opened the door, I caught eye of my interviewee and the desk he was sitting behind. After seating myself in the seat offered to me, I was able to see clearly the stacks of paper, books and photographs stacked on my interviewee’s desk. Amazement was my first impression. How could someone manage to have the room to write in such a chaotic sea of papers and books? Casting aside my bewildered admiration, I began my interview.

The person I interviewed is Professor Sun Naishu of ECNU. Professor Sun is the professor and vice president of the School of Art at ECNU. The primary courses that Professor Sun teaches are Research of Western Art History, Research of Chinese Art History and Selected Readings of Art History Masterpieces. His areas of research include Chinese art history, Western art history and art theory. Professor Sun has also published many books in recent years, of which include Chinese Traditional Art, Western Art and European Art Tour.

To start the interview off after exchanging pleasantries with Professor Sun, I asked my first question, “What do you think of Chinese contemporary art?” With a proud smile he answered me, “Chinese contemporary art is definitely lively. As with other aspects of China, there is a lot of Western influence in Chinese contemporary art. For a developing country like China, it is absorbing and learning what successful predecessors did and still does. China is trying to develop in the same successful direction; Chinese contemporary art is the same. China is no longer an isolated country. It is communicating with the world; through the economy, technology, and art.”

Professor Sun’s description left me fervently desiring to better understand the current conditions and characteristics of Chinese contemporary artists. As the professor has mentioned in his first reply, the rapid economic development in China is like a rock tossed into a placid river and causing the giant and frequent ripples to expand outward. Other aspects of Chinese society and culture are influenced by the economic growth and gradually become an influence of their own. Contemporary Chinese art is a perfect example.

Professor Sun explained that two primary factors influence Chinese contemporary art and Chinese contemporary artists. The two factors are money and passion. After China opened up for economic reform, many artists recognize the potential patronage from Western collectors or buyers and have produced art work with the desire to appeal to wealthy Westerners. “The auctions last year were especially good, this year the trend seems to be downhill.” Professor Sun replied as I inquired about the financial situation relevant to Chinese contemporary art. Not all Chinese contemporary artists are motivated by financial return for their art, they do it for passion. Professor Sun remarks that “These artists are very admirable. They observe foreign art and transform it into their own. Many artists that are not driven primarily by money are pioneers to explore modernity and philosophical questions through art. They are portraying the modern and sometimes the post-modern in their works.”

As Professor Sun mentioned, two characteristics of Chinese contemporary art are money and passion. Hopefully Chinese contemporary art can continue to develop and expand, ascending to new heights. But to do this, I believe that a balance between finance and creativity is reached so that artists can understand both perceptions—the financial perspective and the artistic perspective—and produce art that reflect the success of uniting money with passion. And after today’s interview, I believe that even I desperately desire for a successful future for Chinese contemporary art and that Professor Sun’s words could reach a wider audience and gain support.

Shanghai Tour: Space and Expression

When we think of art presentation, what comes to mind? For me, art represents aesthetics in an enclosed environment especially established to accentuate the effects of the piece.

When we think of urban design, what comes to mind? For me, seeing the intricate design and construction of modern architectural in contest and collaboration with each other.

What if we loosen the rigid social and ideological conceptions we have and accept the world beyond physical and conventional standards into a fusion of the real and the surreal to create and team spatial dimensions, would that be an advance into the future or a farfetched sci-fi fantasy?

As the last Arts & Media class and sadly my last Thursday in Shanghai, I already feel nostalgia for this NYU abroad experience with my teachers (of course I will dearly miss you Defne) and of this ascending city. As our last class, Professor Defne Ayas collaborated with Professor Shi Mingzhen and took us on a tour of Shanghai to visit modern urban architectural designs, sites, art and people.

The first leg of the trip landed us in Shanghai’s satellite city Pujiang. Pujiang is one of the 9 satellite cities of Shanghai circling downtown. These satellite cities were are being developed to ease the growing population in the central city and shift the population outwards into the suburbs. Pujiang is known to have an Italian theme to the city and is referred to as Italian town. I realized how impractical the town is after looking at the miniaturized models of the city and given a brief summary of the cost, occupancy, distance and development of the town. The town strived to achieve a modern architectural design fusing European and Chinese concepts. My evaluation of the results: ugly. I understand that cynicism is toying with my judgment but I couldn’t see any positive features or pragmatism in the architecture or the city. Even though the town claims to resemble Italian architecture, the uniform red, yellow and gray colored buildings with their rectangular houses and walls only resemble individual cells. The isolating wall of the home is what strikes me most about the design of the town. The walls remind me of the historical Chinese infatuation with isolationism. All the old Chinese cities have remnants of walls around them, signs of China’s tradition as an exclusive and isolative nation. However, in contemporary China in which global values influence China’s development and the government’s slogan is a “harmonious society,” architectural reversion that creates the solitary homes in Pujiang conflicts with an individual’s integration into society.

After circling Pujiang, we headed for Lupu Bridge and climbed the 300 stairs to see the Huangpu river stretch across Shanghai. If only the fog didn’t shroud Shanghai in a misty gray, we would have been able to capture the modern beauty of Shanghai.

In our final leg of the trip, Giel brought us to Yangshupu Road and presented to us in a renovated factory. Unlike the desolate town of cheap material and bad architecture, Giel gave a detailed and expansive presentation touching on many aspects of contemporary art and space. What struck me most is the urban acceptance and adaptation of art. The concept of virtual space and urban installations representing art and human psychology are the two topics that impressed me the most. In modern urban fabric, such installations such as news stands, billboards, phone boots, shops and malls all incorporate and integrate into an elaborate urban design that reflects the aesthetic perception and expression of society. The fusion of trees, billboards, shops and malls along Huaihai Road blend together to illustrate Shanghai as a contemporary Chinese art piece. Virtual space such as massive online games are also a form of contemporary Chinese art. Many Chinese join online games because of the attractive presentation of video game characters. Chinese are able to express themselves outside the norms and conventions of society and perform upon desire. The new culture expands the network people live in and allow them to characterize themselves according to their imagination. Whether it is a warrior or a millionaire in the game, Chinese are increasingly able to interact with others and perform acts as individuals or groups that emphasizes expression. An example would be Giel’s screenshot of many colorful videogame characters protesting an unjust act that occurred in reality. More and more, these virtual spaces are becoming grounds for expression. And isn’t that what Chinese contemporary art strives for? To express in a society keen on restricting speech?

Architectural Survey of Shanghai in Conjunction with Artist Works

When: Thursday, December 14 between 1:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.
Where to meet: Lobby of student dorm building.

Urban development is an obvious phenomenon and reality in Chinese society. It is also a fundamental driving force for today’s art production. You will notice more and more exhibitions that not only deal with urban architecture and city planning, but also focus on how urban life style, cityscape and new forms of urban reality are shaping the artistic language and psychology of emerging artists.

The architectural tour of Shanghai is organized in conjunction with FAR-the Architecture Research Center of Shanghai will take place this Thursday. On this excursion you will visit one lilong complex, one regenarated factory complex, and one western architects designed building. Other sites to visit will include Pujiang- the new suburb in Italiantown style, and a climb of Lupu Bridge, where we can see the Expo terrain in progress. ( if bad weather Yangshupu Creative Center )
You will also receive a list of a select Chinese and international artists ( including Wang Jinsong, Luo Yongjin, Hu Yang, Zhang Dali, Danwen Xing, Michael Wolf, and Andreas Gurksy) and their work as they relate to our architectural tour.

"Shanghai Art Deco" book launch

Launch of Tess Johnston/Erh Dongqiang's book "Shanghai Art Deco"
Sunday, December 17, 4pm
The Glamour Bar
6th Floor, No. 5 The Bund (at Guangdong Lu)
50 RMB, includes a drink
RESERVATIONS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - call 6350-9988

From Art Basel Miami

as shot by Ai WeiWei

Interview between Xintiandi architect Ben Wood and Ma Qingyun talk

Architects Ben Wood and Ma Qingyun talk about the hyper development of Shanghai, in the first in a series of reports by Louisa Lim on the Chinese city.

Twenty years ago, the Pudong area was farmland. Now, its futuristic skyline lights up the horizon across the river from Shanghai's original settlement.

Shanghai's Building Boom

In China, Shanghai's role is as a paragon of modernity, and also as a harbinger of the future. China is now undergoing one of the most massive urbanizations in human history, and nowhere is that more evident than in Shanghai. The city's population is now almost 18 million, and is forecast to rise to 25 million by 2020. Louisa Lim has an overview of the city's past -- and how it's preparing for its future.

Morning Edition, December 11, 2006 · It's become an urban myth that at one time, one-quarter of the world's construction cranes were in Shanghai. Indeed, it now has more skyscrapers than New York City.

Shanghai's historical upheavals and rebirths can be traced through architecture, with its colonial legacy and capitalist boom. Ahead of the World Expo in 2010, the city is being transformed again, with mind-bogglingly ambitious plans.

The latest symbol of Shanghai's urban hipness is Xintiandi, a bustling shopping and entertainment district. But these luxury boutiques, which appear to be housed in traditional lanehouses, are not what they seem.

In fact, Xintiandi is a re-imagining of Shanghai's old streetscape as consumer experience, dreamed up by American architect Ben Wood.

"In order for a place to be fashionable, it has to transcend the nostalgia of historic preservation," Wood says. "I was quite resourceful. Some preservationists say I was ruthless. … I made openings where openings didn't exist if I thought it would improve the cinematic experience of walking the neighborhood."

Traditional music wafts along the street, heightening the film-set feel of the place. This is Shanghai's most hyped urban development of recent years. But the decision to leave some old buildings standing is the exception rather than the rule.

The more-accepted new face of Shanghai is an ever-growing labyrinth of skyscrapers. From an observation deck in Pudong, a district across the river from Shanghai's original settlement, skyscrapers stretch out into the distance as far as the eye can see.

Twenty years ago, this area was just farmland. Now, this viral growth of skyscrapers, this city on steroids, symbolizes China's urban future.

Architect Ma Qingyun, who has just been appointed dean of the school of architecture at the University of Southern California, says Pudong's frenzied development "has certain dimensions of symbolic quality, to represent ambition and achievement in its new form of urbanization."

But for Wood, the American architect, Pudong's new cityscape is all about show.

"It's designed to create plots of land for monuments to corporate power, the global economy," says Wood.

He says you can't cross the street in Pudong because the red lights aren't long enough. "Sometimes it takes as long as three changes of the stoplight to get to the other side of the street. So it's really not a humane place."

Yet Pudong, too, is part of Shanghai's strategy to build for its surging humanity. Almost 18 million people live in greater Shanghai. But that figure is expected to rise by one-third before 2020.

As a result, the city is spreading unbelievably fast. In just five years, nine new satellite towns have been built literally from scratch -- each housing about the same number of people as the city of Atlanta.

Senior city planner Tang Zhiping says the need is pressing.

"We feel that the development and construction of these small towns is pretty urgent. But these experts are even more impatient than us; they want us to build lively, bustling towns in just two or three years. That's impossible."

So Shanghai is re-inventing itself anew, this time as the center of an urban megalopolis.

But as its lanehouses are leveled to make way for a forest of skyscrapers, is it in danger of losing its Chineseness?

No, says architect Ma Qingyun, because Shanghai's soul is in its openness to change, its tolerance and its absolute pragmatism.

"That's true Chineseness," Ma says. "Everything is in constant mutation, nothing is set as a fixity. We don't follow any spatial models. We don't care about the look of the building, so much so everybody still lives in Shanghai in ugly buildings. We care about how convenient life is."

Shanghai literally means "on the sea": It's the city that looks outward to the rest of the world, to the future. But what will Shanghai of the future look like in 20 years' time? With change so rapid and overarching, even architects working here designing that future can't answer that question. Ma worries about endless urban sprawl swallowing up the countryside.

"I have hope," he says, "but what I'm so afraid of is my vision" of the future.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6600367

Yellow Box Project and Chinese Aesthetics

Yellow Box Project and Chinese Aethetics
By Prof. Gao Shiming

“Yellow Box” is a project initiated by the Visual Culture Research
Centre of China Academy of Art. This project intends to investigate
issues of connoisseurship and display that are embedded in Chinese
traditional spaces; meanwhile it also intends to reinterpret
traditional literati spirit in light of contemporary art. In 2005, the
first exhibition of “Yellow Box” subtitled “Contemporary Calligraphy
and Painting in Taiwan” was held at the Taipei Fine Art Museum. That
exhibition experimented with solutions for displaying the subtlety of
literati art within the sterile “white cube” by either building
mediating structures or setting up viewing procedures. Based on that
exhibition’s experiment, the present “Yellow Box” project continues the
research in exhibition practice by studying contemporary art and
architecture. In September 2006, “Yellow Box” project takes the Xiao
Ximen (Minor West Gate) group of traditional vernacular buildings in
Qingpu district as the subject of investigation and experimental space
for contemporary art, seeking to discover hidden potentials for
different artistic media in such a place of living and working, while
also keeping in mind the parameter of Chinese daily activities. This
project hopes to stimulate new creative attitudes for contemporary art
and bring to fore the implicit cultural significance hidden in
vernacular architectural spaces. This is done by building a bridge
linking traditional culture and the creative industries, so as to
uncover the mechanics of interdependence between native resources and
cultural creativity.

At present there is a rage of building art galleries and art museums
throughout China. It is therefore important to ask questions such as:
Does the space of museums have to follow the canonical spectator
regime? Will the traditional culture of intimate appreciation still
retain its charm in the museum system? What is the significance of the
classical experience in art appreciation to the configuration of space
in contemporary architecture? How do we retain traditional visual
memories, and at the same time endow them with fresh significance and
activity. These are the questions that the “Yellow Box” hopes to
illuminate.

Prof. Gao Shiming of China Academy of Art will present the research of
“Yellow box” project, which is concerned with the relationship between
Chinese traditional culture of appreciation and museum-based
spectatorship regime.

Ai Weiwei : Fragments, Voids, Sections and Rings

Ai Weiwei : Fragments, Voids, Sections and Rings
Dec 05, 2006
Adrian Blackwell (interviewer)
Mason White (instigator)

Ai Weiwei (Beijing) is an artist, curator, and architectural designer who has been working in China and the United States since the late 1970's. An original member of "Stars," a group of artists working in Beijing in the late 1970's during the first years of reform, Ai attended film school with directors Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. He then traveled to the United States where he made conceptual art focused on the alteration of readymade objects and situations. In the early 1990's Ai returned to China to edit a series of three books on the art a new generation of artists, based in Beijing's Eastern Art Village: "Black Paper," "White Paper," and "Gray Paper." Since that time he has produced work which focuses on China's cultural history, centralized political system, and the contradictions of modernity. His work has shown across Europe, North America, and China.

Ai uses a set of tactics for the production of his work: undermining the meaning of existing artifacts, attacking fixed hierarchies of power, privileging developed vernacular knowledge and simply letting things take their own course. Over the past few years he has moved closer to architecture, beginning with the design of his own studio, the China Art Archives and Warehouse, and the Urs Meile Gallery all in the outskirts of Beijing; the plan for a Park of architectural follies in his family's home town of Jinhua in Zhejiang Province; and a collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron Architects on the Beijing Olympic Stadium.

This interview by Adrian Blackwell took place on June 21, 2006 at Ai Weiwei's studio/home in Cao Chang Di Village on the outskirts of Beijing.

Adrian Blackwell: There are two things we are interested in with your urban work. The first concerns your thoughts about the contemporary city: what's happening right now with Chinese urbanization? The second is the approach you take in your own urban interventions. I thought we could begin by talking about some of your recent projects. You started making art in the late 1970's, architecture in the late 1990's, and then quite recently, just a few years ago, you began to making works that are about urban space, documents of your city. I know of four of them: the Beijing video map, the void photographs, the Chang'an boulevard project and the Ring Road project. They are each fascinating ways of reading Beijing. What made you start making work like that, what made you start documenting the city?

Ai Weiwei: It's not exactly documenting. It has that function, but it has no documentary purpose. It's not being used as evidence or testimony for anything, but rather to materialize our physical life, its condition in the moment. If you are in place A or on line A or line B, then that present there or that movement is simply as it is. We're living in a constantly changing world and everybody sees it and knows it, but as an artist who is also involved in issues of design and urban planning, I always try to find a way to most efficiently capture what I call fragments, or very small pieces which carry the flavor or carry the essential meaning of the city. So it's a very small effort that I have made, even if it looks quite massive in terms of the length of the videos, its just one section of a fact - the concrete world.

AB: So maybe we could talk briefly about each of those pieces. Let's start with the first piece, the video which follows every street in Beijing within the fourth ring road.

AW: "INTERVAL" - From Da Bei Yao to Da Bei Yao, 8.10. - 7.11.2003.

AB: It's about the street network and it makes me think of Zhu Jianfei's book Chinese Spatial Strategies. He talks about the public space of the city of Beijing arguing that in a western city you have squares, public space is organized around openings in the fabric, while in the Chinese city (his example is Ming and Qing dynasty Beijing) public space is in the street, so the public space is not a void, but a network of space, and the active spaces are simply nodes, or widenings in that network. One of the things that I like about this project is that it is an attempt to map this entire network using video, but it also conflates the map and its opposite, which is the experience of simply being lost in the city. What were you thinking about with this network of every street in Beijing?

AW: I think that a city is a three dimensional or multi-dimensional thing, but the work itself is not even two-dimensional, it's just one point to another, to another, to another. So of course in time this weaves a net if you are thinking of the road you have been traveling along or if you join the individual points. It covers the whole city, all the hutongs and streets, but actually it is made at one time, at a moment. Still it follows a line, a line made by a vehicle which has more than a dozen people on it, and from day 1 to day 16 it passes through different parts of the city. So it appears to be a complete view of Beijing, but if you look at any point, it's just dots, because there is no camera movement except the movement of the car. Very little changes, but the attitude or position that drives it is not passive, it's fixed through a very concrete concept. So I think it's quite ironic in that sense: after 150 hours it documents the city, but nobody would watch 150 hours and at any moment you see, you are confined to a single point, or proportionally stretched points form a very short time within this big work. It only works when it is so long, more than six days and nights. It shows how big, how impossible, how crazy this city is, or how meaningless at the same time, because our proportion, our sense of time, and also our visual contact with the city is really limited by where we are and which direction we go. The moment is about a certain period of time, so when you just look at one moment you don't really know what is before or what is next, even if you can pretty much guess.

AB: With the void photographs you are documenting a moment where there is nothing. If you think about Chinese cities as constantly being torn down and rebuilt, then this is a moment of quiet in between. It seems that this is a moment of potential, but I don't know if you are that optimistic about this possibility all the time. What made you take those photographs?

AW: I think that's a special landscape in today's China, you are the largest construction site in the world and each year Beijing has one hundred million square metres of construction which exactly equals the area of the whole city in 1949. Every year you have this total amount of construction, but you only finish a third of it, thirty million square metres. You know these are just numbers, but they really tell you something about the urban condition, especially when you see that China builds 20 times the area built in Beijing. The whole country is building crazily. So you have a kind of landscape that destroys the old, because the old is really garbage I think. It's really shelter in its worst condition, like Harlem. We used to say that Harlem was 100 times better than most ordinary people's houses. Then after you destroy you make it flat - we call this san tong yi ping (three [infrastructural]connections and one leveling).


Pei Zhao: By now its jiu tong yi ping (nine connections and one leveling)

AW: Then all this land will be rebuilt by powerful people, developers. Most of them, are connected to the government. They make big profits from land, which is not constitutional. After 1949 land was taken from the landlords. They killed the landlords, and the land was given to the people, under the control of the state. Now all the land is being auctioned to people in favor or associated with the state, who are profiting from their privileged background. So you have a landscape that is just waiting for this future. Even if it's totally empty, it will soon be built. Soon it will change the whole landscape of Beijing and of China.

It's a very sad condition, you see a nation or a city rip up the past, not to benefit the people, or the situation, but for profit, it's really the idea of all those new rich. It's like a country girl has to be a prostitute, because there is no other way to get out of the village. China's development is so much based in this idea: to let somebody ruthlessly become rich, but they can't become rich unless the party and government also profits, otherwise it's impossible. So who has become rich? Who has become more powerful? Who benefits and who is losing their rights, or their property. This property belongs to everybody, it belongs to somebody who never sees this property, because you know we are a communist country and this of course for the past 10 to 20 years has been a hidden secret (I mean nobody talks about it). It's stealing. I am not criticizing, these are only the facts. I record the condition after things are torn down and before they are built up, you know it's a very short moment, but in that moment nobody wants to look. There's a question mark there, a big, big void. The old is so sad, but the new is also sad. It is a very sad condition, so I think it's interesting to record it. It's a unique situation, a void with many questions, yet people don't want to look, or raise these questions.

AB: If the void project looks at empty moments inside the city, the Chang'an boulevard project moves in a straight line from outside through the city. It's a section. You were interested in the movement from rural space through urban space and back to the rural. How do you see that piece describing the contemporary city?

AW: I think that surprisingly enough when I started to make it, I did not know what it would be. It's not based on very sophisticated thinking, more on an attitude than on careful planning. It started when one of our friends said they had a son who wanted to come to Beijing, but had nothing to do. After he arrived I asked him if he could do this for a while. Then after days of planning what he should do, I found that Chang'an from the 6th ring road to the 6th ring is 45 km. So I made a very simple decision: just take one video shot for one minute every 50m. No technical requirements: push down, count 1 minute, turn it off, move another 50m, push down... Whatever happens in front of the lens is fine. It took months, the whole winter, because in the winter there is no better or worse view. I think in Beijing the winter really reflects northern landscape very well. You know there is a kind of sadness there. So after months he had taken 1000's of shots: from a very rural, primitive village, to the business district, to the political center, to an old town and later on ended up in the Capital Iron Company, which has just been destroyed and moved to another city township. This video was the last possible time to take these shots of the Capital Iron Company, a symbol of socialist industry. They made all the iron for the nation.

AB: When you look at maps of the growth of Beijing from 1949 to the present it is amazing to watch Chang'an Boulevard, it draws the city out, away from the old city. So much of the growth of the city is along that line that it is much longer than the rest of the city. The Last work that I know about that deals with the city is your Ring Road project.

AW: I made two pieces, one about the second ring and the other about the third ring. The video of the second ring is structured through the 33 bridges, taking one minute shots on each side of the bridge. So standing there you see the car traffic moving from overhead. Then I did the third ring, 50 some bridges and the same thing, the only difference is that second ring is taken on cloudy days (in Beijing most days are like that), while the third ring is taken on sunny days. If you look at it immediately you know that one's second ring and one is third ring. One is just grey color, and sometimes snowing. It's very boring and not an exciting thing to do, but nevertheless it records the condition at the time, its very much like a witness passing through: what he would see, his eye, anybody's eye. There is no artistic or aesthetic value, not much judgment there. Its very, very simple situation; it's very much like a monitor actually.

AB: We have talked a little bit about these works you have done about the city. But the other thing I am interested in is the way you live in the city. You live in a village; you don't really live in the city.

AW: Well this city, Beijing, surprisingly enough is not a real city. I cannot call it a city, it's still very flat, not dense enough, not strong enough, it doesn't have enough variation and mixed conditions, it's still very even.

Today I live in Beijing. I was also born in Beijing, but soon after we moved to Xinjiang and I grew up there. My father owned a courtyard in Beijing, but for years other people lived in it, because our family was considered an enemy of the people, an enemy of the state, and an enemy of the party. Three enemies. Being just one of them was enough to be exiled. Then after 20 years away we returned and lived in different parts of the city. We borrowed places, because our home was inhabited by other people. We lived in different places: West, North, East or South, so I have a very clear image of what the city looked like. At the time the city was occupied by bureaucratic compounds: universities (of course at that time were not open), government, military and so-called scientific research institutes. All these different departments were all under the same conditions, communist, without private property, everyone belonging to the work unit. So there was only one condition: you were either one of the people or an "enemy of the people." So simple. I guess there weren't so many "enemies of the people," but from time to time that vein was very consciously mined. They were trying to find out who is an enemy of the people for years while I was growing up. It was one political movement after another after another. It was crazy every day. Today you talk about it and it sounds more like a joke: "what a joke, why are you still talking about things like this?" But this was true: many people lost their lives. I think that that ghost is still haunting China today. Not the communist ideology, the ideology may be good, but the way that this power is maintained within society and how brutal the state can be towards a human's basic condition, not to talk about human rights, but essential needs.

So that is basically what this city was and still half of the city is still based in this and the other half is the so-called new rich, after Deng Xiaoping's getting rich first policy. Of course who is going to get rich? It's not the ordinary person. But this is not a complaint, it's simply the truth. You know in China, you still talk about people who have the right to live in the city or not to live in the city. It's called hukou, dividing people into locals, non-locals.

PZ: You need a license, or special registration to live in the city. Throughout the entire world only North Korea and China have a policy like this one.

AW: Locals don't have many rights, besides the privilege of enrolling in school, but in the newspaper they often talk about the crimes caused by non-locals. There is a crazy amount of discrimination against people who are not local. A small example of this is that the city has laws against illegal structures like this one (Ai Weiwei's home and studio). Think about it this way: the city is built solely by migrants from the outside, but none of them are locals except the boss and where are they going to live? Nobody provides any space for them. Of course they gather at the outskirts of the city...

PZ: And in the village in the city...

AW: Just to build a place that they can stay, whether it's legal or not.

AB: But this village, Cao Chang Di, is it a village that pre-dates the city, or is it a village like you are talking about now, a village that is built illegally? Most people that live here appear to be migrants, but did they build this village, or did they inhabit an existing one?

AW: In the 1960's this was a so-called "China Albania Friendship Farmer's village." These were very privileged farmers, who were supposed to provide an example for the country, growing vegetables for the city.

So when university or high school students graduated, and Chairman Mao sent them to be re-educated on a farm, they would send some people here. At that time people working here found much better conditions that you would find in more distant areas. At least on the weekend they could ride their bicycle home. These were example farmers, so it was a good farm.

Recently I heard that it is no longer a village and the former farmers are buying out their hukou to become citizens, instead of farmers. The real reason this is happening is so that the land can be returned to the government, because if you are a farmer no one can take your land. Of course there is real benefit for these new citizens, they have some new citizen's rights, but at the same time the land is returned to the state, so that it can sell the land to anybody it wants to. There are a lot of tricks and games, but it is really so simple: the state is the only beneficiary. But in a state, like China, which is not a democratic society, far from it, nobody argues about this, the press won't talk about it, intellectuals never discuss it. Probably I am the only crazy guy who always talks about it. But they think: "This shit guy, why is he always talking about this?"

So what kind of city is this? I can't see a city without citizens. It's like you don't see a religion without followers. Nobody can decide how the city is going to be; everything is done through governmental decisions, today we need a road here, tomorrow... It's by very simple decisions from the top. If Sanlitun (a Beijing bar street) becomes nice they say: "Oh, lets change it, we'll plan big buildings so that someone can profit from it, not all you street vendors." It's crazy, whenever they see people benefit, they will grab the profit. It's so simple, they change here or there not as they say, to make the city better. The city is already better when they do nothing, take 798 (a contemporary arts district, in a former model industrial work unit) as an example, but once they see this they always take action.

So that's my understanding of this city. I really have no relationship with it, except when journalists come to visit me. Otherwise I just go to one restaurant, which I designed (called Where to Go?). A lot of friends go as well, so we have a place to meet and eat dinner, and then I come back here.

AB: This is a courtyard house, and it seems to me that the kind of city you are talking about when you say you live here and in your restaurant, has very few elements, its not so much about the city space in between. I am interested in that because a lot of people, for instance New Urbanists in North America, might say you make a good city by making lively streets, by concentrating energy on the public space of the city. I don't know if it is the way you would like to make a city, but the way you live is different from that, its much more about autonomy, creating a separate space through the compound, but still finding forms of community. The restaurant for instance is a kind of public space, which can't be here in Cao Chang Di; it's better that it's in the city, because people can get to it more easily. I am wondering if you are interested in making a city that starts from the way you live in it, which I think is quite different from the way many others think a city should work.

AW: Of course most European cities are based in convenience and efficiency. But it's not necessary to me that these functional requirements are supported, what is more important is the use. You need a real variety of intention and purpose: people who are doing things that you would never think about. So you know that's important. I think a city can be very brutal and lacking in qualities of life, because these are not desired, but without many different purposes, the city loses its initial reason for becoming a city.

Many places, like this city, have vast areas without use. It is so strange, these spaces are not for individuals; they're for a special group that has no meaning. This group gives the city no meaning; it's a negative force, working against other people.

AB: Maybe we could finish, with a question about the different processes you use in making art. I'll list some of the different techniques, or tactics, that you use. I am interested in how you might see them applying to your design thinking and its relationship to processes of urbanization.

The first is the notion of detournment, this Situationist idea of diverting the meaning of existing artifacts, taking found things and altering them slightly to change their purpose. You've used this technique in architecture, in the projects you did at Beijing's Soho housing development, the silo and the upside down house, and in the project we're sitting in - your own studio. Even though it's not a found object, it looks like one. You use ordinary typologies and vernacular forms and slightly modify them.

The second involves letting things go, you just drop a Han Dynasty vase on the ground. You let it go to see what happens. I think this works like the video pieces as well, you set up a process to see what ensues.

But then there is another tactic you use: an overt "fuck you!", working very strongly against authority, centrality...

AW: ...order and the state, establishment...


Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany.


AB: And I guess the final one which is in some ways the opposite of the last one, is that you use the power of developed knowledge, a general intellect, vernacular techniques, you have a deep respect for the way people do and make things.

So I am wondering how you see these tactics in relation to the city, can you see your practice of making urban space in relation to these same techniques?


AW: I think we are in a very special moment, As Chinese people, but also internationally, we have gone from the cold war, an unjust society, towards so-called globalization, or a stronger capitalist society, or an information age. Everything happened with a purpose leaving us with unknown conditions. I don't think humans can ever really control this, and it has become even less controllable. Circumstances are now much more complicated than we can predict. For example until quite recently there was no China or India and now suddenly they are the factories of the world. But people are still trying to figure out what this means in relation to ideology, social and political structure, and all kinds of other problems, like education and the environment. I don't think there is a single reaction, at least for myself that can answer these questions, or put me at peace. So I constantly think about the condition of being lost. Once you're lost, you try to figure out where to go. Imagine you're in the middle of a train station and you try to understand the much larger, much more complicated, space around you, or the travel you are embarking on.

So I think it's crazy, the whole thing is crazy. I am not very clear about what I am doing. If I have a character, I don't have much purpose in my life, but more of a natural flow. The only fact is that I am still alive. I'm here. This is solid now, but even this might change. I can't figure out what is going on. Really that's true. Honestly, I don't have a clear answer for this. The clearest answers look ridiculous to me.

Adrian Blackwell teaches architecture and urban design at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design.

Pei Zhao practices architecture and urban design with Parsons Brinckerhoff in Beijing.

Together they curated the exhibition Detours: Tactical Approaches to Urbanization in China at the University of Toronto's Eric Arthur Gallery. The exhibition features projects by nine contemporary architects and two artists, including Ai Weiwei's "INTERVAL" - From Da Bei Yao to Da Bei Yao, 8.10. - 7.11.2003.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Zeng Li's Archeology of Modern China

Zeng Li's Archeology of Modern China
by Christopher Phillips
http://www.shanghaigalleryofart.com/en/artists_detail.asp?id=48
During the past five years, regular visitors to contemporary art group exhibitions in China have often encountered groups of large color photographs showing the facades of apparently unremarkable Beijing apartment buildings. Compared to the exuberant paintings, installations, and video works around them, these sober, factual photographs typically stand apart because of their unassuming presentation and everyday subject matter. Although credited to "Zeng Li," few visitors would think to associate them with the celebrated Beijing stage designer of the same name, whose innovative decors for the People's Art Theater and collaborations with Zhang Yimou have won world-wide recognition. I was surprised to learn, not long ago, that the stage designer and the photographer are indeed the same person. And I was astonished to discover, when I paid my first visit to Zeng Li in Beijing, that the photographs I had seen in exhibitions were only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, during the past 10 years, Zeng Li has made thousands of photographs that portray the destruction of Beijing’s hutong dwellings, the changes in residential architecture of the past five decades, the wholesale reconstruction of China’s urban centers, and the traces of China’s industrial heritage. These photographs provide a meticulous record of the changes that have taken place in the everyday urban fabric of Beijing and other cities, as the hutong lanes, the standardized apartment buildings, and the sprawling factories of the recent past have given way to soaring residential towers and glittering shopping malls. When Zeng Li speaks of desire to create a lasting visual record of an urban environment that is rapidly disappearing, it is possible to glimpse an unexpected but authentic passion. Born in 1961, Zeng Li grew up in Liuzhou, in Guangxi province in China's far south. He remembers it as a place notable for the nearby mountains and also for the newly built factories situated in the region. His family lived on the outskirts of the city, in residential quarters belonging to a chemical factory. Zeng Li stayed in Liuzhou until he finished high school and left to attend the Central Drama Institute in Beijing, where he studied stage design. Since graduating in 1987, he has been associated with the Beijing People's Art Theater, earning acclaim as one of China’s leadng stage and costume designers. He attracted wide international attention in 1997 with his stage design for Zhang Yimou's production of "Turnadot" in Florence and then Beijing, and he collaborated again with the celebrated film director on a ballet version of "Raise the Red Lantern" in 2001. Because China’s creative community is unusually close-knit, Zeng Li has also been involved in projects with the leading artists and architects of his generation. He participated, for example, in the "Bunker" group exhibition that the artist Cai Guo Qiang organized in 2004 in a complex of former Taiwanese military bunkers on Kinmen (Quemoy) island. Zeng Li’s contribution, "Fight Theater," was a performance by 20 members of the Peking Opera. On a stage in front of a map of China and Taiwan, they carried out an ironic remix of battle scenes from historic Peking Opera productions. The visual richness of Zeng Li's stage design does not prepare you for the austerity and the quiet reserve of his photographs, which reveal a very different side of his artistic temperament. It was around 1997, he recalls, that he realized that photography could be used to register the dramatic changes that were sweeping through Beijing’s historic neighborhoods as a result of the capital’s ongoing modernization campaign. At that time, he kept a painting studio some distance northwest of central Beijing, in the part of Changping district where the Ming Tombs lie in a tranquil, orchard-filled valley cradled by the Tianshou mountains. His visits to that site, where 13 of the 16 Ming emperors were buried between 1409 and 1644, sparked his historical curiosity. At that time, he recalls, only one of the tombs had been restored, and the remainder lay mostly in ruins. When the Beijing municipal government announced a plan to restore all of the tombs and to develop the area as an international tourist attraction, Zeng Li felt that he should photograph the area before it was "destroyed" by renovation. He purchased a professional camera and made some of his first photographs there; the area has remained one of his long-term photographic subjects. Traveling regularly by bus and bicycle back and forth to his studio, Zeng Li says, he could not help but observe the accelerating pace with which many of Beijing's traditional residential neighborhoods were disappearing. Gradually he began to imagine the creation of a systematic photographic record of the old sections of Beijing that were slated for destruction. This urge became even more pressing in 2001, when Beijing was chosen to host the 2008 Olympics. Zeng Li realized that many of the historic yet badly dilapidated areas of the old city would almost certainly be demolished by the municipal government, in an effort to spruce up the city’s image for the benefit of foreign visitors and the world media. The debate over urban renewal in the central districts of the capital was hardly new. Ever since the founding the People’s Republic in 1949, Beijing has witnessed a continuing struggle between the forces of urban renovation and those of preservation. In 1949, the four central districts of Beijing’s old city were filled mainly by one-story residential buildings--mostly courtyard-style houses arrayed along the narrow lanes of densely packed neighborhoods called hutongs. As the population of Beijing grew, some hutongs were torn down and replaced with new, low-rise, six-story housing. Nevertheless, until the late 1980s the main official response to the challenge of Beijing’s swelling population was to build new, standardized residential complexes on the city’s peripheries. In the long run, however, this strategy did little to protect the hutongs. Because housing maintenance was given such a low priority by the municipal government, Beijing's courtyard dwellings gradually deteriorated to a dangerous degree. By the end of the 1980s, Beijing's hutongs had won a reputation as crumbling, unhealthy quarters, and city officials increasingly described them as a blight on the reputation of the nation’s capital. In 1990, the Beijing municipal government embarked on a program of sweeping changes in the central city, adopting an ambitious master plan that aimed at the renovation of 8.2 million square meters of courtyard housing occupied by 400,000 households. The actual situation of the hutongs could, of course, be interpreted quite differently depending on one's vantage point. To city officials, they appeared as embarrassing relics of an earlier, almost feudal age, that were wholly unsuited for the capital of a powerful modern China. Such observers could see only dilapidated buildings afflicted with crumbling walls, rotting columns, leaky roofs, poor drainage, primitive toilet facilities, inadequate heat and ventilation, and lack of sunlight. Combined with the desperate overcrowding of the courtyard dwellings, where three generations of a family might share a single room, these conditions led many of Beijing’s planners to conclude that the hutongs were a national disgrace, and worthy only of destruction. For the residents of the hutongs, however, these obvious disadvantages were to a large degree offset by the lively and intimate lifestyle that these areas afforded. Thanks to their narrow lanes, originally designed to offer protection from Beijing’s notorious dust storms, hutongs were hospitable to pedestrian traffic but not easily accessible to automobiles. The very crowdedness of the courtyard dwellings encouraged a vital, constantly flowing street life. While living conditions were difficult, these neighborhoods were hardly slums; the hutong social structure was remarkably stable, most residents were employed, and public services were readily available. Most crucially, families that had lived for generations in the same hutong inevitably developed a network of close, nuanced relationships with neighboring families. The real appeal of hutong life was this extraordinarily intimate human texture, a quality impossible to re-create in the standardized apartment buildings that were Beijing's only residential alternative. The announced goal of the Beijing “housing renewal” of the 1990s was to improve the quality of life of hutong dwellers. As it was implemented by the new private real-estate developers who came to dominate Beijing’s urban-renewal process, however, renovation often amounted to the permanent relocation of hutong dwellers, who bitterly realized that they could not afford the market-rate rents that would be introduced following rehabilitation projects. As Zeng Li's interest in making a visual record of the hutongs became known, he would often receive phone calls from hutong residents or from members of preservation groups alerting him that bulldozers had been summoned to knock down a certain area. He would hurry there with his large-format camera; some of his pictures show the demolition already in progress. Most of the hutong dwellers that he encountered while photographing encouraged his project, because they realized that buildings like theirs were rapidly disappearing all over Beijing. Yet other people, Zeng Li recalls, would stop and brusquely ask him, “Why are you making these pictures? There is nothing beautiful here.” By 2000, there were increasing of photographers recording the destruction of Beijing’s hutongs. Zeng Li stands apart as one of the few photographers to expand the scope of his project beyond the hutongs, to encompass the story of the wider changes that had taken place in the housing of the capital’s inhabitants since the 1960s. He began systematically to photograph the different types of residential buildings that characterized succeeding decades. These included examples of the spartan six-story walk-up buildings of the 1960s and ‘70s, a period when the nation had scant resources to devote to housing; the 12-story midrise buildings of the 1980s, which began to appear after the state decided to allow market forces to play a role in developing the housing sector; and the soaring, ornately decorated luxury towers that began to dominate Beijing's skyline during the economic boom of the 1990s. It is characteristic of Zeng Li’s approach that he did not set out to highlight the most architecturally important or innovative buildings, but to create a visual archive of the residential structures that were the most typical of their kind. His photographs usually employ a straight-on viewpoint and avoid unusual camera angles or dramatic compositions. They did not initially elicit great enthusiasm from Beijing’s artists, who were busy exploring more theatrical and conceptual approaches to photography. Instead Zeng Li found his most appreciative audience among Chinese architects, who quickly realized that his photographs cast a revealing light on a part of China’s everyday built environment that had largely escaped serious attention. Zeng Li’s visual revelation of the unheralded yet ubiquitous buildings in which millions spent lived their lives amounted to an alternative history of the recent course of architecture in China. Another facet of Zeng Li’s fascination with Beijing’s architectural environment can be found in his series of photographs of industrial chimneys and smokestacks. He regards these as compelling symbols of China’s determination, in the 1950s and ‘60s, to achieve industrial self-sufficiency as rapidly as possible. This goal prompted the construction of factories large and small throughout the country--even in Beijing, the nation’s capital. While a few of the smokestacks in Zeng Li's photographs belong to factories that are still in operation, most now serve only to mark sites where working factories once stood. As such they are monumental reminders of China’s historic shift from an agricultural to an industrial society. Just as the small factories that once dotted Beijing are now disappearing because of environmental concerns, so the giant iron and steel factories that arose during the same era are now being closed or relocated. Among Zeng Li’s most memorable photographs are those made on the grounds of the Shougang Iron and Steel Company, which once occupied the leading ranks of China’s state enterprises. Founded in 1919 in what were then the western suburbs of Beijing, the company grew rapidly after 1949 to become one of China’s largest and most famous steel-producing establishments, employing more than 100,000 workers. Recently, as a result of Beijing’s growing alarm about the enormous pollution created by Shougang’s operations, it has been decided that the company’s steel-making facilities, which lie only 18 kilometers from Tiananmen Square, will be completely relocated to Hebei province by 2010. There have even been recent official discussions of turning the vast, 2-million-square-meter Shougang complex into an art district similar to the 798 Factory in Beijing's Dashanzi section. For Zeng Li, the conviction that such industrial enterprises form a vital part of modern China’s history eventually led him to travel to Guizhou province, in the country’s southwest, to photograph the sprawling Shuicheng Iron and Steel Works. Prior to 1949, there was virtually no industry in this mountainous region, which despite its natural resources was one of China’s poorest provinces. With the advent of the People’s Republic and the strategic decision to locate new industrial facilities deep in the country’s interior, the central government provided financing for the establishment of coal mines, chemical plants, and metallurgical plants, as well as a railway meant to connect Guizhou to its neighboring provinces. By 1960, the first regional iron and steel facility opened in Guizhou’s capital, Guiyang. The metal works that was subsequently was built in Shuicheng was one of the country’s largest steel facilities to be constructed entirely with Chinese resources, without the foreign assistance that had been common before the Sino-Soviet rift of the early 1960. The Shuicheng factory remains active today despite pollution concerns. Zeng Li relates that he was able to obtain permission to photograph there with the help of the editors at the Workers Publishing House in Beijing. He told them of his keen desire to photograph China’s historic factories, and they wrote letters on his behalf to the local authorities. Zeng Li wryly relates that even though the editors realized that he would work in his usual non-dramatic photographic style, they may have secretly hoped that he would accidentally make some beautiful pictures that could be of use to their publishing house. Overall, Zeng Li’s photographs of depopulated industrial zones, abandoned factory buildings, and shut-down blast furnaces suggest his fascination with the aftermath of the China’s epic rise to the status of industrial superpower in the course of a short half century. He shares this fascination with the filmmaker Wang Bing, whose monumental nine-hour documentary West of the Tracks (2003) explores the present-day ruins of the vast industrial complex in Shenyang, in the northeastern province of Liaoning. It is important to realize that both the photographer and the filmmaker are portraying local examples of a process that is occurring not only in China but world-wide: the decline of the labor-intensive resource-depleting industrial system that originated in the 19th century in Europe and the U.S. and then spread to the rest of the world. Today this system is under pressure everywhere, as we enter a new age of high-tech, computer-guided production and global markets. Examples of this historic process can be found in the decaying factories of the “rustbelt” in the U.S. northeast; in Russia, where the once-powerful Soviet steel industry has almost entirely withered away; and in the Ruhr Valley of Germany, once the steel-producing capital of Europe. Seen in this light, Zeng Li’s photographic project seems remarkably close in spirit to that of the German husband-and-wife team Bernd and Hilla Becher. Since the late 1950s, the Bechers have created a remarkable visual record of the vanishing traces of Europe’s former industrial culture. In their precise, objective, and purposely “non-artistic” photographs, we see an amazing array of blast furnaces, cooling towers, lime kilns, mine heads, grain elevators, and workers’ houses--all part of a vast industrial world which existed from the 1830s to the 1960s. The photographs of the Bechers, like those of the earlier German “New Objectivity” portraitist August Sander, are well known to Zeng Li. His photographs, like theirs, serve to remind us as how quickly entire social worlds, inhabited by countless millions of people, can dissolve when a new economic and technological era suddenly makes its appearance. Looking back at his photographs of the past decade, Zeng Li acknowledges that his conception of his own project has steadily expanded. Starting with the historic structures of the Ming Tombs, he enlarged his view to include the everyday architecture of China’s cities and then its historic factories. Now, he says, he intends to take his camera to the countryside, to assemble a visual record of the momentous changes that are occurring as a powerful wave of 21st-century modernization takes hold in China’s traditional agricultural regions. These photographs, it is safe to predict, will take their place in the unrivaled historical panorama of China’s transformation that Zeng Li is quietly, patiently creating.

A thousand words: Yang Fudong talks about The Seven Intellectuals

A thousand words: Yang Fudong talks about The Seven Intellectuals
ArtForum, Sept, 2003 by Yang Fudong

In one of my earlier works, the photographic triptych The First Intellectual, I touched on a concept that still preoccupies me: One wants to accomplish big things, but in the end it doesn't happen. Every educated Chinese person is very ambitious, and obviously there are obstacles--obstacles coming either from "out there," meaning society or history, or from "inside," from within oneself. In this work you could see that "the first intellectual" has been wounded. He has blood running down his face and wants to respond, but he doesn't know at whom he should throw his brick; he doesn't know if the problem stems from himself or society. Ideals and the way they distinguish people, but also the way that they can unite people and encourage them to form bands, partnerships, brotherhoods--this was something I wanted to investigate in more depth, taking my time to do so. When I eventually completed An Estranged Paradise, I started defining this new, vast project, which will untold as five different films. Because I feel that this topic is extremely important to an understanding of China, both past and present, I wanted to articulate several temporalities together: one that is really ancient, the stories of "The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove"; another set during the '50s and '60s, when there was a profound questioning of the status and role of intellectuals (and so the films will have a clear '50s, '60s kind of New Cinema flavor); and, ultimately, one dealing with the concerns and ideals of today.

The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove were a group of Chinese scholars and poets who fled the troubles accompanying the transition between China's Wei and Jin dynasties during the mid-third century. They assembled in a bamboo grove, where they forgot all of their worldly troubles, losing themselves in pure thought and discussion. This sort of retreat was typical of the Taoist-oriented ch'ing-t'an ("pure conversation") movement, which advocated freedom of individual expression and hedonistic escape from extremely corrupt politics. Their ideal consisted of following their impulses and acting spontaneously, and being sensitive to the beauties of nature.

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So the first film in this project stands for me like the beginning of a book, the preface; it's an introduction of the story and the fate of these "new" seven intellectuals. "The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove" doesn't exist as a book; there are legends, popular stories, hearsay knowledge, and, of course, what's interesting is also the distortion, the fact that the stories have continually been adapted to changing contexts and times and to the intentions of different storytellers. That's also something that I want to investigate, in light of contemporary China and its relationship to history--this state we're in, which can be described as a moment when we have to negotiate our past while imagining our present.

The first film shows the intellectuals traveling to and dwelling on Huangshan, a very famous mountain situated in the southern part of Anhui Province. The landscape, the nature, is just beautiful there. The peaks rise one on top of another, and the pines and cypresses are luxuriantly green. There are almost a hundred big and small peaks and ridges, and plenty of lakes, brooks, deep pools: It's a kind of dreamscape. I really like showing this sort of atmosphere--very calm, very beautiful, but with a strange, disturbing aspect, exactly like in a dream. Or like when you wake and you cannot accurately recall the dream. Still, a feeling lingers that you had a strange or even frightening dream, and you know if you try to describe it to someone else, that person just won't be able to relate; you can only keep it inside you. In our real life, it seems that where we are heading is always the opposite of where we want to go. It is the same with the dream. We are dreaming we are somewhere, but when we wake up, we find that we are somewhere else. Perhaps this reflects the perfection of the dream.

My new film investigates how this dreamlike environment affects relationships and discussions among the intellectuals--as well as their solitary meditations on individuality and liberty. We need to pursue something, and then we have our spiritual sustenance and belief. In the subsequent films, the intellectuals will be shown living in a building, in a metropolis--say, Shanghai; in a village in the countryside in the company of peasants and villagers; and on a deserted island where they'll start to invent a new world from scratch by defining new modalities of social life and interaction and a new distribution of labor. (Of course, the separation of material and immaterial labor and capital will be questioned.) And in the fifth and last part, eventually the intellectuals will return to the city--and so return to reality, confronting their contemporaries with their new experiences.

At the 50th Venice Biennale, Shanghai-based artist Yang Fudong presented The Seven Intellectuals M Bamboo Forest, 2003, the first part of his new filmic pentalogy, The Seven Intellectuals, an adaptation of the traditional Chinese stories known as "The Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove." The first Installment (shot in 35 mm black and white) begins the series' exploration of the ambiguous position of intellectuals in contemporary China--their longing for individual freedom in the shifting context of an emerging capitalist economy. Yang, who was born in 1971 in Beijing and graduated from the China Academy of Fine Arts, Hangzhou, has shown an interest in the conundrums of idealism in his earlier works, such as the photographic triptych The First Intellectual, 2000, where he reflects on the difficulty of finding and adopting a rebellious and critical attitude in a society undergoing changes that are as rapid as they are profound. On other occasions, his approach has been poetic and nostalgic, showing stylistic references to Chinese films of the '30s and '40s, such as Yuan Muzhi's Street Angel (1937) and Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town (1948). Yang's Internationally praised first feature film, An Estranged Paradise (2002), tells the story of Zhuzi, a young intellectual befallen by a strange illness, a restlessness that arrives with the rainy season and disappears with its end. In Yang's own words, the film stands as "a meditation on life," in which nature seems Intimately bound to psychology. It is a poignant convergence of mind and outside world that presages the first episode of The Seven Intellectuals.

Chinese Art in the news

Art in the news from Artzinechina.com

A painting by Liu Xiaodong sold in November for $2.7 million, shattering the record set by Zhang Xiaogang to become the most expensive Chinese contemporary art work ever sold at auction. The painting, "Three Gorges：Newly displaced Population," was sold to a Singapore collector in 2005. But the piece was put up for auction and the Chinese Poly auction house sold it today. The buyer was Zhang Lan, the founder of the South Beauty chain of expensive Chinese restaurants.

A conference called“The Reality and Dream of Chinese Contemporary Art” was held on November 17 at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Artists Liu Xiaodong, Xia Xing, Cui Xiuwen and the critics Yi Jinna, Zhao Li, Yu Ding and Feng Boyi discussed the topic “Can artists create artworks freely when they live in the market”drew lots of attention from the audience.

The Shanghai Art Fair arranged 2000 square meters space for 50 Young Chinese Contemporary Artists under 35 years old. Ma Liang, Han Zijian, Zhanghua, Xiang Qinghua, Zhou Jianhua, Liang Haopeng and Shen Na attended this special exhibition.

Zhai Mo, a 35-year-old abstract artist, will set out alone by sailboat from Shanghai for his around-the-globe voyage on January 1, 2007. His press conference was held at Chang An Club in Beijing last month. Zhai is hoping to become the first Chinese to travel around –the globe by sailboat.

Gu Ya, A 32-year-old woman from Yi Liang village in Yunnan Province, has created more than one thousand abstract pen–and-ink paintings in past three years, but she was only educated as high school level and never received art training. When asked to explain the meaning behind her images, Ms. Gu spoke in a language no one was able to decipher. The artist strange art and language has drawn enormous coverage from the media and on the internet. Now, CCTV – the national television network – plans an interview in the hopes of figuring out what this woman is saying and drawing.

Now in his 80s, famous Chinese abstract artist Zhao Wuji, who lives in Paris, was named last month an honorary professor of Fudan University. Five of his traditional art works have recently sold at auction for over $1 million, the highest being a 1958 composition that sold for $3.1 million – the highest price ever fetched by a living artist in China. Among contemporary artists, Liu Xiaodonghas sold for the highest price.

“Visible-Invisible”Chinese abstract painting exhibition was opened in One Moon Art Gallery which was located on Beijing Ditan Park on Dec. 2. Based on this exhibition, the seminar named “Chinese abstract painting” was held on Dec. 3. The artists of the exhibition were Chen Ruobing, Li Yang, Lin Yan, Tan Ping, Tang Kaizhi, Wang Guangle, Xu Hongming, Zhang Fan, Zhou Yangming.And the attendees of the seminar were: Gao Minglu, He Guiyan, Huang Du, Lei Hong, Li Xu, Liu Libing, Shao Yiyang, Sheng Wei, Wang Dunting, Wang Luyan, Wang Nanming, Wang Xiaojian, Zhu Jinshi, Zhu Qingsheng, Zhao Xun.

Christie's completed a record breaking auction of 20th Century Chinese art today with sales of $67.9 million worth of Asian contemporary and 20th century Chinese art works. Zhang Xiaogang's 1993 work, "Tiananmen Square," sold for $2.3 million, the second highest price ever paid for a work by a Chinese avant garde artist. Zhang Xiaogang had another work sell for $2.3 million and two other paintings sell for close to $1 million, making him easily the most sought after Chinese contemporary artist. Also, Yue Minjun's 1993 piece, "Kites," sold for $962,000 -- a record for a work by the artist. And a Zeng Fanzhi piece, "Mask 1999 No. 3," sold for 816,400 -- a record for the artist.

Two works by Chinese contemporary artists were banned from the Shanghai Art Fair held this week at the ShanghaiMART. The works were by Huang Rui and Cang Xin. The Cang Xin work portrayed him licking a Mao figurine. The works were being shown by the Hong Kong gallery 10 Chancery Lane. The gallery's other images -- including photographs of Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming undressing and standing naked with a large group of artists and other people -- were not taken down.

The latest issue of Time magazine features an article about the boom in Chinese contemporary art. The article, by Simon Elegant, is called "The Great China Sale," and it explains how hot the art market is right now. The article also mentions that Christie's auction in New York last week, one of Zhang Xiaogang's paintings sold for $1.36 million. The article also says that the British collector Charles Saatchi paid $1.5 million at a London auction for another piece by Zhang Xiaogang.

A man calling himself the “Yanan Clay Sculpture King,”Wang Wenhai, has accused the well-known Beijing sculptor Sui Jianguo, who is the professor of Central Academy of Fine Arts, of violating the copyright by creating a sculpture called Sleeping Chairman Mao. Wang, who worked in the Revolutionary Museum in Yan'an, the central province of Shaanxi, has devoted much of his life to creating sculptures of Mal. In 2002, Wang said he created a sculpture of Mao sleeping. Mr. Wang,who says Mao is his hero, also say Sui Jianguo's Mao in his work "Nightmare," also depicts Mao as the devil. Wang told one Chinese newspaper he was so angry about the image he fainted. This case was heard at a court in Beijing Chaoyang District People Court on November 21 2006. No word yet on the verdict.

In 2006 Taipei Biennale, the young artist from Guangzhou, Cao Fei, created what is being called her National Father project. As a curator, Cao Fei planned the whole sculpture solo exhibition for her father, the sculptor Cao Chongen. At the exhibition, she exhibited six small bronze sculptures of the famous Chinese leader Sun Yat Sen in his different time such as youngster Sun Yat Sen, the Great President, Great Marshal, etc. Cao Chongen, Cao Fei’s father, created many of the Sun Yat Sen sculptures that are now displayed in China.

"It’s all right" in Hangzhou-opening December 15

Organizer: China Academy of Art, New Media Department
Co-organizer: Shanghai BizArt Art Center
Opening: December 15th, 2006, from 17:00 to 20:00

Curators: Geng Jianyi, Fan Li, Shen Ligong, Yang Zhenzhong, Xu Zhen
Participating artists:

Chen Xiaoyun, Chu Yun, Cui Shaohan, Feng Chen, Fei Pingguo, Geng Jianyi, He An, Huang Kui, Jiang Zhuyun, Jin Feng, Jin Feng (lao), Kan Xuan, Li Wen, Liu Wei, Peng Yun, Shao Yi, Shen Ligong, Shi Qing, Shi Yong, Sun Huiyuan, Sun Xun, Wang Xiaofeng, Wang Xin, Wu Juehui, Xu Zhen, Yang Lu, Yang Qingqing, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhang Ding, Zhang Ruyu, Zhang Lehua, Zhang Liaoyuan, Zhang Moyi, Zhang Peili, Zhang Xutao, Zhang Qing, Zheng Guogu, Zhong Su, Zhu Yu, Zhu Yun

Venue opening hours: December 16th to 20th, 2006
Everyday from 10:00 a.m. to 17:00
Venue: Hu Qing Tang Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine
No. 95, Da Jin Xiang, Qing He Fang, West Lake District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province
(Factory at the back of the group of ancient houses, at the feet of the mountain Wushan)
Website: http://www.nma.com.cn/nqnp/

The idea of organizing the contemporary art exhibition, "It’s all right", was suddenly decided as we found the perfect exhibition venue: an old factory of the Hu Qing Yu Tang Museum of Traditional Chinese Medicine about to be demolished in the town center. The new media art department of the China Art Academy and BizArt Art Center took this decision in July and maintained the same dynamic attitude since then: from the concept of the show to its accomplishment, although the whole process lasted six months only. This wouldn’t have been possible without the efforts of each of the participants. The main problem the exhibition has to face now is the unforeseeable elements. The new media art department of the China Art Academy and BizArt Art Center always focused on each artist’s progression in the production of their works. Each show include some risks: it is sometime uncertain for the artists themselves to know what the last shape of their works will be as they enter the exhibition room. The artworks projects were severely selected on the basis of various criteria of quality: the selection was sometime cruel to the point that it nearly violated art rules. This constitutes a particular aspect of this exhibition that can be seen before its opening. Here again, each artist showed their understanding and their responsibility sense when collaborating. This conscientious attitude exceeded all our expectations. Until now, the exhibition’s process and preparation was fully synchronized, which reveals the efforts of each of its participant.

Zhao Bandi Solo-Exhibition: Dec. 16 – Jan. 20, 2006

Zhao Bandi Solo-Exhibition: Dec. 16 – Jan. 20, 2006
Opening Reception: Dec. 16, 5.00-7.00 pm 2006

ShanghART Gallery is proud to present solo-exhibition by Zhao Bandi (b. 1966). Zhao Bandi’s practice encompasses photography, video and performance with issues of concern to contemporary society.

Zhao Bandi has made his reputation with staged scenarios where he and his toy panda play out everyday situations. Sometimes these consist of scenes from the life of a single father. Other times, the panda assumes the role of partner and lover. The panda is treated and acts as a ‘real’ character with a voice of its own that appears as speech bubbles in the photos. The toy panda becomes a spokesperson, allowing the artist to touch upon challenging issues and messages with an appealing sense of humor.

Zhao Bandi was born in 1966 in Beijing, where he lives and works. He graduated from the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1988. Since 1993, his works have been shown at international exhibitions, including the Sydney Biennale (1998), 48th Venice Biennale (1999), 1st Guangzhou Triennale (2002) and the 5th AsiaPacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (2006). His project “Zhao Bandi & Panda” has been on public display in Shanghai, Milan, London and elsewhere.

Still Life by Jia Zhangke tonight

In he land of DVD's, it is relatively hard to find the works by some Chinese directors such as Zhang Yuan, Zhang Yimou and Jia Zhangke. Here is a rare viewing:
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STILL LIFE (San Xia Hao Ren)
Directed by Jia Zhangke
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Wednesday, 6 December 2006, 8:30 pm
Kodak Super Cinema World (details below)
70 RMB
No RSVP necessary - just come and enjoy!
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Director Jia Zhangke, actor Han San Ming and actress Zhao Tao will
attend and participate in a Q&A session with the audience at the end of
the screening. This is a truly unusual opportunity to share insights
with the creators of the film.
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During the 63rd Venice Film Festival last September, Chinese mainland
director Jia Zhangke walked away with this year's Gold Lion award for
best movie with "Still Life." He's the second Chinese mainland director
to win this major film award, following the legendary Zhang Yimou, who
won the award in 1992 and 1999.

His prize-winning movie, Still Life, is a documentary-style film was
shot in documentary style in the Yangtze River valley town of Fengjie,
which was destroyed by the building of China's Three Gorges Dam. "Still
Life" beautifully captures this town and the lives and relationships of
those living within it. Even in the face of deconstruction, these people
still try to pursue beautiful loves and lives. The film tells the love
stories of two separated couples who meet again in the village. A miner
comes back to the village to look for his wife, while another nurse
returns for her husband. In the end, one pair of lovers choose to
reunite, while the other pair choose to part. Nonetheless, the four all
learn the essence of true love (excerpt from an article published in
www.crienglish.com).

Please join us!
_____________________________________________________________

Kodak Super Cinema World
Metro City, 5th Floor (tell the taxi driver "Mei Luo Cheng")
1111 Zhao Jia Bang Lu (in Xu Jia Hui, across from the Gateway
Shopping Center)

For additional information, call Connie Gao at 1370-191-5733.

Questions for Tan Dun

Questions for Tan Dun
By DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: December 3, 2006

Q: As an experimental composer who has used crumpled paper, rocks and swishing water sounds in your music, how did you wind up at the staid Metropolitan Opera, where your new opera, “The First Emperor,” makes its debut this month? Do you see yourself as an avant-garde composer?

I see myself as a spiritual mathematician. What I do is kind of one plus one. I figure out that one plus one equals one.

That sounds very Buddhist. What does it mean?

It has many layers. I have conducted orchestras around the world, but my favorite instruments are still the ones you find in nature — water, stone, ceramics. I add my past one and my current one together on one stage.

You grew up in a remote village in the Hunan Province of China, without a television or a radio or any knowledge of Western music.

Before I ever saw a Western orchestra, I wanted to be a shaman. Only they understand the talk between the wind and the birds and the stones.

During the Cultural Revolution, you and your parents, who were both intellectuals, were forced to work in rice paddies on a government commune in order to be “re-educated” according to Mao’s plan.

I stayed two years cleaning the bathrooms and feeding pigs, and planting rice in the countryside. I have to tell you — those two years, I enjoyed them. I started to collect all those farmers’ folk songs during that two years.

And those were the songs that saved you when you applied to the Central onservatory in Beijing, which was reopened after Mao’s death.

It closed during the Cultural Revolution, and all the professors went to feed pigs. So when they called for students, thousands of composers showed up. They tested me. They said, “Can you play some Mozart?” I said: “What are you talking about. Who is Mozart?” Then they said, “What are you doing here?” I said: “I want to be a musician. I can do 500 folk songs.”

Later, you won a scholarship to Columbia University and played a violin on street corners to earn a living.

It was West Fourth Street. That time it was very good. In an hour I can make maybe $30. Amazing. I still see those people who used to share the spot with me. “Hey, Tan, where are you playing?” I say, “I play at Lincoln Center, but inside.”

Where do you live now?

I have a house in Chelsea. It has six floors, and the top floor is my writing studio. I always write in the morning. I work six hours at a time. I use a huge Ping-Pong table as my writing desk because I need the space to orchestrate my scores.

Your score for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” which you wrote in all of 10 days, won both a Grammy and an Oscar and presumably brought you great worldly riches.

It doesn’t make much difference if you have a lot of money or not. Of course, there’s a difference for the poor, but for people making $1 million a year or people making $100,000 a year, there’s not much difference. For artists, you are so busy you have no time to spend money anyway.

Western conductors and composers are typically described as temperamental and egomaniacal, but you seem pretty amiable.

I am very easygoing. I am not a person to be nervous at all. When you relax, you can make miracles. A lot of poetry and beautiful lines are said taking showers, and I hear a lot of beautiful melodies out of the bathroom.

Why do you think people sing in the shower?

A shower is very spiritual. I take at least two or three showers a day. I was always in the river when I was a kid in Hunan. I listened to women singing work songs and washing the laundry in the river.

Can that experience ever be recaptured?

Now I couldn’t do it in the Hudson River, so I do it in the shower.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/magazine/03wwln_q4.html?_r=1&oref=login

New Book: Performance Art in China

Performance Art in China takes as its subject one of the most dynamic
and controversial areas of experimental art practice in China. In his
comprehensive study, author Thomas J. Berghuis, introduces and
investigates the idea of the ?role of the mediated subject of the
acting body in art,? a notion grounded in the realization that the
body is always present in art practices, as well as their subsequent,
secondary representations.

Through a series of in-depth case studies, Berghuis reveals how during
the past 25 years Chinese performance artists have ?acted out? their
art, a process involving the preparation of material, as well as
planning and arranging the way the body operates in space, often in
opposition to the principles governing correct behavior in the public
domain.

In addition to a 25 year chronology of events, a systematic index of
places, names and key terms, as well as a bibliography and a glossary
in English and Chinese, Performance Art in China also offers the
reader numerous previously unpublished photos and documents, making it
a must for anyone interested in contemporary art today.

Title: Performance Art in China
Author: Thomas J. Berghuis
Publishing City: Beijing
Publishing Date: November 2006
ISBN: 988-99265-9-8
Document Type: Hardcover
Book Language: English
Pages: 320
Color Images: 200+
Dimensions: 27 x 21 cm
Retail Price: $40.00

Copies can be ordered online at: www.timezone8.com

International distribution to bookstores will follow over the next few
months.

Interview with Steven Wang

Steven Wang

Position: An assistant director
Films: Fearless, Mission Impossible III.
Background: graduated at Film Academy in Shanghai University, working 5 years in Chinese film making industry, now study in New York Film Academy.

(Below are the interviews, I simply summarized, A is Alex, S is Steven Wang)

A: How do you think of the film market in China?

S: The whole market was divided by three groups. The first is American, Japan, and Korea. They occupy the largest part. American was the first one entering China. Under the influence of Hollywood, films from Japan and Korea developed very fast, especially Korea. In recent years, Korean films are more and more commercialize. Some famous films from Korea have been introduced into China; it is very obvious that Korea has ranked into the train like Japan and America. The second group was Hong Kong, since the import quota license has been canceled, Hong Kong films have greatly impact Chinese Mainland, and in the same time, films from Taiwan, who used to be as important as Hong Kong, have quitted this stage. The third group was a few excellent directors in Mainland; they once operated several ‘successful’ commercial films.

A: What are the objective conditions of work in China?

S: It can be summarized by a Chinese traditional idiom “Yu Long Hun Za” (good and evil people mixed up). Most film making groups are from Hong Kong; because the limitation and shrink of Mainland market, those groups crushed into Mainland. They use the advantage of geography and cheap labors to produce and publish films. About the propagandizing part, they are occupied by the advertisement making groups from Taiwan. They have adequate experience by plagiarizing, absorbing, and imitating advertisement creativities from foreign countries, especially Japan. Now, they have formed their own expert groups to pack and propagandize. While in the mainland, under the film-making mode from Hong Kong and Taiwan in several years, some small brands and producing groups have been built up.

A: How do you think the future of film industry in China?

S: There are infinite potential in China now. Since the national power strengthened, the brand of culture has been more and more emphasized. Due to the particularity of film making environment, it needs special management and reasonable salary distribution system. And after joining into WTO, the communication of culture has been broaden, the art quality and commercial factors of Chinese films have been forced to run up. Moreover, not only the capital from foreign countries, but also the producing money from inland has greatly increased. It activates the producing environment. In addition, some talent persons choose to return to China, to join into producing domestic films. They helped to advance the producing level, and the new management they brought into is forcing the old system to step out of the market.