Another thought post-Futurism lecture...

After hearing the Chinese university student’s question about for whom and for what the city’s development serves I began to think about what constitutes a city. There are many different venues for culture here: galleries, nightclubs, bars, restaurants, too name a few, but these things all seems to be western approximations of what city life is “supposed” to be like. Being a student living here from abroad, I am most often exposed to these kinds of foreign-designed activities. Most often, these activities are, as I said before, merely approximations and therefore are most often destined to be mediocre and lacking in quality. For example, many western musical acts that come to Shanghai to perform have only a small following from their home countries, but upon arrival in China they are immediately put into the spotlight and interviewed by all of major foreign media sources. It seems that China, and specifically Shanghai, is being bogged down with such tremendous expectations about its growing arts industry that it is struggling to catch up. They can do as the Futurists promote- create things in lightening speed leaving no room for the past- but who does this benefit? Who is creating these venues of culture and where are the profits going? As of right now, it seems that are the arts are so intertwined with foreign money that any form of culture that exists outside this money cannot sustain itself. If these approximations of Western culture in China are so inherent to the makeup of a city, we need to ask who is telling us so and for what reasons. From my point of view, they (at least for now) predominantly serve those who created them: foreigners working in Shanghai. The final question that comes to my mind is how can venues that exist outside of the foreign money mechanism be created and sustained?

Speedism, A Celebration of Futurism

The 3rd lecture of the Futurism series, Futurist Visions in Architecture for Shanghai (featuring Dutch Pavilion designer and artist John Körmeling; visual artist Alicia Framis; artist-architect collective Speedism; and architect Koon Wee) opened up a new way for me to think about the use of Photoshop. Previously, I would do as I have always done: shoot a photograph, scan the negative, and then let Photoshop work its magic, but after yesterday’s talk I began to think about Photoshop as performance art.
This was all thanks to Speedism, a European duo doing incredible things with Photoshop. At the lecture, Speedism told a story of Shanghai’s development using a Photoshop created model city, a gray, bleak, and dark landscape of construction and smoke stacks. The story goes like this: Shanghai grows in power, wealth, prestige…, the world focuses its attention on her (they decided Shanghai was a female), the audience then finds out that Futurist Andre Marinetti is controlling the city with a version of his brain that sits on the roof of the tallest building, the brain then develops a tumor that begins to infect the whole city, and Shanghai begins to deconstruct. As one of the artists brings us through the plot, the other moves us through this virtual city, letting us feast our eyes on a city that is constantly being broken down and built up. Simultaneously, a loud heavy base beat is playing in the background. The cursor (instead of an arrow, it was a watch- appropriately enough) moves to the beat, stopping and starting as the music falls in and out.
Although I did not necessarily appreciate the content of their story, I really enjoyed watching them twist the parameters of Photoshop. They were able to take something that is only seen as means to making a finishing product and turn it into a constantly changing and never finished product, or a performance.

Does a Future Lie in Typography?

“In the long run, China will endure the turbulent and unprecedented upheavals of urbanization and internationalization. Art inspired by these times is consequently sure to be especially engaging and dazzling”

-       Speech given at An International Discourse on New Chinese Video and Photography, 31 January 2004, San Diego Museum of Art Curator, Betti-Sue Hertz

 

            A current running through the discussion on the impact of new media on contemporary art has been a question of how art can engage in the issues and problems that pervade society in an age of desensitization, disconnection and image overload. For Chinese contemporary art, this question is especially important.

            How can Chinese artists address what is going on around them in China and in the world, while trying to maintain a regional identity? How can their work engage with the issues that face contemporary Chinese society? Not only must their work respond to the simultaneous launch of China into the international scene and rapid domestic development, it must also grapple with the issue of how to do so in a world ruled by techonology.

            The 2004 Shanghai Biennale, which opened on September 28^th 2004, focused on this question and, more specifically, the influence of new media on Chinese art and international art. It was entitled Techniques of the Visible in English and yingxiang shengcun (Media Existence) in Chinese. This title was meant to show the complexity of the issues by illustrating the parallel between the two phrases and the shared interest in both the east and west. The show centers on two main questions: how does contemporary art reflect and evaluate the influence of technology on humanity? How may art use technology to enrich human experience?

            In order to answer these questions the Biennale utilizes the Chinese concept of “ying” which encompasses all phenomena related to sight. Here “ying” can be used to mean the way in which artists can create work that engages and connects with its viewer, instead of only providing the viewer with something to see. “Ying” is where artwork can be transformed from merely an image (among so many others) to something truly “visible.” It is here where the visible and the invisible meet. The concept of “ying” is particularly useful in relation to an essay written by art critic John Berger entitled Small Steps Towards a Theory of the Visible. In the essay, Berger argues that as the world becomes more and more image saturated “appearances have become volatile” (Berger). Art does not provoke, it entertains. How can artists create work that puts “ying” into practice by engaging its viewer and bringing him or her on a journey with the artist through the work.

            The Shanghai Biennale aimed to show that with the increasing relevance of this concern, attention is directed away from the “east/west dichotomy” and more towards “the relationship between technology and human existence” (Course Reader, Ying, Xu Jiang) As new media’s role in contemporary art becomes increasingly important, the conceptual understanding of art (What constitutes art? How can art be distinguished from other forms of expression?) is becoming more and more global. In an article entitled Ying by Xu Jiang, the President of China Academy of Art, a more in depth discussion of the role “ying” in Chinese contemporary art takes place. He writes that the 2004 Biennale also aimed to emphasize that for Chinese artists, this global issue must be addressed in the context of maintaining a regional identity. They suggest that perhaps the use of the concept “ying” can be the vehicle by which Chinese contemporary art can develop domestically and internationally.

            When looking at contemporary Chinese art, especially in the past 10 years, we can see the rapid rise of a number of artists on the international scene. Particularly, we can look at Xu Bing who has exhibited in numerous museums and galleries all around the world. In an interview with Xu, he discusses the role of globalization in Chinese art. He states that “contemporary art” in China has become boring. Instead of creating what Berger would call the “visible,” it is wrought with themes and images that have become somewhat trite. To him, artists working within the contemporary Chinese art scene have taken on the idea that “you are an artist, so whatever you do is valuable.” In doing so, they forget the “ultimate goal of art,” which is to create something involving “creative superiority” (Course Reader, Interview with Xu Bing).  In using the word “artist” in reference to themselves, they have allowed themselves to create “substandard work.”     

According to Xu, artists today have become too narrow and have “increasingly lost touch with the times and the social context.” As art becomes more and more global, it has become easier and easier for artists to see what kind of art is valuable on the international market and create something to that effect. Young artists see the successes of older artists like Xu and try to mold themselves into a similar model. Thus, the scene is dominated by a huge influx of the same kinds of art work, much without any of what Xu would call “creative superiority.” Xu Bing sees the future of Chinese art, not in “contemporary art,” but in the world of “practical or commercial art” such as graphic design and typography. In this way, the use of new media can be looked at as a place for Chinese artists to create something fresh or something that is able to more genuinely connect with the current social context China is facing.

            The idea that contemporary art in China has become “boring” echoes with many Chinese artists. Another such artist is Lu Jie, who has also risen to stardom in the contemporary art scene. Like Xu Bing, Lu Jie has become internationally recognized. Lu Jie and Xu Bing share similar views, although Lu Jie seems to be much more critical of the contemporary art scene in China. In 1999 he and Qiu Zhijie curated the Long March Project: A Walking Visual Exhibition, which was a five-month traveling art show that followed the route of the original long march. In the description of the Long March Project written by Lu Jie and Qui Zhijie, many concerns and grievances with the direction Chinese art has moved are expressed. They write that contemporary art has moved from 1. masses to elite 2.  private studios to hierarchal structures (such as the biennale and blockbuster exhibitions) and  3. China to the international world.  They also express apprehension about the future of the contemporary art scene in China, a scene that exists in an increasingly global spotlight. The aim of the project was to address these concerns by bringing contemporary art to the people or “peripheral population” of China through a moving exhibit.

            In an interview with Lu Jie, he explains the aim of the project and his thoughts on the development of contemporary art. He blames the international market for inserting western intellectual jargon (issues like post colonialism and globalization) into Chinese contemporary artwork, standardizing a set of topics that all “Chinese contemporary art work” must deal with, but that most actually fail to truly engage with. Like Xu Bing, Lu also feels that contemporary art has lost a sense of “creative superiority.” Although it might have attained elite status on the international scene, its ability to engage with Chinese history and society has become “shallower and shallower.” He argues that a deeper understanding of the local context is necessary for the future of the art scene. He calls for subtle exploration of this “period’s traces, rescuing it from canonized discourse” (Course Reader, Interview with Lu Jie).

            Perhaps Lu Jie would agree with Xu Bing in his conviction that the future lies in commercial art. After attending the typography lecture during the Shanghai Literary Festival, I have to agree that art forms such as graphic design have momentous potential. Maybe it will be in such art forms that the concept of “ying” can be utilized, creating art work that is able to maintain a cultural and regional identity, while still acting within a global context.

 

 

Syllabus tweak

Dear All,

Please note the slight change to the schedule on the syllabus.

Week 05/ 14
A Close Look at Performing Arts in China Continued. DA
Guest: Alison Friedman

A Close Look at Photography and Documentation Practices I
Guest: Mathieu Borysevicz

Week 05/ 21
A Close Look at Photography and Documentation Practices Continued. DA

Week 05/ 28
Quiz

A Close Look at Video and New Media in China
DA
Reading:
The Future: In Whose Hands?
Guests: Qiu Anxiong and Aaajiao

Week 06/14
FINALS/ MINI-CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

Contemporary Ink Painting at Doland

Keeping the tradition of Chinese ink painting alive was the aptly titled Contemporary Ink Painting show at the Duolun Museum of Modern Art, which opened on Tuesday. Featuring an array of artists from different countries using a variety of mediums and techniques, each artist used Chinese ink in some way. Some chose video, others sculpture, with most just worked on a canvas or paper. To be frank, the traditional two-dimensional ink paintings, while sometimes possessing interesting content, mostly bored me and came off as very decorative (in the bad way, not the good one). What I found myself drawn to most were the large scale, abstract pieces which were all quite minimal, and said more about the process rather than the product. The strength of the exhibition, I suppose, was the meeting of the traditional form and the modern artist. Observing what an artist of this time does with a medium with milllenia of history and techniques. With a common medium, each artists' individual aescthetic preference became the focus In the end some failed, but most succeeded. For me, the ones that succeeded seemed to reject the traditional use of the ink, and instead used it to create the content-less works I mentioned earlier. In addition, the artists themselves were an interesting bunch, ranging from young to old, and foreign to native. The names that stick out in my mind are Li Huasheng, Barbara Edelstein (wife of JJ, the Art in Translation teacher) and even yu Youhan had two pieces, both very much in his black and white abstract style.

I'm torn when I think of the future of ink painting in China, at least based on the show at Duolun. The least interesting seemed to be the artists who relied on formerly established traditions, while the more contemporary pieces that seemed to not even acknowledge the medium stood above. Is the future of Chinese Ink painting a move away from traditional forms and techniques? Go to Duolun and see for yourself.

Duolun Museum of Modern Art

Li Huasheng's piece (the title escapes me)

Last Friday's Performace

I thoroughly enjoyed last week's performance. It was great to finally get to see something similar to what ewe have been watching on a projector for the past few weeks with my own eyes. 

What I thought was the best part about the performance was how it made use of a few simple props and transformed their meaning from scene to scene without going through drastic set and costume changes. One example of this is the use of the chairs. At one point they were acting a kitchen countertop, another simply places to sit, and in another weights that had to be carried without the use of the floor.  I also liked the use of the red handkerchief. When I first saw it (coming out of the man's pocket) my mind jumped to a magician's act. When I saw it for the second time (draped over the performer's head) my mind immediately jumped to torture (likely because of all the recent news). And then, for the third time (when the covered woman was placed next to a man) my mind jumped to arranged marriage. I thought this use of props was incredibly well done. 

Also, I liked that I was able to watch the performers come from the same seats as the audience was sitting in and walk on to stage. Again, we saw transformation. I was able to watch him or her transform from an audience member to a performer and back again many times throughout the show. 

More on...

POLY ART. 

After some fairly easy digging I came across an article on one Mrs. Gisele Croes, a Belgian woman with an incredibly interesting story.  

Currently, Mrs. Croes works as a sort of relic hunter, tracking down old Chinese relics to sell to the Chinese government for lofty sums. Officially, she works as an "art appraiser and dealer" but in fact her job is much more complex than this title suggests. 

The PLA, the world's largest standing army, is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to bring back Chinese art treasures. Additionally, the PLA strategy over the next five years is to dip further into China'sforeign-currency reserves (which are dwindling post- financial crisis, despite their recent purchase of US bonds) to buy celebrated Western masterpieces, often at prices above their auction-market value. Now, with the opening of the Beijing Olympics and the coming Shanghai Expo, the PLA is on a fervent mission to acquire more and more relics and subsequently open more and more museums.

Mrs. Croes plays an interesting role in this acquisition. Her job is to locate such works and deliver and she is often successful. (This success has something to do with her ties with the Mao era Chinese government. In 1965, she worked as one of the few Communist foreigners in Chinese government doing propaganda art). In the industry Croes is known as "The Empress" because she is able to find so many rare pieces. 

The PLA's mad rush to buy such pieces has actually caused a problem for many auction houses. The more the PLA buys these pieces at a above market value, the more the value of the pieces gets artificially inflated. There are many auction houses that are now scrambling to isolate the works from the PLA before they have a chance to buy them.

Also, doing a bit of research also turned up another interesting story which involves speculation as to what money the PLA is using to buy the relics. James Mulvenon, deputy director of the Defense Group at the Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis says "Poly's use of arms sales to fund the operation is probable". The PLA's commercial arm in North America, PTK International, between 1987 and 1994 sold $200 million in light semi-automatic weapons to gun dealers in the U.S. The question is how much of this money is going towards the acquisition of Chinese relics?

 

  

Shanghai MoCA

MoCA Shanghai has a great exhibition entitled  "Merging Emerging-Art, Utopia and Virtual Reality" running currently. 

The exhibit attempts to show how art and technology interact through various new media projects. Specifically, it aims to show the way in which new media has influenced human behavior and habitat. 

My favorite of these projects is one that depicts China's most developed cities (pictured left) in shambles, crumbling amidst what you can a imagine to be a fog of chemical clouds and smoke stacks. Picture the Shanghai World Financial Center rusted and sprinkled with acid rain, then scale it down, and you have a future model of the world's developed cities. 

Each piece of the work is intricately placed. No detail is left out, down to the crowds of people pushing their way down a street similar to Huahai Lu. or the traffic ridden highways of Beijing's inner rings. 

The work stands beside a wall of four brightly colored abstract canvases, each evoking a sense of fluidity and movement and resonating especially with the piece that sits next to it. 

This work, along with many others in this exhibit, is definitely worth a visit.

Performance Art and Experimental Theater

Saying that I struggled to make sense of Gerry Pryor, let alone his video of Chance Running, would be an understatement. He's a colorful character, and I would have liked to see some of his other performances too, because I don't think I was the only person who felt a little confused about what they had just seen and who they had just met. My only real issue was the barely-suppressed glee with which he proclaimed, "Using my body in this way is sort of like a sin. Every time I create art... I'm actually sinning." He seemed tickled to death by this fact, but I'll leave my criticism at that.

Last week, we watched a variety of performance art videos with Zhao Chuan, and these were somewhat greater in scope and in length of time than Chance Running. This type of art is definitely abstract, but never to the point of meaninglessness. While I won't claim to be able to extract a single, clear, direct message from any of these works, it is still more than possible to take something away from them. Thinking about Li Ning's work in particular, as emphasized by the frequent nudity, the human body is an essential component of the performance art we saw. As simple as it sounds, I was especially struck by how the actors/performers moved in strange ways, and in ways I wasn't expecting. Eventually, I made a list of what these performances were all "doing." Sure they were running around naked and lighting meat on fire or whatever, but generally these videos emphasized:
1. Thinking about and using our bodies in new ways, and
2. Interacting with and moving through the world in different ways,
both concepts that I think easily translate to a larger, more accessible "meaning," raising questions about anything from the fragility of the human body or the fragility of humanity in general, to posing questions about our roles as individuals within the world or in society, and to what extent our lives and our ways of thinking are shaped (or constrained, or guided) by the particular environment in which we live.

Finally, I was almost surprised at how much I enjoyed the grass stage performance last Friday. I know that accessbility isn't a requirement of any form of art, but I found that a lot of the material presented or addressed in the show felt quite relevant to either my own life and experiences or to humanity in general. It was also a fun opportunity to get to talk to a few of the actors later at the Mommy Foundation party, and hear about how the ways in which they invented and developed the performances, and where they found inspiration for their individual characters.

James Cohan Gallery

Last week Xiaoxia and I spent an absurd amount of time trying to find Stephen the Spectacular at ddmwarehouse, failed, but did manage to see the exhibition at the James Cohan gallery. Featuring works by Xu Zhen, Bill Viola, Nam June Paik, and Anselm Kiefer, Matters of Faith is a small but surprisingly enjoyable exhibition (although it took me a while to figure out that the creepy, giant monkey guarding the bathroom wasn't actually part of this show).

The painted palm leaves didn't manage to engage me at all, and Xu Zhen's model of the Potala Palace built from thousands of miniature playing cards seemed like it was tedious to build but not overly innovative, but I particularly enjoyed the two video art installations. Nam June Paik's Enlightenment Compressed presented a small bronze Buddha watching its own live image displayed on a television screen a few inches in front of it. At first whimsically comical (Buddha seeking enlightenment by contemplating his own image, and on a TV screen, no less), but gradually encountering the layers of meaning, I wondered whether this Buddha was meditating, or merely in a mindless trance. And what about my own childhood, mostly spent inches away from a similar TV? Was Sesame Street really just a vehicle to reaching nirvana? Something tells me no.

Finally, Bill Viola's video featured two women, initially obscured by wierd fuzz. As they approaced the viewer, their forms passed through a grey veil of water before emerging into a world of clarity and color. Upon reaching this world (our world?), a mix of apprehension, outright fear, longing, and hope flashed across their faces. Ultimately, either defeated or disappointed, one woman seemed unable to bear the sight of the new world she had discovered, and fled back through the sheet of water into shades of grey; her companion, after a final warm glance, allowed herself to be pulled back through as well. I found this work to be the most engaging, and I enjoyed hypothesizing what lay on each side of the veil: knowledge and ignorance? order and chaos? Or maybe it was just a room full of monkeys, and the grey-haired lady had a bad childhood experience.

Independent Theatre in China

Last week in class, we took a closer look at independent theatre in China. Some of the videos we viewed in class were very experimental, and sometimes shocking. The use of the(almost) naked body was a recurring theme. It was interesting to see how the actors would place their bodies in different positions to align with the space they were in. A lot of use of performance space, players climbing across exposed beams in factories and running through concrete buildings still under construction. There is a feeling of raw in the theatre works we looked at. What I like about independent and experimental theatre is that it doesn't take much materialist structure, whether costumes, stage props, or stage design, to get the point across. A lot of the time, what happens in theatre is for the viewer's to interpret. The minimalist nature of independent theatre in fact helps to emphasize the bigger concept or picture at stake, sometimes with the use of strong, deliberate pauses and figuring out timing, for instance. Theatre becomes all about body interpretation and movement, with very little dialogue and drenched in expression...a little says a lot and goes a long way. 

A lot of energy in a performance says a lot.

I give a lot of credit to independent theatre actors. At times, it may be frustrating to be unable to connect to the performance as an audience member; it is the energy of the actors that creates the communication and understanding. This is exactly why independent theatre is raw. I saw some independent theatre in Paris, and sometimes, it was hard to sit through the performances because they were very experimental and it was hard to figure out what was going on. I distinctly remember one performance in which half the audience stood up and left after the first 20 minutes (i felt so embarrassed for the theatre group). One has to be careful not to lose the audience...

Anyhow, that's the great thing about experimental theatre though, or any art for that matter: it's all in how to present what you want to present without being either too obvious and contrived or too hard to decipher. The best art always falls somewhere in the middle. 

Finally, I enjoyed seeing the grass stage performance the other night. It was interesting, it was engaging, the actors were very convincing, and again, the messages were strong without the need for elaborate dialogue, costumes, set design, props, etc. The characters were well-developed, I particularly liked the first actor and the following actress. The toilet paper subtitles were also enjoyable. The performance allowed just enough free space for the audience to interpret, consider, and open dialogue towards long-standing, and sometimes universal, social issues. And that's what you want to do in art: make people think and continue to consider and discuss after the exhibition or performance is over. Experimental theatre shows us that sometimes less is more.