Fwd: Public Programme Art Economies beyond Pattern Recognition艺术新经济-公共交流项目讲座-Osage Shanghai上海奥沙

各位朋友：

上海奥沙画廊将于2009年7月3日(本周五)下午4：00举办“艺术新经济-公共交流项目”讲座系列二，诚邀您的光临，请提前来电预定座位。

 

讲座主题：

“当代艺术的媒体平台——对待文化各自的策略”

本次进行的系列谈话将把近阶段较为活跃的几家当代艺术媒体平台带到现场，话题集中在他们一直在进行的针对当代艺术文献方面的工作及其不同的目标。对话试图制造一个交流的平台，使这些以媒体身份对当代艺术的过去和现在进行文献编辑的嘉宾分别介绍各自的运作策略及支撑系统。

 

受邀嘉宾包括：

郑为民-Artlink（中国当代艺术的维基百科）

龚燕-《艺术世界》杂志

左靖-《艺术与投资》杂志

王宝菊-《今日美术》杂志

何彬-东方视觉（“展览史”板块）

比利安娜-Art-ba-ba（超级资料）

 

“艺术新经济-公共交流项目”讲座系列二

概念策划：比利安娜

时间：2009年7月3日 16:00

地点: 奥沙画廊 上海市虹口区多伦路93号（靠近多伦美术馆）

电话：86-21-56713605

联系人：李一鸣

 

Dear friends:

Osage-Shanghai will hold the Public Programme： Art Economies beyond Pattern Recognition on July 3rd 2009. We cordially invite you to the lecture on this Friday, July 3rd at 16:00.

 

Lecture Theme:

Contemporary Art Media Platforms- Archive Initiatives

This series of talks aims to bring recent initiative of media platforms in archiving of contemporary art and their different approaches. Dialogue tempts to share exchange of ideas in using media platforms in archiving present and past and their different supporting systems

 

Speakers Include:

Artlinkart (wikipedia of Chinese contemporary art): Zheng Weimin

Art World ( new media art archiving): Gong Yan

Art and Investment: Zuo Jing

Today Art: Wang Baoju

Ionly ( exhibition history project): He Bin

Art-ba-ba: Biljana Ciric

 

Public Programming: Art Economies beyond Pattern Recognition

Lecture concept by Biljana Ciric

Venue: Osage Shanghai
Address: 93 Duolun Road, Hongkou District, Shanghai 200081 (close to Duolun Museum of Modern Art)

Date: 3rd July, 2009 16:00
Tel: 86-21-56713605

Contact: Reika Li

 

Fraction of Interview with Jutta Friedrichs

Zachary Velazquez

Contemporary Art/New Media in China

Defne Ayas and Zhao Chuan

Interview with Jutta Friedrichs

- In what ways has living in Shanghai influence your work?

No matter where, the environment always influences or depending on the
level of engagement, shapes one's character. Those changes can be slow
and subtle and may only manifest them self much later. I think living
here in China will influence my work even long time after I will be
gone (or perhaps I'll never leave, who knows).

For my last line, my main inspiration was contrast, which I found a
lot in a city on a fast train of trying to overcome old traditions and
poverty. The city's increasing awareness of environmental issues
contrasting the excitement for consuming the newest products
(pollution through production) was an other inspiration to combine
natural with manufactured elements, aesthetically as well as in the
material.

- How do you resolve the matter of being a Western artist working in
China?

I don't know if there is anything to resolve. It provides a chance to
engage with something new, which sets my experience, myself and in the
end my work apart from most other artists and designers in the world.
There were and are personal issues to address of how to develop a new
aesthetic true to myself and my new environment. Funny enough, in the
beginning I was given the impression that I had an advantage of being
a foreign designer here in China. I easily got credibility. Very
recently the tables have turned. There seams to be a new sudden,
wildly urge to find China's exotic super designer of tomorrow and with
a foreign passport, I am now often excluded from competitions. Either
way has no relevance to the quality of the design but the
differentiation and exclusivity has become a marketing tool, following
the trend of the Arts.

- I read that you used to design Italian kitchens. Is there any
specific reason why you chose to concentrate on designing furniture
upon moving to Shanghai?

I moved to China for a tempting product design position. I had 70
products produced with the first two years. It was a very condensed
experience but soon I didn't feel comfortable anymore throwing one low
value product after the other into the world. Products often end up in
drawers and most of the time have a much shorter lifespan than
furniture. Furniture occupies a beautiful space in between the body
and the environment/architecture communicating between the two. It is
always exposed as oppose to products of occasional use. Good furniture
gains value over time whereas electronics for example loose value fast
and with it fades its design.

- The wood in your furniture is quite beautiful. Is there anything
you distinctly look for when choosing wood for your pieces? Do you
feel this is important?

Of course. Design is all in the detail and the material is one
important detail. I love the idea of creating colourful pieces with
natural materials. All the wood is naturally finished, showing it's
original colour and grain. I handpick the veneer for the first
samples. Since it is a natural material, the grain shape and width,
the contrast and colour can vary a lot. Getting it right can make a
huge difference.

- Recently, the lines between art and design have increasingly worn
thin. Do you feel any need to categorize your work as one or the other?

Historically a differentiation between the two didn't exist. The
distinction is a product of the industrialization. The consumer/
market has more power and is demanding certain product in a certain
style. In a way, addressing a brief (designing) is a lot easier than
setting your very own guidance as an artist. For MÜ I have fully
followed my own call but I have still created functional and sellable
pieces. I guess there, I felt for the first time that I was touching
the border between design and art. The pieces, I am working on now, I
consider much more as art. They will be exhibited in a gallery and be
communicating pieces of my thought process. I often think, it is a
waist of time that everybody spends so much time thinking and talking
about the difference between art and design. However, I think there is
a difference. Maybe we just need a new word for the people that work
in the grey zone "dancing on both parties" - perhaps creators - then
it can be easily confused with curators...great, another blurry zone...

Other References

- http://re-title.com/artists/Xue-Tao.asp

- http://www.100percentdesign.com.cn/2008/ENG/news.5d66947ee84323c6.htm

- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/3347809/Shao-Fan-at-Chelsea-fertile-ground.html

- http://phillipsartexpert.com/forums/7/597/

- Twelve Experimental Exhibitions – A Documented History

The Space Between Furniture and Art by Zachary Velazquez

Zachary Velazquez

Contemporary Art/New Media in China

Defne Ayas and Zhao Chuan

The Space Between Furniture and Art

When considering our surroundings it is natural to intuitively view
our environment as occupying its own space, separate from the self.
After all, as an individual, one can only assume complete control over
him/herself. Every other object in our surroundings exists as its own
entity, created and swayed by multiple influences that extend far
beyond the individual. However, today we no longer live in a world
oblivious to mankind. Humans have molded and created the material
world that we live in. Not only has the land around us been reshaped
and partitioned, but almost every object in our daily lives is the
result of human interference and design. This includes something as
seemingly natural as a home garden, as simple as a kitchen table, and
as complex as a computer. People not only rely on the objects and
environment that surround them, but these external things are the
direct result of the human mind.

In one way or another, it has taken will, creativity, innovation, and
an understanding of emotion to develop the objects that are now often
dismissed as purely functional. Without the artistic mind, much
around us could not have possibly developed to the point that it has.
Furniture, which can be viewed as one of the most common and
functional objects of our daily lives, is no exception to this.
Furniture has had an important role in our lives for thousands of
years, acting as an extension of local culture. Different designs and
variations in structure are telling of a people's customs, idea of
beauty, method of interacting with the world, and concept of their
surroundings. China is a country with a long history of furniture
design, with a unique aesthetic that developed independently from the
West. However, today, as China opens itself up to globalization and
receives influence from the West, contemporary Chinese artists are
designing furniture that comments on change and the space that we
currently live in. As this investigation continues, Chinese artists
are gradually picking away at the line between art and design,
creating work that tackles this conflict and tries to surpass
limitations.

Furniture, as an object, is not only identified by itself, but also
the space that it inhabits. In an interview, designer Jutta
Friedrichs states, "Furniture occupies a beautiful space between the
body and the environment/architecture, communicating between the
two." Furniture acts as a mediator between the individual and the
greater space that he/she occupies. The flow, direction, and emotion
of a room can be determined by where a piece of furniture sits. It
creates the boundaries in which one can move and invites an individual
to act and rest in a particular manner. But just as furniture is
designed and arranged to create order within one daily life, it can be
contorted and rearranged to create confusion and a new context for
interpretation. Ai Weiwei's "Furniture" series, which was started in
1997, dissects and reinterprets furniture pieces from the Ming and
Qing Dynasties. Works such as "Table with Two Legs on the Wall," in
which a table is folded in half so that two legs are weighted on the
floor and the other two rest against the wall, beg the viewer to re-
evaluate the way they experience their environment. This simple
gesture pushes a traditional item of stability onto its side, where it
remains in a defunct order, hanging on the edge of reality. Another
piece by the name of "Grapes" is composed of nine partially merged
stools that curl around each other to form a single piece that
resembles a cluster of grapes. By deconstructing and rearranging the
stools, Ai Weiwei is able to change our conception of ordinary form.
"Grapes" takes away the preconceived notion of how stools are supposed
to function, while at the same time drawing attention to the
traditional form's structure and capacity for a more playful use. Ai
Weiwei doesn't simple destroy the old and make a new, but is able to
use a long and established history of precise wood working, fitted
joints, and shaping to his advantage. He works within the old
structure, making adjustments so that he can create an evolved form
that can stand on its own as a unique piece. The space as we know it
is not destroyed, but reconsidered and worked into a context that
provides depth and understanding.

The idea of re-evaluating the spaces we have grown accustomed to has
been a reoccurring trend in contemporary Chinese art that goes beyond
furniture design. Experimental exhibitions such as Art for Sale
(1999) and Post-Sense Sensibility: Distorted Bodies and Delusion
(1999) have tried to find a new way to display and curate a show. The
Persistent Deviation/Corruptionists (1998) exhibition focused on
giving the artist a platform to develop his or her own obsessions and
not be restricted to conforming to a "commonality or mutual
relationship." This show attempted to do away with exhibition
limitations that try to have a group of artists adhere to a theme or
method. The show was thus held in the basement of a residential
building in Beijing, away from the white wall galleries and the eye of
the government, allowing the artist to explore their freedom of
individual expression. The artist's space became his own, and he was
able to use it according to his own will and ambition. Acknowledging
that a piece derives important and meaning through the space that it
occupies, gives an artist the freedom to experiment with its context
and the established notion of what something is supposed to do.

Since most furniture is viewed primarily as a commercial product, and
not as art, the more artistically geared designers end up working in
the grey space between the fine arts and design. Each category has
its own context that implies a certain way of evaluating the work.
Furniture works such as the Ai Weiwei series are created specifically
for the gallery. In Ai Weiwei's case, functionality is not his
primary concern. Although certain pieces such as "Table with Two Legs
on the Wall" could theoretically be used like a traditional table, the
piece was primarily created to be studied and interpreted by a viewer
and not used as a common object. Furniture designers such as XYZ
Design and Jutta Friedrichs of MÜ Furniture, on the other hand, create
works that must be functional and reproducible by request or within an
edition. When explaining the distinction between design and art,
Jutta Friedrichs says, "Historically, a difference between the two
didn't exist. The distinction is a product of industrialization. The
consumer/market has more power and is demanding certain products in a
certain style. In a way, addressing a brief (designing) is a lot
easier than setting your very own guidance as an artist." Although
furniture design first relies on making works that are sellable in a
commercial market, the pieces can often be considered as art and shown
in expos, competitions, and galleries.

A problem that contemporary furniture faces in both the design and art
world is accessibility. Although furniture made by design companies
is marketed to people interested in this type of product, both
networks are relatively small and unknown to the greater public.
Furniture shown in art galleries, especially in China, is viewed by a
small public of insiders and intellectuals who come to see the pieces
as sculptural works of art. In Shanghai and Beijing, most exhibitions
are not well advertised and there isn't a well-developed class of
people interested in contemporary art. However, if a piece or series
is really well received, it has the opportunity of reaching
international circles. Works by furniture designers are viewed as
contemporary furniture first and works of art second. This means that
some pieces, no matter how artistic they seem, may not get the
attention they deserve. These furniture pieces also reach a specific
group of people and are produced in relatively small numbers.

The issue of accessibility does not lie in the content or design of
these works, but in the platform on which they are shown. Many
furniture pieces benefit from being displayed in a gallery setting
since it provides the work with a neutral environment that allows it
to be read as art. The problem, however, is that China does not
promote the study of contemporary art to its people. One of the more
successful contemporary Chinese art districts, 798 in Beijing, has had
more success in attracting a visiting public. However, a large
percentage of viewers are Westerners and are only in town for vacation
or business. Through education, advertising, and a better-developed
gallery scene, one could be certain that contemporary art could reach
a much larger Chinese population. However, fully functional and
sellable furniture that is shown in design exhibitions, might have a
harder time reaching the public since its geared to a much more
specific array of people. If the design works are brought directly to
the people in an open setting that allows the passing public to
stumble upon the exhibition, then more interest can be stirred and a
more general public could be aware of the artist's work.

Although this divide between furniture design and fine art is more
discernable in the works of artists like Ai Weiwei and XYZ, certain
artists, such as Xue Tao, drift closer to that ambiguous border. Art
website re-title.com writes, "Xue Tao is one of a young generation of
artists who are unconcerned with the category in which people wish to
place them, preferring to work unconstrained, between disciplines. He
leaves the decision of whether his works are to be viewed as art or
design to the viewer." Xue Tao's furniture contains a rich social
critique as well an appealing aesthetic that easily puts his work on
the edge of art and design. By making sculptures entirely of knotted
newspaper, Xue Tao is able to make works that comment on the
experience of living in modern day China. The country's rapid change
and constant influx of information make newspaper a perfect material,
while the delicate hand worked technique calls back to a more
traditional and labor intensive time. By curling and knotting the
newspaper, Xue Tao is able to evoke an active struggle that is laden
in the framework of contemporary culture. The fact that he makes one
of a kind pieces that aren't mass-produced, widely circulated, or
often functional has little importance when trying to classify the
piece as art or design. There are many examples of one of a kind
furniture pieces that have very little physical practicality (such as
a ceramic craft vase). Pieces like "Stool 1" have the shape and
design that allow it to be labeled as furniture and the content that
helps describe it as art. As more and more artists realize that
categories are often inaccurate and vague, they can create without the
pressure of feeling as though they need to conform.

A category that can, with certainty, be used to classify Chinese
furniture designers are those that are foreign born, but now living
and working in China, and those that are native Chinese. What really
divides these two types of artists is the inherent cultural struggle
and sense of identity that is worked into their individual pieces.
Shao Fan, one of the most notable Chinese artists to work with
furniture, reconstructs and juxtaposes modern and traditional forms to
create a dialogue on language and identity. While Ai Weiwei uses
existing artifacts from past dynasties, Shao Fan will often integrate
contemporary design and material, with the style of furniture from the
Ming dynasty. When commenting on his piece entitled "Ming Turd," a
fat and distinctly designed curved bench, he says, "I wanted to show
that even the most ordinary, base things can be made beautiful and
turned into art. Of course, no artist who wanted to live would have
dared to offer the divine emperor an artwork that might suggest he was
human. But we are all emperors now. We are all the same." A piece
such as "Ming Turd" is able to comment on social developments in China
by altering a traditional form so that it can create an internal
dialogue. Other works, such as his chair pieces, interject sleek
metal forms into the worn wooden curves of traditional Ming dynasty
chairs. The chair piece entitled "Moon" had been designed to contain
the logographic nature of its character, while at the same time
indicating an obvious gap between the old and new. The constructed
contrast between modern minimalistic aesthetics and tradition shape
and material is brought to light when Shao Fan reflects on his art
education. In an interview with Telegraph newspaper, Shao Fan says,
"I realize now that my education was Western. As I got older I wanted
to move away from the Western aesthetic – the aesthetic that academics
in China teach and which are espoused by most contemporary Chinese
artists. I had to learn by myself how to be a Chinese artist, by
trial and error." This is a conflict of identity that is apparent in
his work, and one that can only be expressed by a Chinese artist.
Even if a foreign artist attempted to mimic Shao Fan's style, there
would be an ingrained emotional conflict and personal struggle missing
from the confines of the piece.

Although there are certain Chinese issues that a foreign artist living
in China would have less success tackling, a foreign artist can
without a doubt make Chinese furniture that is relevant to
contemporary issues. MÜ Furniture designer Jutta Friedrichs is a
German born artist, who went to school in London, and moved to China
in 2005. After doing product design in Shanghai for two year,
Friedrichs decided to branch out on her own and start designing
furniture, something she felt had greater value and a more meaningful
lifespan. When designing her last line, she drew direct inspiration
from the city of Shanghai as well as her impulse to connect with
nature. Friedrichs states, "My main inspiration was contrast, which I
found a lot in a city on a fast train of trying to overcome old
traditions and poverty. The city's increasing awareness of
environmental issues contrasting the excitement for consuming the
newest products (pollution through production) was an other
inspiration to combine natural with manufactured elements,
aesthetically as well as in the material." This contrast is a
signature element of her pieces, which combine a sleek manufactured
aesthetic with richly textured wood. Her furniture pieces are
beautifully simple and provocative, juxtaposing the hard lines of the
city with the tapering grain of nature. By engaging in a new
environment, Friedrichs was able to eventually find a new aesthetic
that was true to both herself and her surroundings. This is a
transformation within the visual arts that is the direct result of her
experience as a foreigner living in China. Her furniture pieces thus
become just as much a part of Chinese culture as any local artists'
work.

Contemporary Chinese furniture design currently occupies a conflicting
yet exciting space in both the art world and within China's quickly
developing society. Tottering between the applied and fine arts gives
the artist the opportunity to design furniture that works within
different contexts and plays with different notions of our
surroundings. Globalization and social conflicts that are unique to
China bring forth an investigation of identity and a desire to come to
terms with contrasting perspectives. In the process of breaking down
these boundaries, Chinese artists are freeing up their minds to
uninhibited expression and tackling issues that are true to themselves
and the surroundings that have influenced them.

blog collection by Daniel Kekacs

Outstanding Art: Underwhelming Experience

 

I saw a sign for Contemporary Art in M50 the other day and decided to check it out. Outstand Art Gallery was having an exhibition featuring the works of artists Yu Jin, Wei Ru, Qin Shengxian, Zhang Yuyin, and Jin Shi, among others. I was curious to see how this contemporary art would compare to the works we mention in class, but ultimately I was somewhat disappointed. Too much red, too many of the same cultural symbols, too much Mao. Yu Jin's Red Guard series depicted black and white young adults with something prominently red, like the flag of China, or their arm bands. They stood around and didn't really do anything, nor did they do anything for me. Jin Shi's masks featured disgustingly obese and effeminate men doing uncomfortable things, their lips painted a bright, luscious red, not unlike Wei Ru's Sentiment series, featuring the familiar combination of black and white people with only one color: red lips. Buddhas smile in the background. My favorite piece was a silhouette of Mao, with Buddhas in his face. It felt completely uninspired. The plaque describing Zhang Yuying's inspiration for painting animals seemed interesting, but the paintings were, again, somewhat uninspired. Cute donkeys, dogs, pigs, etc wandered around with sad faces while easily recognizable landmarks (like the Imperial City) floated in the background.

 

Whether it was their response to pressure from the external world or their own conception, I hope that emerging artists will discard the notion that Chinese art can't be Chinese unless it contains the same tired cultural symbols (Mao, the Imperial City, propaganda-style posters, emphasis on the color red, etc). I'm sick of Mao in every possible way, and I never want to see him ugly mug again.

 

Zhongjian: Midway at Eastlink Gallery

 

Seeing something that looks like a bird skeleton wrapped in cabbage is kind of cool, but only the first five times. Are six nearly identical, bone-white bird skeletons wrapped in cabbage necessary for anything? Does the fourth one convey some message that the first three, either individually or collectively, do not? Or the fifth? Eastlink's Zhongjian – Midway exhibition just opened on Sunday, and I was still in Shanghai, waiting for an erroneously-booked Monday flight home, although in retrospect I'm glad I got to have the extra two or three days to settle down before leaving. In addition to Shen Shaomin's cabbages, Zhongjian featured the works of Liu Qinghe, Julie Bartholomew, Zhang Qing, and Jin Sha, who was also the curator.

 

Liu Qinghe's paintings of waif-like girl I mistook for a calligraphy painting at first glance, thinking their wispy hair was strands from a willow tree or something similar. Not the case, fortunately. I particularly enjoyed Jin Sha's Fading Away, the plaque for which discussed the commoditization of culture, and like how so many aspects of China before, it, Chinese culture too would soon become defined, delimited, and purchasable anywhere you want, except in the places where it used to be. Based on my time in China, I have the same fears: that something that used to be natural and unique will become just another Chinese export, as fake and plastic as everything else in this country.

 

Huaihai 570

 

Right down the road is the art center at 570 Huaihai Lu. Its open space and nicely renovated buildings aren't as shabby as those of M50, the entire space is far more open and inviting, which I much prefer to claustrophobia. In this sense, it sort of reminds me of 798 in Beijing than the A ring of galleries and cafes surround a relatively open green space, where various sculptures have been installed – multicolored feet, a tantalizingly inviting bicycle with one open seat that reads, "Do not touch," and my favorite piece, a massive, hulking, metal bull. Part animal, part machine, the bull charges, frozen in time, the power conveyed by its size and posture amplified by both the impenetrable metal from which it is made and the pipes, bolts, and gears that gradually take over its body from head to toe. Its horns are almost 1/3 of its entire length, and they are slim, graceful, and deadly.

 

Right across from the bull is the Red Bridge sculpture gallery, a space that I really enjoyed and strongly recommend checking out. With maybe 100 sculptures inside, the space was very inviting and many of the artworks were both interesting and innovative. Xiang Yi's simple Waiting for the Next Bus resin sculpture depicted a man leaning forward and peering with an intense scrutiny, ostensibly waiting for the next bus. His body was all white, except where shadows were suggested in dark blue. The plaque describing the work expanded the simple act of waiting for a ride home into a metaphor for life in general: "Life is full of occasions where we are waiting alone for something to come. Life is full of dreams that are to be realized through everything that we are doing. We experience the tune of growing up in the course of expecting one after another." At the risk of getting too personal, this piece struck me because I felt like I've spent far too much time waiting alone for something to come or something to happen, a passivity that I have always disliked about myself, yet I also suspect I am far from being the only person who feels this way. Thinking back to the sculpture, I could see how much energy the blue and white man had invested in simply waiting, and I wondered what else he might have been able to do right now. This sculpture reminded me that in order to live the lives we want to lead and experience the things that we want to see and feel, we can't be content with simply waiting for things to come to us – we must become active participants in our own lives in order to make our dreams and desires reality.

 

Jin Xing and Modern Dance

 

Frankly, I was surprised to discover that the Chinese army was so supportive of the arts, let alone a transsexual dancer. I knew that the PLA was a major patron of the arts in China, currently trying to purchase Chinese works from all around the globe to bring them back to China, but I was surprised that they seemed so personally invested in the life and success of Jin Xing, especially in light of her transsexuality.

 

How did the army come to be such a major destination for children whose parents want them to pursue a future in dance? It seems strange that an institution that so many associate with power, control, and "evil" could have produced someone as progressive and potentially controversial as Jin Xing. Sylvie Levey's documentary did an excellent job capturing the emotions, motivations, and methodology of both Jin Xing and her peers, and I was glad that it was more than just a sensationalized documentary on a sensational subject. We previously watched another of her documentaries and even had a chance to talk with her in class The City and the Environment. She followed the lives of a relatively poor family in Shanghai for seven years while they waited to receive the news of their home's demolition and the plans for their future relocation. While she was forced to abandon filming before any conclusion ever came, while editing and producing the film back home she received the news that their relocation had been ultimately successful. Both documentaries were excellent and I would love to see more of her work in the future.

 

Blackboard Exhibition at ShanghART H-Space

 

While I wasn't expecting to find 20 different blackboards made by 20 different artists decorated with chalk landscapes or portraits or covered with Hello Kitty stickers at the Blackboard exhibition, I was pleasantly surprised to discover an exhibition more creative than I had thought it would be. The first piece visitors encounter is He An's blackboard, which is neither black nor a board. Colored neon lights frame a large white space as each side and color illuminates, clockwise, in turn. It felt like an advertisement for something ("Car Wash!" or "99 cent Hamburger!"), but where any text or photo might have been, instead was an open white space, freeing the viewer to imagine anything they wanted inside of this "blackboard."

 

Cheng Ran's blackboard was exactly the opposite: it was an entirely spray-painted black creation, a cutout scene where physical layers provided the only way to differentiate between this black and that black… for whatever reason my first thought was of Halloween, which of course made me miss every kind of chocolate other than Dove (like Hershey's!).

 

Jin Shan did use an actual blackboard to create his work, but not in any way that you might be expecting. He tied a rope to the board and strapped it to his back, stood on the side of the road, and created a six minute video of himself asking passing motorists to take him to New York, thus the title of the piece: To New York. If Jin Shan has ever seen an episode of Candid Camera, the concept might not be all that creative, but it was an enjoyable video at least, and certainly used the blackboard in an unexpected way. I'm not sure whether the performance was staged or not, but the video ends with the driver of a white van agreeing to load his blackboard into the back: they drive off into the distance, before the video fades to black. I'm not sure they made it to New York.

 

My favorite piece was Qiu Zhijie's blackboard, which he sprayed black before lending it to various committees, organizations, and even a farmers' market to use for periods of time ranging from a few weeks to a few months. He photographed the blackboard in use at each location, wiped it clean after the final use, and attached the four photos to the blank slate.

 

 

Tiananmen 20 Years Later: Art from a Soldier

 

A former soldier who was present at the Tiananmen square events in 1989 is turning his photographs into oil paintings, despite pressure from officials. Stationed at the square to subdue the protests in June 1989, Chen Guang took photographs of the event as a routine procedure, but ended up keeping nearly 100 of the photos. Showing once again the army's connection with the arts, Chen was only a soldier for a little longer before transferring from a military art school to the Chinese Academy of Fine Art.

 

I am curious to see what these paintings will depict, how they will be received, and if they will ever be displayed, or even viewed, and even if they are viewed, will anyone discuss them? There are almost too many variables to consider. I also wonder why he is converting photographs into oil paintings – does this legitimize them as artistic instead of the complete realism that photographs contain? Is Chen afraid that photos of such a sensitive event would be considered too 'dangerous,' while oil paintings are completely harmless? I do not think this is the case, but I am interested what the content of the work will be, and also to see how it will be received within China. "I'm not doing anything wrong," he said. "I'm just talking about my experiences."

Read the full article at the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/world/asia/04soldier.html

 

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.

 

Lin Fengmian

 

With a relatively limited knowledge of Chinese art, I wanted to do some research for my blog this week. It seemed logical to begin with one of the pioneers in what can be considered modern Chinese art: Lin Fengmian.

 

Lin Fengmian was born in 1900 in Guangdong, China. The son of a traditional Chinese painter, Lin studied European styles in France and Germany before returning to China in the mid 1920's. His work primarily attempted to synthesize Eastern and Western artistic styles, blending traditional Chinese methods with European modernism. After gaining much fame for his innovative style, Lin Fengmian helped to found the National Academy of Art in Hanghzou, a school that focused both on developing Chinese culture and on integrating Eastern and Western art.

 

Lin Fengmian produced a large number of paintings depicting autumnal landscapes, many of which are relatively dark and emotive.

 

Unfortunately, many of his works have been destroyed, first during the Japanese invasion that began in 1937, and later during the Cultural Revolution, when he destroyed many of his own works due to criticism from the Communist Party and the Gang of Four. Despite this, he was still imprisoned for nearly four years, after which he moved to Hong Kong in 1977, where he lived until his death in 1991.

 

Hello from Hangzhou

 

While I didn't check out any galleries or studios this weekend, I did get a chance to see something that I think I'd be unlikely to see while exploring Shanghai: nature (or something like it). Specifically, I saw big trees, green grass, and blue sky this weekend in Hangzhou – three things I have yet to see in this gray, hazy metropolis. Sure, I'm from Maine, where we have a lot of trees, but I wasn't expecting every inch of this city to be paved over. I've seen a lot of places here where there's plenty of room for a patch of grass or even a little bush, but instead it's just a big empty space covered with pavement or dirty tiles.

 

Yet even in Hangzhou, where trees are more than 30 feet tall, the fields of surprisingly green grass were off-limits, and in a park the size of ECNU on the shore of the West Lake, there were something like 10 benches for 10,000 people. Although beautiful, the throng of people trying to enjoy the weather were forced to keep moving, walking on paving stones through this artificial and untouchable landscape.

 

In the end we decided to jump the fence and play a game of cards on the grass. Four thousand Chinese followed our example. I wish I had before and after pictures of this phenomenon, but all I have is a "before-the-police-arrived-to-kick-us-out" picture of everyone finally enjoying themselves, sitting on the grass. Just because it's simple doesn't mean we don't need it. Does China hate nature? Probably not – but where has it gone?

 

Panda Propaganda

 

If not necessarily a record of China's growth as a nation, the Propaganda Poster Art Museum in Shanghai is at least a unique view into the ideological growth of the Communist Party. A chronicle of propaganda posters from the Mao Era, the artwork enables viewers to construct a sort of timeline of events occurring within China and around the world during this time. Yet even with my limited knowledge of modern Chinese history, the world depicted in these posters feels more like a parallel universe from The Twilight Zone than anything close to reality: when I saw peasants happily working in the fields with baskets full of food, I guessed that at the time this poster was created, China was probably starving, or close to it. When hundreds of tanks, airplanes, and soldiers had their guns pointed toward Taiwan, I tried to imagine how threatening Taiwan and its American allies must have seemed.

 

More interestingly, the characters depicted in the propaganda posters highlight an interesting evolution in China's perception of itself and its allies. Older posters prominently feature Stalin, Lenin, Marx, and Engels superimposed onto pictures of Chinese commoners, industries, or military, reinforcing the link between these older philosophers and China's present reality. Eventually, perhaps as the relationship between China and its Soviet uncle declined, Lenin and the others are nowhere to be found, replaced by Mao himself as the ideological leader of China. Still later, one can observe through the posters as Mao transcends from mere human to a revered symbol of China as a whole.

 

Finally, my favorite poster was one of the last posters in the collection, a futuristic scene from 1979 that reminded me of the intro of The Jetsons. Set in a forest of futuristic buildings, the viewer is surrounded by warplanes, elevated railways, cars, bizarre helicopters, spaceships, and cargo trucks as they try zoom out of the poster and into my face, into the future, but they can't quite make it. Even 30 years later, this utopian vision of a modernized China is still incomplete, and I'm not sure when, if ever, it will become a reality.

 

An Instant in the Process

 

Common themes among the projects of the Intrude: Art and Life 366 exhibition at the Zendai MoMA were those of identity and change. In a constantly changing world, and especially in a city like Shanghai, how does one define or even create his or her identity? A culture in flux and a city under construction complicate this process, endlessly replacing old cultural landmarks and traditions with newer, arguably less meaningful ones.

 

Zhang Jianjun's chalk and painting performance, "An Instant in the Process – 2008 Shanghai Shikumen Scene," highlights both the endless progression of modern life and the inevitable recession of the present into mere memory. Zhang chose two locations where traditional stone gate shikumen houses were being demolished to make room for new apartments or office buildings as locations for his performance. After painting the scenes on paper with water, he invited young children, the new generation of Shanghai, to come draw the scenes on the sidewalk with chalk. Zhang's paintings likely faded within a few hours, and the children's chalk might have lasted a few days, but all eventually faded from sight, as will the shikumen homes, brick by brick. Ultimately, very little will be left of these uniquely Shanghai buildings other than memories, perhaps preserved for another generation in the minds of the children who helped Zhang Jianjun with his project, but in time even these memories will fade.

 

Interestingly, a project directly beside "An Instant in the Process" provided some comfort for those seeking to reconnect with the past. Huang Dehua's green tile installation, "Echo," consisted of patterned green floor tiles from the 1970's and 1980's placed in various locations within Shanghai. The patterns of the tiles were supposedly well-known, and had "become part of the collective memory of a whole generation." In this way, these simple tiles gave people "a sense of nostalgia and security" that the endless cranes and construction sites around the city likely do not. Things that are constant, and images of daily realities, are always comforting to see, "reminding people of the simple beauty of the past." Though neither a solution to the difficulties of retaining traditional cultural symbols nor a resolution for the tension between old and new, the tiles at least allow for some brief moments to remember a time when things did not feel quite so uncertain.

The New Space

The New Space

By: James Donovan

The evolution of "artificial" space began, in part, as a progression
of sophisticated technologies developed to meet the demands of an ever
more complicated human society. When the first cities grew up out of
Samaria in the Fertile Crescent and along the Nile delta, it was
precipitated by the advent the enormous accomplishment of the
agricultural revolution. In effect, man had designed an artificial
environment for the cultivations of crops. The spread of farmland
across the world increased dramatically and increased the human
population substantially as the need to find food became a peripheral
concern. This type of grandiose transformation only happens rarely in
history, but the affects they have on society are always felt for
generations after their inception. When the Industrial Revolution
began in North America and Europe in the late 19th century the world
began to see a migration of people from the farm to the factory.
Factories began mechanically reproducing vast quantities of goods in
ways the world had never seen before. The mass urban development that
the world has seen in the past century marks another transformation in
the way people experience life and information. Most recently, with
the proliferation of computer technologies, the number and range of
channels people use to share information increased tremendously,
making information accessible in unprecedented density, volume, and
speed. The information revolution has created yet another facet of
space in the human experience, virtual space. After each great
revolution in human history, society begins tremendous upheavals as
the rules of the past must give way to the workings of the day. It is
a matter of addressing the jobs of today with the tools of yesterday.

Electronic technology has built upon the foundation of interaction.
From the television, to the radio, to the personal computer,
electronic devices are a principle form of communication between
people everywhere in the world. These technologies have become
interwoven into the fabric of our societies. Electronic billboards
ensconce the facades of buildings; individuals carry cellular
telephones which are capable of high speed internet, while radios
signals sound with the latest news and music from every car stereo.
The flow of information, regardless of its quality or content,
bombards the senses of every urban dweller. The complexity of the
urban landscape has only just begun to reflect these new reformations.
Both in the architectural planning and physical construction of
buildings, information technology and new media have begun to play
more intricate rolls in the synthesis of the urban environment.

The new media city as an all inclusive environment can be seen most
vividly in the world's most recently developed cities. Shanghai,
Mainland China's main financial center, has grown by leaps and bounds
in the past thirty years, and because thirty percent of the city has
been built within the last three decades public, commercial, and
virtual space have been seamlessly integrated into the fabric of the
urban environment. From the outset Shanghai was a city that modernized
with the world. Since the late 20th century Shanghai's architectural
identity has become the epitome of futurism in form and function. The
Oriental Pearl TV Tower, located in the Pudong financial district, is
a dramatic reinterpretation of Chinese history in the form of a modern
skyscraper. The tower rises 468 m high into the neon lit Pudong
skyline. The symbolic design of the building originates from a Tang
Dynasty poem named Pipa Song by Bai Juyi. The short poem likened the
song of the pipa to the chiming of pearls falling upon a jade plate.
Eleven spheres comprise the building's inspired form. One enormous red
triangular-faced ball rests atop three interlaced pillars, creating
the effect of a kind of toy-like spaceship. The building serves as a
monument to the ultra futurist appeal of the city. The tower continues
to capture the visual imagination of people who interact and dream
about Shanghai's great potential in the coming decades. Although, the
tower was eclipsed as the tallest building in China by the nearby
China World Financial Center in 2007, depictions in popular media
publications such as billboards and web advertisements perpetually
feature the Pearl Tower as being the taller of the two.

The two most dominant new styles of architecture in Shanghai are the
futuristic and the pre-fabricated. A symphony of buildings fluctuate
between the tall skyscrapers that strive for individuality in a sea of
bombastic novelty and the ready to repeat Lego like building who's
unvarying floors stack one on top of the other. These buildings become
a legible text both in terms of their stylistic form and function as
well as their incorporation and sheer volume of signage which gives a
depth of transient meaning to the buildings themselves. The
architectural facade of Shanghai is a complicated interaction between
the historical precedence of cultural transformation that grips the
city every time China as a whole changes. Shanghai is a global city,
and as such with each new wave of globalization Shanghai flowers.
Today it is as if Shanghai has come alive in the light of a new
technology assisted era of globalization.

Approximately seventy percent of Shanghai is composed of older
buildings, many of whom are remnants from the previous era's great
transformation which transmogrified Shanghai into a world class city
at the beginning of the 1900's. During this time in Shanghai's past,
European and western influences swept through the city, bringing with
it the culture, style, and perspective inherent in those cultural.
Despite being inexplicably Chinese, the buildings along the Bund are
more reminiscent of European cities then anything else in China. Many
other old buildings in Shanghai have begun to be revitalized in a
phenomenon commonly referred to as the creative cluster. The
unofficial arts district at 50 Moganshan Road, for example, was once a
large compound of vacant warehouses and factories along Suzhou Creek.
However in recent years the area has become a sprawling maze of white
cube galleries and studio spaces. 50 Moganshan Lu has become an
epicenter for fine art in Shanghai. The installation of the compound
was a joint venture between the Chinese government and a commercial
developer in order to revitalize the failing industrial area. Since
that time the tremendous success has lead other cities and areas use
this method of gentrification and urban renewal.

The ability of artist to gentrify and revitalize failing commercial
and industrial zones has only just started to be utilized by the urban
planners of Shanghai. The unofficial commercial use of artist in the
promotion of different area is akin to a mass advertisement. Artist
create additional value to land, buildings, and property, not because
they are necessarily improving the hardware of the area, but more
because artist encode multiple levels of valuable information into the
forms themselves, and because the value of the information if higher
then the cost of the materials to apply it. The artist increases the
value of invaluable land by expanding the informational dimension of
the place. When a room is painted it becomes a fraction of an inch
smaller. The paint adds density to the wall, however slight it may be.
The gain, however, of color information is worth the small loss of
space. The space becomes an informative text and therefore valuable.
After all, the new informational revolution has made information king.

The proliferation of advertisements in the physical vernacular of
urban life has generated new outlets for the sharing of information,
including extra-commercial. Advertisements are no longer simply
created to convince people to buy products and merchandise.
Advertisements engage our physical sensibility, they mirror our
desires, they bring us news and current information, they are symbols
of personal and civic duty, they are political, and often times they
are artist and aesthetically appealing as they convey these concepts,
ideas, and products. The plane of commercial interaction has expanded,
as has the boundaries of the city. Computer technologies permeate our
homes. In the most remote towns and cities of the world the
interaction of people is facilitated by the informational proximity
created by the internet. These new interactions have created value in
the most mandate of activates and text we read and engage with. These
new kinds of media have become a space for interaction. They are real
and powerful, and as of yet still untapped in terms of creative and
dynamic realizations.

Shanghai's Xujiahui is a milieu of billboards, video screens,
interactive displays, and interwoven pedestrian walkways that lead
through the mélange of high tech electronic stores and fast food
eateries. This is the new media city. The engineering of the spaces
has been meticulously designed to maximize signage, and minimize the
effort of shoppers. Escalators lead from street level up to outdoor
elevated platforms which overlook a sea of signs and animated video
screens of all shapes and sizes. These platforms connect the
sidewalks of three opposite streets, and open onto elevated store
fronts. The subways stations are part of shopping complexes that rise
several stories and incorporate luxury high rises into their
structures. These are the new human habitat. Shanghai has more
elevators then any other city in the world. These are the ligaments
and tendons of the city, while the electrical and internet system form
part of the nervous system. The enormous computer farms that compute
the billions of bit of information flow from the city are the brain,
and the public video screens are the eyes of this evolving new media
city.

The video screen has integrated itself so fully into society that a
new space has grown out of them, it is as if we have created wormholes
into a new virtual dimension, a dimension which exists in time rather
then space. Systematically, lights flash and encode data for depth and
form color and motion. In 2008 The E-arts Festival and its curators
coordinated an outdoor exhibit of new media art on the video displays
of Xujiahui. The event featured several new media artist from across
Asia and lasted a week as the numerous tourists and shoppers saw a new
vision of this virtual space. The video installations created for the
area perceptually expanded the space as the audience was challenged to
look deeper into the spaces which they frequent. The exhibit was also
linked to a series of outdoor performances which emphasized the
collaboration of new media artist, musicians, and dancers to interact
in the public domain. These kinds of artistic interventions are a
necessary check on the rampant progression of urban space. Without the
artist to reinvasion and expand boundaries a complacency and blind
acceptance to the status quo ensues. As the sheer number and size of
transient media outlets such as public video screens multiply a
question arises of what is to be shown on this multitude of viewing
surfaces. Can hundreds of thousand of square feet of video viewing
space be responsibly dedicated to simply commerce alone? When is it
more valuable to reallocate this space for the pursuit of cultural
enrichment or public education? And what roll does the artist,
commercial artists and fine artists, play in defining this innately
creatively demanding new space.

In 2003 in Melbourne Australia, the artist James Geurts constructed a
multi-screen video installation sponsored by the Australia Council for
the Arts in a public square. The project featured looping video on
view in a public square. The project was so popular that the council
decided to extend the exhibit and eventually took it over as a
platform for delivering public speeches and announcements. Instances
such as these demonstrate the complexities of new media in the public
domain. The sharing of information has become almost more important
then what information is being shared. The content of the video
installation proved to be less important then the fact that there was
a public platform for the screening of information.

Cao Fei, the Chinese new media artist, has taken advantage of this new
virtual stage in an allegorical parody of the Red Detachment of Women
which she has been choreographing in the second life avatar gaming
environment. Her work as an artist has often centered on the creation
of alternative narratives, disrupting the space and time in which
people live by carrying out scenarios or performances which are
unusual or unprecedented in public space. Although, the play she is
performing is relatively common and popular in Chinese theater the
fact that it will be performed in the digital sphere removes the play
from its contemporary standing and repositions its former political
message with a new meaning. The media is the message. If Cao Fei were
simply to choreograph and perform this play in a Chinese theater it
would have little appeal apart from its aesthetics and the minor fame
of the director, however because the work is being exhibited in an
artificial environment it is imbued with new significance.

Second life is, by all modern gaming standards, a graphically
unsophisticated on-line multiplayer avatar based system which receives
a large amount of media attention because of its grandiose mission to
engineer an entire world of internet based human interaction. However,
because the platform design is relatively hard to personally design,
the most sophisticated and aesthetically pleasing environments are the
product of artists and other creative minded individuals. This
fundamental conundrum of engineering expertise and unbalanced creative
style is seen in many fields, especially when the development of the
system outpaces the creative output of the individuals involved.
Culture is the soft power that makes an environment like the ones in
second life interesting and worth while.

The artist Ai Weiwei has been a revolutionary in the Chinese art world
from the beginning of Chinese Contemporary. The works of Ai Weiwei
remained reactionary and controversial for the better part of his
career, but despite his often hyper-critical position Ai has earned a
level of utmost respect by the Chinese government as is exemplifies by
his collaboration on the new Olympic Stadium, the Birds Nest. The
ubiquitous interlacing form of the Birds Nest in modern Beijing
architecture has certainly been a visionary innovation in some sense.
The fact that the Chinese government included an artist such as Ai
Weiwei into the planning of the structure is a promising venture in
the political collaboration of the artist and the socio-political
environment. Ai Weiwei's feelings on the project remain as critical as
his outlook on the government. He has made this point clear in his
popular blog. However, this inclusionary step is step by the
government of China toward a greater vision of what an aesthetic and
functional environment can yield when collaboration with the creative
class is involved in the prossess. In a demanding metropolis, the
integration of artistic vision and functional realization serves the
public by generating a more harmonious state of interaction.

The current state of globalization in the world is a product of the
rapid digitization of information, making it possible for the
instantaneous transmission and retrieval of information. The
unfathomable amount of energy required to maintain these new systems
is often not thought of, but as organizations such as Google expand in
response to the demands of information hungry denizens of the digital
world new land and resources are diverted to the sustenance of these
server farm. The digital dimension does have a density, and
information does have a weight. The exploration of this new space
should be handled with care, as the influence it has on the physical
world is more relevant then is immediately evident.

The exploration of digital spaces will increasingly become the visual
and physical realities of our world. In an age ruled by information
and a population of urbanites, the influences of new media in our
lives will continue to be presupposing as a passive element in our
societies for the fact that it is ever-present. However, because
digital technology is completely a human invention, and is composed of
information, both creative and empirical, rendered by human hands, the
future of digital architecture and the connections it gives way to are
very much in our hands. Information technology is the ultimate tool of
the government, architect, artist, and engineer. The ability to use
these forms of digital commerce to exchange and collaborate as well as
create and incite are almost endless. The synchronicity of light speed
information will continue to be the challenge of an evolving human
existence. This new space is infinitely dynamic, and its effects are
wide reaching. What forms grow out of it is the venture of the
creators and the builders. Our environment is one nearing new
frontiers and complexities. To collaborate, and bring into these
spaces the needs and wants and desires of the many is to enrich the
offerings of today with the tools of today.

What is "artificial" is real. Virtual reality has a density, and
architecture.

It spills out of the confined windows of video screens and fills the
real world.

It becomes political, it becomes physical, and it becomes artistic.

It is already all of these things.

These are the new space.

Contemporary Art and New Media

Spring 2009, Shanghai, China

Bibliography

Works Cited

"A Conversation with Koon Wee." Personal interview. 4 June 2009.

Marshall, McLuhan,. Medium is the massage an inventory of effects. San
Francisco, CA: HardWired, 1996.

Venturi, Robert. Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge, Mass: MIT P, 1972.

Graham Bannon - Blog Posts

Graham Bannon

Blog Posts

On Last Week and Performance Art, Gerry Pryor & Zhu Yu; A Criticism

During last week's class, Gerry Pryor, a professor at NYU and an
artist himself, came in to talk with us as well as show us a clip form
a recent performance he put on entitled Chance Running. The visit, as
well as our further discussions on some examples of contemporary art
from the Fuck Off exhibit, got me thinking about the meaning behind
these often seemingly inaccessible "shock" works.

To begin with, I have no qualms with - what I believe to be - the
main focus of these works: that of confronting taboos and absolutes in
our society; things that, no matter our stated beliefs or how open we
may say we are, still make us feel uncomfortable for reasons we can't
fully explain - in fact, I wholly support it. The male nude is one
example, as Mr. Pryor pointed out (though his assertion that no male
nudes appear in western art (with the exclusion of Jesus and Greek
pottery) is not true); why is it that, on a purely reactional/
instinctual feeling, we accept female nudity as acceptable/beautiful/
normal, but the male form (especially the genitals - as opposed to the
female "equivalent") is much more taboo/disgusting/unsettling.
Moreover, what does this say about the subjugation of both genders to
certain roles.

And so, with this grounding, art would seem to be an appropriate
means of addressing these issues. However, I feel the execution is
often times (and this applies fully to Mr. Pryor's work Chance
Running) deeply flawed, often times too caught up in a desire to be
something esoteric and consequently, not quite sure itself what it is
trying to say. First off, if Mr. Pryor were using his art to address
the points I brought up above, he would have used full nudity as
opposed to simple stripping to his underwear. By remaining in his
underwear, I fail to see how he is doing anything more than merely re-
enforcing the same strict gender conforming roles and taboos he claims
to confront: still the male is not allowed to be unclothed, always to
be hidden behind some artificial construction of what masculinity
should be (here I feel I could analyze "clothes" as symbolizing a lot
- with reference to the art piece - about societally enforced notions
of masculinity that males are required to "wear", but then I might
just be going too far). (He mentioned posing nude - or simply
stripping - for his class, did he remove all his clothes?). To me, it
seems that his work is merely taking the symbols of what "radical" is,
but is lacking any of the meaning or bite, being instead, just an
empty husk. The work should make the audience feel uncomfortable so
that they are forced to, at the very least, evaluate (or re-evaluate)
their views. It shouldn't make us laugh at how ridiculous it seems.

What about the other parts of the performance Chance Running? I felt
I was only given vague explanations about why any of the particular
actions he took were taken - a reason that contemporary art is often
derided for: for example, saying, "'X' really shows 'Y'", without
explaining how or why. I'm not sure there was any part of the
performance I found crucial - or for that matter important - to the
work. And I certainly could not have found meaning in it without the
artist himself explaining what it meant (with explanations that often
seem to come not actually from the art piece). The work seemed so
caught up in absurdity, but not absurdity for absurdity's sake (which
is an entirely different movement), but (meaningless) absurdity that
claims with a straight face to be profound.

Zhu Yu

The work "Eating People" by Zhu Yu, form the Fuck Off exhibit is a
work for which I haven't fully settled upon a conclusion - not that
that is necessary, or even desirable. In the work, Zhu takes pictures
of himself eating, what he claims to be, a human fetus. Zhu described
the work as by saying, "No religion forbids cannibalism. Nor can I
find any law which prevents us from eating people. I took advantage of
the space between morality and the law and based my work on it". As a
work intending to be "radical" (a word which is itself rather vague),
it certainly succeeds in packing a punch. Cannibalism is something
that I think almost everybody is disgusted by and the very thought of
it makes us feel uncomfortable and (the work eventually drew attention
from the CIA and Scotland Yard after rumors of cannibalism in China/
Taiwan grew out of hand). At first I was more than skeptical of the
work, to the point of ridicule. But to Zhu's credit, after reading
over his statements on the work, I actually began to turn a much more
appreciative eye towards it. Like most contemporary art pieces, it's
vague, but there is a definite message here, and it does get you to
think about where law comes from and how it relates to humanity and a
sense of some absolute morality. It seems silly to say, but if law
(secular or religious) doesn't forbid something we almost unanimously
agree as wrong, what does it deal with? Is it really connected to
reason, or perhaps - to an opposite end of the spectrum - it is just a
tool, created by men, used for control. The fact that I am still
uncomfortable with how I view the work - as a piece of art - makes me
think that perhaps it really is successful at what it set out to do.

Anyhow, I'd like to hear what everyone else thinks about these two
works.

Xu Zhen

The visits the other week to the two artists' studios in M50 was a
valuable experience to get to talk with artists about how they've gone
about their work. I know Xiaoxia mentioned in the previous post about
exploring some of the artists' works before we go to talk with them
which I completely agree with. Xu Zhen has that exhibit open now
("Matters of Faith") so here are some links to some web-pages about
him and with some of his works (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) When Xu was talking
about his history so far, I was intrigued when he was describing how
he and his group of friends collectively decided to abandon several of
the traditional media of art and focus solely on installation pieces.
I didn't ask him at the time, but I am curious as to the specific
benefits and limitations of each media, as he sees it related to his
work and ideas, and what made the group shift their focus then later,
as Xu explained most of the group eventually did, give up on
installations.

I think the "In Just a Blink of an Eye" series is one of the more
accessible collections and, at the very least, aesthetically
interesting.

Pop-Mao

Yu Youhan and the Mao Series:

I think Yu's series of pop-art styled paintings of Mao Zedong are very
interesting. What fascinates me about this series, is the
juxtaposition of reverentials. What works about these pieces is their
grounding in the hyper-politicized period of China from the late
sixties well into the seventies - the cultural revolution. Mao's
status became (as it was already becoming), something no longer human.
His image instead took on its own life independent of the physical
Mao. In the pop-art series (the one with Whitney Huston is a great
example) we see this revered image that is so part of the public
consciousness next to and within a style (as well as with the images
themselves) of the new generations revered culture. With the advent of
capitalism, consumerism - as well as Westernism in a more general
sense - these have taken on a sort of quasi-divine status that is
held, by and large in the public conscious, as the new fixation of the
public cult of worship. This fits into the increasingly depoliticized
world that China has descended into (as well as the art scene). The
use of Mao in the art work serves to remind us of the recent hyper-
politicization and where the current political and social world stands
and has changed, with a satiric eye towards the similarities.

Chinese art market in the global scene and it's meanings

I've been reading up about the contemporary art scene and it's
position in the global art and political world and have come across
several interesting things. The growth of importance of the Chinese
art scene upon the global world has walked hand-in-hand with China's
emergence upon the world stage as a major player. I'm curious about
the relation of the two. Is sudden interest in Chinese contemporary
art linked with a growing inquisitiveness about the people behind this
new global player. Does interest into the Chinese art scene correlate
to an attempt by the rest of the world to better understand
contemporary Chinese culture and society as well as the spirit and
feel of the average Chinese citizen. Does insight into the art of a
culture provide insight into the people of that culture as well and
help us better understand the Chinese as human beings?

Or is the interest just another attempt to jump onto the profitable
Chinese-market wagon? Works by big name contemporary Chinese artists
were (and still are to a lesser extent) selling in the millions of USD
at auction. Is this an appreciation of the art movement here or an
attempt at a smart investment? On the Chinese side of it, is the art
movement still connected to its roots or has it too been sucked into
the world of high monetary returns? With the "good artwork" produced,
there has been a horde of "junk being traded as 'meaningful
work,'" ("Chinese contemporary art bubble goes flat") producing art as
a commodity for the sole means of profit. Now however, there seems to
be a burst in the Chinese art bubble pointing to the idea that maybe
all this interest was just an overexcited fad. Or maybe not; works by
the big names, although not reaching Christie's auction expectations,
are still fetching price tags in the millions.
Propaganda Museum

I found the propaganda exhibit to be the most interesting of the
galleries we have visited recently. It was fascinating to walk along
the posters noticing the developments of styles and messages
presented. It is, in a sense, a historical lens into China's recent
history and the social, political and economic desires of the
government. The early posters had a surreal cartoonish style to them
reminiscent of European early forays into the new medium of large-
scale industrial print propaganda. As the Korean war drew to a close,
you can see the entrance of more Socialist-realism influences with the
idealized and heroic workers in their utopian communities. An
interesting side note was the influence of the 1930s Shanghai calendar
girl poster on some of these 1950s posters. The change to the red-art
style of the cultural revolution and there violent and militaristic
themes is a sudden shift that gives the reader some impression of the
mood of the time.

I was most interested in he collection of big-character posters
(dazibao) tucked away in the back room. These posters to me are the
most powerful work of the cultural revolution. Each poster is so bound
up with fear, violence, paranoia, and chaos with students denouncing
teachers for being reactionary because they actually believed or they
were too scared not to attack and look like a rightist-sympathizer.
The mention of these works of calligraphy on paper as art pieces in
themselves (as opposed to historical documents) brings up ethical
considerations about what art can be used for and what it can do. Many
people's careers (and more) were ruined by such posters (it is
possible that someone's life was ruined by one of the posters on
display). And yet many of the posters were imaginative creations,
bearing almost no link to any truth, standing as works contained only
within themselves yet still having such a real ability to drag the
physical world into the reality of their illusions

366. New China and Old Nostalgia

There were several pieces from the exhibition, Interlude: Art and Life
366 at the Zendai MoMA that I found to be interesting. A common theme
that i found interesting in many of the works is the changing nature
of life in Shanghai, and China as a whole. The work "Line of Sight,'
by artist Maldev Lopez took the approach of examining the increase of
advertisements upon the city's visage. In the work, Lopez set up a
several large orange panels that, when observed at a certain angle,
blocked out all of the surrounding logos and advertisement. What i
found fascinating about this piece is seeing a side of China that is
not wholly comfortable with the sudden onslaught of capitalism that
has taken hold of China, especially Shanghai. There is a whole
population that has come, and is coming of age in a China so radically
different from that of their parents. This generation has no
connection to the communism of the past except for a vague and often
mythicized history that frames the past in a reverent tone that is
often off limits for discussion. A sense of nostalgia for a past many
never lived seems sprout up every now in then when listening to he
younger generation that is mistrustful of free-market, anything goes
capitalism, which they often see as cold and uncaring

The piece "Echo," by artist Huang Dehua provides an interesting
viewpoint to this. The work is an artistic recreation of old cheap
floor tiles from the '70's and '80's that have entered the collective
memory of an entire people. This memory, and this nostalgia, remains
as a constant in so many as the world around them is razed block at a
time as new rows of high-rises spring up at a dizzying rate. There is
a comfort in those old floor tiles and a pleasant notion that one
didn't have to worry as much about their place in the world, about
being left behind - there is a comfort in living in the past, a past
removed from reality and hardship, and idealized into a dream.

Shanghai Ballet

The Shanghai Ballet, this weekend, put on a performance of several
mainstays of the Western classical repertoire as well as several
pieces by contemporary Chinese choreographers. The production value of
the performance was on the whole, rather low. The music was not live
and was of a noticeably poor quality projected through the speakers.

Of the pieces performed, the contemporary Chinese pieces were the most
interesting, the Western pieces feeling uninspired and unsure of
themselves. The show opened with a piece by a contemporary Chinese
choreographer performed with a solo piano accompaniment, the dancers
making use of simply brightly colored outfits telling a tale of
courtship of the single female dancer. The finale was a choreographed
version of the final movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony. This
piece above all was a poor choice of closing, though it is an
interesting selection in what it is. The performance was meant to
showcase the range and depth of ballet and the classics, bringing in
the Western classics to give an unfamiliar audience a taste of Western
ballet. As such, that they picked Beethoven's 9th – arguably the most
famous piece in all of Western music – is rather funny: showing off
the best there is to offer. The problem being that piece is not a
ballet, but a symphony, and the pinnacle of the form, and so any
choreography comes up as wholly lacking compared to the music. It came
off far to gaudy and inappropriate to the piece, the dancing more akin
to a poor Hollywood production.

One piece worth mentioning however was a contemporary Chinese dance
piece performed before the finale. The piece incorporated Chinese fan
dancing but in a much less traditional way, utilizing modern ballet
techniques combined with a decidedly more Chinese feel.

Speedism

The Belgian futurist architecure/visual design duo "Speedism" on
Saturday gave a preview of their work as part of a symposium on
futurism and architecture in Shanghai held at Lounge 18 on the Bund.
The duo presented a computer rendered tour of a strange model of a
future (and possibly futurist-based) Shanghai. The piece, while quite
colorful and at times intricate, was overall much too silly to really
have a point. I was reminded more of small games and movies I used to
make using Flash that, while fun to make, weren't really worth much
more. And though the panel gathered for the occasion repeatedly
informed us audience members that this duo was doing some really
"provocative," "daring," and "new" designs that are "leading the
architecture world forward" and that will surely have "a lot of
influence in the architecture world," I never got the answer of what
exactly it was about their works that were these things, or for that
matter that this stuff really even had anything to do with
architecture, and not just some guys creating weird looking things, on
their computers.

Dutch Pavillion for Expo 2010

On Saturday at Lounge 18 this past weekend, the architect, John
Körmeling, of the Dutch pavilion for Shanghai's Expo 2010 gave a short
presentation of his upcoming work as well as talked about his
experiences as an architect and as an architect working in China. An
interesting note about his piece for the Expo 2010 is the fact that
the entire pavilion is lacking doors and is meant to be experienced as
a single entity, as opposed to a series of rooms. The pavilion is
built on an elevated spiraling road with buildings almost hanging off
the edges. The overall effect looks something like a mix between
Shanghai's elevated highways and a 17th century traditional Dutch
styled town. Of note in Körmeling's talk was a statement that China
provides a level of freedom and experimentation to the architect (and
not to mention the commissions).

Blackboard

The exhibit Blackboard held in Shaghai's M50 district at ShangART
asked artist to create works around the central theme of the
Blackboard, a tool that has played such a large role in the
development and education of an entire country and that holds such a
definite place in the collective conscious of the Chinese people. Many
of the artists took radically different approaches to the task
producing works as varied as: neon lights shaped like the outline of a
blackboard to a small garden attached to a physical blackboard. Of the
exhibit, one specific piece worth mentioning was one in which several
large pieces of a computer hard drive were attached to a board and
spray painted black to look like a traditional blackboard. The work
points out the changing structure of the modern classroom with
electronics playing an ever larger and larger role, pushing out the
traditional tools such as the blackboard. The piece succeeded as well
in retaining an aesthetic balance, the black spray paint at first
making the complex and intricately designed computer chips look overly
simple from a distance, yet at close range revealing the true, and
beautiful, nature of the sight.

Titanic

Zhang Liaoyuan's new video installation Titanic, presented at the
Shanghai Gallery of Art (Three on the Bund), shows three videos of
people performing everyday activities (shopping for groceries, at a
library, eating at a restaurant) while water sprays at them. The
effect is supposed to call to mind the Titanic as it sank, sprouting
high-pressure leaks as the ship's hull was breached. The point of the
work is supposed to be a comment on modern society, as if we are like
those passengers of the Titanic. However, where the actual passengers
of the Titanic were surely fleeing for their lives, the actors in
Zhang's work remain calm, as if to say our society is trying to
pretend that those life-threatening leaks in our world don't exist.
The problem with Zhang's work is it is too blunt, to clichéd, and too
simple without enough context or explanation. Sure he thinks our world
is going to Hell. Why? He could explore why the people aren't fleeing
for their lives, but he doesn't. He could explain what those "leaks"
in our society are, but he doesn't. In fact, he doesn't even make an
attempt. The work is overly vague and ultimately meaningless, coming
off as more pretentious than anything else.

Daily Rituals

This weekend, on May 23th, Shanghai Art Gallery opened up a new
exhibition entitled Daily Rituals, with works gathered from previous
exhibitions. The exhibit's linking theme is that the works all are
explorations by the artists of the everyday. It seems like a very
broad definition and it is. Works range from Zeng Li's photography of
Chinese streets to Qiu Shi-hua's abstract lanscape paintings to Zhang
Liaoyuan's "sculpture" piece of public lockers (meant to "question our
desire for security in public space and the way in which we accept and
comply with a synchronized order in return"). One of the few
noteworthy pieces at the exhibition was Yang Jiechang's "100 Layers of
Ink." Yang, trained in traditional Chinese ink paintings, in "100
Layers of Ink" does just as the title suggests, puts 100 layers of ink
on paper. As the ink dries, it constricts, crinkling the paper. When
the work dries, the cracks and stretch lines present an abstract image
– a newly created aesthetic from an old medium.

Video Gaming in Art

The idea of video gaming in art presents an interesting new range of
possibilities in the interactive, individual, unique, and random
nature of art. In works we have seen in class, video game technology
has been used to allow the audience the ability to affect the art as
it is going on. This creates a new dynamic where the art becomes more
fluid, and the audience becomes part of the art. This is an idea that
has been firmly entrenched into contemporary art theory over the past
40 years, yet has new means of exploration now. Other fields opened to
this are the roles of chance now opened up into the artworks. Like the
aleatoric music of John Cage, video game technology allows new ways
for chance to be written into the "score." I would be curious to see
where these developments lead and to what degree they will be
connected with the world of video game industry, which has a major
step forward in the range and depth they can create in a program.