Monday, September 27, 2010

Ai Weiwei on Ai Weiwei

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/ai-weiwei/

Ai Weiwei

QUESTIONNAIRE
Ai Weiwei is an artist who lives in Beijing, China. His ongoing
'Citizen Investigation' project, researching information about the
students who died in the Sichuan earthquake on 12 May 2008, led to
works shown as part of 'So Sorry' at the Haus der Kunst, Munich in
2009. This year he had a solo exhibition, 'Barely Something', at the
Museum DKM in Duisburg, Germany. His commission for Tate Modern's
Turbine Hall will open on 12 October 2010. He is Artistic Director of
the Gwangju Design Biennale 2011.


MRI scan showing Ai Weiwei's cerebral haemorrhage as a result of
police brutality in Chengdu, China, 12 August 2009

What are you reading?
I don't read anything besides the news.

What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?
My early memory of art is of revolutionary posters. They had a very
strong impact on me as a child.

If you could live with only one piece of art what would it be?
I have no favourite piece of art. I am more interested in the artist
than in the work.

What should change?
What should stay the same?
Everything should change and everything should stay the same.

What could you imagine doing if you didn't do what you do?
Imagination is part of what I do now. If I didn't do what I am doing
today I would have no imagination.

What is your favourite title of an art work?
Untitled.

What music are you listening to?
I never listen to music.

What do you like the look of?
I like the look of anything. Everything is interesting to me.

What images keep you company in the space where you work?
Normally we don't have any images in our working space – with one
exception: a list of the names and birthdates of 5,000 students who
died in the earthquake in Sichuan in 2008 is posted on one wall.

ashanzi Art District (798 Art District, Beijing):

ML
Is a large compound of artists' studios, and galleries installed in an
outmoded 1950s factory complex, built by a team of East German
architects in a style inspired by the Bauhaus.
Unfortunatly I did not have time to get to the complex until way to late
and almost everything was closed.
What I did get to experience was the Creators project's Beijing installation.
A set of installations and artworks by a mix of contemporary Chinese artists
focusing on light, not surprising something that facinates the Chinese,
especially after having experienced shanghai's skyline lightshow every night.

The Creators project also put on a small music festival with both local bands
and imported Americans such as Major Lazer.
All in all, an interesting fresh show with an amazing
scene of mostly young art interested expats. I't seems where ever Chinese
contemporary art is taking me, the audience are my peers. European's
or American's, mostly young, mid 20's to 30's, Where are all the Chinese people
interested in Chinese art contemporary art, except the artists themselves?

Friday, September 24, 2010

798

Nina Boys
Contemporary Art and New Media in China
Blog Entry #3
09.23.2010


This past weekend I was able to visit a unique and engaging
gallery in the art and culture community known as "789" located in the
Dashanzi Art District of Beijing. The gallery was inside an
industrial warehouse with cement walls, floors and ceilings. There
were various installations sprinkled around the room and I noticed
that almost all of them were interactive. This being the case, the
audience (a mixture of Chinese and foreigners) were all physically
engaged with the art around them. While I did not see anything
indicating that there was one large umbrella theme, I found most of
the pieces to be "trippy". For example one piece was comprised of a
screen on a wall that when you stood in front of it, acted as a
mirror. You could move and see your reflection in a blurred,
slow-motion. What you did not know was that you were being
video-recorded throughout and after a couple of minutes, the screen
would replay for you the footage it had been shooting. I interpreted
this as being a manifestation of "Big Brother" imparting on the
audience that they are being not only watched, but recorded, without
their knowledge. Another unique installation requested that its
audience "water" a plant pot sitting on a pedestal. Upon pouring
water into the pot, a screen that was set in between to walls of
mirrors would start shooting different streams of bright colors that
would intertwine and "dance" with each other and that were reflected
in the mirror walls, providing for an intensely visual experience
(photo attached). These two installations, among others, employed the
use of interesting and new technological media which made them not
only unique, but also very "contemporary." One could not know what
the next piece would offer, but rather the gallery fostered a sense of
excitement and anticipation for the new and unexpected.

Beijing 798

Joon Nam
Sept 23, 2010


Planning for the weekend trip to Beijing, I felt somewhat rushed and
unprepared. I had been to Beijing as a part of a tour group before,
and it was precisely because of the fact that I had been to Beijing
that I was more anxious about this trip; I did not want to repeat what
I had done and make it a boring trip. However, the assuring discovery
of 798 through the class right before the trip gave me the last
comfort before leaving for Beijing. Faced with one of the historical
traffic jam in Beijing, the first day to Great Wall was very draining.
However, things have gotten much more interesting the second day when
my group went to Nanluogu Hutong and to the Olympic park in the
evening. I was able to witness the modernizing forces transforming one
of the most traditional cities in the world.

It hit home when I visited 798 the next morning. The creativity and
capabilities I saw made me realize that perhaps China is no longer
just a follower of modern trend but rapidly becoming the moving force.
The first exhibition that I stepped into was "Hope Tunnel" by Zhang
Huan at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA). The arrangement of
the train wreckage echoed the tragic event that took place 2 years ago
in Sichuan; the wreckage conveyed the chaos of the moment, yet in a
very beautiful ways that left me with intricate feelings. Afterwards,
I visited various exhibitions of the Creators Project hosted by Intel,
which showcased various works of technological art from artists all
over the world. Only inconvenience I faced during the visit at 798 was
that it was quite difficult to navigate the area. Although there were
maps, none of them were detailed enough to lay out the locations of
all the galleries and points of interest. Because of this, I feel like
I might have mis
sed out on many other things that are available in the area. However,
what I had seen during my short visit to 798 was enough to keep me
surprised and enthralled.

Ho Chi Minh Trail by Stephanie Hsu

Blog Post #3

Ho Chi Minh Trail is an art project launched by the Long March
Project, a collaboration between artists, writers, curators, and
scholars that was founded by Lu Jie in 2002. Act 1 of Ho Chi Minh
Trail is currently being exhibited at Long March Space in Beijing's
798 Art District, with Act 2 to be exhibited as a part of the upcoming
8th Shanghai Biennale at the Shanghai Art Museum. Having the
opportunity to visit Beijing's 798 Art District last weekend, I was
able to see Act 1 of Ho Chi Minh Trail and begin learning about the
ongoing organization of educational programs and exhibitions to which
the project belongs.
As the headquarters of Long March Project, Long March Space provides a
modest gallery space that fulfills a multidimensional purpose—to
engage creative thinkers both physically and conceptually with the art
being displayed. The entrance of the gallery leads to two larger
rooms, which display the works of a group of established artists—Chen
Chieh-jen, Liu Wei, Xu Zhen, Wu Shanzhuan, Wang Jianwei, and Zhang
Hui. I entered the left-side room first, prompted by the text on the
wall, which gave me an introduction to Ho Chi Minh Trail as a metaphor
for a historical path connecting lived experiences, individual
memories, and collective imagination. Statements including "Taking on
the burden of history is not an act of retracing historical memory,
but a restless attempt to position the present in history" informed me
of the project's efforts to use art as a vehicle through which to
understand the past and its relevance to present issues.
Among the works, Wu Shanzhuan's installation, a c-shaped sculpture
surrounded by a border of cautionary stripes, takes the focus of the
room by laying claim of its conceptual function:
"imagination=perspective x projection x cloud3." This seemingly
lighthearted play on perception was then shadowed by the ominous
words, "VIOLENCE IS THE ULTIMATE MATERIALIZATION OF UNDERSTANDING."
Lining the edges of the sculpture in backwards text, these words
seemed to point towards the irony of contemporary knowledge as having
been gained through the brutality and human cost of war.
With the wall caption's description of Ho Chi Minh Trail as aiming to
"rehearse rather than produce," the smaller back room of the gallery
contextualizes the exhibition as merely a "rehearsal" in a six-stage
progression that includes "field research" and "physical journey."
Photos, videos, and books displayed in the casual, almost office-like
setting seem to act as records of the previous stages of the project's
development, documenting the human exchanges, research, and physical
travel between China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia that paved the way
to the artistic production being shown. Nguyen Trinh Thi's
experimental film "Chronicle of a Tape Recorded Over," depicts the
collective telling of a story that is at once fictional and
non-fictional, by individuals that the filmmaker herself met during
her travel along the actual site of the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
Though the individual works of Ho Chi Minh Trail evoke complex and
provocative ideas, the exhibition failed to convey the relationships
between them in a coherent and cohesive fashion. Optimistically
speaking, perhaps as a "rehearsal," the exhibition is intended to be a
true work-in-progress. Hopefully, the "theatre" stage of Ho Chi Minh
Trail—which will be exhibited beginning October 24 during the 8th
Shanghai Biennale—will attest to its claim as the final performance.

798 Art District, The Creators Project

by Cori
When I went to the 798 Art District in Beijing, I originally intended
to see what Beijing's contemporary art scene was like. However,
without even realizing it I became drawn into the several Creators
Project exhibits that were also going on. Rather than interacting and
responding to contemporary social, political, or economic situations,
the artworks presented in the Project interacted with technology and
digital culture. The piece by Teddy Lo, called Positive Void, for
instance used a special LED screen that displayed images you could
only see while moving your eyes. This way of looking at an artwork
almost seems backwards; usually you look at an artwork slowly,
absorbing the visual information, whereas with this piece you could
only get flashes of the images, as if seeing something out of the
corner of your eye. Requiring the active participation of the
audience, whether it be moving your eyes or body or providing a camera
flash, many of the Creators Project exhibits bordered on games. A
piece by DSP called [Z]ink allowed the audience to use a plastic box
to draw 3-D lines on a screen. Not only did the computer trace the
person's movements left, right, up, and down, it also detected depth,
so the participant could move in all directions and see the results.
It seems as though a lot of digital art and media is leaning towards
game-like experiences that involve audience participation. Although it
makes for an interesting experience, I wouldn't say they were all
successful. Teddy Lo's piece was very successful I thought. It not
only provided a strange and hypnotic experience, but it made me think
about how we perceive visual information. DSP's piece on the other
hand was interesting, but I couldn't understand its significance since
3-D tracking is already being implemented in many technologies,
including gaming consoles that are widely used around the globe. Also,
the interaction aspect of the piece wasn't unique or interesting.
Perhaps some information or preface could have shed some light on what
exactly was going on.

Political messages of “Yang Ban Xi”

Minji Kim


We usually gain our inspirations from various forms of art surrounding
us and give it back to the nature through art as well. There are many
historical evidences that art has enabled more effective
communications between a person and the other person, between a person
and a nature, and even within a human self. One of the examples of
Eastern art as a great tool of expression can be Yang Ban Xi, a very
revolutionary musical during the Cultural Revolution in China.
During the Cultural Revolution, Yang Ban Xi was the only form of art
that was not prohibited in China. What makes Yang Ban Xi more
attractive is that it was not only for entertainment but also for
political propaganda. "Art must serve the interests of the workers,
peasants, and soldiers and must conform to proletarian ideology"; this
is what chairman Mao Zedong defined Art to be. Along with Mao's
statement that art has to contain a message in any way, Madame Mao
decided to start these seven series of a show called Yang Ban Xi.
While watching the video, I was highly impressed by how vividly the
actors remember their old days spent with Yang Ban Xi and how it had a
huge impact on Chinese audiences in general. Especially, women's
participation in these shows might have made the musical more
historically meaningful. It was a way for women to participate in a
political movement since Yang Ban Xi always had a strong message for
communism, despite the low female social status. It might have had a
political oppression behind the scenes, but I think Yang Ban Xi was
also a pathway for women to play an equal role with men in a form of
art.

Before coming to China, I had expectations about the censorship and
authoritarian government formed in due part to our 24/7 news culture.
I thought the people would be modest and the outlook, well, bleak. I
imagined an oppressed people, eager to break out of their little world
and see all the things the actual world has to share. Upon arrival, I
quickly realized that it was my beliefs that needed to be reevaluated
due to ignorance and limited exposure to diverse ideas and opinions.
While the United States prides itself on freedom of speech and
diversity in thought, the truth is that the majority perceives and
understands the same ideas, reiterated by the news media. China is not
only an emerging economic power, but a land of increasing color,
style, and individuality. China's gradual freeing of self-expression
has flourished into a society developing its art and music scene. I
find it amazing that a society that grew-up with state run media,
dominated by music and art that's sole purpose was to glorify Mao
Zedong and the Communist Party, is now producing non-objective
contemporary artwork. Beijing strongly illustrates this dual concept.
Tiananmen Square somberly recalls the oppressive nature of Chinese
government. Across the city, at the Olympic Park, the Bird's Nest
reflects a drastically different side of the Chinese government.
Political dissident Ai Wei Wei served as Artistic Director. China's
showcasing of a contemporary architecture designed in part by a man
who speaks out publically about the Chinese government reflects the
current and potential growth of the Chinese people's creative
expression.

Meredith Rankin

Thursday, September 23, 2010

798 Art District

Last weekend I was at Beijing for a field trip. There I visited the 798 Art District. The area contains many contemporary art exhibitions, as well as small boutiques. The 798 is divided into 5-6 different smaller zones, and to go through all of them would take a whole day (if not more).

There, I looked at the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which is a project that is created to connect the art of Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. Even though the idea is very good, the exhibition seems to be quite low budget since there were only a few documentary videos and no artworks displayed.

I also went to the Ullens Center. Unfortunately I only had time to look at one exhibition, Zhang Huan’s “Hope Tunnel.” The display, situated in a huge room, depicts a terrible train wreck scene. It was said that the artist bought a wrecked train from the Sichuan earthquake and refurbished it to create the display. The message he wanted to send was that humans may be small and weak in the face of nature; however, we are not powerless, and there is still hope in the aftermath of disaster as each and every person can make the difference. I interpret this statement to encourage philanthropy to support the Sichuan earthquake. Zhang Huan’s exhibition really moved me.

After 4 hours of venturing, I checked out several boutiques and bought a music box at the end.

798 Art Zone

Last weekend I was at Beijing for a field trip. There I visited the 798 Art District. The area contains many contemporary art exhibitions, as well as small boutiques. The 798 is divided into 5-6 different smaller zones, and to go through all of them would take a whole day (if not more).

There, I looked at the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which is a project that is created to connect the art of Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. Even though the idea is very good, the exhibition seems to be quite low budget since there were only a few documentary videos and no artworks displayed.

I also went to the Ullens Center. Unfortunately I only had time to look at one exhibition by

I checked out several boutiques and bought a music box at the end.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

When Art Becomes Political Tool

Now we are living in the world that people have all kind of access to entertainment and fun. Thousands of movies, dramas, plays, concerts are going on every day. But imagine there are only 8 plays for you to watch in the whole world? I might just commit suicide. The documentary “the 8 model works” stroke me hard because it reminded me that there was really a period of time in Chinese history that people has so limited freedom.
8 model works refer to eight plays wrote by writers appointed by the center government and performed by artists approved by the center government. The plays paid contribute to Chairman Mao, the CCP and the new PRC. They were designed to educate people to respect the authorities, to focus on class struggle and to fight back the landlords. This was probably the original type of media censorship in China—controlling everything people could possibly see.
Although the plays themselves had high aesthetic value, I still felt that any value was offset by the blatant political persuasion.  Arts were no longer pure or spontaneous; they were just affected and superficial.  
Looking retrospect into history, cases in which arts are used for political purpose are abundant. Although I understand that arts and artists are influenced by social, political and economic circumstances, artists should be given the right to express their own feelings. I really hope that contemporary art won’t be contaminated by sheer politics or government control.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

IN CONVERSATION WITH ALEXANDRA MUNROE

Alexandra Munroe, Ph.D. is the Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Is there anything unique about the fair?

There is a lot of comparing this fair to the Hong Kong fair, which was in its third year in May 2010. There is a lot of competition. This fair strikes me as different. It feels messier, it feels edgier, and it feels younger, more experimental. It feels more curatorial.

How is it curator-friendly?

You have work that can't be collected, or work that is defying the market. It is work that is not about the commodity of art. Some of it is subverting the whole idea of the art market. The curated exhibition is very strong. It's very smart to position it as the opening experience. It sets the caliber of the exhibition as a whole. In that case, they set a very high bar for themselves. Curatorially and intellectually, it is gutsy.

I overheard one of the dealers earlier this evening lamenting the fact that the scene is still very Beijing based. Shanghai has this little-brother syndrome. Now Colin, who has done a good job, is still edging in on our turf. How can we move away from a unipolar art world, or even a bipolar one?

It's a really important question. The dominance of Beijing in the packaging of contemporary Chinese art has been limiting. I think that it is not representative of the vitality. Certain tastes have become tyrannically popular, and then become stratospherically high in terms of market value. Frankly, this has been a turnoff to collectors and museum people abroad. It's very dangerous to think of Chinese art world as unipolar. How can you have 1.4 billion people in a society as tumultuous as this and even try to present a single language. The whole point was that we were coming out of a totalitarian, ideological art world that was the Cultural Revolution. (But now, we realize that even the Cultural Revolution was much more varied and much more subtle and less unipolar than we had been led to believe.) Of course in the period since, there's been a tremendous amount of explosion. It needs to be messy. A good art world needs to be messy.

Not to mention the politicization of Chinese art…linking the art world to Beijing seems to invite this.

Actually, a lot of the artists and galleries in Shanghai and Guangdong have been very influential. If you look at the artists that were part of that move, many of them came from the South. Shanghai isn't getting the credit.

The Chinese collector is a huge presence and absence. Any insight?

The class of Chinese private collections is going to get stronger and more sophisticated. We've seen a lot of buying. I think a lot of that buying has been stimulated by speculation. Those collectors that are even buying in depth are often flipping that work. I think that's very unhealthy because what an infrastructure needs, what an art culture needs, is dedicated support, almost partnerships between artists and collectors—long term commitments where an artist can grow with the nurturing support of dedicated collectors. I'm hoping that the number of collectors that are collecting for the long term will make their museums or will donate their collections to museums in China or abroad.

You're giving a talk on the Western context of collecting Asian art. What is the Western context?

Each museum has to answer that question for themselves. Every museum, especially those established as the Guggenheim, MOMA, or Tate, has its own personalities. We have our own curatorial DNA—our attitude about what matters in art. We argue with each other and experiment. It would be a shame for our museums to be collecting the same artists. I advocate difference and nonuniformity, and a sharing of information.

As we begin to collect this material, we should complement each other and help the art world here. I don't want to make a ghettoized collection of Asian art at the Guggenheim. The Guggenheim is founded as a modern European and American art museum. I'm never going to have an Asian collection that rivals the depth of that—that is our origin. What we can do now is expand, or interrogate the canon. I don't want to topple the canon. We're not there to topple it, but to question it and make it uneasy and expand it. That's the most we can do, but it can still be very significant.

HOW COLIN CHINNERY CAME TO BE INVOLVED IN THE COMMERCIAL ART WORLD AND THEN GOT TIRED AND QUIT.

http://boundeditorial.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/how-colin-chinnery-came-to-be-involved-in-the-commercial-art-world-and-then-got-tired-and-quit/

So your mother is Chinese?

Both her parents were prominent writers in the 1920s and 30s. Our old home in Beijing is going to be converted to the city's first hutong museum, and a museum for the two of them.  My mother's grandfather was the mayor of Beijing.

I was born and raised in Edinburgh, but I'm half-Chinese and half-British. I've been spending half of my life here since I started coming here in 1979. I'm very much half and half, both culturally and blood wise.

In addition to curating, you're an artist. How would you describe your work?

My work is more on the conceptual side—projects and installations and things like that.

You were in a band in the early 90s in Beijing.

That was a time in Beijing when music was still on the margins of being something really relevant. It was going from something that was really relevant to becoming something less relevant. But, it felt like the opposite. It felt like it was breaking out, like it was on the vanguard, like it was going to do something. It was a very exciting time, we felt that we were at the forefront of a movement. Everyone was full of idealistic energy. We were one of the first experimental art groups. In the states you'd call that art rock. Bands that came out of art school, like the Talking Heads or something like that. I was quite heavily influenced by New Wave–bands like the Talking Heads, the Police, and other post-punk acts. We were interested in the band's aesthetic. We liked making long songs…we wanted to break down the structure of the songs.

Later on you were making sound pieces. Would you say that this music and this experience affected your curatorial process?

No. That came much, much later from a visual art curatorial mindset. It's like, 'I want to do something with sound.'

But that's the beauty of doing something related to art: I think everything is relevant. Art school is one small part, going to exhibitions is one small part. Everything plays a part but you don't know what it is. That's how the music fits in.

So did you go to Art School?

I didn't, no. I studied Classical Chinese at SOAS at the University of London. I didn't study because I wanted the degree. I was just coming out of my band, and no self-respecting person who is just coming out of a band will say, 'Ok, my next step is getting a degree and getting a job.' But I wanted to because I've spoken Chinese since I was a kid but I never learned to read and write.

You said everything is related in the artistic field. You're an artist, a curator, and now the director of a commercial art fair director. How do these different sides of your character inform each other?

I was the founding director of the Ullens Center, and that was a tough job to put together a museum from scratch, but it was very exciting. To build a team from a scratch and form this bond, where you have a sense of purpose, that's a really beautiful process. And building a program, talking to people, that's really nice.

At heart I guess I'm still a nonprofit person, I'm a curator, and ShContemporary feels like a curator's show. It can't be helped that my personality is going to rub off on the art fair. Because I'm the director the decisions I make are going to influence the form it takes, and I've always been saying that this fair should be an experimental fair.

When they approached me and asked if I'd like to direct the show, I asked them if they had seen my CV. I honestly thought they had got the wrong person. I couldn't actually believe that they were inviting me, because I've never done anything commercial together. The Ullens side, the artist and the curator are more coherent. The art fair directing came out of the realization that there is no nonprofit sector in China. It is sorely missing. So everything relies on the commercial sector. I cannot hide my head in the sand and not understand the commercial side if I'm going to do things in China.

Do you think about going back to the nonprofit world after this foray into the commercial side?

Of course, I'm not doing any one job forever. I will move in various directions as time goes by. Right now I find this fascinating and stimulating. The thing is, I'm not doing sales myself. The great thing about directing an art fair is that you're doing commercial work but you're not buying or selling art yourself. You're one step removed. You're building a platform for others to buy and sell.

ShContemporary is housed in a bizarre Stalinist exhibition hall. How did you find yourself interacting with the physical space?

Last year we did. I worked with Anton Vidokle, who runs E-Flux. Anton was born in Russia. He was in this Russian building and said, "This is amazing, there's nothing like this in Moscow, apart from the underground. There's nothing this beautiful and ornate. So we started talking about what this means in terms of history-this weird Stalinist Rococo–the decoration of Russian folk stories within the Stalinist Façade. We were talking about the aesthetic motifs and the power structure. We were thinking about what Boris Groys was writing about, the Post-Communist Era, and how that affected global culture, because half the world turned super-capitalist overnight. We're in it in China. We're communist but we're post-communist.

That was last year, coming out of this historicity. We showed artists coming from that history. Anri Sala interviewed his mother (Intervista, 1998) who was part of the Albanian Communist youth and was super zealous. She couldn't believe her eyes when she saw old video footage of herself. She was in denial that she had this past. We had a Chinese artist responding to the Nixon-Kruschev Kitchen Debate. He made a model kitchen… We had Abramovic (Imponderablia, 1977).

This year, we've played with the architecture less. This year, we've recognized Stalin and Mao's power by switching off the lights in the main hall. It's so overpowering, we don't want to overawe the art.

The DISCOVERIES: Re-Value show is market-based criticism. Why not do that last year when the market was much more on people's minds?

Too obvious. It was like, everybody is talking about the market, let's talk about art. It was nonstop and relentless. If I was going to do another art market seminar, it's like 'come on Colin, you can do better than that.'

How do you think the Re-Value exhibit came off?

It's a really interesting process. It's not like curating a show for a museum where you have a budget and you just invite people over. This is a process of negotiation between the artist and the gallery. There's no cost to the booth, but there are lots of costs involved (insurance, transportation.)

I'm happy about how it feels. Overall, I'm very happy. There is a major Wu Shanzhuan piece at the top of the show. We have a lot of young artists making unaesthetic conceptual work.

Anything that you're especially drawn too?

Those super realistic paintings of pebbles (by Zhu Yu)? That was very unexpected. I put that in the show because they're just paintings of pebbles, but they have this power over you. It's really weird, and you don't know what's happening. I've tried to analyze it. Wu Shanzhuan today was like, 'my god, these stones! They're really good.'

I wouldn't say favorite, but I like it when art does something unexpected and you don't know how it does it. It's almost very important that you don't know how it does it. At least for a while.

It's a bummer to try and completely strip away the aura of a work of art.

Yes, but if you strip away the aura and you've still got an aura…well. I don't like work that completely relies on its explanation.

As someone with a long connection to Beijing, both through your family and through your art career, what does it mean to direct a major art fair in Shanghai?

It's a smaller scene, it's quieter. To be honest I prefer Shanghai to Beijing, although I shouldn't say that. Because the art scene is smaller, it's less competitive, there are less politics. Artists can just relax and have conversations about art, and just be artists. In Beijing it's really hard to do that. You're an artist-politician or an artist-Businessman. You're never just an artist.

Do you see the Chinese art world decentralizing even more? Moving past Beijing and Shanghai to smaller cities?

No, I don't see that happening yet. It's where the money is. There's no nonprofit sector. There are a few institutions here and there but they don't form a system. It relies on the private system and the money is in Beijing in Shanghai. There used to be really good artists in Guangzhou, but they all moved to Beijing. Not all, but lets say 90%. So, it's actually becoming more centralized. Before, there were great scenes in Sichuan, in Yunnan. In the 1980s, it was truly a nationwide movement. Now it's just where the opportunities are.

What challenges have you encountered this year, putting this on in Shanghai?

China still has some regulations from the past that need to be developed for the future. Clear cut business and trade is fast tracked, but the art world is lagging behind when it comes to tax laws and logistics and things. Because we suffer from that, it damages people's confidence in coming here. It's not going to be a problem forever, but for the time being it certainly is a handicap.

Once that's out of the way, Shanghai would be the most attractive place in Asia,  even the world,  for everyone. It represents the future more than any other city.

What have you seen lately that you're excited about?

Oh, this is a question that every curator should be able to answer, but when you ask it their mind goes blank. Recently I went to the Tate Modern and saw the Francis Alÿs show. That was an amazing show. For me, that was a show that encapsulates what contemporary art is.

Also, Xu Zhen, who has turned into Madein. His practice is really converting into something. He is an artist that will go really far. He's definitely someone to look out for. In China he's quite famous, but internationally he's not known at all.

Have you signed on for next year?

Actually no, this will be announced just after the fair, so if you could hold off on saying this online till Monday that would be really fantastic. I signed a two-year contract, and then in January I said I won't continue. It's nothing negative; I find this whole thing very fun and I get along with them very well. Nothing wrong with them, it's me. I don't want to be director anymore. I got more offers for directorships and they became more and more administrative and took me more away from my art.

I realize that as I'm hitting 40, I either decide to become a director for the rest of my life, like art administrator role, and I really don't want to do that. I want to get back to the ideas and the art—something much smaller and closer to home for me personally. So from this year on I won't be taking anymore fulltime, big-responsibility roles. I'll be doing my own work: writing, curating, and making my own artwork. So that's the decision you make.

A recent text on Western Art in China

FYI

http://www.randian-online.com/en/features/spheres-of-influence.html

Western Art in China and the Vehicles, Actors and the Motives which
Brought it Here

September, 2010

Rebecca Catching

This year in honor of the Expo, Shanghai has seen an inundation of
artistic projects from all corners of the globe. Some were great; some
over-hyped and some occurred in a void – the black hole that is the
Expo grounds, out of the sight (and mind) of the Shanghai artistic
community. Who isn't still fending off calls from people asking them
to schlep down to see this or that poorly conceived Expo project?

Quality aside, China has never in its history seen so many foreign
artistic projects on its soil and in light of this, it seemed fitting
to examine the history of Western art into China. This is a dialogue
that has spanned centuries and covers a variety of purposes and
motives, from the commercial to the ideological to the purely
artistic.

Knowledge of Western art entered China through a variety of channels,
including Jesuit priests, Chinese-run schools, Japanese art teachers,
art books from Europe and Japan, magazines from the Mainland and
Taiwan, returnee students, exhibitions and through a limited number of
exchanges with Western artists. Because of all of the filtering of
information and the fluctuating political climate, China's modern art
history is not a mere reflection of Western art history with a bit of
"lag-time" added in, but a history which flirts with different Western
movements, then retreats, then flirts with other movements only to
return to the previous movements. At the same time, there is the
enduring parallel history of guohua (Chinese ink painting) which has
continuously exerted influence on China's modern artists.

Here I shall attempt to trace the footsteps of Western influence, to
look at the actors involved and the vehicles they used to spread
awareness of Western art to China from the mid-16th century to the
1980s (1). In a second article to follow in the 3rd issue of Randian,
I will look at the artists and theorists made an impact on the Chinese
avant-garde beginning in the mid 70s and continuing to the present.

Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Influence

China's first contact with Western painting was certainly one loaded
with religious and political motives, but nonetheless the Jesuits do
get credit for introducing the medium to China.

The first oil paintings were brought by Matteo Ricci in 1601, when
Ricci offered gifts to the emperor in Beijing. Thomas H. C. Lee
explains inChina and Europe: Images and Influences in Sixteenth to
Eighteenth Centuries, that there were quite a large number of Western
paintings in China in the late Ming Dynasty. Though there were no
works by the great masters, the priests brought over illustrated books
featuring Renaissance and Baroque images, which were passed between
friends (mostly Christian converts in Nanjing and Beijing) (2).

Those who had access to such images were generally fascinated with the
realism – the use of western perspective techniques and chiaroscuro.
The Chinese term for the paintings 凹凸画 autuhua which translates
roughly as "concave/convex" painting captures this fascination with
the three-dimensional (3).

A few painters such as Zeng Qing, managed to draw something of Western
realism into his technique although he was painting in ink:

                 He painted portraits the looked like reflections of
the models in a mirror, capturing wonderfully their spirit and
feelings. His coloring was deeply rich. The eye pupils were dotted for
the effects of animation; although [the faces] were only on paper and
silk, they would glare and gaze, kit their eyebrows or smile, in a
manner alarmingly like real people (4).

Yet not everyone was supportive of these forms and criticized Western
painting is wholly mathematical, technical and the work of mere
artisans or in the words of Zou Yigui (Tsou I-kuei):

                 The Westerners are skilled in geometry, and
consequently there is no the slightest mistake in their way of
rendering light and shade [yang-yin] and distance (near and far). When
they paint houses on a wall people are tempted to walk into them . . .
Students of painting may well take over one or two points from them to
make their own paintings more attractive to the eye. But these
painters . . . are simply artisans (5).

Despite this kind of scorn from court artists, the Jesuits actually
managed to train a number of Chinese artists in this style so that
they could help produce for the needs of the church. Artists such as
Yu Wen-hui / You Wenhui 游文辉, who had studied oil painting from a
Jesuit in Japan, produced a portrait of Ricci along with what would
later become sought-after paintings of religious scenes, which were
hung in China's Christian churches at the time (6).

Towards the end of the 17th century, Western painting in China gained
momentum due to the reign of Emperor Kangxi who was supportive of
Western science. A school of Sino-Western painting was born through
the efforts of artist Jiao Bingzhen – who produced a series of
illustrations of rice cultivation which would help spread an
understanding of Western perspectival drawing techniques. Western
painting received another boost in 1736, with the Qing Imperial
Painting Academy, established by emperor Qianlong. The academy trained
literati painters in Western techniques, which they would bring with
them when they returned to their home cities (7).

While at in the beginning of the Jesuit era, the introduction of
Western painting had a distinctive religious motive – the magically
realistic paintings won many converts in China as they did in the West
– its promotion and dissemination in the late 17th century happened
increasingly through the efforts of the Chinese court.

The "export painters," of the 19th century however introduced a more
one-sided commerce driven form of exchange. At that time, artists in
Macao, Guangdong and Hong Kong were working more-or-less as hired
hands producing paintings for consumption abroad – a precursor to
Shenzhen's Dafen painter's village.

Author Fa-ti Fan lays out the scene for us inBritish Naturalists in
Qing China: Science, Empire and Cultural Encounter:

                 According to one account from the 1830s, there were
about thirty studios of export painting in the neighborhood of the
foreign factories alone. . . . The trades were usually family run,
passed down from generation to generation . . . A painting might pass
through several hands before it was completed. One artisan traced the
outline, another drew in the figures, a third man painted the
background and so on. . . . The finished paintings were shipped to
Europe by the crateful, as well as carried home as souvenirs by
Western visitors (8).

These works mostly consisted of serially produced landscapes and
colonial flavored scenes of everyday life – tea picking and silk
production. Other subjects included ships – a craze driven by the
British and their interest in shipbuilding technology.

Chinese painters also produced quite a number of portraits of monarchs
or saints that, though lacking the identifiable facial features, often
were given some kind of prop as to be recognizable by their buyers
(9). Many of these artists working in Guangdong and Macau were
inspired by Western painters such as George Chinnery, Auguste Bourget,
William Prinsep, Thomas Watson and Charles Wirgman, who were based in
China and other parts of Asia. But China also produced its own
masters, painters such as Tinqua, who amassed large numbers of
assistants and worked in assembly line studios as described above.

Though this business model made a great impact on the livelihood of
the painters involved, it failed to make an impact on "fine art" per
se. This says art historian Michael Sullivan is largely a result of
the kind of foreigners involved in the painting trade. While the
Jesuits made efforts to have exchanges with educated Chinese, the
merchants involved in export painting made no such overtures (10).

Tushanwan Arts and Crafts School

Throughout the export painting era, China's Jesuits, nonetheless
maintained a presence. Shanghai was the center of Jesuit activity in
China and in the mid 19th century, the Tushanwan Arts and Crafts
School had a great influence in introducing a broad range of Western
art techniques and creating educational materials for Chinese student
– which would help plant the seeds of modern painting in China.

Originally a Jesuit run orphanage, Tushanwan introduced an art
training studio at the initiative of father Joannes Ferrer in 1852.
There orphans learned wood carving techniques, Western oil painting
techniques, printing technology and stain glass manufacturing, skills
which they could later use to gain employment.

The school also produced several drawing and painting manuals and is
known to be the first place in China where Western painting was taught
in a systematic way. Teaching methods included asking students to copy
models to learn how to accurately render the human form in
three-dimensional perspective (11). Though these may seem like basic
staples of any drawing class, these techniques were wholly foreign to
students used the rather schematic renderings of the human figure
typical of Chinese painting.

Of course, there was still a motive present in the Jesuits activities
– the subjects were often overtly religious and served the needs of
the church. Many works were hung on church walls and sold to private
buyers. Still Tushanwan artists gained international recognition for
the quality technical quality of their work, and the Jesuit priests
offered an important chance for non-orphans, artists such as Xu
Beihong and Xu Yongqing, to be schooled Western painting techniques
(12).

Study Abroad and the Growth of Western Art Academies in Shanghai

One Tushanwan student, Zhou Xiang, even started up his own painting
school in 1911, the first Western painting school, which specialized
in painting backdrops for photography studios. Other students were
self-taught, scrounging whatever materials they could find to paint –
advertisements and images from periodical magazines bought at the used
bookstores which used to line Peking Road.

In 1912, Liu Haisu, a huge figure in the history of Chinese art (yet a
namesake to a woeful museum in Shanghai's western suburb of Hongqiao),
opened up a school which in 1915 would become the Shanghai Painting
and Art Institute—at the tender age of 17. Liu Haisu was renowned not
only for his vigorous brushwork, but also for displaying nude
paintings and introducing life drawing classes at the institute. The
first model was a 15 year-old-boy, but Liu Haisu was later able to
find a Russian model to pose for the students. This act incurred the
wrath of a local warlord and much criticism from the church. The idea
of painting the human body proved to be far too much for the still
conservative post-Qing Dynasty sensibility, but Liu Haisu's mission
was rescued by the arrival of Chiang Kai-shek and the nationalists who
promoted more open modern attitudes towards art and education.

Shanghai also saw other school openings as with Wu Shikuang's
Institute of Pictorial Art in 1914 and in Xujiahui, the Jesuits still
had a role teaching French landscape techniques through the Université
Aurore in 1919.

Shanghai's foreign presence actually played a big role in this early
dialogue between China and Western art, says Shanghai-based critic and
playwright Zhao Chuan, "In the case of Shanghai, French art had a big
impact. The French Concession had a strong cultural impact; the other
concessions were more commercial. In the 30s, lots of artists went to
France and Belgium to study (13)." The French concession was home to a
small group of intellectuals who were painting in the styles of
Cubism, Fauvism and Symbolism, and in the 30s there were a number of
magazines such as Yishu Xunkan, Yifeng and Yishu which helped spread
an understanding of Surrealism as best as could be done through
translation (14).

In terms of overseas exchanges, most students headed for France or
Japan, a few Chinese students whose families emigrated to the US ended
up studying art there. It was only later in the 1990s that the
US-based Chinese artists would exert a much more important artistic
influence. This large exodus abroad actually began as early as the
1870s and was further pushed along by the end of the war in Europe and
the internationalism of the May Fourth Movement, which emphasized the
need to broaden horizons.

New Institutions and a Manifesto in Beijing

Beijing was also a very influential entry port for Western painting,
with figures such as Cai Yuanpei, being instrumental in providing
affordable art education. Known as an inspired educator and scholar,
Cai Yuanpei established a school for those who couldn't afford
painting called the After Hours Painting Research Society (1918), and
later Beijing University followed his lead with the Common People's
Night School (1920).

Beijing, at that time, attracted a number of foreign artists, such as
a French artist, André Claudot, who in turn became inspired by Chinese
ink drawing, and there was also the Czech artist, Vojtech Chytil, who
helped facilitate artists Wang Meng and Sun Shida to study at the
Prague Academy of Art.

But political tides were turning in Beijing and after 50 professors
were arrested due to their "radical" ideas, Lin Fengmian and others
fled elsewhere. Before they departed in May 1927, they convened for
the great Beijing art meeting where they issued the following
manifesto, which declared their belief in a new philosophy of art:

Down with the tradition of copying!
Down with the art of the aristocratic minority!
Down with the antisocial art that is divorced from the masses!
Up with the creative art that represent the times!
Up with the people's art that stands at the crossroads (15).

Interestingly enough, it would take the masses some time before they
really began to accept these art forms, though there was growing
interest in Western painting in Shanghai.

Still the manifesto indicated a strong rejection of the traditional
elitist approach to art – where much of an artist's training entailed
imitating the masters – and advocated a realistic reflection upon the
travails of modern life. This contrasted sharply with the traditional
ink-painting philosophy, which dictated that one should elicit a moral
and philosophical ideal through idealized depictions of nature.

Southern Chinese Schools

After leaving Beijing, Wu Fading and Lin Fengmian opened up the
National Hangzhou Arts Academy with Cai Yuanpei 1928, which is the
predecessor to CAA in Hangzhou. Soon there were art schools all across
the Yangtze River Delta including Suzhou and Nanjing.

Guangdong as well received a start in Western painting from the help
of returnees Ren Ruiyao and Hu Gentian (who both studied in Japan) and
Feng Gangbai (who studied in San Francisco). Together they founded the
Red society Chishi 赤社 in 1921, which despite the name had no Communist
connotations and mostly produced rather tame portraits and landscapes.
Other smaller departments were started up in Fujian, Chengdu,
Chongqing and Wuxi (16).

Early Japanese Influence

At this time much of the influence of Western art styles was filtered
through Japan in the form of Japanese teachers in China, students
going abroad (there were over 1,000 of such students in the 1900s) and
Japanese language translations of Western art books. Such translations
included texts such as the Futurist Manifesto by F. T. Marinetti (17).

In Shanghai artists and intellectuals gathered to exchange modern
ideas at the Uchiyama Shoten bookstore (18). Uchiyama Kanzo, the
bookstore's owner was seen as the most important figure in the Sino
Japanese literary dialogue. The bookstore was located on Sichuan Lu
and stocked a selection of books, which included Japanese translations
of Western law texts, Western literature translated to Japanese and a
huge selection of books on Marxism. Most of the Chinese clients of the
bookstore were students who had lived abroad in Japan and the store
became a kind of literary salon, where Uchiyama frequently organized
meetings between Chinese and Japanese writers (19). The bookstore was
almost a second home to Lu Xun, who was a daily visitor. Uchiyama
Shoten also served as his poste restante for politically sensitive
mail, and Uchiyama frequently harbored the writer when he took refuge
there from the secret police (20).

In 1902 when Western drawing and painting techniques were incorporated
into school curriculums, from primary right through to college, rafts
of Japanese teachers were brought over to China to help in the task of
instruction (21), but during the May Fourth Movement, many students
made a political statement by turning away from Japanese artists,
teachers and institutions (22).

Despite this anti-Japanese sentiment, the Japanese would later become
influential in China's woodcut movement when Lu Xun invited 13
students from Shanghai to learn woodcutting techniques from artist
Uchiyama Kakichi. Lu Xun helped spread awareness of the medium through
his collection of Japanese and Russian woodcuts and following the
Japanese invasion Uchiyama's Chinese disciples spread their techniques
throughout China some working in Yan'an and other sites of
revolutionary activity (23).

The woodcuts had a folksy roughness to them meshed with Communist
goals of proletariat outreach and they were also cheap and easy to
produce for rapid dissemination. The socially conscious subject
matter, strong graphic style and gripping drama they possessed would
have a great impact on the more realistic ideological imagery found in
propaganda posters.

Early Soviet Influence

The exchanges with the Soviet Union, though ideologically charged,
nonetheless would have a momentous impact on Chinese contemporary art
with the adoption of Socialist Realism as a dominant style from the
50s until the late 70s.

A group called the Wanderers (also known as the Society for Itinerant
Art Exhibitions), operating in the late 19th to early 20th century
would have a great impact on in terms of both style and subject
matter. These artists roamed the countryside depicting scenes of
everyday life (particularly the hardships), an idea which coincided
with Maoist ideas about going out to the countryside for re-education
and also paralleled the actions of the woodcut artists.

Julie F. Andrews writes of the influence Wanderer Konstantin Maksimov,
who was the first Soviet painter sent on official exchange in 1955.
The event was lauded by artist Jian Feng:

                 Comrade Makismov's arrival in China enables us to
directly and systematically study the advanced artistic experience in
the USSR. We believe that under Maksimov's direction, our art
education work and training of our painting teachers will bring forth
extraordinarily important and valuable contributions (24).

Competition to get into Maksimov's classes was intense and those who
made the cut had it made, finding prominent positions in art
institutions when they returned home from their studies.

Maksimov's painting was not the polished realism we associate with
much Socialist Realist poster art but a more expressive style, which
incorporated blocks of color; this style was also picked up by Chinese
students who had gone abroad to Leningrad to study at the Repin Art
Academy. Maksimov's legacy not only had an impact upon students who
studied with him but on the Chinese art world as a whole. His approach
to colors; his view that students should specialize in one particular
theme; his introduction of complicated compositions typical of Chinese
socialist realist history painting; and his methodical approach to
teaching all contributed to the level of technical skill achieved by
Chinese art students today (25).

Limited Information Exchange in the 70s and 80s

When China's artistic realm began to liberalize in the 70s and 80s,
there was a flourishing of different forms of early modern painting
everything from Cubism, to Fauvism to Impressionism. But though there
was again a hunger to explore Western painting styles, access to
information was funneled through relatively few channels.

Wu Liang, a critic and editor of cultural journalShanghai Culture
describes the scene for us, "For one, the exchange students of that
era were few, most visitors to the West were those traveling short
term on government official trips – they would go to the Louvre and
come back and write about what they had seen."

Having little access to works of contemporary art, many artists had to
rely on often-shoddy reproductions, with poor detail and distorted
colors. Says Wu Liang "I saw the Impressionist reproductions, and then
after when I went to the US and saw the real works by Monet and Van
Gogh. I realized that the reproductions I saw before were very simple
reproductions. To see the techniques, brushstrokes and the
relationships between the colors you need to see the original (26)."

Sitting in his office located in the ivy-clad writer's club on Julu
Lu, Wu Liang recounts a story of Chen Danqing, who happened upon a
painting of a woman on the back of playing card and then painted his
own version. Although initially quite pleased with the result, he felt
despondent after seeing original works of the same genre in the flesh
during a trip abroad says Wu Liang, "He said, 'I can't paint. These
are so well done; how can I paint anything?'" (27)

Still as chances to go abroad were few and cameras and photocopies
were still quite expensive, art books were always a hot commodity
writes Zhao Chuan in his article, "Past Events of Shanghai: 20th
Century Radical Art in Shanghai." (28)

"Yu Youhan lent a book of Maurice Utrillo to Ding Yi. Because he had
only just met Ding Yi, he only lent the book to him for one day. The
book was brought back from an exhibition in Japan and had already
passed through many pairs of hands. This kind of book was only
available at the Shanghai Artist's Association. Ding Yi took it to the
cafeteria and painted 10 works in one night. On the canvas were the
simple compositions, which would become the starting point for his
later "Appearance of Crosses" series.

Zhao Chuan remarks that the Shanghai Artists Association 上海美术家协会 was
one of the few places which had a good collection of catalogues and
served as a meeting place for friends to exchange materials.

At the time artists were desperate for information about Western art.
Says Zhao Chuan, "In the 70s in the Shanghai Theater Academy, the
library was only open to the profs, so artists such as Zhang Jianjun
had to ask for special permission to go in. The profs would let them
in and lock the door so no one could see that they were in there."
(29)

Magazines in the 80s Provide Access to Images of Western Art

In the 80s Magazines like Meishu Yicong, Shijie Yishu and Xiongshi
Meishu (Hsiung Shih Art Monthly) would greatly enlarge access to
Western art, though reproductions often left something to be desired
says Wu Liang, "Xiongshi Meishu from Taiwan had the best reproductions
because the printing technology in Taiwan was better at that time than
in China. Also it used this kind of Taiwanese Chinese, which didn't
have the kind of prejudices or the same personality. Because Taiwanese
had done a lot of exchanges abroad, they wouldn't overreact to
something that was foreign and new, they were less excited about these
things." (30)

Here Wu Liang points at the issue of filtering, how information about
Western art was presented in a different way – as something not
extremely foreign but nonetheless written for an audience that was not
ultimately familiar with the material.

Live Transmission: Limited Person-to-Person Contact in the 80s

While in the 20s Lin Fengmian was greeted in Shanghai with a banner
reading "Welcome President Lin," announcing his appointment to the
Beijing Academy, artists who returned from abroad in the 80s were not
initially lauded as pioneers. Says Wu Liang, "In the Nationalist era,
we felt we had to study because the country was backward. Liu Haisu
came back and started up schools – they had a lot of freedom, but in
the 80s it was different. In the 80s they didn't come back. Now the
sea turtles [returnees] come back because there are certain policies
or can get certain treatment." (31)

It was not until the mid-late 2000s that we started seeing the return
of artists who had been working abroad, but only a few took teaching
positions. Xu Bing made an impact through his appointment as
vice-president of the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2008 and
Chen Danqing returned to teach at Qinghua for a stint in 2000, but
quit in 2005 citing great frustration with the Chinese education
system, which required art students to pass English exams.

Other returnees, such as Ai Weiwei who came back in 93, provided
inspiration to young artists, transmitting ideas (such as art's
capacity to make political statements) to the artists who worked with
them in their ever-expanding studios and to the community at large.

Starting in the 90s Westerners who were living in China also helped
provide knowledge of not only the art of the West but also more
practical resources says Zhao Chuan, "The system, was a Western
system, Western curators, Western gallerists, through their support,
they helped us build our own system. Most of these resources were from
abroad. We started to learn through this how to install, how to make
works. In the 90s we were always looking at catalogues and dialoguing
with foreign curators, seeing slide shows, and learning how to
participate in Chinese contemporary art." (32)

Curators such as Hans Van Dijk affectionately known by artists as lao
hanse, is largely viewed as the first important curator and critic in
Chinese contemporary art. Van Dijk counseled artists about their works
and held small-scale exhibitions in his apartment in Beijing in the
early 90s (33). Other curators who made an impact in the early days
included Jean-Hubert Martin, whose "Les Magiciens de La Terre," (1989)
was the first major exhibition to feature Chinese contemporary artists
abroad and Harald Szeemann would make an even larger impact in 1999 by
introducing Cai Guoqiang (and his Rent Collection Courtyard) to the
Venice Biennale in 1999.

Coming Up Next

The focus on this article is largely on the means of transmission of
information – the people, publications and institutions involved and
how information was transmitted. In the second article, we will look
more at the aesthetic impact of these influences from the 70s onward –
to cover the landmark Western art exhibitions and figures such as
Tapies, Rauschenberg and Koons who left their mark (or in the case of
Koons a blemish) on Chinese contemporary art.

(1) The reverse influence of Chinese art in the West is also a very valid topic
(2) Thomas H. C. Lee, China and Europe: Images and Influences in
Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, 1991, p 254.
(3) Thomas H. C. Lee, China and Europe: Images and Influences in
Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Chinese University of Hong Kong,
Hong Kong, p255
(4) Thomas H. C. Lee, pp 257-258.
(5) Michael, Sullivan, The Meeting of Eastern and Western Art,
University of California Press, Berkeley, 1989, p 80
(6) David E. Mungello, The Great Encounter of China and the West,
1500-1800, p 42
(7) John W. O'Malley, S.J., Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris,
and T. Frank Kennedy,The Jesuits II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts,
1540-1773, University of Toronto Press: Toronto, 2006 p 263
(8) British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire and Cultural
Encounter, President and Fellows of Harvard College, USA, 2004, p 48
(9) Christina Baird, Liverpool China Traders, Peter Lang International
Academic Publishers: Bern, 2007, p 110
(10) Sullivan, p 82
(11) Selling happiness: calendar posters and visual culture in
early-twentieth... By Ellen Johnston Laing, p 63
(12) Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-century China, p 30
Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-century China, p 42
(13) From a interview between Rebecca Catching and Zhao Chuan held in
Shanghai in August 2010.
(14) Michael Sullivan, Chinese Art in the XX Century, p 52
(15) Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-Century China, p 44
(16) Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-century China, p 45-52
(17) "Points of Encounter – a Timeline to Be Completed," Defne Ayas,
with contributions by Leo Xu, Francesca Tarocco and Matthieu
Borysevicz
(18) "Points of Encounter – a Timeline to Be Completed," Defne Ayas,
with contributions by Leo Xu, Francesca Tarocco and Matthieu
Borysevicz
(19) Christopher T. Keaveney, Beyond Brushtalk: Sino-Japanese Literary
Exchange in the Interwar Period, p28-30
(20) Lydia H. Liu, Trans-lingual Practice: Literature National Culture
and Translated Modernity China, 1900-1937, Stanford University Press,
1995, p
(21) Michael Sullivan, Art and Artists of Twentieth-century China, p 27
(22) Michael Sullivan, Chinese Art in the XX Century, p 46
(23) Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen, "China 5000 Years," exhibition
texthttp://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/Exhibitions/5000YearsText.html
(24) Julia Frances Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People's
Republic of China, 1949-1979, p 152
(25) By Julia Frances Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People's
Republic of China, 1949-1979, p 155
(26) Julia Frances Andrews, Painters and Politics in the People's
Republic of China, 1949-1979, p 152
(27) From an interview conducted by Rebecca Catching with Wu Liang in
Shanghai, August 2010
(28) Zhao Chuan, "Shanghai, Past Events", Shanghai, Culture, 2009, p 86
(29) From an interview conducted by Rebecca Catching with Wu Liang in
Shanghai, August 2010
(30) From an interview conducted by Rebecca Catching with Wu Liang in
Shanghai, August 2010
(31) From an interview conducted by Rebecca Catching with Wu Liang in
Shanghai, August 2010
(32) Interview conducted by Rebecca Catching with Zhao Chuan in August 2010

Thursday, September 16, 2010

presentation order

Week 4
September 23rd
Group presentation by Duy Zach, Meredith

Week 5
Thursday, October 7th
Group presentation by Grace, Minji

Week 6
Thursday, October 14th
Group presentation by Mikael, Noor

Week 7
Thursday, October 21st
Group presentation by Nina, Shane Li

Week 8
Thursday, October 28th
Group presentation by Stephanie, Joon Nam

Week 9
Group presentation by Duy Zach, Noor

Week 10
Group presentation by Stephanie, Minji

Week 11
Group presentation by Mikael, Shane Li

Week 12
Group presentation by Nina, Meredith

Week 13
Group presentation by Grace, Joon Nam

For your Beijing trip, here is your art guide for the weekend

Dashanzi Art District (798 Art District):
A large compound of artists' studios, and galleries installed in an
outmoded 1950s factory complex, built by a team of East German
architects in a style inspired by the Bauhaus.

Once you get there, you should definitely visit:
// Ullens Center http://www.ucca.org.cn/portal/home/index.798?lang=en&menuId=0
//Long March Space - Act I:LONG MARCH PROJECT–HO CHI MINH TRAIL (Beijing)
http://www.longmarchspace.com/exhibition/list_59_imagedetail.html
and report back to class with your reviews!


Also: Cao Chang Di art district (East End Art district), a home to several
important galleries of contemporary art, including Pekin Fine Arts,
Universal Studios (from Bureau Friedrich founder)
Platform China, Courtyard, China Art Archives and Warehouse, Beijing
Commune and L.A.
Gallery Beijing. Recommended ones are: Pekin Fine Arts, Universal Studios

Arario Beijing Gallery:
A new branch of Arario Gallery of South Korea.  The Gallery occupies
five buildings with three gallery spaces dedicated solely to
contemporary art, presenting some of the most cutting edge exhibitions
of both  Asian and international art.

Red Gate Gallery's location in the Dongbianmen Watchtower.   Founded
in 1991 by Australian Brian Wallace, the gallery presents up to eight
shows a year by contemporary Chinese artists.

For sight-seeing: Architectural look at National Theater, designed by
Paul Andreu, the China Central Television (CCTV) building, designer by
Rem Koolhaas, the new Olympic Stadium, designed by Herzog and de
Meuron.

Hope this will be helpful for your trip!

Defne

Sh Contemporary Art Fair

Cori Huang
Sh Contemporary Art Fair
The Sh Contemporary Art Fair, an annual event that brings together
contemporary artwork and people from all over the world, was an
effective introduction to studying Art in Shanghai. On the ground
floor of the building were selected works in the show "DISCOVERIES:
Re-Value" which I enjoyed. I thought there was a diverse collection of
work though they all tied to this theme about exploring what value
means in contemporary art. What was interesting also was the mix of
styles and subjects in the show, ranging from recreating pop-culture
icons like Pikachu to inventing new Chinese characters from pieces of
traditional ones. I was glad to see the East Asian influences in many
of the artworks, since I often do not get to see contemporary Asian
art in the United States. However, there was also a lot of Western and
international subject matter and style in the exhibit. Yang Mao-Lin's
pieces for example were based on the story of Alice in Wonderland and
Rammy Ramsey's artwork clearly took elements from Aboriginal folk art.
On Saturday we attended a lecture "Documenting Contemporary Chinese
Art from 1980-1990" which touched on the identity of Chinese
contemporary art and how art from earlier periods obviously show an
interaction with Western art, but current Chinese artists are
continuing to produce artwork that maintains a Chinese identity. I'm
interested to see both the way globalization is affecting Chinese
contemporary art as well as what sort of art might be considered very
"Chinese."
I assumed that ShContemporary 10 would provide insightful lectures
from influential figures involved in the art world, particularly that
of South East Asia. Upon arriving at the Shanghai Exhibition Center,
we were quickly ushered into the conference room where Tan Boon Hui,
the director of the Singapore Art Museum, was speaking on what kinds
of pieces the Singapore Art Museum strives to collect. While this
topic had great potential, its main points were lost in translation.
Between the broken and rather poor translations, it was difficult to
grasp Mr. Tan's presentations. I did appreciate his comment regarding
the museum's focus on collecting works that illustrate a cultural or
artistic transition. It is obviously through transition works that
changes are most easily seen. I believe that the best way to
appreciate a certain period or artist is to see the artwork created
directly before and after the particular work, in order to draw
attention to distinct characteristics that define the work. Beyond
this point, I got very little out of the other speakers, also due to
the poor translations. I did appreciate the exhibition curated under
the idea of "Re-Value." Especially striking were two large characters
designed by an artist. Comprised of preexisting characters and
radicals, the new characters spoke of nouveau riche that is becoming
increasingly common in modern China. The most visually striking piece
gave new value to the common party balloon. This idea of assigning new
identities to the common and mundane parallels to the new values and
cultural change that China is currently embracing. As students in
Shanghai we are directly experiencing China's "Re-Value."


Meredith Rankin

The Shanghai Contemporary

My blog entry for this week:
Noor Chadra
The Shanghai Contemporary

The 2010 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair was held in the Russian-built
Shanghai exhibition center this year. Once through the VIP entrance,
unlike other art fairs where all work is shown through it's respective
gallery, there was a wonderful curated exhibition Discoveries:
Re-Value focusing on how modernism is a constant challenge to the idea
of what artistic value actually is. The mission of the show was to
have artistic value meet commercial value.
The show consisted of all kinds of artworks ranging from
traditional painting and black and white photography to balloon
sculpture, video-text dialogue, aboriginal printmaking, and one of the
artworks even included two adorable Chinese children handing out their
business cards in person. The ethnicity of artists also varied though
there seemed to be a focus on Asian artists � Japanese, Korean, and
Chinese.
In the lecture series of the day on the topic "Collecting Asian
Contemporary Art: What, When, and How?", a series of museum and
gallery directors and curators spoke about their respective
gallery/museum, what they look for when collecting art in the current
art market, both economically and aesthetically, and the challenges of
today's art world. One speaker that especially stuck out to me was
Kathy Halbreich, the Depute Director of MoMA, New York. Starting off
with an evocative statement saying that she is no expert at collecting
art (one statement that the Chinese translator managed to leave out),
she spoke about how there is no one truth or absolute universal
standard when it comes to valuing art. It is the people in power,
collectors and collections, that dictate what is valued over time.

Minji Kim

16 September 2010

To be at ShContemporary 2010 exhibition was a total excitement to me
since I had heard of the prestige. Attending the conference
(Collecting Asian Contemporary Art: What, When, and How), I was highly
interested to see how directors or curators from famous museums and
galleries all over the world introduced their own exhibitions. Despite
the useful contents, however, it was difficult to concentrate and
listen to what exactly the panels said, especially in the back seat.

But the exhibition itself was very satiable. Many of the art pieces
displayed the "extraordinary" by collaborating "mundane" objects. The
best tool for expressing a message to the public seemed to be by using
something people are already familiar with. For example, Zhao Bando
tries to approach the public and to send a strong message, using two
very familiar subjects:  panda and children. In his works, Bando asked
around 10,000 of China's rising youths aged from 7 to 15 and donated
benefits to build home for the elderly of no family. I thought what
makes the work meaningful is that Bando was able to successfully use
common subjects to maximize the effects so that it can eventually lead
people to involve in good deeds. Another example by Aboriginal artists
also shares the common idea of "extraordinary meanings out of
simplicity." While focusing on the typical aboriginal paintings, they
also tried to combine modernity with the pure value of their tradition
at the same time to emphasize the importance of "keeping the old."
There were so many great works I took pictures of and interestingly,
they all convey messages from the simple nature. An extraction of a
social message behind the nature; this was the lesson I was able to
experience in the exhibition.

Nina Boys Contemporary Art and New Media in China Blog Entry #2 09.16.2010 I had the pleasure of attending the ShContemporary's collection of international galleries at the Shanghai Exhibition Center this past week. Self proclaimed as "THE Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Fair," the center featured a vast array of contemporary art of various media; everything from audio/visual to sneakers. An open and lofty venue, art appreciators were free to meander from one gallery to the next and I noticed that the majority of the patrons appeared to be foreigners. In addition to presenting a wide range of noteworthy (and some not) contemporary art, there was in addition a curated exhibition with the overarching theme of "Discoveries – Re-Value" which addressed the complex relationship between artistic values and the commercialization of art. Observing the audience, the general feeling was that of artistic excitement, people seemed to be active in their consumption of the art around them – chattering, smiling and pondering. While most of the art struck me as being fresh and unique, there were two overarching themes I noticed as being common to many of the pieces; the incorporation of nature and religion, specifically, eastern religion into the works. I noted that nature at large seemed to be a large inspiration, from furniture made entirely of wood logs to photographs of lush forests and holograms of birds soaring over the ocean. I also found the contemporary spin on eastern religion to be of particular interest. More specifically I was drawn to the religious icons that were covered entirely in colorful sequins. It made me wonder what this said about modern man's relationship to both the Earth and spirituality and how that has evolved over time.
by Mikael

SHCONTEMPORARY 2010

Shanghai Contemporary Art fare 2010, was an interesting showcase indeed.
To see a curated show in an art fare, most often occupied by a scattered
variety of works from an equally scattered lot of galleries was very refreshing.
I actually enjoyed the Asian artists displayed here, and the curators
had done a great
job both showing an artistic direction of the region and also put
together an interesting
feature on a current hot topic the world around.
Less interesting was the actual fare but I must admit, I did not see
the entire thing.
Having not enough time to go through the massive collection of works
in one day, and even less so skipping around on crutches with a broken
heel, made it very difficult to enjoy the SH contemporary to the
fullest; yet, what I was able to see I was not impressed by. Even less
impressive was the Conference held at the SHcontemporary.
Titled Collecting Asian Contemporary: What, When and How?, I was
expecting an insight in a highly interesting art market that I believe
will grow much bigger and more important in the matter of just a few
years. Instead what I got to listen to was speaker after speaker,
promoting their own collections and praising the fantastic wonder that
is China and its art scene. There seemed to be no criticism or extra
thought, neither from any of the speakers nor from the audience
members. Not a single speaker shared insight that can’t be found by
either entering the institutions websites or even doing a google.cn
search, as none of the information given would offend the great
firewall for sure.
All in all, A spectacular performance of a contemporary art market in
bloom, in a spectacular show space in a spectacular country, with a
not so spectacular body of work. To bad the mostly western presenters
and audience refused to step out of the comfort zone of their bubble.
I might as well go to a European or American art fare, the galleries
are about the same and at least Europeans are critical about their own
countries and what it produces when they are at home.
SH Shanghai
2010/9/9
When the East meets the West and add a little bit of more East. That's
the feeling I got when I visited the Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair.
Starting with the contemporary art from East Asia such as the ones
from Korea, Japan and China that were displayed at the first floor,
and then proceed up to the second floor where I saw arts from all over
Asia and the world. I underestimated the development of contemporary
art in China and the rest of East Asia. However, I was impressed by
both the quality and the sheer volume of the art works that were
presented at the fair. I could clearly see that art in East Asia not
only accepted western influence but also developed Oriental elements
and characteristics to its art works. For example, the art pieces
with landscape and buildings called "Phantom and the landscape" by
Yang Yongliang incorporated styles of Chinese traditional landscape
art with the modern westernized urban landscape in today's China. This
led me to reflect on recent o
riental influences not just on the eastern art but also to the west as
general. We are witnessing more and more mixtures of the East and the
West. I found their harmonious co-existence in contemporary art more
fascinating than the actual art works which emphasize only the eastern
or the western features. In an increasingly globalized world, we
should really start to think how we could preserve and carry forward
essence of artistic charms in eastern and western civilization.
By Stephanie Hsu
On Thursday September 9, our class visited the fourth annual
ShContemporary Art Fair at the Shanghai Exhibition Center. We attended
the conference, "Collecting Asian Contemporary Art: What, When and
How?," at which a distinguished panel of critics, curators, and
collectors from Asia, Europe, and the US gathered to discuss the
direction of Asian contemporary art. Our class was able to listen to
several museum professionals speak, including Tan Boon Hui, the
Director of Singapore Art Museum, and Kathy Halbreich, the Deputy
Director of MoMA in New York City. While interpreters mediated the
transitions between the use of Mandarin and English, the panelists
emphasized intercultural dialogue between Asia and the West as
increasingly fundamental to the development of contemporary art. The
panelists discussed present issues regarding the dynamics between
contemporary Asian art and museums across the world, calling attention
to the growing international exposure of contemporary Asian
art and the influence of globalization on regional practices. During
her talk, Ms. Halbreich admitted her own limited knowledge of Asian
art, before acknowledging the importance of understanding Asian art as
a diffusion of work from many different cultures. Following her
statement that "one truth will not suffice," Ms. Halbreich denied the
existence of universal standards by which to judge art, bringing to
light the complications of understanding the regional specificities of
art in a global context.
Stepping out from the conference room in between breaks, we
entered the "Discoveries: Re-Value" exhibition on the first level of
the main hall, which showcased artists largely based in Beijing,
Taipei, Seoul, and Tokyo. We were fortunate enough to meet Taipei and
Berlin based Manray Hsu, one of the curators of the exhibition. Mr.
Hsu gave us an introduction to the exhibition, during which he
prompted us to consider the hard work and labor that went into the
creation of the works on display. Works that I particularly enjoyed
included Zhao Bandi's panda-themed multimedia project, an endearing
collaboration with children from Henan, Sichuan, and Taiwan; and
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries' satirical installation piece, which
showed a slideshow of intimate and provocative text based messages
being projected onto two opposing walls.

Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair:

The Shanghai Art Fair has again opened my eyes. Through this experience, not only did I understand viewing contemporary art, but also in viewing art in general. I can feel the different creative expressions from the artworks. The fact that many of the artworks are in forms other than paintings and statues give me the feeling that contemporary art has evolved and strayed away from what is regarded as conventional art. It also suggests to me that the rules for appreciating art have loosened a lot. An artist whom I talked to named many of his artworks as states of existence (such as “face of salvation”). It was only after I talked to him that I realized the expressions (which appeared very painful and frightening) in the paintings are a reflection of his state of mind when he painted them. There are, however, many artworks that I could not understand, nor can I appreciate. One of which was the quick short messages appearing on a large screen. The messages give me a strange vibe, but I just could not understand the artist’s intention. Out of all the artworks, I especially liked the skyscraper video slides which looked like paintings of shanghai skyscrapers but has the vibe of Chinese paintings of mountains, as well as the huge balloon sculpture.

Monday, September 13, 2010

The Generations of Contemporary Artists in China

Yuwen Shane Li


Today we went to Minsheng Contemporary Art Museum in Hong Fang Art Park. I was surprised to discover that there is a big art park in the center of Xuhui district, probably 20 minutes walk from my dormitory at SJTU. The presentation was host by Doryun Chong, and the first part was the introduction of an archiving project by Asia Art Archive (AAA): Materials of the Future: Documenting Contemporary Chinese Art from 1980-1990. This project documented the development of contemporary Chinese art from 80s to 90s, during which time young artists in China experienced confusion and re-identification. I was ignorant about the development of contemporary art in China; I only know a few pioneer artists in the early nineteenth century who introduced western modern art to China, such as Liu Haisu, Lin Fengmian, and those who accepted western art and left China like Pan Yuliang. I guess contemporary art didn't really start to develop in China until the Reform and Opening Up. Before that, the young generation of this country was brain-washed and didn't know what they were doing. The reason why preserving and tracking the development of contemporary art in China is so important lies in that it helps us to reflect on the 80's history and the generation.


The next part of the presentation was interview with three artists, one in his 70s and the two middle-aged artists. Honestly speaking, I think those artists and painters in China who are not born in families that are either moderately rich or with artistic tradition, are somewhat poorly educated. If they had chance to go to college, if they could have better options, most likely, they would not end up being artists in China cause it is really a risky business—artists always risk starving when pursuing their career. So it is interesting for me to hear from those three artists. They emerged during the 1980s or earlier and faced difficult times in their early years. Although they enjoy world-wide fame today, none of them speaks any English, a necessary skill for the educated cosmopolitans in the modern society. They are very creative indeed, but I felt some of their works lacks certain depth. Anyways, I think in China as a developing country, many people see artists aren’t realistic and lack of skills to survive in the society. Hopefully the younger generation of artists could change this perception.