Video Documentary Project: Censorship in Chinese Contemporary Art

Stephanie Hsu

Video Documentary Project: Censorship in Chinese Contemporary Art

Joon, Minji, Zach, and I collaborated on a video documentary project
that explores the role of government regulation and censorship in
contemporary art in China, with a focus on the contemporary art scene
in Shanghai. As a collaborator in the project, I organized the
interviews, planning the logistics of our meetings and preparing the
outlines of our discussions with our interviewees.

Censored from Joon Nam on Vimeo.

Along with my
teammates, I also conducted the interviews and edited video footage.
The documentary consists of interviews that we conducted with the
following nine individuals: Shanghai-based artist Xu Zhen;
Shanghai-based artist Jin Shan and American Shanghai-based artist Maya
Kramer; Shanghai-based photographers Song Tao and Ji Weiyu of
Birdhead; Shanghai's OV Gallery curator Rebecca Catching; Shanghai,
Beijing, and Zurich-based curator and artist Li Zhenhua; a
representative of the Shanghai Municipal Administration of Culture,
Radio, Film, and TV; and NYU in Shanghai professor Ge Yan, who worked
as an editor for the Beijing-based weekly publication—World Art in
Fine Arts in China—in the early to mid-1980s.
We asked our interviewees the following set of questions:
From your experience working abroad, can you tell us your impressions
of government regulation and censorship of contemporary art in other
countries in comparison to China?
How is government censorship of contemporary art in Shanghai different
from that of Beijing?
Do you think government control of contemporary art is loosening as
the market for contemporary art is expanding in China?
What specific regulations constitute "government control" of
contemporary art? Can you tell us the specific process by which the
government decides what artworks can be shown in exhibitions, and what
kind of exhibitions can be held? What kind of specific standards do
you think the government imposes on art works? Were these standards
imposed objectively or subjectively? In other words, is there a
common set of standards applied to each artwork, or do the
subjectivities of Cultural Bureau representatives play a big role?
What experiences have you had with government intervention and
censorship? Can you give specific examples of artworks that have been
targeted by censorship, and exhibitions that you or your colleagues
were involved in that have been closed by the government?
From what you've seen, what is the worst thing that could happen to an artist?
Specific question for artists: How has censorship affected your
artwork? When you are creating artwork, do you think about how it will
be perceived by the government? Do you feel pressure to undergo
self-censorship?
How come prominent figures like Ai Wei Wei can get away with
exhibiting art and expressing opinions that are often seen as
challenges to government authority? Does guanxi play a role in how
censorship regulations are applied?
Do you think censorship plays a necessary role to some degree in
contemporary art? Do you think there should be complete and total
freedom of expression in contemporary art? Are there censorship
regulations that the government imposes that you think are necessary?
Do you think the younger generation of artists is becoming less
critical? Do you think that young artists are gradually moving away
from creating artworks that openly critique social and political
issues, and that are more subtle or elusive in their meanings? Do you
think this is the result of government censorship? Do you think this
shows the pressures of commercialism and the international market on
artists' practice?

Through asking these questions, our documentary seeks to compare and
contrast the various responses of our interviewees to issues about
censorship that we have discussed throughout the semester. We wish to
portray the range of perspectives among a small, yet diverse
cross-section of individuals who have experience in the contemporary
art scene in Shanghai. We hope to show the ways in which various
artists, curators, and art intellectuals' backgrounds, values, and
attitudes towards their practice have influenced their views of the
relationship between government regulation and contemporary art. In
our documentary, we hope to use the issue of censorship as a lens
through which to explore the dynamics between artistic expression and
the political and economic institutions that govern the contemporary
art world.

--- LAYERCAKE ---

--- LAYERCAKE ---
AN ARTISTIC POSITION ON THE EVOLUTION OF SHANGHAI’S HISTORIC CITYSCAPE


Noor Chadha & Mikael Larsson
Contemporary Art & New Media
Fall 2010

It Snows in Shanghai
It is currently zero degrees Celsius outside and delicate flakes of white are floating down to the earth, frosting Shanghai over in a soft layer of white – a sight one would never have fathomed in the unbearable heat of Shanghai summers.
Both Shanghai’s art scene and the city itself have been developing at a rapid pace, emerging at break-neck speed from a time where any true creativity was suppressed or re-tailored into what the government deemed appropriate for the public. As this evolution has picked up momentum fairly recently, especially in the past couple of decades, the intrinsic method of what should and should not be emphasized in China’s cultural atmosphere has also been constantly shifting. This fall in Contemporary Art and New Media, via in-class lectures, documentaries, artist interviews, site visits to various commercial galleries, independent exhibitions, museums, and simply through our own general observations and experiences living in Shanghai over this past semester, we have found that for Shanghai, this past century has been a constant battle of writing and re-writing history. How do we deal with the past? Who determines history? What stays, what goes? What will be remembered and what will be forgotten? What is the relationship between history and value and what significance does the past have for the present? Does “true” objective past even exist?
In response to these questions, we initiated an on-going artwork that mirrors the layering that has been taking place in Shanghai and will continue to shape the future history of the city.

The Premise
On a 40” x 47” using acrylics and a 4-inch wide brush as their only weapon of choice, Mikael and Noor embarked on a journey of creation and destruction, ownership and censorship under the title Layercake. A game of drunken dice decided that Mikael would create the first layer of the work keeping the following five rules in mind:

一 Only one artist may be active on each layer. (both conceptually and technically)
二 The artists cannot communicate with each other during the process of creating a layer.
三 Only the active artist may decide what to keep and what to dispose of from the previous layer of the canvas.
四 Only the predetermined tools may be utilized.
五 Once a single layer is complete, the other artist takes over.

Holding these rules intact throughout the process of the artwork, Mikael and Noor initiated Layercake, taking turns at separately shaping the artwork, layer by layer.

Inspiration
Our interest in starting a project like this was sparked by the 2010 Shanghai Biennale and a couple specific artworks within the exhibition. The theme for this year’s Biennale was Rehearsal, the concept that the final product of an artistic process is not necessarily the most important – that within every stage there is substance and in some cases, the “rehearsal” stages may be even more essential than the final artwork. In one of the rooms, there was no “artwork” as such, but an actual studio of the artist Ma Leon. This focus on process rather than product encouraged us to dispel ideas that the actual painting we have been creating together is what is important but the concept and entire process is what the work is all about: that meaning is brought out by the actual evolution, destruction, and reworking of each layer.
In the biennale, Qiu Zhijie’s work “Qiu’s notes on Colorful Lantern at Shangyuan Festival” and a layered painting piece by Liu Xiaodong especially caught our eye and got us to start thinking about how to deal with the past: ideology, traditions, history, and got us to start thinking in layers.


Writing and Re-writing History
In the process of Shanghai’s rapid evolution, several layers of Shanghai’s history are constantly being visually wiped out. The 2010 World Expo center with its pavilions represent the future the Government wants to keep, while the previous inhabitants of the site are now relocated and have had their dwellings and personal history with the site, removed. Now that the Expo has come to a close, the pavilions are once again going to destroyed – the only pavilion left standing as a reminder of what took place on the site will be the China pavilion.
The area of Xintiandi is another example of destruction and recreation as most of the area’s original inhabitants have been completely relocated, their humble neighborhoods that initially characterized old Shanghai completely revamped into a hip modern area with skyrocketing real estate prices. Only one original street has been kept, but changed into something luxurious, far from its previous history. The Urban Planning museum presents this “old” street as an achievement of the Shanghai government – a tribute to their effort of preserving older aspects of the city.
Yet again, someone has to make a decision of what will be kept on ever site, what history and culture will remain for future generations. In history class we have been taught how the Chinese Governments attempts to recreate and mold history to suit their own agenda and goals happen often. Mao might be placed in situations he actually never attended, and the yellow river is painted out to seem as the origin of the Chinese population. (Professor Andrew Fields)
In Layercake with each layer being painted, history is changed and molded into the current artist’s ideal of present. The idea “winners write the history” and the concept of censorship and ownership heavily influencing each following layer.
Utilizing Censorship to Present an Image
Through the vessel of art, we are constantly making and unmaking history, evaluating and reevaluating every aspect of life as we know it. By looking to the past by visual representation, the values of any one time period are made more apparent as a whole but the truth is, we are only able to learn about the past from what there is left of any specific time period in terms of artifacts and literature. Destroy the evidence, and no one will ever know it happened. Hide the evidence, and only few will find out.
One of our first site visits was to the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre. Because times have changed, the once public posters are now situated in the basement of a completely nondescript residential compound in Shanghai as to stay below the current government’s radar. The Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre is one of the only venues in Shanghai where these rare political posters are on display. Nonetheless, this instance of censorship in the form of lacking presence demonstrates the way in which the government has utilized censorship to force the posters into having a minimal role in representing China’s history to the masses.
The Chinese propaganda posters were serving the purpose of building a future empire by instilling very specific concepts and images into the people’s minds. China has always placed importance in patriotism, controlling the image of the country, and keeping it’s people ideologically in line. In this moment of strong political zeal, the propaganda posters served the role of CNN or Fox at the time, communicating the incumbent regime’s ideology to the masses through text and art of the posters. The posters’ lack presence in modern shanghai because perhaps the government no longer wants to show those messages to the current public.
In Layercake, we also had first-hand experience at deciding what should and should not be seen. Each layer of the piece had a specific intention which was born in each artist’s head but the only the next artist had the power to decide the fate of the previous artist’s vision. In certain instances, much like the propaganda poster situation, parts of previous layers remained faintly visible in newer layers. For example, the portrait of Mao in Layer No. 2 remained faded in the sunset of Layer No. 3 and even more covered up, almost unrecognizably so, in Layer No. 4. On the other hand, the incomplete star of Layer No. 1 was immediately and opaquely covered up by Layer No. 2, no longer physically existing but only existing in the records of the work.

On Limitations & Censorship
We were fortunate enough to have the opportunity of talking with artists Li Mu, Gao Ming Yan, and Jin Shan on this very topic and found that each artist has a different response to censorship. Jin Shan felt that it is difficult for ideas to improve or for an artist to make progress when working within a limited system and that government censorship generally has a negative impact on the authenticity of artworks because certain artists begin to self-censor their work so that the work will not be censored later on in the system. On the other hand, Gao Mingyan feels that freedom is not always a good thing and that too much freedom, the type of which he has encountered in exhibitions overseas, is in fact a bad thing. For him, censorship and limitations force him to use a higher language of art to surpass the system. The inward pressure makes his body want to explode with ideas whereas he feels if there were no limitations, no pressure, his work would have less meaning.
Our five self-imposed limitations on Layercake were both disablers and enablers. The large nature of the brush forced both of us to focus on the bigger picture rather than get carried away in details of the work. It also forced us to think around the brush and figure out ways to force the brush into creating our individual visions. The fact that we were not allowed to communicate with each other during the process of the work also turned out to be much more of an enabler rather than a limitation because this rule insured that each layer was purely the creation of a single mind rather than a collaboration between two artists. We feel this more accurately mirrored what has been happening in Shanghai in terms of the government’s limitations on artists from the early 80’s onwards.

Ownership and Collectives
Layercake also forced us to take a closer look at what it means to be in a collective and how when working in collaboration with another artist, ownership of an artwork shifts as the artwork itself evolves. The collective of Li Mu, Gao Mingyan, and Jin Shan agreed that final ownership is a bit of a touchy subject when it comes to working together because an idea can always only be traced back to the mind of a single person but in the end, the credit goes to the whole group. Moreover, individual identity is intrinsically compromised when working in collaboration with others, because as ideas and art styles merge, identities merge as well.
In a way, our rule of not communicating with each other during the actual creation of the work allowed us to hold on to our individual identity more so than if we were completely merging artistic styles. However, the piece Layercake is not about the individual layers but about the layering process itself and in that sense, we are presenting this project together as a partnership and not as individuals. We feel that within Layercake we found a good balance of individuality and ownership by holding on to our individual styles and visions while creating a coherent conceptual project together.


Layer No. 1 – Mikael



The incomplete yellow star and bright red background represents the beginning. How Chinas art world is still in its cradle and far from having found its own clear identity. It is a representation of the insecure strokes in the early stages of shaping history.

Layer No. 2 – Noor


All that remains from the previous layer is the trademark red color that characterizes China. A stern young Mao overlooks China’s many layers both future and past as a spirit that has left the body.

Note: 靈魂出竅 － ling hun chu qiao – the spirit has left the shelter/soul has left the body
Layer No. 3 – Mikael

Mao still slightly present in the background, yet a new dawn is upon Shanghai and China. The rising skyline of Pudong and the Suns rays shine on the new. Although the past is still present, New China is shooting out of the ground with all the optimism it brings.

Layer No. 4 – Noor



The Shanghai sky darkens towards night when the city comes alive with neon lights and skyscrapers reaching for the moon and the few stars in the bright city sky. The overarching figure of Mao fades further into obscurity.

流星趕月－ liu xing gan yue – a meteor catching up to the moon
Layercake Today




New York University in Shanghai has kindly accepted to keep Layercake on display while the artist’s are out of the country. You may visit Layercake today at the NYU Academic Center in the ECNU Science building.


Enjoy!

Chinese Calligraphy: An Ancient Art, A Contemporary Art

Meredith Rankin Contemporary Chinese Art 15 December 2010

Many Chinese contemporary artists represent traditional Chinese culture in their work.

This has led to their characterization as distinctly Chinese, rather than merely contemporary artists, implying that Western collectors only so desire their work for Chinese aspects, not for its ability to stand alone. Many people criticize a dual reliance on Western art history as well as traditional Chinese art. Artists in China today have little to build off of or develop, with the exception of their “chineseness,” that is, ubiquitous symbols of Chinese culture and the Chinese identity. Examination of traditional Chinese culture will help give background that is necessary to understand the Chinese artists of today as well as better appreciate their work. While Chinese culture is rich and diverse, calligraphy is a fine art form that has had presence throughout Chinese history. Although unexpected, these art forms of traditional China are still employed and referenced by contemporary Chinese artists, notably in the creations of Xu Bing.

The development of a written language is one of the most telling aspects of an ancient civilization‟s culture, beliefs, and life. The first record of written language in China has been traced to the Bronze Age in which primitive characters were carved into oracle bones (The Bulletin of the Cleveland Art Museum). Oracle bones were made from the shoulder bones of cattle and turtle plastrons and were inscribed with questions to be asked of deities. These were primarily ancestors of late Shang Dynasty kings in the practice of ancestor worship. In China, calligraphy‟s is rooted in prayer, an indication of the importance of both the practiced religion and writing. The earliest samples of calligraphy from China carried reverent meaning, used for

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divination. No brush-written samples of these calligraphic style remains due to decay. Based on the records offered by the bone carvings, the oracle bone script, known as jiaguwen, was pictographic in nature but is clearly related to modern Chinese characters.

The development of calligraphy continued into the Zhou Dynasty. Rather than being carved into bones, characters were most often inscribed into ritual bronze vessels belonging to the aristocracy. These too centered on solemn matters, expressing religious code and political legitimacy (The Journal of the Cleveland Art Museum). At this time the jiaguwen script became gradually simpler. Bronze Age script came to be known as da zhuan shu (large seal script), a beautiful, highly architectonic script (The Journal of the Cleveland Art Museum). Each warlord led kingdom of ancient also had its own set of unique characters. The first Chinese emperor, Qin Shi Huang of the Qin Dynasty, united the entire Chinese basin for the first time, as well as Chinese script. The standard Chinese characters came to be xiao zhuan shu (small seal script). Writing at the time was usually done using a brush and paper but these works no longer survive, the other remnents of xiao zhuan shu are found on steles.

By the time of the Han Dynasty, writing had become much less cumbersome due to the relatively simplified script and standard use of brush and paper. This was made even more simple for the use of clerks who needed to write and write often, calligraphy by this time had expanded beyond a simply divine nature. This clerical script, jishu, was more fluid in form and easily written with a brush for documents on wood, silk, and paper. This is the first script that, due to its fluidity, you can recognize the physical movements of the calligrapher, each stroke of ink manifests movement, shifting speed, and brush direction. Ironically, it was during this time, when writing was used for everyday practical purposes, and made simple to use, that calligraphy was elevated to a noble role. Further, the unified script promoted growth and a cohesive social

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structure among the Chinese literati. Towards the end of the Han Dynasty three new forms of Chinese calligraphy appeared which were very influential in the development of calligraphy as an art form, kaishu (traditional regular script), a standard script, and two abbreviated scripts, xingshu (semi-cursive, or running script), a semi-cursive, and caoshu (cursive, or grass script) a cursive script. Caoshu was pursued by many calligraphers then, and is still widely used today. The essential goal of cursive script is to “write each character as quickly and simply as possible while still conveying the essence of the form” (Barnhart). Calligraphy‟s attachment to art became so excessive that it was attacked, particularly the new cursive scripts. Court official Zhao Yi criticized the elevation of cursive script to fine art, in, ironically, the first published work that discussed calligraphy. In “A Pox on The Draft Script,” Zhao voiced his opinion that writers should concentrate their energies on studying the classics and the ancient seal script ( ). His beliefs did not prevail, however; in the 4th century CE cursive was widely used and accepted as a respected art form.

By the end of the Tang Dynasty, the five principal forms of calligraphy became the mark of a highly cultivated individual. These five principal forms were seal, clerical, standard, running, and cursive. The process was considered just as important as the end result. Writing calligraphy was even turned into a performance art by some calligraphers such as the eccentric Buddhist monk Huaisu. This illustrates the individuality within the art that was permitted during the Tang Dynasty. As the central political sphere declined, localized unorthodox creative activity grew greatly (“Chinese Calligraphy”). The seemingly standardized art was now used for self- expression. The sheer importance and respect of the art is confirmed by Song Dynasty Emperor Zhao Yun‟s, also referred to as Lizong, mastery of the art. Lizong was considered to be an ineffectual ruler, for it was under his reign that the Mongols rode into the then capital of Lin‟an

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and Khublei Khan established the Yuan Dynasty and foreign rule over the Chinese people. However, during Lizong‟s time the nation did enjoy great economic growth and a flourishing of the arts. Lizong‟s calligraphic works are still admired today and illustrate the objectives of ideal calligraphy as well as the artist‟s own discrete style. Most of his works are accompanied by southern Song court artist paintings, although it should be noted that the primary object of value and appreciation was the calligraphy.

Chinese calligraphy follows strict format, stroke order, and standards, and yet emphasizes the importance of the individual. Styles that followed the Bronze Age all “favored spontaneity, and the brush was thought to act like a seismograph in recording the movements of arm, wrist, and hand” (“Chinese Calligraphy”), and although this often resulted in great self-expression, there was a return to a favor of standardization following the Tang Dynasty. Evaluative writings on calligraphy often equate the structure and line quality of the written word with the physical self, comparing written characters to bone structure, or being „fleshy‟ (“Chinese Calligraphy). There are traditional standards of beauty of form in Chinese calligraphy, even if artists choose to deviate from these standards. Traditionally, calligraphy was judged as “good” if it was straight and even, well-balanced, uneven and not uniform in terms of length of strokes, coherent and dynamic (“Cultural China”). A script that achieves all of these guidelines will depict movement in brushstrokes, characters whose strokes match each other to create the greatest impact of style, and in order.

Following the Yuan Dynasty was the Ming and Qing Dynasties, both of which continued the tradition of calligraphy as a central art of the literati, associated with social and cultural life of the elite. The love of calligraphy was made apparent throughout China, beyond the realm of

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educated elite through the inscription of stones at famous sites, temple name plaques, and even shop signs (“Chinese Calligraphy”). After the fall of the Qing Dynasty, and the entire dynastic system, in 1911, calligraphy continued to be important to China‟s visual landscape. During this time of political upheaval, calligraphy was employed to promote political ideologies. Under Mao Zedong‟s reign words were frequently displayed on banners with revolutionary slogan, the script was bold and block-like with no resemblance to calligraphy produced with a brush (“Chinese Calligraphy”). Mao personally pursued traditional calligraphy however, and the Communist Party often continued to use traditional brushes even when ball-point pens came in favor.

Calligraphy has continued to have a presence and importance in Chinese society to in current times. Xu Bing was born in 1955 in Chongqing, China and grew up in the capital city of Beijing. Like the other artists discussed, Xu has been made famous for his calligraphy, although his personal style is not as discrete as the traditional artists recognized for mastering the art. Xu was first exposed to calligraphy at a young age at Peking University, where he saw the cursive script of the Han Dynasty. In his primary school education, Xu excelled in the fine arts and calligraphy. Although class was dismissed during the Cultural Revolution, Xu taught himself the traditional Chinese fine art disciplines of ink painting, calligraphy, seal-cutting, wood-carving, and paper-cutting. He brought this strength and interest in the arts to the fervor of the time by creating an art research group organized under the name “Red Locomotive Brigade.” The Brigade specifically devoted themselves to learning how to write Chinese Communist Party slogans with ink brushes. At the culmination of the Cultural Revolution, Xu‟s enthusiasm in the Communist Party resulted in his relocation to the countryside to receive a new kind of education from rural peasants. Even so, Xu continued to practice calligraphy as well as make sketches of villagers and landscapes. In 1977, Xu enrolled at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing

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where he concentrated on printmaking. In 1990, Xu Bing again left his home for relocation, although this time purely voluntarily, to the United States where the artist still resides.

As suspected from the years Xu Bing devoted to developing fundamental art skills, Xu places great importance on the foundations of each individual work, both in process and purpose. He promotes basic training courses for aspiring artists for their ability to lay a solid technical foundation as well as their ability to “temper their character, turning them into sharp-eyed artists with meticulousness and precision.” Before beginning on a project Xu spends a lot of time reading, researching, thinking, and draft drawing, as Xu believes the strength of a work can be measured by its depth.

Xu‟s method for artistic creation results in often profound works. Xu Bing has received numerous accolades for the high quality of his work, specifically for its ability to “change the way we look at cultural differences.” Much of Xu‟s “capacity to contribute importantly to society, particularly in printmaking and calligraphy” is found in works where he employs the traditional Chinese art of calligraphy in creating a work of his own interpretation and meaning. These characteristics are especially found in “Books from the Sky” and “Book from the Earth.” “Book from the Sky” analyzes language and texts as instruments of both truth and delusion. The piece is comprised of swooping banners, slung across the gallery ceiling. Tacked on the walls of the gallery were Chinese newspaper like-texts, and on the floor was a pair of traditional hand-bound Chinese books printed with over 4,000 Chinese characters. At first visitors stand in awe of the craftsmanship of the work, the grandeur banners, the beauty of the bound books, all in contrast and balance with the newspapers hastily hung on the walls, and all covered in traditional-style Chinese calligraphy. It is not until the viewer examines the work with a closer eye that he realizes the characters are not actually Chinese, but are in-fact non-sense,

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something the artist himself invented. There lies a grandiose display, two entire books, great banners, and newspaper clippings all covered in symbols that are meaningless.

“Book from the Sky” was first exhibited in 1998 at the National Museum of Art in Beijing, and immediately put Xu at the forefront of the avant-garde New Wave movement, as well as on the communist government‟s “bourgeois liberal” list. This critically acclaimed piece was considered by critics to be a “complex meditation on written language, textual information, and printed media.” The work was indeed complex. Xu spent years hand carving the typesetting blocks used to make the prints in accordance to the principals of block printing, another traditional Chinese art.

While “Book from the Sky” is impossible for anyone, including the artist, to read or interpret, “Books from the earth” also centers around the foundations of Chinese calligraphy and can be read, although not how one would first assume. The text Xu used for this project, Square Word Calligraphy, is also of his own invention. At first glance, square word calligraphy appears to be Chinese characters, but with close examination it is discovered that the characters are comprised of English letters and each character spells an English word.

Xu‟s inspiration for this new form of a very old art was based in the awe and curiosity that non-Asians have for characters. Through “Book from the Earth” Xu hoped to demystify calligraphy and create a bridge between two very different language systems. Square word calligraphy, described by Xu as an “art for the people,” has been compiled and published into two books that aim to teach this new writing form. The characters are often used in dining and retail spaces outside of China‟s borders which is in line with Xu‟s goal to create artwork that is not limited to small groups of societies but can be appreciated and understood by all people.

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Chinese calligraphy has evolved greatly since its divine beginnings as pictorial symbols used to voice prayers. Overtime, the script became heralded as one of the highest art forms in all of China. Over 1,000 years since its founding, and artists such as Xu Bing are elevating the traditional craft to something hip in art communities the world over and brought to the world stage. Xu clearly and consciously stepped away from the confines that dictate the standards by which calligraphy is held and into a perspective that emphasized meaning just as much as aesthetic beauty. It is not as important of the stylistic approach of Xu Bing to calligraphy, for the characters that he presents are not even hand-written but are created through block-printing, as much as the fact that Xu Bing is referencing and making use of such an ancient art at all. Contemporary artists in the Western world do not commonly base their works on artistic styles that were developed and highly acclaimed during late classical antiquity, which is in the same time period that in China, the art of calligraphy using a brush and a soft surface using characters that are strongly related to ones used today was developed.

The strength and endurance of Chinese traditional art forms is astounding. The continued reverence and use for calligraphy can be attributed to the continuous use of calligraphy as it is necessary to communicate, as well as the innate nature of Chinese calligraphy in Chinese people. As calligraphy is something that surrounds Chinese people from the very beginning of their lives it is not something they can easily escape, as both Xu and fellow Chinese artist Chen Zhen believe that art is inspired on and founded in life. Xu also illustrates Chen‟s belief in the “bank of genes,” of Chinese culture. These genes are inherited by Chinese people and will always be a part of them. Therefore it is natural to reference what is so innate to themselves.

It is believed that “styles in Chinese art do not fade away; once formed, they remain forever viable alternatives” (Bernhart).While this principal is clearly illustrated in calligraphy, it

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is also disproven. Westerners see calligraphy as having been present in Chinese culture since the development of pictorial writing. Chinese people recognize far more of the transformation of the art, the changes in scripts, and each artist‟s unique take on the script. Therefore, it is not as though the Chinese keep art stagnant for all time, but rather they develop arts that are unique and entrenched in their culture, this development is just difficult to appreciate from a Westerner‟s eye.

This continuation of traditional art by Xu Bing and other contemporary artists does indeed make his work distantly “Chinese.” Although this is often criticized as an easy reliance on old subjects, and lack of ability and will to move forward with new ideas, these critics are not realizing the full value of calligraphy and traditional Chinese art. Chinese art, whether it features characters, block printing, or other traditional methods will always be considered as “Chinese” art. The appearance of these traditions is natural, not a lethargic dependence. For as Xu said, “art is life,” and the creation of art is born in an artist‟s personal identity, which will forever consist of an individual‟s cultural background.

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The Progression of Chinese Calligraphy Scripts

A rubbing from a bronze vessel in da zhuan shu script

Shi Weize, Memorial text (736 AD), Jishu script

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Ouyang Shun, kaishu script

Fa Shishan, in xing shu script

Zhang Xu, Four Letters on Ancient Poems, cursive with distinct personal qualities

Works Cited Barnhart, Richard. "Chinese Calligraphy: The Inner World of the Brush." Metropolitan Museum

of Art Bulletin 30.5 (1972): n. pag. Web. 09 Dec 2010. "Beauty of Composition in Chinese Calligraphy."Cultural China n. pag. Web. 09 Dec 2010. "Chinese Calligraphy." Visual Sourcebook of Chinese Civilization, University of Washington n.

pag. Web. 09 Dec 2010. Little, Stephen. "Chinese Calligraphy." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 74.9 (1987):

372-403. Web. 09 Dec 2010. Zhu, Linyong. "Life Writ Large." China Daily 13 Jan. 2010: n. pag. Web. 09 Dec 2010.

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Moon Life in Shanghai

Moon Life in Shanghai


ALICIA FRAMIS TO PRESENT MOON LIFE CONCEPT STORE FEATURING 21 PRODUCTS AND CONCEPTS THAT WILL REPRESENT FUTURE HUMAN LIFE IN SPACE. 艾丽西娅·弗莱米斯即将隆重推出月球生活概念店，各种代表未来人类太空生活的21世纪商品以及概念应有尽有。

December 11, 2010 – January 9, 2011 2010年12月11日——2011年1月9日
Public program: December 12, 2-5 PM 公众项目：12月12日，下午2点至5点
Opening Reception: December 10th, 2010

Gallery Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 11 – 19 PM 画廊营业时间：周二至周日，11点至19点 Address: 171 Jianguo Middle Road, Taikang Terrace 3rd floor 地址：建国中路171号，泰康平台（Taikang Terrace）三楼

Designed by Shanghai-based byn in collaboration with Framis, Moon Life is an itinerary show/pop-up shop with ideas, concepts, prototypes, products about daily life on the Moon, due to open in Shanghai on December 10th. See the full press release below. Participating artists, and practitioners from Arthub Asia network are: Pan Jianfeng, Yan Jun, Tozer Pak Sheung Chuen, Wang Yuyang and Law Yuk Mui 参展艺术家以及Arthub亚洲组织成员包括：潘剑锋、颜峻、白双全、王郁洋、罗玉梅.

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A special tribute to the Moon: Sunday December 12, 2010, 2-5 PM

月球项目特别呈现：2010年12月12日（周日），下午2点-5点

Artists and scholars gather to reflect on the role of the Moon in imagining new realities, as they related to Chinese lore and mythology. Pan Jianfeng will expand on his logic and process for creating a typeface for the Moon, while participating sound poet Yan Jun will perform Music for the Listening on the Moon specially commissioned for Moon Life. Buddhist Studies scholar Francesca Tarocco will conclude the program with an illustrated talk on moon-inspired practices in Chinese religion and visual culture. Introduction by Alicia Framis. Organized by Defne Ayas (Arthub Asia.)

艺术家和学者将齐聚一堂，通过借鉴中国的传说和神话，来勾勒另一幅现实图景，共同探讨月球的角色。潘剑锋将详细阐述自己在创作月球字体时的逻辑和步骤，而集声音艺术家、即兴演奏家以及诗人于一身的颜峻将演奏月球专用音乐。佛学家弗朗西斯卡·塔罗科将就中国宗教中的月习俗以及视觉文化这一主题进行图片辅助演讲，并为该活动做出总结。介绍者：艾丽西娅·弗莱米斯。组织者：达芙妮·阿雅斯（Arthub亚洲）

Art in the Cloud

Findings
Case Studies
References

Abstract

With over 400 million internet users, China's population of netizens is the largest of any country in the world, and the number continues to grow as internet access and services improve. Regarding contemporary art, the internet has facilitated artists and art appreciators in documenting, discussing, and spreading awareness about contemporary art in China; however, from initial observations it seems that while there is a wealth of information about the art world in China, there is limited information about online art communities in China. Through investigating the accessible communities and conversing with online artists, I hope to shed light on how these communities operate and what type of artists participate in them. As documentation I intend to create a mock website containing both graphic and written information to reflect my findings.

Findings

With a very active user population, Chinese websites dedicated to contemporary art are not difficult to find. Especially in terms of information, most art museums, galleries, and artists have a presence online. In fact, according to Adam Schokora from Neocha,

The Chinese creative community is “digitally native.” It has grown up turning to the Internet as a primary channel for information / entertainment, and to learn about the local and global creative community at large. It also uses the Internet to showcase its work and connect with other creatives for collaborative projects (domestically and internationally). The Internet is the medium of choice for anything and everything. 1
However, narrowing the scope of research to Chinese online art communities has been a bit of a challenge.

After investigating several Chinese websites dedicated to contemporary art and seeming to be focused on online communities, it seems that only a few websites are purposely for social networking and community development while many of them are actually used as part of businesses or to represent an existing community or collective. Art sites that center around forums and discussion boards tend to focus more on the community while other sites, despite emphasizing their connection with the art community, are not platforms for the online communities themselves. Another type of art site involves using the internet and the internet user community as media for creating art. This last type of website is not an online art community as intended for this research, but it is a type of art community with an online presence worth investigating.

Sites such as Art-Ba-Ba and 21Art.cn have forums where any internet user can create a username and post information. These discussion boards rely on user input to provide information about contemporary art events including gallery and museum events and new artworks. In addition to sharing information, sites like 21Art.cn users also have the opportunity to post their own artwork and receive comments from other users. Of the two, Art-Ba-Ba is the more popular, with almost fifty thousand users.2 Although Art-Ba-Ba is owned by the Bizart Art Consulting company, the website relies mostly on the participation of its users. Similarly, Leewiart.com has forums for sharing artwork and critique, although it also has a business-oriented goal. In this sense online communities are a tool for both social networking and keeping up with news in the art world. However, many art communities use the website medium as a tool to help generate profit and branding.

Although Leewiart.com has a forum open to any netizen to participate, it actually has a commercial nature; although the Chinese website has an open sign-up where any internet users can post to forums and share news and work, the website actually also serves as a way for the site owners to recruit talented digital artists. Via forum critiques and sharing educational tips and tutorials, artists can improve their work and potentially work with the “elite” members on commercial projects such as animation and computer generated artwork outsourcing. What is even more interesting about the way Leewiart.com operates is that it has an English version of its website, but the English version is a completely commercial site. It showcases and markets artwork by artists that are contracted with the company, and the website claims to provide art education and services to computer graphics companies, but there is no open participation for general site visitors. Another interesting case study is Neocha, or more accurately, NeochaEDGE. The website originated as a social networking community website for artists with a discussion board open to anyone interested in the Chinese creative world; in fact it could be comparable to MySpace in terms of its social networking priorities. However, once the site began to receive heavier traffic, the creators decided in 2009 to relaunch it as NeochaEDGE, a “boutique creative agency” representing the EDGE Creative Collective, which is essentially the creators themselves, who are artists, as well as talented local artists who have been recruited by the company.3 So actually Neocha has evolved from an online art community to a creative agency representing an artist collective. These websites, despite some attempt to create an online artistic community, basically use the internet medium as another marketing tool in order to boost business.

Unlike both these community-based and business-oriented websites, there are Chinese art sites which utilize the internet as a means to create artwork. Hipic.org is a website that takes photographs submitted from visitors and displays them as part of a slideshow.

After observing these websites for the past week, it seems that the most active websites are Art Ba-Ba, NeochaEDGE, and Hipic. It is encouraging that a website such as Art Ba-Ba is so active, since it shows it is a robust online art community that is interested in reading about and sharing art, but by having a regular user base, it is also a platform for networking and connecting with others with the same interests. In that light it is unfortunate that NeochaEDGE is now solely for promoting the art of its own artists, rather than providing a platform for young and new artists to connect and showcase themselves in an appreciative community.


1Zhu, Jenny. "China’s Creative Community and Youth Culture: Interview with Adam Schokora « Jenny Zhu." Jenny Zhu: A Voice from China. 25 May 2009. Web. 14 Dec. 2010. .
2Art-Bo-Bo. Art-Ba-Ba. Web. 14 Dec. 2010. .
3Edge@neocha.com. "Neocha Website Research." Message to the author. 15 Dec. 2010. E-mail.

“The Path of Mystery Leads Inwards:”#

Nina Boys
Contemporary Art and New Media in China
Final Project
Artist Statement
12.16.2010



“The Path of Mystery Leads Inwards:”#
A Personal Response to the Interconnectedness of Art and Philosophy


The interview on “transexperiences” between Zhu Xian and Chinese artist Chen Zhen put a lot of my own philosophies on art, travel and life into perspective. I related with much of what Chen Zhen was voicing because I, too, connect with this concept of “transexperiences” that allows one to “immserse oneself in life, to blend and identify oneself with others”# in an experiential manner. Of late I myself have been recognizing the “boundarylessness” of humanity and therefore of art, as art is simply a visual representation of the human experience. So when Chen Zhen says that “you have me in you and I have you in me,” I recognize that this understanding is what informs his outlook on life and art is the way in which he expresses this to others. He fled China, isolated himself, traveled around the world, returned home and departed again in a cycle that manifests itself through his artwork; because for Chen Zhen art is a philosophical experience rather than a physical object. It is the “here and now” of every moment of his voyage that is valuable, not the physical object that comes to symbolize them. Ironically, he would never have learned the futility of escape unless he had fled China initially.
While Chen Zhen’s philosophy correlates to my own, to suggest that they are the same or different would be misleading as they encompass the very “sameness” of the human condition. These “transexperiences” belong not to someone who is overtly knowledgeable about the world but rather one that “does not belong to anybody, yet [who is] in possession of everything.” Thus the term “transexperience” is merely a road sign pointing to an enlightened form of being that focuses on presence rather than action. His experiences were far more than the experience themselves; they were a way of life and his artwork is an expression of this that can be read regardless of language or culture. Art is powerful in this regard because it has the capacity to elevate consciousness to a level that transcends social constructs and dances instead with the intangible.
Furthermore, art is a beautiful part of the human experience because it is not confined to paint, theater or sculpture; it can be far more intangible and to think that it was would be to limit art in the same way that words often limit awareness. Art can be any infinite expression of these “transexperiences,” even those which transcend sensory input such as a beautiful smile, a contagious laugh or an expression of pure sorrow. The magic of art is that it is all around us and that we create it simply by being. Everything else flows naturally and it is this very “boundarylessness” of art discussed by Chen Zhen that has informed my personal photographic reaction to it.
Something that has struck me while in Shanghai are the moments in when I literally transcend experience. From different angles and perspectives I can see the limitless in a framed moment in time and space, in fact I am that very limitless. I am in Shanghai and yet that is not as important as the fact that I am “here” and “now” and the very fact that I “am.” While these moments do not catalyze me into creating art, the very fact that I recognize them means that life and “being” is its own work of art that one needs only to open oneself up to in order to appreciate. This in turn allows us to appreciate its physical manifestation that we call artwork, and in modern day, contemporary artwork. Chen Zhen believes that understanding is non-existent as far as art is concerned since the very ambiguity and “misunderstanding" that stems from contemporary art is its own greatest attribute; it allows us to experience and interpret the indefinable. I have tried to capture some of these personal moments of “transexperience” through the photographic medium in order to represent the philosophic outlook that Chen Zhen and I share.

Artist Spotlight: Yang Zhenzhong

Nina Boys
Artist Spotlight: Yang Zhenzhong
Contemporary Art and New Media in China
Class Blog Response

Yang Zhenzhong is a colorful example of what is happening in the
contemporary Shanghai art scene. As an implementer of multi-media
such as video and photography he plays with the notions of social
norms and urban experiences and that he is obsessed with the
contradictions that play themselves out in everyday life in Shanghai
is apparent in his work. Born in Xiaoshan in 1968 he was trained in
the more traditional discipline of oil painting at the China Fine Arts
Academy in Hanzhou but began to work with new media in the less
oppressive mid-1990s. His work invites audience reactions through a
wide array of original concepts that can be humorous but also taboo
and disconcerting. The video that originally launched him onto the
scene was called a 30 minute film called "(I Know) I Will Die" that
featured an assortment of people looking into the camera and admitting
their mortality through these words, leaving the audience to reflect
philosophically on their own existence. On a completely different
note, his video project "922 Grains of Rice" features a cock and
chicken each pecking at grains of rice with a male and female
voiceover counting this out. This is making lighthearted commentary
about the competitive attitude prominent in contemporary culture,
especially between the sexes. In his project entitled "Light and
Easy" he tackles the issue of rapid development in Shanghai and the
seeming superficiality of it by photographing many of its urban
landmarks upside down. In one particularly memorable photograph we
see the needle atop the Oriental Pearl Tower resting, weightlessly on
his fingertip. By dealing with issues of contemporary life through
video and photography he is able to engage the audience in a visual
dialogue that in turns makes us ponder our relationship both with
ourselves and our surrounding environment.

Rockbund Art Museum

Nina Boys
Rockbund Art Museum
Contemporary Art and New Media in China
Class Blog Response

Upon entering the Rockbund Art Museum it was instantly apparent
that the exhibition "By Day By Night or Some (Special) Things a Museum
Can Do" was going to be a unique experience for me as a student of
art. Starting from the top floor and working our way down, we were
initiated with an instillation by Bulgarian artist Nedko Solakov
entitled "I Want Back Home, Said the Frog" documenting a two week
trans-Siberian journey that began in his own capital city of Sofia and
ended in Shanghai with many intermittent stops along the way. The
aforementioned (porcelain) frog was Solakov's travel buddy and served
as the focal point for the project, providing a subject through which
the audience could trace his travels in order to add depth and a sense
of humor to his experiences. By documenting the way that he
understood his surroundings through the frog they can be perceived as
more than just the random ramblings of just another traveler but
rather through a unique lens that allowed us to interpret him as an
artist in an unexpected way through the multi-media instillation that
included video, photographs and personal relics collected along the
way. As we made our way down the stairs and saw photographs taken
around Shanghai using the human body as living "rulers" measuring the
city through a variety of positions it became clear that this was a
curatorial accomplishment for the contemporary Shanghai art scene. It
is collaboration between both local and international artists
conveying their interpretations of the every-day modern urban
experience of Shanghai in a variety of surprising and multi-faceted
ways while also encouraging a dialogue between artist and audience
with nightly art events and discussions. These dynamisms are further
reflected in another striking video/illustrational instillation by
Pakistani artist Shahzia Sikander/Du Yun entitled "Gossamer." The
fantastical work combined a seemingly random collection of illustrated
objects dancing in juxtaposition against shifting backgrounds set to
an experimental soundtrack that gave the audience an almost
psychedelic experience of an "infinite opening towards new
possibilities of cultural translation." Furthermore the silhouette of
the audience was cast against the screen, integrating us into the work
itself. We could see ourselves physically meld into this "infinite
opening" giving the illusion of an out of body experience and made me
feel almost as if I was in a lucid dream; aware of my actions and body
and able to experience what was in front of me in a more conscious way
because of it; a feeling that followed me into the streets when I left
the museum.

by Noor Chadha

Shanghai born artist Chen Zhen's self interview, Chen Zhen has an
intimate and soul-revealing dialogue his alter-ego Zhu Xian who's name
is actually the two characters that form Chen Zhen's first name. In
the dialogue Zhu Xian interviews Chen Zhen with very personal
questions relating to both life and art, digging deep into Chen Zhen's
psyche. Employing several references to both his artworks, his time in
France, Chinese culture and idioms from both Western and Eastern
cultures, and life experiences, Chen Zhen coins a new term,
"Transexperiences", both an artistic and life-based concept, which he
feels is the most profound type of experience one can have in life. In
fact, transexperience is the only path to true understanding and
comprehension of what life and art is about. What are transexperiences
exactly? It is a type of "spiritual running-away" where you yourself
seek loneliness and throw yourself into a completely new context, be
it a different culture or country or a different lifestyle or creative
process. He feels that in this special state of mind, when "the soul
has left it's shelter" is the only time that one can create their best
work. Through experiences and accumulating these transexperiences,
constant change and unchange, the possibility that anything can happen
at any time, he experiences "cultural homelessness" which enables him
to enter bursts of extreme creativity.

Self-interview by Chen Zhen

Minji Kim
Contemporary Art and New Media in China
2 December 2010

Blog Entry

"Self-interview by Chen Zhen." That short phrase turns this interview
into a very dramatic reversal. It made me look over the entire
conversation all over again. Asking, answering the questions, and
making conversations were all done by an individual, and I think that
the concept of "Transexperiences" is well shown throughout the
conversation done within himself. Chen Zhen defines the
characteristics of genes to be the internal power of heredity and the
external conditioning factors. Also, while explaining the definition
of "spiritual running-away," Chen Zhen states, "one should learn to
break out of one's own cocoon, and be courageous enough to break away
from one's own self, and to abandon one's own cultural context," and
it might be the reason he conducted this self-interview. In many
parts of the conversation, Chen Zhen seems to use these self-inquiries
to excavate what kinds of thoughts or intentions have been staying
undiscovered in his mind. In the interview, he deals many questions
with a relationship either between one and others or within an
individual ego. It was a very inspirational example of how one
endeavors to find a genuine identity of a self.

Chen Zhen's Interview with Himself by Cori Huang

Chen Zhen's interview with Zhu Xian (or rather, himself) focuses on
the idea of "transexperiences," as the artist refers to this idea of
crossing through many places and the experiences they entail. I find
it very interesting that many of the ideas Chen Zhen talks about, he
describes using Chinese terms. For instance, at the very beginning of
the interview he talks about his travels, referring to the traveling
as to "zou," the Chinese term for walk. However, as the artist
explains the term in Chinese has more implications than simply
walking, since it can be used as a general term for traveling and
experiencing in both a literal and spiritual sense. This sort of
synthesis of multicultural experiences seems to really inform Chen
Zhen's artistic decisions. In fact, he works with the idea of multiple
cultures in his 1995 piece Round Table.
Regarding Chen Zhen's 1995 piece Round Table, I think the idea of
networks is prevalent in the way the installation interacted with the
setting, namely the United Nations' building, and then with the
audience who would have their own preconceptions about the Chinese
round table. The interaction of a viewer and his or her ideas with
what the artist presents can create a dialogue that is more
interesting than either one alone. However, the artist states that "as
far as art is concerned, understanding is nonexistent," and so the
relationships that are created are not just about taking information
from the artwork, but also about the dialogue. Chen Zhen describes the
misunderstandings as creating "networks of relationships," which are
more interesting that simply understanding an idea. Although I find
this to be a very interesting point and relevant to the Round Table
installation, I think it makes it more difficult to create a network
of relationships if there is too much misunderstanding. If I hadn't
read about Chen Zhen's thoughts behind the Round Table piece, I may
not be as interested in it.

Transexperience – the Life and Death of Chen Zhen

Transexperience - the Life and Death of Chen Zhen

In his conversation of the coined term "transexperience", Chen Zhen
expressed the necessarity for artists to travel, to learn and to
experience. His idea is in accordence with an old Chinese saying, "
读万卷书，行千里路" (Read and travel extensively), which can also be
interpreated as learning from experience. This notion is applicable to
any occupation, including artists. In fact, as art comes from life and
society, it is life experience that educate and inspire artists. As
Chen Zhen said, " like many artists today, I spend two-thirds of my
time each year traveling and working outside of my home." I think his
life experience has contributed to the acuracy and profoundness of his
work. Unlike other artists who do installation only for the sake of
appearance, Chen Zhen's work has very deep social implication, and
reflections on Buddhasim and philosophy. "Ten thousand changes will
not alter the essence of things," and "Stay unchanged to face off the
ten thousand changes." His employment of "Jie" (borrow, also has a
meaning of 'imitation', or 'plagiarize") helped on his fusion of
eastern and western art. I agree with Chen Zhen very much. I believe
that artists should enrich their lives as much as possible, by ways of
traveling, dealing with different peopel and trying different things.
Also artists should have an understanding about history and
philosophy, because art could not exist without the historical
context. I appreciate Chen Zhen's hard working attitude and his
courage to learn and employ foreign languages.

Looking up more information about Chen Zhen, I was shocked to find
that his brother is the incubent head of Ministry of Health of
People's Republic of China. His parents and his brother are all
professionals in health, but tragecally he was diagnosed of hematology
disease, which is incurable, at the age of 25. He knew that his life
was time-limited, hence cherished it more than any one else. He
traveld, learned and worked full-heartedly throughout his short life
and was a very productive and profound artist. He pondered on
children, religion, social issues and life. He is an respectable
artist with real passion.

Blog Entry

Joon Nam
After Reading the Self Interview of Chen Zhen

In the dialogue with himself, Chen Zhen reveals his sources of inspiration to his work. Chen Zhen, a Chinese artist who moved to France in 1980's, says that his experiences of travelling and adjusting to the new life after his move to Paris have shaped him. He uses a Daoist term  "transexperience" to explain "the complex life experiences of leaving one's native place and going from one place to another in one's life". The dialogue proceeds further into discussing different topics about multiculturalism and the concept of aesthetics in Asia where Chen Zhen claims, "do not have time to pay attention to that sort of thing". Chen Zhen also emphasizes the role of multiculturalism, which he claims to bring boundless potential into the works.

Since I was born in South Korea and raised in the US, I can understand some of Chen Zhen's points about his "transexperience" and his views on multiculturalism. However, I feel that even as he speaks in such language, he himself was bound by what he had seen and experienced in his life, just as we all are. We are limited by what we know; for instance, when a kid is asked to draw a monster, the kid will draw something based out of the things that the kid has seen, whether it be a three headed, one eyed monster. Yes, I belive going through new experiences and seeing new things will expand one's boundaries, since knowing more things will allow one to imagine further based on those things. However, at the end of the day, we are all bound by what exist around us. Perhaps then, creativity comes from discovering what exists around us.

On Chen Zhen and "transexperience"

Zhu Xian’s interview with Chen Zhen, or rather, Chen Zhen’s interview with himself (thus the two will be referred to as separate individuals to respect the artist’s intention) reveals Chen’s concept of transexperience. As Chen Zhen has put it, Transexperience is “a kind of fusion-transcendence experience…which summarizes vividly and profoundly the complex life experiences of leaving one’s native place and going from one place to another in one’s life.” Chen also states that “Transexperience also represents a concept of art,” which he cleverly tied to concepts of Buddhism. When Zhu Xian misunderstands the concept as he wonders how transexperience can be both a deep artistic concept and a “universal life definition” at the same time. Chen Zhen responded by alluding to the Buddhist concept that every living being has the “sense of a Buddha,” similarly to how transexperience can be a life definition that is applicable to everyone. However, transexperience also has deeper underlying meaning, which Chen refers to as a type of “cultural homelessness, namely, you do not belong to anybody, yet you are in possession of everything. This possibly refers to the fact that not everybody can reach enlightenment in Buddhism. The interview diverges into Chen’s multiple transexperiences and many of his philosophy on both life and art. It is interesting how Chen Zhen’s responses may seem personal and detached to everyday life (especially his pseudo-philosophical beliefs), many can probably relate their own stories to him as some kind of “transexperience.”

Shanghai’s Contemporary Art Scene: Looking Inward and Outward

Stephanie Hsu
Contemporary Art and New Media in China
Midterm paper
10/28/10

Shanghai's Contemporary Art Scene: Looking Inward and Outward

Widely argued to be China's most global and cosmopolitan city, Shanghai has become an important international platform for Chinese contemporary art. Shanghai is a young city with a multi-layered history, having within the past century served as a major international port, economic center, and political refuge. Due to its vast influx of foreigners and rapid urban development over the past hundred-plus years, the city lends itself as a case study of globalization and modernization. Much of Shanghai's modern history can be observed through its rich visual culture—from the Western-influenced film advertisements and commercial posters of the 1920s and 1930s, to the Communist propaganda posters and Yang Ban Xi of the Maoist period. Emerging from this image-saturated history, the contemporary art scene in Shanghai grew out of artists' responses to the changing dynamics of commercialism, consumerism, and politics in their world. While Beijing, as the cultural capital of China, remains the most prominent center for Chinese contemporary art, Shanghai has also progressively proven itself to be a distinct and valuable site for the development of Chinese contemporary art.
After the Cultural Revolution, Shanghai provided fertile ground for artistic experimentation, giving rise to the development of Chinese avant-garde art. As Shanghai was once the most industrial city in China, populated with a large working class "sprinkled with political radicals" and a workforce that "ignited the sparks of revolutionary struggle across the city," it also transitioned into China's period of economic reform in the same bold and progressive spirit of the Shanghainese. The city became the site of various exhibitions, such as The Twelve-Man Painting Exhibition and the Grass Painting Society's Painting Exhibition for the '80s, which showcased Chinese artists' rendering of Cubism, Expressionism, and other Western avant-garde influences.  Shanghai-based artist Li Shan organized several performance pieces that earned him notoriety within the art circle as well as in the immediate audience of Shanghai. In 1989, when he participated in the "China/Avant Garde" exhibition in Beijing, he was already forty-five years old—fifteen years older than the majority of exhibiting artists.  Still, his work was characteristic of a local trend initiated by artists of the New Art Movement, who were inclined towards performance. Li Shan's performance pieces included his 1988 work Last Supper, in which he collaborated with other artists and art critics within the art community in Shanghai to stage a performance inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's famous mural of Jesus and his disciples. In her book Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China, Karen Smith describes Li Shan's artistic inclination during that time to explain the sense of urgency surrounding China's move towards the avant-garde: "[A]s China began to advance and open up, everyone was scrambling to make up for lost time…The ranks of recent graduates felt that being avant-garde, by its very nature, demanded the rebellious energy of youth."  
Following the 1989 events at Tiananmen Square, China's contemporary art began to develop an identity more independent of its Western influences, as artists probed the changing textures of China's new political and economic landscape. Shanghai became the center of abstract art in China , with artists including Ding Yi and Shen Fan producing colorful works in oils and other non-ink mediums.1 Li Shan, and other Shanghai-based artists including Wang Ziwei and Yu Youhan pioneered the Political Pop movement, which relied on irony and playfulness to critique issues of state ideology and consumer culture. As Smith describes in her book, "Basking in the style and the glamour of a history of internationalism that the rest of China admired from its cloth shoes up, the Shanghainese looked to the world where all other Mainland citizens looked to Beijing". The opening of China in the 1980s rekindled the inclinations towards foreign influences and social freedoms that had characterized Shanghai's cosmopolitan past. In recounting the experiences of Shanghai-based artist Li Shan, Smith reveals the distinctive character of the contemporary art scene in Shanghai:
The city's social ambience played a part in permitting Li Shan to become the artist he desired. It would have been impossible to realize many of the works for which he recognized today in the capital: Beijing remains both more brut and less tolerant, while nationwide, the cultural enlightenment of lesser urban sprawls lag several decades behind.
Smith describes Li Shan's conflicting feelings for Shanghai; while he complains that the cultural life in Shanghai cannot compare to that of Beijing, he agrees that Shanghai is not without allure,  having rarely left the city during his career.  Although the art groups and exhibitions in Shanghai indeed did not receive as much attention as those in Beijing during China's period of liberalization, the complex character of Shanghai still made the city an important site for the bold, experimental development of Chinese contemporary art.  
Today, much of Shanghai's contemporary art continues to engage with issues facing China and its growing art world, all the while employing the perspective of a city shaped by the interactions between East and West, local and global, old and new. Shanghai is home to a variety of strong commercial galleries, including ShanghART H-Space at the creative cluster 50 Moganshan Road; pioneering non-profit art spaces, including, BizArt, also at 50 Moganshan Road; and private museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai. Furthermore, Shanghai currently hosts two art fairs— Shanghai Art Fair and ShContemporary.  The 2010 ShContemporary at the Shanghai Exhibition Center in September introduced fresh, new work to Shanghai's developing art market. DISCOVERIES: Re-Value, one part of the show curated by Colin Chinnery, presented artworks that explored the intersection between artistic value and consumer value. Among these works was Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries' satirical installation piece—a slideshow of intimate and provocative text-based messages being projected onto two opposing walls.  As Alexandra Munroe, Ph.D, a senior curator on Asian Art at the Guggenheim described, "There is a lot of comparing this fair to the Hong Kong fair … but this fair strikes me as different. It feels messier, edgier, younger, and more experimental." Chinnery described the progressive yet laidback atmosphere of Shanghai's art scene:
The art scene is smaller, less competitive, and there are less politics. In Shanghai artists can just relax and have conversations about art, and just be artists…Shanghai could be the most attractive place for art in Asia, maybe even the world, because it represents the future more than any other city. (1)  
Shanghai provides a space for artists to evade the political and competitive atmosphere of Beijing, yet engages them in the heat of the issues facing the globalized world. While the contemporary art scene in Shanghai was born out of the outward-looking mentality of the city— from artists' desire to reach out to the Western world—much of the work produced and exhibited in Shanghai at present reveal that artists are applying their knowledge of the outside world to the issues of the local and everyday experience.  
Perhaps the city's most prominent showcase of contemporary art is the Shanghai Biennale, which has been held once every two years beginning in 1996 at venues including the Shanghai Art Museum. The Biennale consists of a series of exhibitions and lectures, each time engaging in a specific theme. In Shanghai: Art of the City, Dany Chan and Michael Knight state that "from the beginning the plan was to use the biennial as a means to achieve equal footing in the international art realm: Shanghai would 'open the gate for China's modern art to make its way into the world arena'."  While the first two Biennales welcomed only Chinese artists and showcased works limited to the traditional techniques of oil, ink, and watercolor painting, the Biennale in 2000 began to open the exhibition to international artists and curators.  With support from the city's municipal government, the Shanghai Biennale has secured the funding and endorsement that has allowed it to become a truly international event.
The Shanghai Biennale in 2000 was curated by Alana Heiss, director of New York's P.S.1, and Toshio Shimizu, a prominent Japanese curator, both of whom organized the exhibition in such a way that allowed it to portray the movement and vitality of China's contemporary art scene. The curators selected a number of Chinese artists who were known internationally but who were not yet familiar to the Chinese general public. One such artist was Zhang Peili, who was concerned with engaging Chinese society in dialogue with outside countries about art, foreign knowledge, and the issues surrounding China's growing global presence. As Smith describes in Nine Lives, "The Shanghai Biennale offered a powerful platform for comparing and contrasting the dominant characteristics of the divergent cultures of individual nations worldwide in a work he titled simply News."   Zhang Peili's News consisted of twenty-seven recordings, each documenting the news broadcast of a different country's national television network on the evening of December 31, 1999. For viewers, News did not translate into the powerful visual experience that Zhang Peili had hoped, as the simultaneity of broadcasts—all in different languages—made the work seem confusing and overwhelming.   Despite the failure of its presentation, the work reveals the artist's desire to help situate China in the reality of its global context, and the potential of the Shanghai Biennale to give such a work valuable international exposure. The efforts of Heiss and Shimizu resulted in the ultimate success of the 2000 Shanghai Biennale, which "put Shanghai on the global art map, and established Shanghai Biennale as a must-see event on the international cultural calendar."  
The 2010 Shanghai Biennale continues the young legacy of the biennial exhibition, through its showcase of the work of Chinese and international artists who have found innovative ways to wrestle with issues of the contemporary world. Curated by Fan Di'an, Li Lei, Hua Yi, and Gao Shiming, the 2010 Biennale focuses on the theme of "Rehearsal," claiming to serve as a "form of art production that is experimental and open." The introductory wall panel at the exhibition further explains this theme of "Rehearsal":
Rehearsal is open and fluid. It focuses on the planning and process of the exhibition, on the creation of the exhibition and a consciousness of the process of production. In a rehearsal, the exhibition is not merely an array of artworks; it is a sensory arena that is productive, changing and continually experimenting.
With this opening introduction, the Biennale sets the stage for the exhibition as being only Act III of a five-act "touring rehearsal" that began in June earlier this year and ends in January 2011. Claiming Act III to be a reflection of time and experience, the exhibition presents itself as an open, interactive space in which viewers are expected to engage in ongoing dialogue with the artworks.
Ho Chi Minh Trail, launched in collaboration with Long March Project—a collective of artists, writers, curators, and scholars that was founded by Lu Jie in 2002—is one of the major projects of the Biennale that speaks directly to the exhibition's theme of "Rehearsal." Ho Chi Minh Trail consists of a series of travels, research projects, critical events, and artworks, which explore the intersection between lived experiences, individual memories, and collective imagination in various locales throughout China, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.  Large wall panels displaying text in English and Chinese over blurred images of people and trails were placed throughout the first floor of the museum. They described Ho Chi Minh Trail as a project with the goal of inspiring artists to engage in continual contemplation and self-criticism, and to approach the process of creation as an end in itself. One of these panels read, "We have yet to thoroughly examine the essence of action"—a commentary not only on war and violence—the obvious subtexts of the project—but also on capitalism and globalization as causes of continual production, mindless consumption, and intellectual passivity.
The theme of "Rehearsal" was also reflected in Wang Xiaoshuai's "Await," an installation displaying several films that each document a single shot for eight minutes. One of these films included a shot of a man on the back of a train, the scenery behind him seeming to change ever so slightly despite the viewer's knowledge that the film documented the train's travel across almost ten minutes of distance. Beyond the challenge it poses to the conventions of film and storytelling, Wang Xiaoshuai's "anti-film" draws attention to the modern world's growing inclination towards speed, sensation, and thrill. "Await" delivers a visual experience to its viewers that is blatantly anticlimactic, arguing that perhaps true unthinking occurs when individuals lose synch with the rhythm of their environment. Another work that addressed immediate issues of the globalized world was Mou Bouyan's "Fat Series," a sculptural installation depicting naked, corpulent bald men who resemble infants, splashing about in waves of milk. A dramatic and humorous display set amid several photography installations, the piece garners attention to the harsher realities of consumerism and mass consumption.
Liu Xiaodong's oil paintings and JR's "Wrinkles of the City" are two of many works in the Biennale that deal explicitly with local settings. Liu Xiaodong's "Getting Out of Beichuan" and "Entering Tai Lake" convey a sense of disillusionment with China's rapid urbanization, depicting Chinese youth in the midst of collapsing, deteriorating environments. "Getting Out of Beichuan" is a painting of a group of young women, dressed in the styles of urban youth but posing solemnly amid the ruins of Beichuan, a county severely hit by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In "Entering Tai Lake," Liu Xiaodong portrays a group of young men sitting in a boat on the murky, polluted waters of Tai Lake. The environmental impact of industrialization and urbanization are apparent, as the young men appear stranded, yet impassive to the conditions around them. In "Wrinkles of the City," JR also brings an inward-looking perspective to the Biennale with his large black-and-white photographs of the faces of elderly Shanghainese individuals, which cover several walls of the exhibition. The wrinkles, pores, and patchy texture of the faces evoke a sense of intimacy, familiarity, and nostalgia that directly addresses the local character of Shanghai.  
As the Chinese contemporary art scene in Shanghai continues to expand and reach new levels of international recognition, many artists and curators have taken the role of leaders in addressing the social and urban changes around them. The 2010 Shanghai Biennale's theme of "Rehearsal" serves as an example that many artists and curators in Shanghai understand the position of the city's contemporary art scene in relation to both the local environment and the international art world. Since the emergence of Shanghai's contemporary art scene, many local artists have attempted to shatter people's indifference to local and global trends. Active participation in the city's contemporary art scene entails ongoing discussions and debates about the social and political structures that both restrain and give substance to artistic expression.  As Shanghai continues to shape its international identity, it seems that the city's contemporary art scene will take on an increasingly significant role in exposing the myriad issues surrounding Shanghai's growth to both local and global audiences.