The Shaping of the Contemporary Taiwanese Art World - Yishu Mar 2003

The growth of the Taiwan art scene is expertly detailed in Hai-Ming Huang's article "The Shaping of the Contemporary Taiwanese Art World: A Review of the Contemporary Taiwanese Art Events From the 1980s to the Present," published in the March 2003 Spring Issue of Yishu. Over the past few decades, certain political and socioeconomic factors contributed to an increased focus on art in Taiwan. In particular, the lifting of martial law in 1987 was viewed as a "watershed" moment. The early nineties marked a strong period of growth within the Taiwanese art scene, and the development spurred in the late nineties continued far into the next millennium. However, prior to the lifting of martial law, a number of factors contributed to an increase in the quality of Taiwanese modern art. A number of international exhibitions, notably those by Japan and Korea, highlighted a perceived lack of quality in Taiwanese art. That combined with conversations with the mainland, and Taiwanese artists soon sought to refine their craft and establish their own voice. The success of their recent exhibitions supports the claim that they have done so.

“An International Discourse on New Chinese Video and Photography”

This article is actually a transcription of a panel which took place in 2004 in San Diego about new Chinese video and photography. Britta Erickson, the moderator, first starts the discussion with a brief history of Chinese photography and video. Early Chinese photography was mainly used for propaganda during the Cultural Revolution. In the 1980s is when China’s avant-garde gained popularity is also when photography gained popularity. Initially, photography was merely a method of documenting performance art. But, artists soon realized that their method of documentation is an art in itself.
After looking at the article’s accompanying photographs which were shown at the discussion, I think some of the photographs raise the question of what is the boundary between art photography and propaganda or advertisement photography. A picture’s intent is to capture a specific moment in time, and from that moment the viewer can usually piece together the story, which is what I think art photography aims to do. But there is one picture which has a nearly naked Chinese man, sitting cross-legged on a giant cabbage leaf with the word Mcdonld’s and logo stamped into his chest. His head is tilted upward and both hands are touching his chest right under the logo. The background is a blurry city skyline at night, that has clearly been photoshopped in. What is this image trying to convey? The title, Thinker, does not suggest much besides the obvious, given his body language.

Zunyi

The town of Zunyi was chosen for the Long March Project because of its historical significance. In 1935, there was a meeting held in Zunyi which put an end to the Leftist line dominance in the Communist Party. The Long March Project used Zunyi to determine the significance of the native experience and native forms. The Zunyi symposium, titled “International Symposium—Curating in Chinese Context'” and is a series of artistic activities where those in attendance will debate the importance of native context in art practice and the influence of the Chinese Revolution of the international contemporary art and contemporary Chinese art. The majority of those in attendance will be curators (both independent and those at an institution), gallery owners, members of the art press, artists and critics. They will discuss several issues, but hope to address several key questions, such as, curating in the Chinese context, curating exhibitions: the power and interpretation of visual space, alternative spaces, independent curating and the development of resources.

blog post

Interview with Chen Zhen
When reading the interview with Chen Zhen, the reader can get lost in the language of the interviewer and the interviewee. Chen Zhen's interview should be commended for it's a piece of artistic genius. The interview itself is a piece of artwork. The interviewer is not a real person, the reader finds out in the end. Also the questions and answers are an example of Chen Zhen's own opinions on art. I would not dare say that I understood much of Chen Zhen's interview. Also when reading this interview one gets the sense that Chen Zhen has quite a big ego. Its shown through the questions and answers which try to sound way to intelligent. Obviously Chen Zhen has never read EB White's The Elements of Style. When reading his interview I began to wonder why his opinion and life in the art world is so important. The interview in many ways seems like a glorification. Chen Zhen makes the interview more about himself then about the topic of art. Yet Chen Zhen does explain what art is to him to a certain extent. The responses reminded me of philosophy classes I have taken in college. Basically, much of what Chen Zhen said in his self style interview can be taken as theoretical. That gets to the point of Contemporary Art in China. In many ways it's still a theoretical field.  The interview to me was very confusing. It would have been nice to have further background on Chen Zhen and his style of

by Taylor Williams

In Zhu Xian's interview with his alter ego, Chen Zhen, he explains his complicated and often confusing  philosophical definition of transexperiences.  In its most basic form Chen Zhen describes transexperiences as "complex life experiences of leaving one's native place and going from one place to another in one's life". Xian's alter-ego quickly expands this idea to the artistic world, saying transexperiences represent an experiential rather than conceptual concept of art. This confuses Zhu Xian and his alter ego is forced to explain in greater detail by using Buddhist quotes as well as describing transexperiences as, "Cultural homelessness, namely you do not belong to anybody , yet you are in possession of everything". Xian's alter ego has a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of the world and is able to comprehend that a concept can be at once an artistic concept and a "universal life definition".

The interview than shifts to Zhen's actual experiences and his description of his formative transexperiences in Paris. He also details and explains some of his more famous works such as "Round  Table".

At first glance it is easy to dismiss this self interview as a narcissistic artist basking in his greatness. After reading through the interview, the narcissism cannot be completely dismissed but there is much more to this interview. Zhu Xian effectively uses this gimmick to explore some very deep material. He also uses this as an opportunity to do some legitimate soul searching and ask himself many tough questions that he may never have vocalized before. 

Contemporary Art and New Media in China
Professor Defne Ayas and Francesca Tarocco
05/05/2011 Blog Entry
Yena Lee

Transexperience: Contextual Placement

Although the concept of 'transexperience' seem distant and rare initally, after Chen Zhen's further explanation on the essence of the experience, I came to realize, that I too, is a student of a 'transexperience'. Especially brought to the context of art, 'transexperience' seem like a highly more personally relevant occurrence to me. As art no is longer a pristine field where only an exclusive group of people of extreme artiness and originality tread on, it is gradually becoming a more and more common visitation with minimal barriers to entry. The idea that is the most relatable for me is defining or treating an object outside of its very own context. Often times, the context is considered to be such an essential part of an object's identity. However, identity in a way is what you designate it to be. Whatever we choose to embody a value, can embody such value and whatever we choose to be symbolized by, we can be symbolized by. The true essence of things is malleable or perhaps it is nonexistent to begin with. It all depends on designation and human perception. As everything is dependent upon human perceptions, the reality seems to have less and less importance. Reality taken out of its very own context, infused with human perception seems to be redefined as what we as humans designate it to be. It is often so easy to compare and contrast an object with its contemporaries rather than others from a different period of time. Rarely do we pull things out of its chronological framework to come up with a definition as we consider time to be an important factor of one's defining qualities. However, sometimes the rare vacuum of time in defining an object is both necessary and desirable as it provides us with new insight and perception to see both the object itself and the world.

Transexperiences

Overall, I thought this reading was a bit difficult to comprehend, because a lot of what transexperience is, is intangible and is really very hard to describe. The most basic definition that Chen Zhen uses is “the complex life experiences of leaving one’s native place and going from one place to another in one’s life.” This is pretty straightforward. Throughout the interview Chen Zhen adds to his first definition. He says that transexperiences are a “special mode of thinking and a special process of experience-accumulating” but these are not physical “experience-accumulations.” Rather, a state of life which allow an artist to “blur the rationalization of art and the mechanization of artistic styles.”

Something else I had difficulty comprehending is less directly related to transexperiences but the idea of an alter-ego. Zhu Xian is Chen Zhen’s alter-ego. But what does that really mean? Beyonce is said to have an alter-ego (Sash Fierce) when she performs. Or maybe someone who has anger management issues, might say they have an alter-ego when they’re angry. But, these two cases seem circumstantial. How can Chen Zhen and Zhu Xian co-exist is such a tight space?

In China, Art Is Making a Commercial Statement

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/business/global/01neocha.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
April 30, 2011

In China, Art Is Making a Commercial Statement

By HANNAH SELIGSON

IT isn't the familiar Adidas look — that bold and basic three-stripe
logo. Instead, it's a design meant to evoke blowing wind, flowing
water and flapping wings.

The tricked-out design for new T-shirts in China was created by Chen
Leiying, a 27-year-old artist known as Shadow Chen who lives in the
coastal city of Ningbo. She is not even an employee of the company,
but multinationals like Adidas are beginning to turn to young creative
types like her to dream up images and logos for the under-30 set in
China, a group that is 500 million strong.

Call them China's youth whisperers. From Harbin in the north to
Guangzhou in the south, young artists, musicians and designers are
being tapped to make companies' brands cool.

Like its counterparts elsewhere, this arty crowd sometimes looks and
acts unconventional — but it's not with political ends in mind. These
young artists tend to set aside politics for commerce, and the promise
of attractive paydays from foreign businesses.

At the center of this experiment is NeochaEdge, the first and only
creative agency of its type in China. It was started in 2008 by two
Americans, Sean Leow and Adam Schokora, to showcase the work of
illustrators, graphic designers, animators, sound designers and
musicians from across China. It now has 200 member-artists; NeochaEdge
pays them per project to work on campaigns and product designs for
brands like Nike, Absolut vodka and Sprite.

Adidas wants to be cool, "and the only way to be cool is to appeal to
young people," says Jean-Pierre Roy, who until recently helped oversee
product development in China for Adidas. To help enhance that image,
Adidas selected four Chinese artists, including Ms. Chen, to design 20
graphics for its new T-shirts.

Over the last year, members of the agency have also produced a
soundtrack and a streetlight graffiti show for Absolut, designed
sneakers for the Jimmy Kicks shoe company and created content for an
e-magazine for Nike about basketball culture in China. And by the end
of this year, NeochaEdge will also become a virtual art gallery,
selling artwork from its artists through its Web site.

"You can't just stroll into China and see who is a hot artist," says
Mr. Roy (who now works for Oakley, the eyewear company, in Shanghai).
"It's all still a little underground." So Mr. Schokora, 30, and Mr.
Leow, 29, have become trusted guides.

"There are not many young Americans who speak fluent Mandarin and are
as much at home talking to chief marketing officers as they are
talking to graffiti artists in Guangzhou," says Paul Ward, head of
operations for Asia at the advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty in
Shanghai, which has collaborated with NeochaEdge on projects over the
last year.

Members of NeochaEdge are a far cry from Ai Weiwei, the 53-year-old
Chinese artist and dissident who was recently detained by the
government. These graphic designers, sound artists and animators have
other motivations.

"They want to advance their careers, not challenge the political
establishment," Mr. Leow says. "Commercial art has rarely, if ever,
contained dissent."

Defne Ayas, an art history instructor at New York University in
Shanghai, put it this way in an e-mail: "For some artists in this
younger generation, the new political has become the 'market.' They
tend to be curious and friendly to the market; they don't want to miss
out on its opportunities."

In fact, the government is putting its muscle behind companies like
NeochaEdge. In Shanghai alone, the government has created more than 80
creative industry zones for 6,000 businesses. In 2008, the Shanghai
municipal government named NeochaEdge as "one of the top
representatives of the creative industry."

SO how did two young guys from the United States — Mr. Schokora grew
up in Detroit and Mr. Leow in Silicon Valley — end up becoming
conduits to the young, creative community in China?

Before founding the company, Mr. Leow, who studied Chinese as an
undergraduate at Duke, was living and working in Shanghai as a
business consultant and consuming large quantities of Chinese culture.

"I was going to a lot of art exhibitions and indie rock shows, and I
always thought that China was all about imitation and nothing
creative, but I was wrong," Mr. Leow says. That prompted the idea to
develop a social networking site for creative types in China called
neocha.com. ("Cha" is Chinese for tea.) There was just one problem:
revenue from advertisers was not coming in.

At the same time, Mr. Schokora, who has been living in China since
2003, was working as a manager of digital and social media for
Edelman, the global communications firm.

"I knew about neocha.com even before I met Sean," Mr. Schokora
recalls. "It was pretty much the only site out there aggregating what
young, creative kids in China were doing online." In 2007, Mr.
Schokora and Mr. Leow met at a music festival in Shanghai, and the
meeting quickly evolved into a partnership.

Soon, Mr. Schokora left his position at Edelman and teamed up with Mr.
Leow to take neocha.com in a new direction. Mr. Schokora, influenced
by his perspective working for a big agency, suggested changing the
business model from a social networking site to a creative consortium.

The founders say the strategy has worked. They would not reveal their
revenue, but they say it has more than doubled in the last year. They
are also considering expanding to other Asian markets, like India.

Depending on the type of project, members of the artists' group make
20 percent to 90 percent of NeochaEdge's fee, which can range from
$10,000 to $100,000.

The compensation, Ms. Chen said in an e-mail, is "more or less the
same as a senior designer at an in-house agency makes in China." But,
she adds, "there is much more freedom and opportunity to build your
name."

Li Man, 27, an independent music producer in Beijing, is a NeochaEdge
member who has been contracted to work on three projects over the last
year, including a video for Absolut. He makes 6,666 renminbi, or
around $1,000, per assignment. "The income I've brought in from my
work from NeochaEdge has allowed me to buy a lot of electronics," he
said via e-mail, "and I'm now starting to work on record projects."

Shadow Chen heard about the consortium through Twitter. She says
NeochaEdge has helped her become noticed. "In China, it's very hard to
be appreciated if you are an ordinary, independent artist, as opposed
to a famous artist who is represented by an art gallery," she says.
"NeochaEdge is probably the only good outlet for independent young
artists to be discovered."

Hurri Jin, 26, a Shanghai-based artist who goes by the name Hurricane,
has worked on five different projects with NeochaEdge and earned
20,000 renminbi, or a little more than $3,000, since he became a
member of the consortium in December 2009. "NeochaEdge has really
helped my work," he says.

BACK in the early days, Mr. Schokora and Mr. Leow went searching for
members at indie rock concerts, gallery openings and music festivals;
now, however, the artists mostly come to them.

Mr. Schokora says the company receives dozens of e-mails a day from
young people all over China who want to be featured on the Web site,
which also showcases work from artists who are not members of the
consortium. Sometimes, artists even show up at the company's office in
the Jing An District in Shanghai without an appointment.

As well as playing matchmaker, NeochaEdge produces trend reports and a
monthly e-magazine on the creative scene in the youth market. It also
recruits for focus-group research, plans exhibitions and performances
and holds workshops and training for artists.

"We are a complement to advertising agencies," Mr. Schokora said. "If
an advertising agency wanted an illustrator from, let's say, Harbin,
it would be pretty easy to search the database and find their
portfolio online," he says, referring to the capital of Heilongjiang
Province in northeastern China. "Then we just hop on instant message
and get in touch."

As companies expand their reach beyond the big cities of Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou, local talent and authenticity will be more
important, says Damian Coren, chief operating officer at Leo Burnett
in Shanghai. "All the brands are looking to get into those second- and
third-tier cities, and anything that will help them push into regional
markets will be quite welcome."

Mr. Coren, incidentally, had not heard of NeochaEdge. But many others
have. Coca-Cola recently teamed up with it for a contest to find a
young, creative type to put a Chinese spin on its American theme of
"energizing refreshment." The winner — or winners — will receive up to
$65,000 in cash prizes and a trip to the Cannes Lions International
Festival of Creativity.

The agency has found its niche in providing innovative art and music.
But will that be a selling point with bigger brands that are less
out-of-the-box?

"NeochaEdge does so much cool, quirky stuff, but a lot of brands want
less quirky stuff," Mr. Ward says. "If they are going to appeal to
wider range of brands — a Procter & Gamble, for example — they are
going to have to combat the image that they only do stuff with
graffiti art."

Mr. Coren also wonders whether NeochaEdge will have appeal beyond
multinational companies. It's hard to imagine major interest from
local Chinese brands, he says, "because they are just not as
experimental or avant-garde yet."

The future direction of NeochaEdge is not yet certain. The founders
could decide to be absorbed by a large ad agency and work exclusively
for that firm's roster of clients. They say they have been approached
by three major advertising conglomerates interested in acquiring them.
The company could also stay independent and become even more daring,
perhaps by showing brands that they don't have to involve the
middlemen — the ad agencies.

NeochaEdge is proving that with some clear direction from a brand, it
can find the right illustrator, graphic designer or music producer for
the job from its outside pool. No in-house creative team is needed.
"The traditional agency model is broken, and it's only a matter of
time before it's disrupted," Mr. Leow said.

Still, the ad industry hasn't yet gone through that seismic change —
and that leaves NeochaEdge in an interesting position to consider its
next move.

"Whatever we do next, we want to continue to give hope to the young,
talented kids in China that they can make money in the creative
industry," Mr. Schokora says.