want my soul to come out of my mouth

A conversation between Alexa Haas and Lisa Lim

>早上好！
～早上好。

>Haha are you nervous? Don't be nervous.

~Haha I am nervous. I don't know what I will say. I think ever since I
started getting serious about a film career I've been scared of that
one day where I would be interviewed and what I say really matters.
>No, you shouldn't think of it like that. This is really casual, don't think of it as an interview, I mean an interview is really just a conversation. I just want to know about your experience and thoughts this semester.
~But in relation to art, right?
>Well, this is for your art class.

~Yea, but I think what I am scared of going into this is that I think
I have to talk about everything at once in order to express anything I
am thinking.
>I know, I know, that's why we decided it would be better for you to record this conversation than write an essay…So where should we start?

~I guess…we could start from the first exhibit we went to. The
Propaganda Poster exhibit. Because looking back now, it seems like I
didn't really know anything then. I mean, that is day one, so. Well,
it was called "Art is History," which I personally had always believed
too. Once when I was taking psychology, which I failed, my professor ~
Professor Coons ~ wrote this one thing in the course reader. We never
talked about it in class or anything, but when I read that line, it
seriously altered they way I looked at society and people and film and
art especially. Ugh, I wish film and art were seen as the same thing,
but they are such different businesses. But they are so…!! They are
recording the same history!!! If you look at film in China after the
Cultural Revolution, it tells exactly the same story.

>Wait, tell me first about what your professor said? Or wrote I mean.

~Oh sorry sorry, it was something like…wait, I want to say it exactly
how it was: Myths and…legends….oh, "Myths, legends and fairytales
allow us to glimpse into those hidden concerns that are shared by
whole cultural groups." I mean, I've been reciting this sentence to
people for years, for three years since I took that class. It's like
on my facebook haha. Sometimes I say it and it feels like it loses
it's meaning. Like I just said it, and I'm like no wait, that's dumb
because that doesn't really have to do with anything.

>No, no, it makes sense. It is true. Do you think we can just reword it and say, "Art allows us to look at concerns shared by a peoples?" I mean who is telling today's myths and fairytales if not art? Like, is it politics…or…?
~Like maybe its newspapers too.

>Haha yea, I mean, well...actually, that's true. Actually, it is newspapers too. I think the media is telling its own myth too, maybe the myth the authorities want you to believe.

~God that sounds so ridiculous when you put it that way, for someone
to want to force you into believing a myth a certain way. But the myth
of the authorities doesn't express the hidden concerns of the people.
So it is really the art that does. Like the hidden concerns are in
reaction to the authorities' myth. The propaganda art museum is an
interesting place to begin, because no one was saying what they were
actually thinking. But it still expresses so much about that mindset
of that time.

>Mm, definitely, "the boundless power of people!" 努力努力！

~No that's that exactly it. Its like all about The People. Like, ughh,
I wish I could say it so simply! I am quite obsessed with the concept
of 'man and nature.' Like I seriously dig the concept of A Harmonious
Society of today's China. But listen, listen.

>I'm listening!!
~haha I know I just want to fully convey this thought to you: okay
so…Okay…Alright, so traditional Chinese paintings. Let's start there
and then go to now, okay?
>Haha okay, I'm with you, chillax~*

~So! Chinese traditional paintings. In the beginning of this semester,
the way people looked in the paintings quite bothered me. They weren't
particularly, I don't know, beautiful I guess? But then one day when I
was in the Forbidden City this guy asked me and my friend to come into
his studio, which was right inside the Forbidden City, to look at some
artwork that him and his art classmates made. They were studying
conventional form like traditional Chinese paintings. He said to me,
"look, look you see, the person is so small in the scene. It
represents the harmony between man and nature…" and I was like,
"ohhh!" that was a big realization for me. That is a concept that
doesn't exist anymore. The person is always emphasized.

>mmm…Lynn Pann showed us a painting during the HaiPai time, of a man etched in with full detail but his clothes are painted broadly in traditional smooth one-lines. She said that it was a painting in light of the Western model because of all the detail paid attention to the human figure. HaiPai.
~Ughhh everything is in light of the western model, it is so
frustrating!!! The western model suuuuucks.
>Don't you think it is necessary though to dissect the human before realizing themselves in accord with nature?

~mmm…that's quite a beautiful thought. Like exploring the oceans
before going to space. I think maybe that step is necessary, actually.
But I hope we are getting out of it and focusing on other things now.
Doesn't it seem like Chinese artists focus more on nature than the
authorities do? I think it is possible for a people to move forward
without their government. Wait…this is what I wanted to say. Tradish
Chinese paintings to propaganda art. they are complete opposites from
each other. And I think that mindset still exists today in today's
advertisements. Like for the expo especially. Like people perfectly
lit up by the sun, perfect conditions for people. Big smiling faces so
featured.

>Mm, I'd agree, it is an interesting connection. It makes it seem like maybe people in China haven't really changed in what they want. Because they are still advertising that big smiling face. Do you think that is what Yue Min Jun is poking fun at with his signiture smiling face.

~Ugh, you know I used to really like him. I mean, when I was signing
up for this class, I just typed in 'Contemporary Chinese Art' into
Google Images, because I actually had no idea what that would
entail…and I saw him. Or his work, I mean lol. I really loved him at
first seeing him, I felt like I understood the work on first viewing,
I felt like it made sense that it was Chinese Contemporary Art. Even
though then I was SO naïve, haha, it's ridiculous. I like didn't even
really know what happened at Tiananmen Square at that point,
god…that's so sad. I mean I had a general idea! Ah! Don't judge
me!...Anyway, when I first saw his work I thought it was a comment on
Chinese culture. I saw it quite positively. About real happiness, and
gay outings, and a comfort with the body ~ because I think the first
painting I saw was a painting of men in their slinky bodies laughing
with each other in their underwear. Now I see his paintings like
everywhere, like lots of fakes actually. Like in the fake market, they
have a lot of re-do's of his paintings. Isn't that interesting?
>I mean, he's been painting that face for more than a decade now. Like that's sort of absurd, don't you think? You think he would have had some like, life changing experience since then or something, that would make him look upon things differently. Even his compositions are pretty much consistent.
~Barbara said we could see it that he figured out a marketable icon,
and has just been making money off of it since then. And then JJ asked
us if we would want it hanging in our house, and we said yes, because
it is really happy. But I don't think I think that anymore.

>Propaganda Museum. Chinese Paintings.

~Mmm, I know, I think that really what lasts from each era is the art.
I mean maybe the newspapers will be kept on record, but I don't know,
I don't think it is taken as seriously as the art of a time. What is a
<<collective memory>>? You know, it is the images and songs of a
time.

>But you know, just because traditional Chinese paintings expressed harmony between man and nature, doesn't mean people in that time lived in that principle. So art can't really represent time.

~But what about "the Garden as the setting for a good life" ~ it was
more embedded in the everyday life of people in that time. Wasn't the
garden a necessary part of a family's house. I feel like that
represented an accordance with nature. Like right now, cities are so
gray and removed from nature. Mm but I guess I actually don't know
enough about how people actually acted in their everyday during that
traditional Chinese painting period, but like, I think it became like
a practice. I mean, like those students in Beijing are still painting
Chinese paintings in the same way right now, but maybe without fully
understanding the principles. Or I mean, they must. But those
propaganda posters encapsulate it all about that time. Even the lies,
and especially the fantasy of the time.
>Did you see Zhang Dali's: A Second History ? That book is in Defne's library in the student lounge…?

~Mmm, I've looked at it. When Gu Zheng, the photographer/Fudon U.
professor came to visit he showed us some pictures from that book. Mao
digging a hole with a fellow comrade, whom he later denounced, so the
picture was modified to be just Mao digging alone. So crazy…

>Ya, I know. That book is like, incredible.

~Gu Zheng introduced to me the idea of reality vs. 'posed reality.'
Like he personally really enjoyed going into the street to take
pictures, in response to propaganda photos. People look at a
photograph to confirm something about reality. And he thought that the
street is a stage for the truth of everyday life. He found the work he
was producing to be very political because he was showing real daily
life in a way that the authorities try to hide.

>Yea China did that again in order to prepare for the expo. It's like cleaning your room before the maids come, because you don't want to be thought of messy. They want to appear a certain way.

~Yea but you can't pose people in real life the way you want them to
be. So taking pictures of real daily life is really the opposition of
a <<forced image>>. Naturally, I started thinking about film, because
it is so often all posed. But that is not all true, because right now
there is a strong movement of shooting on location, heavily
improvised, low-budget, independent films – all around the world
including China. But it is always true of Hollywood. Hollywood's
representation of life is as fantastical as propaganda art. I thought
about how China Film Bureau only imports twenty foreign films a year.
Most of which are Hollywood movies. So this is how the Chinese people
view American society really. This semester, I got with a Chinese guy,
BinBin. And he like completely misinterpreted what people are like in
America. I think he thought we were like out of a Hollywood movie. It
was like, ridiculous. He told me he liked me then immediately went in
for a passionate-ass kiss. Like it could be so simple! I asked my
Chinese friends if this was normal Chinese behavior, and they said,
"no it means he is a bad person." Haha. But we had sex later in the
year, he put like the craziest cheesy song ridden with electric violin
on repeat, and it must have played like 90 times that night. It
reminds me of a quote from this Brazilian movie, Eu Sei Que Vou Te
Amar : "Do you think love has always existed? No…there was no love in
Babylon…Love was invented by American movies to make money."

>Mmm…I think the Chinese are rather fond of the Hollywood mindset, but I think that is because Chinese itself is just a very sentimental culture. Especially the language. I think the Chinese, culturally, perceive that fantastical happy world as something that is attainable. Like look at "harmonious society."
~Defne put it like, "a perversion of emotions."

>mmm…but there is another thing about Hollywood's influence on China. I mean, just that American mindset. In the 90s, mimicking consumer culture, mimicking the way American movies look even, let's think about China in the 80s. How would you describe the way art of the 80s looked in like, let's say, three words:
~mmm…Earthy – like I think of a lot of black and brown,
mmm…oil…annnd…idealistic. Mmm but it is defiantely a backlash to all
the propoganda art like Gu Zheng. And now I'm thinking about JJ's
symbols of nature, the moon and rocks and soil.

>Yes, yes, yes. And you were talking about man's relationship to nature before. I think the artists of the 80s in their idealism thought they understood how to get to a utopia. There was this fallback onto nature. A reemphasis of the elements and of spirituality. But then came the anti-spiritual pollution campaign and then the June 4th incident. And then started the economic reforms, the mimicking of western culture.
~mm, mm. and why is Chinese sentimentality so funny in English, I
think has to do something with the spirit as well. That the Chinese
language has such a beautiful emphasis on the heart, the body and the
mind, and the harmony between them. This is where the American mindset
fails. Spirituality and like even the word, 'meditation' is funny in
English. It conjures up images of like guru hippie, drugged-up…I don't
know. I think people find it quite insincere.

>And if you look at the composition of the Hollywood movie, where is the emphasis? On the people.
~Why are people always the subject?

>It is just what interests people.

~Well like in the 90s, all of political pop art and everything. People
became so like self-involved. It was just a very cynical time, where
like irony was emphasized. Does the environment ever become the
character?

>Do you think right now is the least spiritual generation for China because of these 'Hollywood' influences?

~mmm….no. no no no. I am really liking the direction of Chinese art
today. I think, a lot of Chinese artists have had this same
realization subconsciously. I think people see where human
civilization is heading in all this urbanization, and they are scared.
So I think maybe in reaction to the economic reform of the 90s, and
human self-obsession there was a move from the body as a landscape
(like Xu Zhen's Rainbow 1998) and then now there is a fallback on
nature again.
>At the very beginning of 2000s, Yang Fudong has this picture called, "The First Intellectual" and it says that on this photo of a bloody man in a torn up suit standing in the middle of the road holding a brick. It is a funny picture. But I think it is about a guy who has a realization that there is something fundamentally wrong with human society. It is like a reawakening, as though we had become monkeys in a society again and people are realizing it doesn't have to be this way.

~Yea, I think there are a lot of artists going back to promoting
reverence for nature. I think that is one of the key things askew with
modern human society. Even my art is heavily reflecting this emphasis
on nature, because I am also concerned. My favorite artists I have
seen is a couple: Ji Wenyu and Zhu Weibing. They have a few pieces, do
you know them? ahh I love them. They have this one piece called "Enjoy
Flowers" (2006) where they have these cloth sculpture men with their
hands folded in front of them looking at a tree with pink flowers on
it. It is so sweet and warm. I really feel good looking at it. They
also have another piece where all these businessmen in suits are
holding this big giant pink flowers. And both pieces have no specific
arrangement, they are like dolls of a set.
>mmm, yes I think we are in an idealistic stage right now. ~Harmonious Society~ 大同世界 ～It is a Confucian idea – "big same world." I think a lot of Foreigners think the concept of a harmonious society is funny but, I don't think the Chinese do. Like "Happy Street," the Dutch pavilion at the expo, is supposed to poke fun at the idea of a Harmonious society. But harmony to the Chinese "refers to harmony at every level, from the cosmic world of the two ultimate forces, to the social, interpersonal, and individual biological level of the human body." (57, Dragons of Tiananmen, Jeffrey F. Meyer) It is the idea of utopia. China is trying to figure out how to get there.
~Mm, maybe it is those happy advertisements that people find funny. Or
they find China to be really fucked up. I think people have bad
connotations with the word: "communism" because of the way it is
taught in school. It has such a bad history tied to it. So a
"harmonious communist society," is a funny idea to foreigners. But, I
agree, 'harmony' is not a funny idea. Wait, I think also the reworking
of museology and exhibitioning is part of this idealism. It is really
quite beautiful. Like The Long March, which is, literally a long
walking march of an exhibit, retaking Mao's steps on the Long March.
It is the idea of realizing looking at art doesn't have to be
concentrated into a room, and be a one-way transaction.
>Wait I actually have the curator's notes on that exhibit right here in my folder.
~Oh good, good.
>"The Long March looks to integrate the production, consumption, and interpretation of art in a single scene, three issues which have traditionally remained separate. It looks to overcome the traditional distance between viewer and creator, to close the gap between "host" and "guest," and to seek a new understanding of space. In this way, The Long March will merge exhibition with creation and allow consumption and production to interact."

~Mm mm, also like at Double Infinity they wanted to encourage you to
play with a museum collection, in order to backlash against that
"usually untouchable" feeling at museums. But it's weird because when
I went back to Double Infinity a few weeks later, that parking rug
that they said we could walk over was off limits. And the security
guard would point to the floor and be like, "do you see what you just
did?"

>People are still so used to the conventional model. So..if we were to look at right now like a story, what point would be at right now?

~I don't know, I think I might be a little too optimistic. I think
this time represents an ideological shift. People are rerealizing
themselves as nature again. I hope I hope anyway. I think the expo, to
my very pleasant surprise is trying to show to the world this
classically Chinese concept of harmony between man and nature. There
is a statue in front of the Chinese Pavilion called "Never Ending
Life" bye Yang Jian Ping. JJ is friends with her he said, and he told
us to note the sizes of the animals and the leaves and humans. They
are all the same. I think this is so important! I hope it is important
anyway!! It makes me happy!
>Do you think it is only represented in art or is it moving to the mainstream? How will people get this concept if it is only in the art?

~Mmm, again I think I am quite optimistic. Even if it was just the
West looking upon Chinese Contemporary Art, then the West will learn
this concept, and that is where it is especially lacking. Also, I mean
Avatar did extremely well worldwide, especially in China. This idea is
the main feature of the movie: reverence for nature and the human
body, harmony. And doesn't that mean that this idea is starting to
move into the mainstream? I think it is, I think it is, I hope it is!!

>Haha, that would be quite wonderful, indeed.

~Wait…before we part, I just want to tell you a dream I had about Ai
Weiwei. It is funny: The first thing I remember is that he lifts this
smashed automobile with panda pictures onto a tow truck with his bear
hands and shear strength. I looked over at him and he had dyed his
beard bright red. He was looking back at this old man, who he had
appeared to be helping. The truck drove away and the pieces he just
threw on began tilting off the tow truck, so I started running after
it yelling back to Ai Wei Wei, ahh look!! Ahh!! Ai Wei Wei started
running after it too, looking back at the old man laughing. I
understood that this is what they wanted, to destroy these pieces. I
stopped running and a dog came toward me and I started giving it
kisses, and Ai Wei Wei with his red beard told me "Don't eat him!"
haha that's the end of the dream.

Self-interview by Alexa Haas.

Lisa Lim is an alter-ego whose name is formed by: Alexa>Lessa> Lisa
(this is what my martial arts teacher called me) and Lim, her mother's
maiden name

Inspired by
Transexperiences

A conversation between

Chen Zhen and Zhu Xian

Ishmael, David Quinn

Chinese Contemporary Art & the Economy:

Christina Xiong

Chinese Contemporary Art & the Economy:

the Emergence of a New Individual Thought

Coming back to Shanghai after my first visit 10 years ago feels
like both a reality check and a confirmation of my own instincts on
how the city "should" be like. Shanghai, now a city of lights, is no
longer one with hordes of bikes and family-owned stores. In place of
these traces of the past, are towering buildings, all of which stand
guard at the base of the city's tallest structure, the World Financial
Center. And yet, this symbol of urbanization, prevalent throughout
several developed Chinese cities, does not surprise me at all. China
is currently the world's fastest growing economy, and as expected, its
social patterns and structure of the local environment should
transform with respect to the new opportunities created. However, what
are the effects of this globalization on art? Is there no opposition
towards China's new market-driven economy and receptiveness towards
Western ideas?

Personally, I would've thought that artists, free thinkers who
use creativity to express thought, would stay true to their thoughts
and views. However, as a Hong Kong artist from the Guangzhou
Discussions pointed out, "Today, everything, including art forms, is
based on the image of society and that's a problem" (Yu Hsiao Hwei).
Certainly, no one can deny the fact that Chinese Contemporary art, in
recent years, has been "tailored to meet the needs of the investment
market" (Zhao Li). However, is this a bad thing? Does commercializing
art necessarily take away an artist's personal expression and
individualism? I believe that although China's rapid economic growth
has "restructured the relationships among artist, artwork, exhibition
space, and audience" (Erickson), the obsession with the conceptual
value of art and money has also inspired many new expressions of
emotions and values within Chinese Contemporary Art.

Like any other time frame throughout the history of Chinese
Contemporary Art, the artists of the 90s created pieces that were
responsive to the major events taking place in China at the time.
Unlike the avant-garde artists, who criticized the political regime
and questioned what it meant to be an individual artist, the artists
of this new modern art movement and their works were impacted by
strong economic reforms and the presence of Westerners (Yu Hsiao
Hwei). Although Deng Xiao Ping's reforms under the Four Modernizations
were launched early in the 80s, China's contemporary art market did
not expand much until foreigners coming into China started collecting.
As Britta Erickson, guest editor for Yishu, mentioned, galleries
representing Chinese contemporary artists but headed by foreigners,
started opening up both domestically and internationally in the 1990s
(Erickson).

ShanghART Gallery, for example, was one of these galleries. On
my visits to Moganshan Rd., I noticed that ShanghART's Main Gallery
featured group exhibitions where the works of featured artists shared
a common theme, such as the concept of a bed in the "All About the
Bed" Exhibition. Many of the represented artists held their private
studios in some of the spaces outside ShanghART's Main Gallery. As I
walked by, one of these spaces caught my eye, Zhao Bandi's Bandi-Panda
store. At first, I was surprised to see how actively involved the
artist was in selling and marketing his creations, to the point that
his Bandi-Panda designs are now an entire fashion line! Squared flyers
also advertised his upcoming 'couture' fashion show in Beijing. If
this isn't a sign of commercial art, I don't know what is!

The idea of artists' works being displayed at privately-funded
galleries, such as ShanghART Gallery, and museums was the first
commercial indication of the modern art movement. In the past, art was
created mainly either for "self-cultivation and self-expression"(Yu)
or for the enjoyment of the emperor and elite. However, ever since the
1992 Guangzhou Biennial, the first exhibition of its sort in China to
be privately-funded by businessmen, the purpose of art has become
redefined to encompass art collecting and international appreciation.
The use of galleries and museums became not only an official way to
get prospective buyers to see valuable works, but also a way for
artists to promote their art.

But how is the proliferation of galleries related to the nature
and subject of artists' works? And how come penetration of the Chinese
contemporary art market came so late? The fact that the Chinese
contemporary art market was relatively small during the 80s did not
prevent leading avant-garde artists from "producing substantial and
enduring works under the idealistic banner of 'art for art's sake'"
(Smith). In other words, a good economy is not necessary for art to be
meaningful. The key takeaway from the 90s modern art movement is that
through a developed economy, Chinese Contemporary art was given more
opportunities to become meaningful in a different, more commercial
manner that is "global, but particularly local"(Smith). What artists
before the 90s lacked were commercial outlets by which to build
foreign interest and support. Through the efforts of foreign
collectors, who spread the works at the international level, Chinese
contemporary art has been able to achieve recognition beyond the
boundaries of its own country. Currently, Chinese collectors and even
the government, who once showed interest in only "classical paintings,
ceramics, and furniture" (Erickson), now recognize the value of
contemporary art.

In the Guangzhou Discussions, Pi Dao Jian said, "Western art
critics used their vision to come to China and select works. These
works very quickly brought success to the artists, bringing a success
that they had never before imagined. This influenced many artists.
Economic power made a lot of weak-willed artists turn from trying to
produce true art to trying to please the market" (Yu Hsiao Hwei). But
what does Pi Dao Jian mean by "true" art? Is he implying that
individual artists themselves have become more materialistic, that the
actual quality of their work has become mediocre?

An actual connection between generating monetary value and
contemporary art is more apparent in the practice of art collecting.
Art collecting in China is not a completely foreign idea. During
imperial rule, the emperor and nobles commissioned artists, who
created works not only to hone the image and status of the royal
family, but also to entertain and satisfy educational pursuits (Yao).
As a result, "true" private art collecting has come to involve both
expertise and a sense of personal enjoyment, as each work served to
communicate with collectors, often provoking much thought within each
individual. However, unlike "true" art collectors, today's buyers tend
to treat contemporary art as liquefiable assets, ones that can be
bought and sold for a profit. Due to the extent of these transactions,
a secondary market, mainly dominated by auction houses, such as
Sotheby's, Christie's, and Poly-Auction House, has become prominent.
One of the more interesting aspects of the auction houses is their
role in furthering these exchanges. Because of these auction houses'
ability to put up collections for sale, the prices of several Chinese
contemporary art works have escalated, spurring the global demand for
more.

This growing influx of Chinese Contemporary Art entering the
market is indicated by the reported "440% rise in prices of the field"
between the years, 2001 and 2007(Castets). As Zhang Xiao Ming
mentioned in one of our lectures, the prices of some big-name works,
such as Zhang Xiao Gang and Yue Minjun multiplied twice-fold,
triple-fold or even more within that period. She gave an example with
Zhang Xiao Gang's Blood Line: Three Comrades, which sold above
estimates for USD $2,112,000 at Sotheby's New York Contemporary Art
Asia (Castets). According to Simon Castets, writer of "Everyday
Miracles: National Pride and Chinese Collectors of Contemporary Art",
"in 2007, Yue Minjun's The Pope sold in London for USD $4.3 million",
which was well over the auction record for any contemporary Chinese
artist previously (Castets). With the art market's obsession over
facts and figures, there was a lot of concern over whether Chinese
artists, much like the average Chinese collectors, have surrendered to
the forces of commercialism.

Artist, Pi Dao Jian expressed disillusionment over the condition
of this new modern art movement. In the Guangzhou Discussions, he
said, ""In the past, each city had its own particular enchantment.
Such cultural enchantment is slowly being lost and this is a problem.
In addition, modernization has brought with it the desertification of
the soul, the drifting apart of human relations & separation of man
from nature" (Yu Hsiao Hwei). From these words, it seems that Pi Dao
Jian is referring to artists' abuse of this new phenomenon (the
emerging interest in Chinese Contemporary Art) to seek personal gain.
But is he entirely correct?

Certainly, the increased demand for Chinese contemporary art has
had a lasting and still-continuing impact on the nature of artistic
production. On the same visits to the ShanghART gallery, I walked into
one of the individual galleries, the Yard Gallery and immediately
identified one of the works we saw in class: Wang Guangyi's Great
Criticisms series, Pepsi edition. Although I didn't realize it at the
time, this piece was probably one of the many prints of the artist's
original series. By basic business rule, if buyers are willing to
offer money in exchange for all or as many of your products, then you
would be inclined to make more of them to meet demand. Such has been
the case for top artists, such as Wang Guangyi, who has produced many
editions of these series, each featuring a different name brand.
Individual galleries, such as the Yard Gallery, have become "eager to
stock quantities of less expensive works" (Erickson).

In order to feed this demand, many artists don't even do much of
their work themselves. Zhou Tie Hai, considered many to be a
mastermind of "emergence of Western modernism", is an excellent
example (Allen). I first came upon Zhou Tie Hai's works at his solo
exhibition, the Dessert Collection held at the Shanghai Contemporary
Art Museum. After doing some research on his notable digitalized
replicas, I realized that much of the process, such as creating and
altering the images, was actually done by his staff. Does this mean
that Zhou Tie Hai has not stayed true to his art? I would say that the
creativity in the concepts behind the art, all original ideas of his
own, must count for something. Even though the commercialization of
art has seen a lot of repetition in the works being displayed, I
believe that it serves as a constant reminder of the artist's ideals,
if not his work's popularity.

Perhaps one example that follows along the lines of Pi Dao
Jian's disillusionment is Feng Mengbo's Built to Order Series. In this
series, Feng accepts orders of customized oil paintings from buyers.
The interesting thing is that in addition to choosing between default
backgrounds of Chairman Mao and the artist's Quake-based Q4U, buyers
can add as many alterations as they would like (Erickson). By nature,
people are influenced by the cultural and external factors that they
were raised in or live with. Thus, it is hard to imagine the huge
economic developments occurring in the country not having an impact on
the works of artists. But to what extent have artists catered to the
expectations of this new movement? What kind of art is considered a
"hot commodity" and worth investing in? What makes Zhang Xiao Gang's
"A Big Family Series" worth as much as it was bought for?

This question of how art is being valued in the world of art
collecting has always been very irrational, especially in auction
houses. Today, it is quite common to see a similar work from the same
artist, maybe even produced around the same time period, being sold at
Sotheby's for a much larger sum than it is bought at an exhibition
gallery. While this can be attributed to the image and reputation
associated with being displayed at an international auction house, I
believe that much of this phenomenon also has to do with the trust or
belief that value does exist. In her lecture, Zhang Xiao Ming stated
that in determining value, what works in the USA may not work in China
because China's art world is influenced by a whole range of entities.
Thus, the value of a work can be very subjective because this group
consists of not only critics, curators, collectors, galleries,
archives, and auction houses but also the Ministry of Culture of the
P.R.C. or simply, the government.

According to Christie's Asian contemporary art specialist,
Ingrid Dudek, "It is a stereotype that only Westerners buy Chinese
contemporary art" (Castets). Because of this international
recognition, brought upon by commercial outlets that eventually led to
Western support, Chinese contemporary art has undergone 2 major
changes domestically. Firstly, it has gained the support of government
and Chinese collectors. Because Chinese Contemporary art was so
engrained in the Western perspective of China's identity, the
government saw it as an expression of national pride. Not only has the
government limited regulations on the business of art, but also
commissioned artists to produce works and sculptures. Examples include
Ai Wei Wei's involvement with the architectural planning of the Bird's
Nest for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and more recently, artists such as
Wang Guang Yi and Zhang Huan, who created sculptures for the Expo.
Another group of artists from Shenzhen's Dafen Oil Painting Village,
known for their local Chinese copy painters, were asked to paint the
largest-ever re-creation of the Mona Lisa at the Expo (Spiegler).

This use of both well-known and local artists in shaping China's
image at an international event serves the purpose of showing China's
prowess and capabilities through global and yet, local art. In the
end, the government has come to embrace Chinese Contemporary art as a
"culture vital to the credibility China wishes to attain as a holistic
nation amongst the leading global powers" (Smith).

Thus, is it possible for commercialized art to emerge as a
source of inspiration and new ideas for artists, and not what Pi Dao
Jian makes of it, a cultural loss? Upon exploring the future of
contemporary art, Karen Smith claims that people have come to place
more value in the "vibrant local scene", which boosts local confidence
and promotes "profound aesthetic engagement" (Smith) . In today's
investment-driven art market, artists are motivated to follow market
trends and produce works that sell. Following the same logic, is
Chinese contemporary art then really "constrained" by economic
currents if curators, government and are looking more into what
individual artists can offer in terms of personal expression and
aesthetics?

I believe that this emergence of a rising group of artists who are
"turning into a more individually defined approach to style and
urbanity" is the second major domestic change to contemporary art in
China(Castets).

As a result of the nation's economic reforms and the opening of
the Chinese art market internationally, artists have gained
significant exposure to new ideas and conceptual ways of thinking.
This new modern art movement became the basis for explorations and
artistic responses to areas, such as mass consumerism, and "the value
of money and its relation to art". One of the more unique art
exhibitions was "Art for Sale", which was featured at a supermarket in
Shanghai. At "Art for Sale", customers were able to purchase
"minimally priced works of art", from T-shirts of famous pieces to Liu
Wei's Pigs' Trotters and Jewelry (Erickson). As we've seen in the
video in class, this direct way to reach out to viewers, as customers,
was an art itself in that it demonstrated the transaction between
buyer and seller in a world of consumerism.

The fact that "Art for Sale" was held at a supermarket also
indicates the trends taking place in the relationship between art and
public spaces. According to Beatrice Leanza, a participant of the
"Localism and Social Engagement in the City" panel discussion at
Double Infinity, "Shanghai art is being displayed more in places where
people go with commercial ideas". This is clearly seen in one other
art work that I found very interesting, Wang Jin's Ice, which took
place at a shopping mall. In order to demonstrate the "cooling of
consumerist heat", Wang Jin created an installation composed of blocks
of ice, each with a consumer good, such as music players, and jewelry,
inside (Erickson). However, within the opening hours, packs of
customers attempted to break the ice, hoping to acquire the product
inside (Erickson).

Ever since China's rise to a major economic power and tendency
towards consumerism, artists began to question the value of money and
art. However, just because these artists were interested in exploring
money and its relation to art does not mean that they do art solely
for money. The economic current became a source for more expression of
thought. In order to ridicule and poke fun at the importance placed on
'monetary value' and 'expected return' of an art piece in the world of
art collecting, Zhou Tie Hai actually issued himself out as a grade B
share (Erickson). This was meant to provoke the audience's thoughts on
the value of an artist. Even our professor, Jian-Jun Zhang, in an
"email interview" with me, stated that the destruction of homes,
especially the traditional shikumen houses in Shanghai, became the
inspiration for him to address "the issue of the fading away of the
old/traditional" in his "Vestiges of a Process: Water" project.

According to Britta Erickson, who wrote "Contemporary Chinese
Art: To Get Rich is Glorious", "money brings the various factors
involved in the art world - including artists, dealers, private
collectors and museums - together into a web where activity in one
arena exerts a push or pull in another"(Erickson). During the 90s,
this idea of a global interaction exposed artists to the "workings of
the financial infrastructure" and prompted many to explore the
relationship between money and art (Erickson). As a result, their
responses to commercialized art, reflected upon the many diverse forms
of expressions today, from video, audios to installations, have led to
a new formation of individual thought.

Works Cited
Allen, Daniel. "Asia Times Online :: China News - China's Contemporary
Art Goes Global." Asia Times Online :: Asian News Hub Providing the
Latest News and Analysis from Asia. Web. 13 June 2010.
<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IF14Ad02.html>.
Castets, Simon. "Everyday Miracles: National Pride and Chinese
Collectors of Contemporary Art."Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese
Art 6.4 (2007): 51-57. Print.
Erickson, Britta. "Contemporary Chinese Art: To Get Rich Is Glorious."
Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 6.4 (2007): 8-16. Print.

Koppel-Yang, Martina. "The Surplus Value of Accumulation: Some
Thoughts." Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 6.4 (2007):
17-18. Print.

Li, Zhao. "Seeing Through the Macro Perspective: The Chinese Art
Market from 2006 to 2007."Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art
6.4 (2007): 19-22. Print.
London, Barbara. "Views on Contemporary Chinese Art." The Reader, Print.

Smith, Karen. "The Future: In Whose Hands?." The Reader, Print.

Spiegler, Mark. "Re: Chinese Copy-painters Come to Zurich." Web log
comment. Artworld Salon. 16 July 2007. Web. 14 June 2010.
<http://www.artworldsalon.com/blog/2007/07/chinese-copy-painters-come-to-zurich/>.
Tinari, Philip. "Original Copies: Philip Tinari on the Dafen Oil
Painting Village. - Free Online Library."News, Magazines, Newspapers,
Journals, Reference Articles and Classic Books - Free Online Library.
Artforum International Magazine, Inc. Web. 14 June 2010.
<http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Original copies: Philip Tinari on the
Dafen Oil Painting Village.-a0169913085>.

Yu, Hsiao Hwei. "Guangzhou Discussions." The Reader, Print.

Yao, Pauline J. "Superfluous Things: The Search for "Real" Art
Collectors in China." Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 6.4
(2007): 58-61. Print.
Yu, Yu Christina. "Exhibition Culture and the Art Market." Yishu:
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 6.4 (2007): 23-28. Print.

Zhang, Jian-Jun. E-mail interview. 15 June 2010.

Double Infinity by Alexa Haas

Double Infinity

In the Double Infinity exhibit, artist Liu Gong has a photo of a
satellite town in Shanghai where it is made to replicate a little
Holland. His photo is of a real tree in front of a billboard of a
picture of a windmill in little Holland. At the opening of the
exhibit, we talked to him. A student asked, "Why doesn't the plaque
say that it is a billboard? Or else no one will know!" He replied by
saying, when people look at it everyone has their own interpretation,
even if there was a plaque. This interpretation is always
misinterpretation, always a miscommunication between the artist and
the viewer. He pointed out, "Even right now, talking, we are
miscommunicating. I am explaining to you my idea, but you understand
my words on your own terms, and not the way I am thinking…We can't
fully explain to each other what we are thinking."

Historian Lynn Pan, mentioned that you cannot understand a
culture without understanding the language. I read online that she
does not consider Amy Tan, the writer of The Joy Luck Club, as Chinese
but as an American, on account that Amy Tan does not speak Chinese and
therefore does not understand the Chinese mindset. There are words in
every language that another language cannot translate. And in that
there are entire concepts and observations of the world that cannot be
articulated full from language to language.

John Lennon in his song 'How?' has this line, "how can I have
feeling when I don't know if it's a feeling" There are feelings and
emotions that different languages note on. In Japanese, おもいしろい
(omoishiroi) is often translated into English as interesting, but it
really means interesting in the sense that it is very funny. In
Portuguese there is a word saudade which means longing for something
you never had, sort of. It cannot be fully conveyed in English words.
In Chinese 开心 (kai xin ~ open heart) is constantly being translated to
me in two different ways: funny or happy, so I am still sort of unsure
how to use it. There is an eternal disconnect from country to country,
culture to culture, person to person. This is miscommunication.

Culture and morals are embedded in the language. The Double
Infinity symposium held last weekend was trying to figure out what
would be written in the textbooks of our era ~ to figure out if a
globalized history is possible ~ and to have a conversation between
different countries' timelines. One of the speakers, an art historian,
Dr. Paul Gladston asked if it was even possible to have a unified
history of anything. Specifically with China and 'The west,' who to
their core have huge philosophical differences in their outlooks on
life; societal, religious, sexual, cultural differences. He said our
timelines would have "polaristic narrative."

For the whole weekend I listened to Chinese artists speak about
their art, opinions and lives through these rechid headphones and an
Chinese to English translator's heavy breathing and salivating mouth.
I couldn't help but feel like I was missing something entirely. The
audience would laugh and I heard nothing funny. The entire weekend
revolved around this whole idea of miscommunication. I would be
writing down quotes of the artists, but in the translator's words. I
couldn't help but feel like I was looking at this entire event through
her eyes and her own personal opinions on the matter. During the
English speakers, the speakers would often use words I didn't even
know, so I wondered how it was translated into Chinese. Did the
translator know these words? English is especially hard to translate,
I would imagine, because one definition has so many words. And each
other those words are used in a specific context that one could only
know after hearing it used in those contexts! How difficult it is to
get around this miscommunication!

At the end of the first day of the symposium, there was a
performance revolving around this very idea. It was called "Rites of
Passage" by Julika Rudelius. A native English speaker stands at the
front of a line with four Chinese translators. They play a game of
telephone, translating her English phrase to Chinese, back to English,
then back to Chinese and finally at the end we see how it was
ultimately translated in english. In this performance, or experiment a
sentence goes through 5 different contexts. 5 different outlooks on
the world. The story Julika Rudelius was telling was kind of
scandalous, with a strong erotic feeling through the entire thing. In
the English translation at the end this raunch was hardly every
conveyed. Every language has their own poetics. English has their own
idioms. The Chinese language definitely has their little sayings and
three character sentences that I think native-Westerners will never
fully understand.

What does this all mean? I don't really know. It's sort of a
pity that we will always misunderstand each other, but it's sort of
beautiful. I am so scared that during this time of Chinese
'modernization' in light of the Western model, that Chinese ideals
will lose itself. I don't even like how the West has modernized,
because they forgot about Mother Nature in doing so! But an
appreciation of the body, and nature and the heavens are embedded in
the Chinese language, so hopefully the Chinese can reinterpret the
definition of modernization.

Shanghai Expo-related: Double Infinity opens

Save the date Thursday, April 29, 4PM, for the opening of
Double Infinity, a collaborative encounter between a northwest
European museum, the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, the Netherlands and
Arthub Asia in Shanghai.

The works exhibited are drawn in part from the Van Abbemuseum's
collection and in part responded to by artists at the invitation of
Arthub Asia. The dynamic contributions of these artists will be in
direct dialogue with a selection of the museum's permanent collection.
The performance and lecture programmes draws on a mix of issues on
architecture, urban planning, and cultural politics. Save your weekend
of May 15th and 16th for a weekend of intense public programming.

Participating artists include: Surasi Kusolwong, Zhou Xiaohu, Dick El
Demasiado, Johanna Billing, Stanley Brouwn, El Lissitzky, David
Maljkovic, Lara Almacergui, Job Koelewijn, John Körmeling, Julika
Rudelius, Alicia Framis, Cao Fei, Xijing Men Collective (Chen
Shaoxiong, Gimhongsok, Tsuyoshi Okazawa), Comfortable Collective, Liu
Gang, Speedism, Wang Zhenfei & Wang Luming (HHD_FUN), Xu Tan.

Double Infinity runs from the 29th of April 4PM, the time when Zhou
Xiaohu's performance kicks in, to the 23rd of May. More details will
follow.

ArtHub is a multi-disciplinary organization devoted to contemporary
art creation in China and rest of Asia. In collaboration with museums
and other public / private spaces and institutions, it initiates and
delivers ambitious art projects through a sustained dialogue with
visual, performance, and new media artists.