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.

Stephanie and Minji’s Interview with Davide Quadrio (via e-mail)

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1. In "40+4", Li Lei defines the role of critics to be translating the
ideas of artists for the audiences because the audiences cannot
interpret the art by themselves. Gong Yan remarks that critics often
view Chinese art in the context of the international art environment,
which causes their critique of Chinese art to be influenced by
stereotypes and subjective standards. Critics may facilitate the
interactions between producers and consumers of art, but their
critique of an artwork may not reflect the artist's intent. Do you
think critics play a necessary role in raising the general public's
interest towards art and in facilitating dialogue between artists and
the general public?

In the best of the scenarios possible, indeed art critics should be
the key people who can be in between the artist's work and the public
(as not only "people watching the art" but also the ensemble of
"media" that create the basis for knowledge distribution). In fact the
art system is not as pure as ideologists may think, and artists are
not as pure as maybe they should be. In this sense, the relationship
between artists and critics reflect this fact: playing the politics of
power. So if an influential art critic writes about artists in a
certain way, that artist will be "recognized" as valuable, not only in
terms of artistic content, but also at the economic level.

In my opinion though the place of art critics still have a very
important role and should be stimulated: it is the place for
development of new ideas derived by the artists' work, it is the place
to bring the artistic action into the verbal world of communication.

2. During her interview, Gong Yan mentions her concern that Shanghai
has lost its former glorious cultural scene, and is now simply a
cultural pier, witnessing the coming and going of artistic and
cultural phenomena. How you think that artists in Shanghai might be
trying to retrieve Shanghai's former glory? Do you think that many
artists see the Shanghai art scene's increasing international
recognition and expanding art market as helping revive the city's
former thriving cultural scene?

I think that most of the local artists do not think about the
responsibility of making Shanghai anything more than a place to work
and act. Maybe more political artists like Li Lei can say something
about this...but most of their answers on the topic is that they do
not feel responsibility. Anyhow, if any, I found the older generation
especially (Hu Jieming, Shen Fan, Ding Yi etc.) very much connected
via the school system to the next generation. I am working with them
as we speak on a project in Fudan University where I teach, and their
commitment is amazing!

3. It seems undeniable that while many artists chose art because of
their passion for it, they must also see art as a means to earn a
livelihood. Under the pressure of growing international recognition
and media attention, it seems that Chinese contemporary art faces the
risk of becoming increasingly commodified. How do you think most
Shanghai artists are dealing with the influences of the global art
market and the pressure of appealing to the Western art world?

Like they did centuries ago exporting white and blue porcelain for the
West :). Artists of course need an economy, they need to survive and
there is nothing bad about it. The globalized speculation a few years
ago created a weird phenomenon for a couple of years. After the shock,
I see only very strong and valuable artists keeping producing good
work...the over commercialization of Chinese art had a good beneficial
result at the end of the day.

4. In the video, Lu Chunsheng mentions that art has no influence on
ordinary audiences. Do you think that this is especially true in
China, where it seems that many ordinary people are not interested or
even aware of the Chinese contemporary art scene?

What is the contemporary art scene? Does traditional contemporary art
have a position in this? Contemporary art is often a phenomenon for
the few, also in the international contexts. Of course, China is not
so accustomed to the contemporary art in the way we, as Europeans or
Americans, read that. But it is changing exponentially; look at the
Shanghai Biennale and how many young people went to watch it. It is a
sign of a big change.

5. Have you witnessed any major changes in the subject matter of
contemporary art in Shanghai within the past decade? Do you think
there has been a shift from the critique of politics to that of
emerging economic, social, and environmental issues in Chinese
contemporary art? Do you think that Chinese contemporary art's
critique of present issues in China currently plays an important role
in influencing how local and global audiences approach these issues?

I do not see much of the political critic around anymore. It seems to
me more of a manner if any still exist. Few artists of the young
generation I am working with at the moment seem to be exploring
possible sophisticated ways of social critique, but still a bit too
early to say...

SH Biennale review by Noor Chadha

The 8th Shanghai Biennale 2010

       The focus of the 2010 Shanghai Biennale is 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. Spanning over the three floors of
the Shanghai Art Museum, the exhibition consists of work ranging from
the more traditional painting, photography and video, to large-scale
installations and performances involving live music and spectator
interaction.
In one of the exhibition spaces, there was no "artwork" as such, but
an actual studio of the Shanghai artist Ma Liang. Every piece of his
original studio has been moved into the museum for the duration of the
show. This radical move places the spotlight backstage – not even on
artistic process but on the actual work environment for that process
to then take place in. An artist's studio shares so much insight into
the artist's creative soul – it is where the artist can find the peace
of mind to create. Usually you would think that the origin of an
artwork can be traced back to the conception of the idea behind it,
but no, exhibiting Ma Liang's studio in it's whole at the Biennale
takes it one step further, before conception of any idea, suggesting
that perhaps the true identity of any artwork can be located at it's
birthplace.
Right next to Ma Liang's studio is a performance piece by the
Norwegian art group Verdestreatret called "And All the Question Marks
Started to Sing". Whereas Ma Liang's studio is a stagnant environment
– a setting for the process to occur in, Verdestreatret's piece is the
complete opposite: both an ongoing process and a final artwork –
essentially an artwork in ongoing rehearsal. The work consists of all
kinds of machinery – wires, bicycle wheels, computers, projectors and
heavy duty lighting, and artists interacting with the machinery in a
combination of ways: Musicians playing beats on the bicycle wheels,
artists manipulating the silhouettes of the whole piece on the wall.
The piece is constantly undergoing changes and the final product is
that process of evolution.
Other works in the Biennale that I felt successfully emphasized the
theme of rehearsal included French artist JR's "Wrinkles of the City"
and Qiu Zhijie's "Qiu's notes on Colorful Lantern at Shangyuan
Festival". Overall, I thought the 2010 Shanghai Biennale was
conceptually successful and has contributed some wonderful artworks to
the art world.

by Shane Li

I went to Shanghai Biennale 2008 and it was not interesting to me at
all, whereas Shanghai Biennale 2010 is way better than 2008 in terms
of the sheer number and quality of art works presented. Part of the
reason why I think 2010 is better than 2008 is that I am taking
"Contemporary art and new media in China", which gives me a lot of
insights into the life and thinking of contemporary artists and allows
me to appreciate an art work from an amateur's perspective.

The themes for the two biennales have very different implication. The
theme of Shanghai Biennale 2008 is Trans Local Motion, which is a
reflection on the city, urbanization and people's living status in the
city (they probably chose this theme in accordance to Shanghai Expo).
The theme for 2010 is Rehearsal, which emphasizes more on the pure
arty essence of art, as well as the experimental and open nature of
Shanghai Biennale. In 2008 artists were compelled to do something
related to urban life, whereas in 2010 more artists present their
works in more fields. Wu Shanzhuan's installation "d=mr2"
interestingly combined mathematics and arts to express the
unpredictable character of life. MadeIn Company's installation "Must
Act" is a series of works addressing the same subject –politics, wars
and peace. In one piece of painting, the face of Marx is hidden in the
cloud of the Windows XP desktop.( See picture)  Another piece has a
cake-like military castle.

Unlike art works in 2008 which were highly abstract, some realism
works were presented in 2010's show. Liu Xiaodong's gorgeous oil
painting "Entering Tai Lake; Getting out of Bei Chuan" strikes me very
much with their realistic style. "Maleonn's studio" is also
interesting because the artist actually moved his studio into the
museum so that the audience can have a close look at the real
environment in which art works are produced.

Art works that perfectly combine the past and the future is always my
favorite, and Qiu Zhijie's "Qiu's Notes on 'Colorful Lantern at
Shangyuan Festival'" surpasses my expectation. "Colorful Lantern at
Shangyuan Festival" is a very famous traditional Chinese painting. Qiu
took the form of this painting to present various business,
occupations and machines, some of which are purely imaginary but very
interesting. The materials and techniques used in the wall painting
and installations are all very "traditional" and very "Chinese", for
example, black ink and wood.

The last thing I want to address is that I am glad to see more and
more Shanghai citizens and tourists are interested in going to art
museum. I think that artists' prior target when producing art is to
make it relevant and understandable to average spectators. Shanghai
Biennale 2010 also did a good job in presenting art to the society.

Shanghai Biennale 2010

by Grace Cori Huang
Shanghai Biennale 2010

       For the eighth Shanghai Biennale at the Shanghai Art Museum, curators
Fan Di'an, Li Lei, Hua Yi and Gao Shiming created a show with the
theme of "Rehearsal." From this title, I was looking forward to seeing
works centering around the art-making process rather than only the
finished piece that we usually see at shows, however the way the
pieces dealt with the idea of rehearsal were not just about practicing
or preparing for a final exposition. In "And All the Question Marks
Started to Sing" created by Verdensteatret, the piece was in a
perpetual state of rehearsal, with the mechanical pieces always
moving. Like at a rehearsal, everything was visible to the viewer: the
light sources, the electrical wiring, the set-up of the bicycles and
magnifying glasses, and that made it even more interesting than merely
looking at the resulting light and shadow projected on the walls. On
the first floor of the museum, there were still photographs of the
performance of Semele, directed by Chinese artist Zhang Huan. What was
interesting about this performance was the censorship it underwent as
the show travelled from Europe to China; according to news reports and
reviews, the show's meaning was significantly altered due to
censorship of sexual and political themes. As a result, when the show
opened in China with all the alterations, Zhang Huan did not really
know whether or not it would work, it was as though it was a
rehearsal. It is unfortunate, that it couldn't be shown the way it was
intended, though it gives the piece another interesting twist.

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by Mikael on SH Biennale

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Shanghai Biennale
Shanghai Art Museum until January

Shanghai is bustling with art the week I go to the 8th Shanghai
Biennale and I am already full of other impressions from different
galleries and shows.
The Shanghai Biannual displays a variety of artistic expressions, not
only from China and Asia but from around the world, and that this is
the center of attention in the art scene of Shanghai becomes clear as
I walk in through the front doors.

As I walk in on the first floor, things are very organized and put together.
The show flows and the works seem to speak with each other.
The theme "rehearsal" is clearly visible, and there is no need to read
any plaques to understand the works connection with the theme.
Zhang Huan's temple structure that is the set for one of his operas
clearly speaks the language of the theme and lets you as a viewer
emerge yourself into the artists work, something that seem to be a
cohesive element in the show.

Another good example of this is on the second floor, where I am able
to enter artist Ma Liang's studio that has been recreated in one of
the rooms.

Although some of the more to me interesting individual works are found
on the top two floors. There is a sense that the two curators instead
of creating a good mix and balance corresponding to the theme, instead
put in a random mix of their own personal favorite artists. The
balance and focus found on the second floor just completely vanishes
as I walk up the stairs.
The actual curatorial work seems therefore quite cluttered, imprecise
and in some cases
even quite blatantly obviously bad. Maybe the fact that the multiple
curators did not seem to have fully come to an agreement, the
governmental censorship and that while viewing the show, several rooms
still being built; just adds to the sense of rehearsal.
Maybe the open ended theme is the perfect cover all the madness that
goes wrong when putting together an international show in China.

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A Guiding Light- Shanghai Biennale

http://marclafia.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/art-and-its-guiding-light/

Yesterday evening at Copper Union, I saw ‘A Guiding Light’ a 22 minute diptych video commissioned by Performa, for the Shanghai Biennal. What we see is 6, 7 attractive and well spoken artists speak to the role of the art exhibition, the artist and public. The setting is a sound stage and the format the self-examining, self absorption familiar to both an artist round table talk and the soap opera. In this soap, the actors, the artists are in search of an outside or a definition of the inside in which they are, which is the international or globalized art circuit.

The point of departure is the site and occasion of the art exhibition (The Shanghai Biennale) and the knowing torpor and malaise it occasions because no matter what one’s tact, one’s work, even if it’s a critique becomes spectacle recuperated by capital. This malaise produced by a longing to define, even inhabit an outside by artists, perhaps romantically, only reproduces and further engenders the very thing it wants to resist. Like the film, Exterminating Angel of Bunuel, the art exhibition and the artist’s work is within an entrapment and as such is the setting and endemic condition of the soap opera.

You can’t find a way out of a soap opera, and any way out or form of being and suffering through it is from the perspective of those outside, a self-pitying, a soap. What then, who then are we are and what are we doing, we, that are named artists. What is this condition of looking for A Guiding Light?

This condition of how to live, how to work frames and propels the desire to find an opening, a way to change or accept this condition. What is the way to carry one’s self in this soap opera?

The conversation looks back at the advent of the condition of the modern artist, who by the mid nineteenth century, no longer with a patron, becomes but another wage earner, though a special kind. But just what kind? So two positions are staked out around which the conversation turns. One voiced by the very attractive Bosko, who seeks out alterity, a space outside art defined by the exhibition and its attendant institutions, a space that meets the public, touches and is in touch with the everyman, an otherness that might escape globalization. The other by Shuddhabrata, posed and erudite, who suggests the artist feel comfortable as a wage earner and as such, feel no shame in earning a wage, and in being in the cog of capital and the swell of globalization. Along this line the others suggest that the artist be thought of as a practitioner, a doctor, a lawyer, a worker like any other. This as much so that the artist not be placed outside by either themselves or the public by a type casting that places them in the romantic idea of the artist and outside society. An outside, they argue which does not exist.

The group of contemporary artists, if not understood by the general public, ask then how to position themselves in their ‘work’ and with their work, vis a vis the public. Should they lobby to be thought of as a cognitive class toiling in the realm of representations, deconstructions, scenarios and situations. Shuddhabrata suggest they see themselves as a privileged aristocratic elite, the artist being an exemplary human, living precarity. Theirs is a living in the vanguard, whose erudition and elan give definition and example of how live to be alive, to be noble. The world will go on being the world, but the artist’s role is to live in the fullness of all its contradictions and definitions.

Returning then to its point of the departure, the exhibition then is a complex site and situation, on the go and contingent, a site in the flux of market forces and global capital. Its artists, curators, institutions, patrons, collectors, academics and public will keep the conversation going. The Guiding Light asks what is this conversation and where is it going. At this moment, too self-critical (perhaps) and too keenly aware of the fatigue of self, institutional and society critique, we find ourselves, like in the Bunuel film mentioned above, inexplicably unable to leave. This I think is a very knowing critique of this formally very astute piece. Where is there to leave as we always return to questions of how to live, how to think, how to feel and imagine ourselves and the world, and in turn how to act and make the world.

Looking at the 2010 Shanghai Biennial

The Shanghai Biennial (curators Fan Di'an, Li Lei, Hua Yi and Gao Shiming), carrying the theme of “Rehearsal,” showcases many artists’ work from both China and overseas.

The first floor’s exhibitions are more strongly tied to the theme of Rehearsal (which aims to discuss and contemplate on the meaning of contemporary art). Featured works include those from Zhang Huan, Liu Xiaodong, The Long March Project, the MadeIn Company. I particularly liked the works in The Spread series from the Madeln Company, headed by Xu Zhen, particularly impressed me for its meaning. The works from this series, which claims to use the “media as a medium…to create media,” come together as a collage of paintings that represents both media and reality (the painting of the windows desktop screen with the clouds forming Kar Marx’s head is representative of this as the desktop screen represents the media and Karl Marx represents the ideology that has shaped the socio-economic-political conditions of China today). On a side note, Guan Wei’s works on modifying ancient Chinese landscape maps also adds an interesting combination between more traditional and modern art.

The next few floors display many interesting works, but do not flow as coherently as those on the first floor. For example, Yves Bernard and Yannick Antoine’s “The Gate” combines ancient Chinese painting elements and concepts such as ink paintings and more modern concepts, but does not really contribute to reviewing or reinventing contemporary art.

Lustful Opera, Censored, Befuddles Chinese

October 25, 2010

Lustful Opera, Censored, Befuddles Chinese

By ANDREW JACOBS

BEIJING — As any artist or performer in China knows, it is impossible
to predict what will set off the mercurial culture censors who have
sweeping power over the content of film, music, television and print.

On Sunday, it was the depiction of a sexually aroused, anatomically
correct male donkey and references to capital punishment that nearly
derailed an ambitious interpretation of the Handel opera "Semele," the
tragic tale of what happens when a lustful god, a vengeful goddess and
an impressionable young maiden are ensnared in a love triangle.

In the end, officials allowed the donkey to remain onstage, but they
insisted on a number of last-minute changes that significantly altered
the production and left the audience perplexed.

The opera, directed by Zhang Huan, one of China's most
boundary-pushing artists, sold out nine performances last year in
Brussels with its melding of Baroque music, Greek mythology, Chinese
cultural references and modern touches that included sumo wrestlers,
flashes of nudity and rousing audience participation.

Lady Linda Wong Davies, an opera patron whose London-based foundation
brought the production here for the annual Beijing Music Festival,
said her goal was to expose Chinese audiences to Western-style opera
and to build bridges between China and the rest of the world. "I
wanted to bring to life an 18th-century German composer's work through
the eyes of a contemporary Chinese artist," she said.

Even before the cast arrived from Europe, Chinese officials who saw
the production in Brussels insisted on a number of changes: they
vetoed the singing of the Communist anthem "The Internationale" during
the finale — too provocative, apparently — and suggested a costume
change for the Greek chorus, whose burgundy and saffron robes too
closely resembled those worn by Tibetan monks.

Those and a few other demands — no nudity, less violence and fewer
sexually suggestive gestures — were easy enough to meet, Mr. Zhang
said.

But after officials from the Ministry of Culture watched a dress
rehearsal on Saturday, they decided that the donkey — two actors
draped in fabric — was revealing too much of the animal's anatomy.
More ominously, they objected to a short documentary, which was
screened during the overture, that explained how the gracefully carved
frame of a 450-year-old Chinese temple had made its way onto the stage
of the Poly Theater in Beijing.

Three years ago, Mr. Zhang bought the building and its contents from
an impoverished family who had been its occupants for two decades.
While taking apart the structure, the director discovered a diary
written by the broken-hearted husband. The man, Fang Jixin, wrote
about how the adulterous behavior of his wife had driven him to
alcoholism, and eventually madness. In the end, after he murdered his
wife's lover, Mr. Fang was arrested and put to death.

"I was amazed how this tale out of contemporary China was like the
Greek tragedy, and it inspired me to do this production," said Mr.
Zhang.

Although he declined to discuss the censors' specific objections about
the documentary, others who worked on the opera said it was the
mention of the husband's crime, and especially his punishment, that
troubled the authorities.

Their solution was not very subtle. They demanded that the
Chinese-language subtitles be excised, and they forced the
projectionist to freeze the film before it could reveal the heart of
the tale, leaving the audience confused about the connection between
the documentary and the opera.

"To be honest, as of 2 p.m. on Sunday, we were not sure the show would
go on," said Mr. Zhang.

Given her desire to foster intercultural exchange, Lady Davies, too,
was not eager to criticize the last-minute bureaucratic deus ex
machina. The donkey, after all, was allowed to stay in the production,
even if officials asked that his lascivious behavior be toned down.

"I'm optimistic about the future of the arts in China, although it's
definitely challenging with a capital C," she said with a sigh. "Maybe
next time I ought to do a production of 'Mary Poppins' or 'The Sound
of Music.' "

Zhang Jing contributed research.

Shanghai art world this week

Much is happening this weekend in the art world, and we do not want you to miss any, as they will also be feeding the classroom and your midterm papers.

Thursday October 21st:

// Sun Xun solo show opens at Minsheng Bank Museum

// Friday October 22nd

Get Louder opens.

Schedule of events:

http://www.getitlouder.com/EnNewXQ.aspx?ID=85

//Saturday October 23rd

Shanghai Biennial opens from 3 pm onwards 

www.shanghaibiennale.com/

Also, Johnson Chang's China- India show opens (West Heavens). (see details below) 

Venue 1. Ground Floor, 128 West Nanjing Rd; 

Venue 2. 79 & 107 South Suzhou Rd (The Bund, south end of Wai Baidu Bridge)

// Sunday October 24th

4 pm , Who Cares? 16 Essays on Curating in Asia- Book Launch by Michael Lee (also a Sh Biennial participant)

at OV Gallery . 19 Shaoxing Road . Shanghai

http://arthubasia.org/archives/who-cares-16-essays-on-curating-in-asia/

630 pm

"By Day, By Night, or Some (Special) Things a Museum Can Do"

Rockbund Art Museum, 20 Huqiu Lu (close to Beijing Lu, near the Bund)

-------------

OPENING OF WEST HEAVENS EXHIBITION

come meet the artists, our venue hosts and friends,

23rd October Saturday, SHANGHAI

16.30 - 18.30 Viewing at Venue1: 128 West Nanjing Rd (across the street from Shanghai Art Museum)

18.00 - 20.00 Opening & Cocktail Reception at Venue 2: (Chapel) 107 South Suzhou Rd (on the Bund, south bank of Wai Baidu Bridge)

                                18.30 OPENING CEREMONY at Venue 2

(buses will transport visitors between the venues from 5.00 to 7.30 pm)

West Heavens Exhibition: Place·Time·Play: India-China Contemporary Art

Dates: 23rd Oct to 20th Dec 2010

Venue 1. Ground Floor, 128 West Nanjing Rd; 

Venue 2. 79 & 107 South Suzhou Rd (The Bund, south end of Wai Baidu Bridge)

Lecture/Forum: West Heavens India-China Summit on Social Thought 

(Lecture Hall, Shanghai Art Museum, 325 West Nanjing Rd. Shanghai)

Dates: 7 lectures/forums from 24th Oct to 18th Dec, 2010.

          Please see website for details.

First Lecture by Prof Sarat Maharaj on 24th October Sunday

(Lecture: 10 to 12.30 am; Forum: 3 to 6 pm) Reservation call 021-63272829 ext 200

Simultaneous Interpretation Provided for Lectures in Chinese and English.

 

Ho Chi Minh Trail by Stephanie Hsu

Blog Post #3

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

A recent text on Western Art in China

FYI

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

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

September, 2010

Rebecca Catching

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

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

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

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

Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Influence

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tushanwan Arts and Crafts School

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

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

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

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

Study Abroad and the Growth of Western Art Academies in Shanghai

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

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

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

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

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

New Institutions and a Manifesto in Beijing

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

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

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

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

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

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

Southern Chinese Schools

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

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

Early Japanese Influence

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

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

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

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

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

Early Soviet Influence

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

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

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

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

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

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

Limited Information Exchange in the 70s and 80s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coming Up Next

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

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