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AUGUST 2002 SUMMER ISSUE Contemporary Chinese Arts in the Cultural Arena From Iconoclasm to Neo-Iconolatry Cultural Production and the Cultural Revolution Variations of Ink: A Dialogue with Zhang Yanyuan Curatorial Notes on the 2002 Gwangju Biennale YISHU: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art Volume 1, Number 2, Summer/August 2002 Katy Hsiu-chih Chien Ken Lum Shengtian Zheng Julie Grundvig Paloma Campbell Larisa Broyde Joyce Lin Kaven Lu Judy Andrews, Ohio State University John Clark, University of Sydney Lynne Cooke, Dia Foundation Okwui Enwezor, Documenta X1 Britta Erickson, Independent Scholar & Curator Fan Di An, Central Academy of Fine Arts Fei Dawei, Independent Curator Gao Minglu, New York State University Hou Hanru, Independent Curator & Critic Katie Hill, Independent Critic & Curator Martina Köppel -Yang, Independent Critic & Historian Sebastian Lopez, Gate Foundation and Leiden University Lu Jie, Independent Curator Ni Tsai Chin, Tunghai University Apinan Poshyananda, Chulalongkorn University Chia Chi Jason Wang, Art Critic & Curator Wu Hung, University of Chicago Art & Collection Group, Ltd. Leap Creative Group Raymond Mah Gavin Chow Jeremy Lee Chong-yuan Image Ltd. Taipei - Yishu is published quarterly in Taipei, Taiwan, and edited in Vancouver, Canada. Subscription and advertising inquiries may be sent to either addresses: Taipei: Art & Collection, Ltd. 2F, No. 6, Alley 6, Lane 13, Section 1, Nanking East Road, Taipei 104, Taiwan. Phone: (886) 2-2560-2219, 2560-2237 Fax: (886) 2-2542-0631 e-mail: [email protected] Vancouver: Yishu 1008-808 Nelson Street Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 2H2 Canada Phone: (1) 604-488-2563 Fax: (1) 604-591-6392 e-mail: [email protected] www.yishujournal.com Editorial inquiries and manuscripts may be sent to the Editorial Office in Vancouver No part of this journal may be published without the written permission from the publisher. Subscription rates: One year: US $48; NT $1500; Two years: US $90; NT $2800, international airmail. We thank Mr. Milton Wong, Mrs. Elaine Bao, Paystone Technologies Corp. for their generous support. Cover: Detail of Fang Zengxian, Arouse Millions of Workers and Peasants, 1968, oil on canvas, 250 x 340 cm. Courtesy of TZ Hanart, Hong Kong. Photo: Howard Ursuliak Contributors Traveling Artists, Traveling Art, Ethnographic Luggage Sasha S. Welland p. 9 System and Style in the Practice of Chinese Contemporary Art: the Disappearing Exterior? John Clark From Iconoclasm to Neo-Iconolatry: Taiwan’s Contemporary Art in the Post-Martial Law Era Chia Chi Jason Wang From Street Art to Exhibition Art: The Art of p. 15 the Red Guard During the Cultural Revolution Wang Mingxian Political Inspiration in Art Production: Three Oil Paintings Depicting Mao Zedong During the Cultural Revolution Yan Shanchen Brushes are Weapons: Art Schools and Artists During the Cultural Revolution Shengtian Zheng Zaofan Youli/Revolt is Reasonable: Remanifestations p. 37 of the Cultural Revolution in Chinese Contemporary Art of the 1980s and 1990s Martina Köppel-Yang For Reference Only: Restricted Publication and Distribution of Foreign Literature During the Cultural Revolution Shuyu Kong Variations of Ink: A Dialogue with Zhang Yanyuan p. 47 Wu Hung Event City and Pandora’s Box: Curatorial Notes on the 2002 Gwangju Biennale Hou Hanru Review Identity Politics? Allegorical Existence? On the Way to the Fantastic Elsa Hsiang-chun Chen Chinese Name Index p. 62 JOHN CLARK is Associate Professor at the University of Sydney where he is Chair of the Department of Art History and Theory and Acting Director of the Power Institute, Foundation for Art and Visual Culture. He was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 2001. His current research investigates new definitions of modernity in art through a comparison of Chinese and Thai art of the 1980s and 1990s. ELSA HSIANG-CHUN CHEN is an art critic and a lecturer at Taipei National University of the Arts. HOU HANRU is a graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. He served as co-curator of the Shanghai Biennale, 2000. He was curator of the French Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and co-curator of Cities on the Move, 1997-1999. He lives and works in Paris as an independent critic and curator and is an advisor at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. WU HUNG is the Harrie A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor in Chinese Art History at the University of Chicago. He received a John Simon Memorial Fellowship in 1999. Although best known as a scholar of ancient Chinese art, he has contributed significantly to the introduction of contemporary Chinese art to the West. His book Monumentality in Early Chinese Art and Architecture (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995) was nominated by Artforum in 1999 as one of the “best books of the 1990s.” SHUYU KONG received a M.A. in Comparative Literature from Beijing University, China and her Ph.D. in Modern Chinese Literature from the University of British Columbia, Canada. She is Assistant Professor in East Asian Studies at the University of Alberta. Her teaching and research interests include modern Chinese literature and cinema, women writers, and contemporary cultural practices, especially the relationship between literature and the marketplace. MARTINA KÖPPEL-YANG is an independent art critic and historian with a Ph.D. in East Asian Art History from the University of Heidelberg. She has written extensively on the subject of contemporary Chinese art. She has curated and co-curated several exhibitions, including Leased Legacy: Hong Kong 1997 (Frankfurt: Museum for Arts and Crafts, 1997). Her forthcoming publication is Semiotic Warfare: The Chinese Avant-garde, 1979 – 1989 (Hong Kong: Timezone 8). WANG MINGXIAN graduated from the Chinese Department of Xiamen University in 1982. He is currently Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Architect Journal and Secretary General of the Environmental Art Committee of the China Construction Cultural Association. Recent books include The Art History of the People’s Republic of China: 1966-1976 (Beijing: China Youth Publishing House, 2001) in collaboration with Yan Shanchen. YAN SHANCHEN graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1982. He is currently a Senior Researcher of Art at the Shanzhen Fine Art Institute. Recent works include The Art History of the People’s Republic of China: 1966-1976 (Beijing: China Youth Publishing House, 2001) in collaboration with Wang Mingxian. CHIA CHI JASON WANG is an art critic and curator in Taiwan. He teaches at the Department of Art and Art Education at National Taipei Teachers College. His more recent experiences include Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei and Executive Director of Dimension Endowment of Art. He is one of the two curators of the 2002 Taipei Biennial. SASHA SU-LING WELLAND is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her writing has appeared in From Beijing to Port Moresby: The Politics of National Cultural Policies, Hedgebrook Journal, Flyway: A Literary Review, and Chain. Forthcoming with The University of Iowa Press is From All This Journey: Following the Lives of Ling Shuhua and Amy Ling Chen, a biography of two May Fourth Era women. SHENGTIAN ZHENG graduated from the China National Academy of Arts in Hangzhou. He was a Professor, Department Chair, and Director of International Programs at his Alma Mater. He was an Honorary Fellow at the University of Minnesota from 1981 to 1983 and Visiting Professor at San Diego State University from 1986 to 1987. Zheng has curated and organized many international exhibitions and served as editor for various art publications. He is the co-curator of the exhibition Art of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976 at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Vancouver, Canada. “Contemporary Chinese Arts in the International Arena” conference in the Stevenson Lecture Theatre at the British Museum. Courtesy of the British Museum From April 18 to 20, 2002, the British Museum hosted a conference entitled “Contemporary Chinese Arts in the Cultural Arena.” Organized by the British Museum, in collaboration with the Chinese Arts Centre, this event brought together over twenty artists, writers, and curators from around the world to present their views on the state of contemporary Chinese art today. The conference focussed on issues around contemporary Chinese art with reference to China’s political history, its status within the international art world, and the implications of ethno-national cultural production in terms of a globalized economy. The conference provided a forum for dialogue, debates, and a critical analysis of the various forms of visual and literary art being produced within the category of “Chinese contemporary art.”A forthcoming publication based on the conference is being produced by the Centre for Art International Research at the Liverpool John Moores University. , , . Figure 1: Yin Xiuzhen, Portable Cities – Beijing, 2000, installation. Courtesy of the artist Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his.1 My impetus to open with a quote from Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities — an imagined series of exchanges between the Yuan Dynasty Mongol emperor Kublai Khan and Marco Polo — comes from a conversation with Zhang Yonghe, a Chinese architect who has designed exhibition spaces in China and abroad for contemporary Chinese art. In speaking of Invisible Cities, he suggested that the text invites a Chinese reversal, in which a Chinese traveler might sit in the garden of a Western emperor and narrate to him travels through city after city of his empire. This call to reopen Calvino’s imagined dialogue highlights several elements that have underpinned debates about modern Chinese culture for the last century: a presumed conversation between East and West, the bow of empire before the ascendant idea of nation, and the importance of travel.