Transexperience and Chinese Experimental Art, 1990–2000 by Melissa Chiu A Thesis Submitted in Full Completion of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Cultural Histories and Futures University of Western Sydney September 2003 2 SUMMARY This dissertation focuses on Chinese artists who migrated to the West (Australia, the United States, and France) during the late eighties and early nineties. Their work bears a number of similarities despite settlement in different cultures, most notable amongst these is a reinterpretation of Chineseness. The introduction sets out and examines the theoretical explanations for this interest in China in spite of an absence of nearly a decade. Ideas such as diaspora, exile, and travel are the main focus, with particular attention to the way that a duality tends to emerge in this discourse between the past and present or homeland and site of settlement. In place of such ideas, this dissertation introduces the concept of transexperience developed by the late Chinese artist Chen Zhen for his own practice, but it is one, I would argue, that can be applied to the artistic expression of all of the overseas artists discussed in this dissertation. The main body of the thesis is devoted to developing this idea of transexperience in relation to Chinese artists who settled in Sydney, New York, and Paris. Throughout this dissertation, I argue that transexperience encourages a more fluid perception of the relationship to the homeland, not only positing it in the past but also the present. This allows us to interpret the work of Chinese artists as an evolving identity that parallels their changing perception of China from the distance of living in the West. The structure of this dissertation, devised in terms of locations, is also relevant to my argument that the site of settlement is a significant determinant in the development of artistic expressions of overseas Chinese artists. For this reason, Chapter One is devoted to a discussion of mainland Chinese artists, which provides a counterpoint to the work of overseas Chinese artists. The development of Chinese experimental art during the eighties is included in this chapter because it was a period that influenced all of the artists in this dissertation and is also cited as the birth of contemporary art in China. A brief conclusion explores some of the most recent developments in the relationships between overseas Chinese artists and their homeland as seen in more frequent travel back, the exhibition of their work (which would have been impossible only a few years ago), and official invitations to represent China in international exhibitions. Melissa Chiu September 2003 3 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION Transexperience and Chinese Experimental Art 1990–2000 6 CHAPTER ONE The Asianisation Debate of the Nineties: Chinese Artists in Australia 56 CHAPTER TWO Transexperience: Chineseness as International Style in the United States 101 CHAPTER THREE Between East and West: Overseas Chinese Artists in France 147 CONCLUSION New Connections and a Return to the Homeland 191 BIBLIOGRAPHY 198 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The genesis of this dissertation developed alongside my interest in Asian-Australian art. In the mid nineties I worked with a small group of Asian-Australian artists to establish the non profit contemporary art space Gallery 4A, later named the Asia-Australia Arts Centre, in Sydney’s Chinatown district. It was from working closely with many of these artists in preparing exhibitions of their work (including Lindy Lee, William Yang, Guan Wei, and Ah Xian) and my visits to China that inspired me to begin a dissertation focussed on experimental Chinese art. Undertaken at a time when few written sources on this subject existed, let alone in libraries, I owe much to those who encouraged my research. Foremost in her support was my supervisor Doctor Helen Grace whose advice was always enthusiastic and supportive. Doctor Ien Ang at the Department of Cultural Histories and Futures was also another source of advice. The University of Western Sydney, which awarded me a scholarship to undertake this degree as well as assistance to travel to China, made this dissertation possible in the first place. I am also indebted to the artists and curators I interviewed countless times and spent time with over the course of the last five years including Gu Dexin, Wang Youshen, Li Xianting, Liao Wen, and Xu Tan in China; Guan Wei, Fan Dong Wang, and Ah Xian in Sydney; Cai Guo Qiang, Xu Bing, and Wenda Gu in New York; Fei Dawei, Huang Yongping, Chen Zhen, and Hou Hanru in Paris. Perhaps the most untiring in his belief in me was Doctor Benjamin Genocchio to whom I am indebted. My parents James and Deirdre Chiu have always been gracious in their support of my interest in art from a young age. For this I am grateful. 5 INTRODUCTION Transexperience and Chinese Experimental Art, 1990–2000∗ So the act of locating an overseas Chinese’s cultural antecedents in the traditions of China contains at least three question marks: Which tradition? Which strains of tradition? Why that tradition instead of all others? Chinese tradition is richly varied, contradictory and protean. Selected fragments may be used to build a new identity, but the new identity is not the old one, and to claim that it is would be a pretence. (Pan, 1999, p. 23) “Transexperiences” also represents a concept of art. This is not a pure conceptual concept: rather it is an impure experiential concept, a mode of thinking and method of artistic creation that is capable of connecting the preceding with the following, adapting itself to changing circumstances, accumulating year–in–year–out experiences, and being triggered at any instant. (Chen, 1998, n.p.) You can understand my [art] works if you make an effort to detach yourself from the material or subject and concentrate on the underlying order that runs through them. The order and attitude never change, while everything else does. It is a matter of looking for the absence of change through a thousand changes. (Cai, in Fei, 2000, p. 134) Chinese Experimental Art: A Field of Study1 Over the past decade Chinese experimental art has enjoyed an enormous amount of international attention. Large–scale national survey exhibitions have been staged at a broad range of ∗ All transliterations from Chinese to English are in the Pinyin conversion rather than Wade–Giles and all Chinese family names are given first as is the Chinese convention unless preference has been shown otherwise. The most obvious example is Wenda Gu, who since migrating to the United States prefers the Western convention of family name last. 1 The term experimental art is used throughout this thesis as a way of distinguishing a series of art movements and practices that evolved largely independent from, and at times in conflict with, government institutions and infrastructure such as art schools, museums, and galleries as well as artists associations. This alternative art system developed from the somewhat uneven political and economic freedoms begun in the eighties and continued in the nineties with greater momentum. 6 contemporary art galleries and museums in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia.2 In 1993, alone, exhibitions such as “China Avant–Garde: Counter Currents in Art and Culture” at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, “China’s New Art, Post–1989” at the Hong Kong Arts Centre in Hong Kong and “Mao Goes Pop: China Post–1989” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney took place, while mainland Chinese artists were represented for the first time at the Venice Biennale.3 These exhibitions can be seen as the first wave of interest in Chinese experimental art in Europe, Asia, and Australia. A second wave occurred in the United States later in the decade, with exhibitions such as “Inside Out: New Chinese Art” organised jointly by Asia Society in New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1998 and “Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century” at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art in Chicago in 1999. Coinciding with this second wave of interest, Chinese artists were featured prominently in a curated exhibition in the Italian pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1999.4 By the end of the decade a market for Chinese contemporary art had been established, mainly in the United States (New York), with experimental Chinese artists shown at commercial galleries either exclusively devoted to Chinese and contemporary Asian art or at other contemporary galleries. For example, exhibitions by artists such as Xu Bing and Huang Yong Ping at Jack Tilton Gallery, Zhang Peili at Max Protetch Gallery and Feng Mengbo at Holly Solomon Gallery indicated a rise in interest in Chinese art. Other galleries such as Chinese Contemporary in London, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, Chambers Fine Arts, and Goedhuis Contemporary in New York focus on contemporary Chinese art almost exclusively.5 2 An indication of the breadth of this interest in Chinese contemporary art can be seen in the following exhibitions: “I Don't Want to Play Cards With Cezanne—Chinese Avant–Garde,” Asia Pacific Museum, Pasadena, California, 1991; “China’s New Art, Post 1989,” Hong Kong Arts Centre, Hong Kong, 1993; “Reckoning With The Past: Contemporary Chinese Painting,” The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, 1996; “Post–Mao Product: New Art from China,” Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1992; and “China!,” Zeitgenossische Malerei, Kunstmuseum, Bonn, 1996. 3 For an account of the history of Chinese representation at the Venice Biennale, see Dal Lago, 2002. 4 This second focus on Chinese artists saw the inclusion of overseas Chinese artists Chen Zhen, Wang Du, and Cai Guo Qiang as well as mainland artists Ai Weiwei, Fang Lijun, Zhang Peili, Qiu Shihua, Xie Nanxing, Ma Liuming, Wang Xingwei, Lu Hao, Zhao Bandi, and Zhou Tiehai.