Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese

M a r c h 2 0 0 7 | Spring Issue

Inside A Tribute to Jonathan Napack Taipei Biennial 2006 Documenta 12 Magazines Special Feature on Education Interviews with Cai Guo-Qiang, Shen Yuan, Ed Pien

US$12.00 NT$350.00

Contents

4 Editor’s Note 6 Contributors

A Tribute to Jonathan Napack 8 Death and Destruction in Bangkok Jonathan Napack 23 14 Yishu Interview with Jonathan Napack 16 An Art Market with Chinese Characteristics Jonathan Napack

Feature Articles 19 Taipei Biennial 2006 Susan Kendzulak 26 Writing on The Wall (and Entry Gate): A Critical Response to Recent Curatorial Meditations on the "Chineseness" of 35 Contemporary Chinese Visual Art Paul Gladston 34 Starting from Zero: Wang Jianwei David Ho Yeung Chan

Interviews 39 Shock and Awe: An Interview with Cai Guo-Qiang John K. Grande 45 A Conversation with Shen Yuan 39 Cécile Bourne 50 The Poetics of Engagement: Ed Pien and the Three- Dimensional World Joni Low

Documenta 12 Magazines Feature on Education 57 A Response to the Yan’an Forum on Education in China Lisa Norton 62 Interview with Zhu Naizheng 50 Zheng Shengtian 73 Cultures of Assessment: Distinctive Characteristics of Assessment in U.K. Art and Design Higher Education and their Implementation in China Allan Walker and Raz Barfield 85 Some Thoughts on Art Game: An Experience of Agency in Contemporary Art Yü Christina Yü 91 Building a Contemporary Art "Campus Aircraft Carrier"— 88 A Discourse on How to Encourage Contemporary Questions About Art Among Taiwanese Youth Lin Ping 103 Potentially Wise? The Boom in Hong Kong Contemporary Arts Education Jaspar K. W. Lau

Reviews 111 VITAL: International Chinese Live Art Festival—Reflecting on Contemporary Practices 98 Andrew Mitchelson 119 China Power Station: Part 1—Serpentine Gallery Offsite Project at the Battersea Power Station Nav Haq 122 Review of 3030: New Photography in China Philip Tinari 128 Cityscapes, Crazy Consumption, and Collective Memory: Chen Shaoxiong’s Mimetic Reality Rosalind Holmes

132 Chinese Name Index

Editor’s Note YISHU: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art Volume 6, Number 1, March 2007 president Katy Hsiu-chih Chien Yishu 20 begins with a tribute to Jonathan   Ken Lum Napack. Jonathan unexpectedly passed  Keith Wallace away this year at the age of thirty-nine and   Zheng Shengtian will be missed by the many friends he made   Julie Grundvig Kate Steinmann during his years of reporting on art activity website  Joni Low in Asia. We are reprinting two texts that   Larisa Broyde span a decade and frame the time he spent   Joyce Lin intern in Asia, as well as presenting a previously Chunyee Li unpublished Yishu interview between Napack advisory  Judy Andrews, Ohio State University and Zheng Shengtian. Melissa Chiu, Asia Society Museum John Clark, University of Sydney Lynne Cooke, Dia Art Foundation In this issue, along with reviews of the Okwui Enwezor, San Francisco Art Institute Taipei Biennial and other exhibitions and Britta Erickson, Independent Scholar & Curator Fan Di'an, Central Academy of Fine Arts publications, as well as five interviews, six Fei Dawei, Guy & Mariam Ullens Foundation Gao Minglu, New York State University articles are published as Yishu’s contribution Hou Hanru, San Francisco Art Institute to documenta 12 magazines, a collective Katie Hill, University of Westminster Claire Hsu, Asia Art Archive editorial project linking worldwide ninety print Martina Köppel-Yang, Independent Critic & Historian and online periodicals as well as other media. Sebastian Lopez, Daros-Latinamerica AG Lu Jie, Independent Curator This is our third instalment in this project, and Charles Merewether, Australian National University Ni Tsaichin, Tunghai University these new contributions reflect a variety of Apinan Poshyananda, Ministry of Culture, Thailand perspectives—a response to our September Chia Chi Jason Wang, Independent Critic & Curator Wu Hung, University of Chicago feature on the Yan’an Forum on Education Pauline J. Yao, Independent Scholar in China; an interview with Zhu Naizheng,  Art & Collection Group Ltd. who speaks to the changes occurring in art    Leap Creative Group education in China; two Scottish educators   Raymond Mah who have collaborated with the Central   Gavin Chow  Karmen Lee Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, in exploring webmaster Website ARTCO, Taipei new approaches to art education; two points   relaITconsulting, Vancouver of view on how exhibitions can function as  Chong-yuan Image Ltd., Taipei a form of education; and an analysis of the  - current state of institutional art education in Yishu is published quarterly in Taipei, Taiwan and edited in Hong Kong. Vancouver, Canada. The publishing dates of Yishu are 5th of March, June, September and December. Editorial inquiries and manuscripts may be sent to the Yishu continues to be a vital forum for dialogue Editorial Office: around issues concerning contemporary Yishu 410-650 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC Chinese art, and we encourage writers who Canada V6B 4N8 are interested in voicing their ideas to contact Phone: 1.604.649.8187; Fax: 1.604.591.6392 E-mail: [email protected] us. In this issue, we are pleased to include [email protected] two responses to texts that appeared in Subscription inquiries may be sent to either the Vancouver address or to Hawai’i: previous issues of Yishu. We appreciate Journals Department such responses, which are important in University of Hawai’i Press 2840 Kolowalu Street, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA creating an exchange of ideas about what is Phone: 1.808.956.8833; Fax: 1.808.988.6052 current, what is topical, what is promising, E-mail: [email protected] and what is problematic. Dialogue can provide The University of Hawai’i Press accepts payment by Visa or Mastercard, cheque or money order (in U.S. dollars). us only with further understanding of what is Advertising inquiries may be sent to either Vancouver or taking place at this moment, a moment that is Taiwan address: moving so quickly that it is a challenge to keep Art & Collection Ltd. 3F. No.85, Section 1, Zhongshan N. Road, Taipei, Taiwan 104 on top of it. Phone: (886) 2.2560.2220; Fax: (886) 2.2542.0631 E-mail: [email protected]

www.yishujournal.com In conclusion, we welcome three new No part of this journal may be published without the written members to our Advisory Board: Melissa Chiu, permission from the publisher. Claire Hsu, and Pauline J. Yao. Subscription rates: one year: US $48; two years: US $86 Subscription form may be downloaded from our Website Keith Wallace We thank Mr. Milton Wong, Mr. Daoping Bao, Paystone Technologies Corp., for their generous support. Cover: Shen Yuan, The Great Wall Growing Together with the Tree, 2005, Lego, installation. Courtesy of the artist and Casino Luxembourg.

Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 典藏國際版‧第6卷第1期‧2007年3月5日出版

目錄典藏國際版創刊於 2002年5月1日

4 編者手記社長：簡秀枝 6 作者小傳總策劃：鄭勝天創刊編輯：林蔭庭紀念 Jonathan Napack 8 曼谷之破壞與死亡主編：華睿士 (Keith Wallace) Jonathan Napack 副編輯：顧珠妮 (Julie Grundvig) 14 Yishu 訪問 Jonathan Napack Kate Steinmann 黎俊儀整理網站編輯：劉植紅行政：藍立杉 (Larisa Broyde) 16 富有中國特色的藝術市場廣告：林素珍 Jonathan Napack 實習：黎俊儀藝壇聚焦 19 2006年台北雙年展編委：王嘉驥 Susan Kendzulak 安雅蘭 (Judy Andrews) 巫鴻 26 從「牆」與「入境」評近來中國當代藝術中關林似竹 (Britta Erickson) 於「中國性」的策展思考范迪安 Paul Gladston 招穎思 34 從零開始—汪建偉洛柿田 (Sebastian Lopez) 陳浩揚侯瀚如徐文玠人物訪談姜苦樂 (John Clark) 39 震撼與驚嘆：蔡國强訪談姚嘉善 John K. Grande 倪再沁高名潞 45 與沈遠的對話費大爲 Cécile Bourne 楊天娜 (Martina Köppel-Yang) 50 專注的詩意：邊亦中與三维世界盧杰劉植紅 Lynne Cooke 第12屆文件展雜誌專題—藝術教育 Okwui Enwezor Katie Hill 對延安藝術教育研討會的回應 57 Charles Merewether Lisa Norton Apinan Poshyananda 62 朱乃正談中國高等藝術教育鄭勝天∕黎俊儀記錄翻譯出版：典藏雜誌社 73 評估文化：英國高等藝術和設計教育中評估的台灣臺北市中山北路一段85號6樓特色及其在中國的實施電話：(886) 2.2560.2220 Allan Walker ∕ Raz Barfield 傳真：(886) 2.2542.0631 85 對「藝術遊戲」展的幾點思考—當代藝術功能電子信箱：[email protected] 的一次實驗喻瑜編輯部： Yishu Editorial Office 91 建構一艘當代藝術的「校園航空母艦」—談如 410-650 West Georgia St., 何促進台灣青少年對藝術的當代提問 Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 4N8 林平電話：(1) 604.649.8187 103 明智之舉？評香港的當代藝術教育熱傳真：(1) 604.591.6392 劉建華電子信箱: [email protected]

書評展評設計： Leap Creative Group 111 活力2006：國際華人行為藝術節在英國印刷：中原造像股份有限公司 Andrew Mitchelson 網址： www.yishujournal.com 119 Serpentine畫廊在Battersea電廠的展覽：中國電管理：典藏雜誌社站之一 Nav Haq 國際刊號: 1683-3082 122 評「3030：中國新攝影」 Phil Tinari 本刊在溫哥華編輯設計，臺北印刷出版發行。 128 城市景觀、瘋狂消費和集體記憶：陳劭雄的模一年四期。逢三、六、九、十二月五日出版。擬現實 Rosalind Holmes 訂價每本12美元。訂閲一年48美元，兩年86美元。 132 中英人名對照訂閱單可從本刊網址下載。封面﹕ 沈遠﹕延長的根，玩具，裝置， 2005，藝術家 ∕ Casino Luxembourg 提供版權所有，本刊內容非經本社同意不得翻譯和轉載。 Contributors

Raz Barfield is the Deputy Project Leader of the First-Year Joint Programme in Design Studies between the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) and the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing. He is responsible for developing larger-scale institutional collaboration in learning, teaching, and research with Allan Walker, whom he collaborates with to conduct action research at CAFA and GSA, examining the experience of Chinese and U.K. students in the transnational institutional collaboration and emergent pedagogical methods. Educated at St. Martin’s and Camberwell, London, he is a practicing fine artist and has developed and led undergraduate and postgraduate courses and pathways in fine art and design. He is also a practice-based researcher in fine art, new media, and integrative and hybrid practice.

Cécile Bourne, who worked for six years at the Arc / Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, has been appointed by the Fondation de France to develop participative methodology for public projects in Spain. She is the curator of Rond Point, Nantes and Kinshasa (Democrtic Republic of Congo) (2002) and You Talked / I Listen, Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Ferme du Buisson (1998) and the co-curator of Copresences, with A. Karroum and Anne-Marie Morice (2005–06). She writes extensively for catalogues and magazines on artists concerned with global issues and is an advisor for Drac Ile de France and CNAP and a committee-member of Nmac / Montenmedio.

David Ho Yeung Chan, a curator based in Hong Kong and Shanghai, is currently working at the Shanghai Gallery of Art. Past publications he has written for include C, Flash Art, and Chinese Art News.

Paul Gladston is Senior Lecturer in critical theory and cultural studies and Director of the Institute of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham, Ningbo, China. He studied fine art at Edinburgh College of Art and Yale University before receiving an M.A. and a Ph.D. in critical theory from the University of Nottingham. His recent publications include Art History After Deconstruction (2005) and “Sublime Ruins—Monumental Follies: The Photo(historio)graphy of Erasmus Schroeter,” in Post-Conflict Cultures: Rituals of Representation (2006).

John K. Grande is an art critic whose reviews and essays have appeared in numerous catalogues, journals, and magazines, including Artforum, Vie des Arts, and Canadian Forum. His other publications include Intertwining: Landscape, Technology, Issues, Artists (1998), Jouer avec le feu: Armand Vaillancourt: Sculpteur engagé (2001), and David Sorensen: Abstraction From Here to Now (2001). His poetry has been published in Revue des Animaux and Vice Versa. His latest works are Art Nature Dialogues: Interviews with Environmental Artists (2004) and In Memory of the World, in collaboration with artist Ludmila Armata (2006). Grande has taught art history at Bishops University and is a Contributing Editor at Sculpture Magazine.

Nav Haq is a curator presently based at Gasworks, London. He has been appointed Curator of the 3rd Contour Biennial for Video Art, Belgium, taking place in summer 2007. He is also Guest Editor at Book Works, London. He developed his curatorial approach through professional experiences at art spaces including the Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Kunstverein München, Munich. He contributes regularly to international art journals.

Rosalind Holmes is a writer and curator based in Beijing. She has a B.A. in Chinese and history of art from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Her B.A. thesis focused on visual constructions of civility in contemporary China.

Susan Kendzulak is an artist and writer based in Taipei. Her M.A. thesis focused on Chinese conceptual art, and she writes extensively about contemporary art in Taiwan for local and international publications.

Jaspar K. W. Lau is a curator and writer. He has also served as editor for several books, including Local Accent: 12 Artists from Hong Kong (Para/Site, 2003) and a monograph on Wu Shanzhuan(Asia Art Archive, 2005). Exhibitions he has curated include Organisation for Cultural Exchange and Mishap (Hong Kong/Melbourne, 2003) and his own mMK (mini-Museum von Kaspar, since 1996).

Lin Ping received her B.A. from the National Taiwan Normal University in 1979 and a M.A. in art education and a M.F.A. degree from University of Cincinnati, Ohio. She has worked in two major art

museums in Taiwan as chief curator in both exhibition and collection departments. She has taught studio art and curatorship courses in fine arts programs at Tunghai University since 1998. Lin is also a curator, designer, and consultant for educational projects in art museums and institutions. Her two major contributions include an invited project, Home Sweet Home—SEE PLAY Educational Exhibition, Taiwan Museum of Art (2005) and A Piece of Cake, a project commissioned by National Culture and Arts Foundation and Quanta Foundation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (2006).

Joni Low is a freelance writer based in Vancouver, Canada. She is currently the Library and Gallery Coordinator at Centre A (Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art) and Editor for the new Yishu Web site.

Andrew Mitchelson joined the Live Art Development Agency as Company and Resource Manager in March 2006. The agency offers a portfolio of resources, professional development schemes, projects, and initiatives for the support and development of Live Art practices and discourses in London, the U.K., and internationally. He has a B.A. degree in arts management and has worked freelance on a number of youth and education projects with Royal National Theatre. He has also worked as administrator for the performance art outfit Duckie.

Lisa Norton holds a B.F.A. from the Cleveland Institute of Art (1985) and an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art (1987). A member of the faculty at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago since 1992, she teaches in the departments of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Designed Objects, and Sculpture. Norton is engaged in designing the common spaces that impact economies—the flows of people, traffic, and goods. Her current work in public design focuses on creating both traditional and alternative markets for local resources. Her collaborative projects integrate crafts, regional livelihoods, and specialties, particularly in relation to migration. Her long-term projects focus on the retrieval and re-codification of knowledge and local responses to globalization. Research interests include vernacular knowledge, craft and folk methods, innovation, industrial production, adaptive re-use, and user- centered design. She also writes about craft and culture.

Philip Tinari, a writer and curator, recently co-founded BAO, a Beijing-based atelier focused on editorial, curatorial, and design work related to contemporary Chinese visual culture. He holds an M.A. in East Asian studies from Harvard University and a B.A. in literature and history from Duke University and was a Fulbright Fellow at Peking University (2001-2002). In 2002 and 2003, he worked in China as Associate Curator of The Long March: A Walking Visual Display and was consultant to the newly established Chinese Contemporary Art department at Sotheby’s New York for its Contemporary Art Asia auction (2006).

Allan Walker is Deputy Director of the Glasgow School of Art and a member of the University of Scotland Learning and Teaching and Research Committees and the Scottish Higher Education Enhancement Committee. He is also a reviewer for the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. He is the Joint Project Leader, with Professor Tan Ping, of the First-Year Joint Programme in Design Studies between the Glasgow School of Art and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Educated at Oxford and Edinburgh Universities, he is a practicing fine artist and has worked on a number of projects with Raz Barfield. He is a member of the management groups for the Centres for Creative Education, the International Drawing Research Institute, and the Macintosh Research Centre for Archives and Collections at the Glasgow School of Art. Other collaborations include EYECON, established in 1999 for research in digital media and publishing.

Yü Christina Yü is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Art History at the University of Chicago. She received a Master’s degree in art history from Boston University and a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College.

Zheng Shengtian, Managing Editor of Yishu, is a scholar, artist, and independent curator. For more than thirty years, he worked at China Academy of Art as Professor and Chair of the Oil Painting Department. He is a founding Board member of Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art and a trustee of Long March Foundation. He has organized numerous exhibitions and is currently working on a major exhibition of twentieth-century Chinese art that is scheduled to open in New York in 2008. He contributes frequently to periodicals and catalogues about contemporary Chinese and Asian art. He has been a member of the Academic Committee for the Shanghai Biennale since 1998 and was a curator of the 4th Shanghai Biennale (2004).

A Tribute to Jonathan Napack Jonathan Napack (1967–2007), a Hong Kong-based art writer died of pneumonia on January 20 in Hong Kong. He had been a correspondent and the writer for Art Newspaper, New York Observer, International Herald Tribune, and Spy, and contributed many articles to a variety of other journals and magazines. Napack moved to Hong Kong ten years ago. He quickly became connected to and highly knowledgeable about the Asian art scene and gained great respect from the leading players in contemporary Asian art. In recent years, he was Asian Advisor for Art Basel.

Death and Destruction in Bangkok Jonathan Napack

“The apparent ease with which Thais appear able to adopt different forms, to swim in and out of seemingly contradictory worlds, is not proof of a lack of cultural identity, nor is the kitsch of Patpong evidence of Thai corruption— on the contrary, it reflects the corrupted taste of Westerners, for whom it is specifically designed.” –Ian Buruma, in God’s Dust (New York, 1989), on Bangkok's most notorious red-light district

“Maybe tonight we'll have a lot of work, because tomorrow's a holiday and people are out drinking now?" –Ben, 25, a “bodysnatcher” who competes to snatch corpses from car wrecks, in Bangkok's Metro magazine

I. Karma on Wheels

angkok stretches the membrane between death and life thinner than any other modern city. Thai courtesy and sensitivity towards others, their yielding, unthreatening Bcharacter, the sweetness embodied in the wai greeting, all belie the fact that Bangkok is a murderously violent place, where mangled bodies daily litter the roads with blood, brain, and bone. Tourist brochures call Thailand “The Land of Smiles,” but that smile might more accurately be likened to the grimace of a skull.

The overwhelming presence of rot and sewage, the brute biology long since expunged from Western cities, is not particularly unique to Bangkok. What is, however, is its gaga collision course with a modernity mestasizing rhizome-like in a society still saturated with pro-Buddhist animism. It remains that while Thailand’s “professionals” charge notoriously competitive rates for murder, most of the daily dead are the collateral damage of modern technology—struck by the hammers that regularly fall off construction sites, or trapped in unsafe buildings. (189 people died in a 1993 hotel fire when the owner locked the fire exits because, he said, he didn’t want people to leave without paying.)

Jonathan Napack (left) and Sam Keller, Director of Art Basel. Courtesy of Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong.

The majority of such incidents, however, involve Bangkok's infamous traffic mid the suicidal driving it inspires. The most awe-inspiring occurred in September 1990, when a driver of a liquefied natural gas truck, wasted on booze and amphetamines, overturned at a major intersection. In the ensuing explosions, fifty-one cars and sixty-one buildings were destroyed and ninety-one people died. The daily cull, however, though less spectacular, is no less gruesome, particularly of motorcyclists, who rarely wear helmets. Heads splayed in two or dismembered limbs garnish Bangkok streets on a daily basis. It's like a never ending Day of the Dead festival— except it's for real.

This openness to death, its all-pervasiveness, marks Bangkok apart and makes it a kind of theater for the tensions of the day. For not only does such havoc embody the destructive impact of modernization, it represents the acceptance of mutability and anti-humanism of Buddhism, whose metaphysics places all phenomena in flux. Not only does this deny the reality off the subject, it makes all cultural creation relational—fleeting images rather than eternal symbols, foam on a dark, unknowable sea.

The disturbing indifference to human life on the streets of Bangkok, to the continued relationship between the cells of the human body, is paralleled by an attitude towards identity that concentrates on how the cultural artifact is used, rather than where it originally came from—juggling fragments to sell, rather than trying to lash together an inherently unstable package. After all, why harness one's identity to an image, when images are just slippery things in a mercurial world?

There is something peculiarly bodily about Bangkok itself, a city sinking one meter every decade into the alluvial plain. The floods that as recently as 1983 covered 450 square kilometres of the city, were solved by mayor Chamlong Srimuang's decision to clear the culverts of rubbish, but other problems remain—poisonous air traffic crawling at an average of 10 km/hr, millions of homeless squatters. As venerable a landmark as the Golden Mount, whose gilded chedi anchors the city skyline began in the nineteenth century as a dropping ground for indigent victims of the cholera regularly sweeping the water-based city. During bad times, hundreds of bodies daily fed

Jonathan Napack and Philip Tinari (left). Courtesy of Asia Art the vultures and dogs. Archive, Hong Kong.

It is, above all, on the roads that such dramas play themselves out. Perhaps most bizarre are the “body-snatchers,” Sino-Thai charities such as Poh Tuck Teung inspired by the goal of earning merit by disposing of unclaimed bodies. The bodysnatchers cruise around Bangkok tapping into police radio to find fatal crashes, netting around four hundred bodies a month. Sometimes they make mistakes, as in the case of an expatriate who, after an accident, awoke in the morgue with a sheet over his head. Different groups of bodysnatchers have fought with knives over charred bodies, and in their eagerness to rush to the scene they have often caused fatal accidents of their own.

They can be disarmingly matter-of-fact: 29-year-old Amnat Soonthoruwipart told Metro magazine, referring to the Lauda Air crash in 1991, “It was a big problem for me because the dead passengers were mostly foreigners, and they were very fat and heavy." Their most reliable source are the sing (from English "racing"), young hoodlums who drag-race motorbikes late at night on empty flyovers. While gamblers place bets on the winner, the bodysnatchers wait for their nightly harvest of bodies.

The most vivid and poetic account of this carnage is the Australian photographer Philip Blenkinsop's word-and-image diary The Cars that Ate Bangkok (Bangkok 1996): “. . . the cars are the killers, cruising arteries that once breathed life into this 'Venice of the East' . . . This is no natural selection at work. These animals make no distinction between the healthy and the sick, the young or the old.” If the hallmark of European modernism was a utopian belief in the transforming power of the machine, backed by a Judeo-Christian millenarianism sublimated into Marxism, Thailand's emerging modernity integrates machines invented by others into a kind of lurid biology.

Mainstream Buddhism speculates little on such philosophical questions, instead functioning as a communal institution providing moral guidance, much like those of other religions. Yet organized religion in Thailand is proving particularly vulnerable to modernization. Many monks are earning thousands of U.S. dollars a day from donations alone, while some even become media stars. The monk Phra Yantra, who used credit cards to circumvent the prohibition against handling money, traveled abroad with a coterie of female fans, something which eventually became his undoing

10 during a 1994 scandal. (He harassed a Danish novice, and it turned out he used the credit card in an Australian brothel.) Thais called this buddhapanich the selling-out of Buddhism.

In the end, Thais turn to the bedrock animism predating their country's Indianization. For most Bangkokians, their city is saturated with phji jai hong, the "angry ghosts" of those who die prematurely, who are believed to haunt the scene of their deaths. More than one hundred people died on one such road until a shrine was erected. (A professor at Chulalongkorn University did point out, however, that accidents diminished because drivers would slow down and honk their horns at the shrine.) The Rama VI railway bridge across the Chao Phya, considered particularly infested with the spirits of suicides, is the site of improvised altars visited by people seeking to appease these new urban gods.

In Blenkinsop's words, you can view all of this two ways: "the Western way, irresponsible and negligent with an almost blatant disregard for human life, or the Thai way, a sort of subconscious poetic blend of technology and karma on wheels at high speed where only the dead deserve to die."

II. Morphing Tradition

Karma, of course, refers to the notion of the transmigration of the soul or, more accurately, an inner essence separate from, or transcending, the individual consciousness. And the whee1 is an image used in different contexts to signify the cyclical nature of time. They symbolize a cosmos in an ongoing process of creation and destruction, where life itself is constant but its manifestations fleeting.

It's an intriguing image and humbling reminder of the neutrality of technology. In the West, the automobile is virtually the avatar of a certain idea of freedom and linear progress, an idea etched in the brain whose origin ultimately lies in the Hebrew tribes whose God, echoing their nomadism, inspired them to think of history as a journey rather than a process—a line, rather than a wheel. It's a provocative irony to think of Marx, in this way, as the final heir of Abraham.

Bangkok then is not the "open road" but a karmic wheel churning our lives in a kind of human recycling. And this is also a kind of metaphor for culture; death and destruction are, after all, also creative, and if there's anything ultimately definable about the city, it is its energetic cannibalizing, its way of swallowing people, ideas and influences, and spitting them out in often bizarre ways. It is the stall at Penang Market selling leftover catering items—little packets of peanuts, souvenir planes for children from the world's airlines; the miles of brand-new pink-and-blue office buildings, never to be filled, so arrestingly photographed by John Gollings in their rootless Miami- esque splendor; the san phra phwn, or “spirit house,” shrines, grand like the pavilion built by the Hyatt to appease vengeful spirits, strikingly untraditional like the Bauhaus-ish bunker on Silom Road, or just incongruous like the quite traditional one in the Nana Plaza sex complex.

This promiscuous exchange of images is at odds with the business of "tradition." Many countries, including those in Asia, pour resources into promoting their "cultural identity." What is most strange, however, is not the usefulness of this invented "identity" to the chauvinist, quasi-fascist elements controlling many Asian countries. It's that they would find eager bedfellows in Western leftist academics trying to hack out an escape route from the rubble of Marxism. This is buttressed by the currently fashionable notion of "hybridity," which makes "'hybridized" culture the linchpin of a “postmodernity" opposed somehow to an imagined monocultural past.

11 The truth is, of course, that all cultures are "'hybrid" at the very roots, although the speed and therefore the disorientation of such changes has greatly increased. Thai eclecticism is particularly striking. Starting as sinicized tribes in what is now China's Sichuan province, the Thais migrated to Indochina towards the end of the first millennium, adopting the Indian-derived religion, writing system, and art of the Mon and Khmer kingdoms, whom they quickly surpassed in power. By the late seventeenth century, the Thai king at Ayutthaya was employing Japanese samurai as palace guards and a Greek adventurer, Phaulcon, as prime minister. And even before the onslaught of gung-ho Westernization came the massive immigration that made Bangkok a city still today one- third Chinese.

They had an immediate impact. Mass-produced statues from Fujian province became de rigeur in temples, while Chinese artists like Khru Khongpae injected elements of ink painting into Thai murals. Most ingeniously, broken pieces of porcelain used as ballast by Chinese trading junks were set in plaster to make glittering mosaic-like facades on temples like Wat Arun on Bangkok's Chao Phya river.

The bigger change, however, came when King Mongkut opened the country up with the 1855 Bowring Treaty with Great Britain. Architecture went over the top as ill-digested Western models were combined with Siamese prototypes and Chinese models; the result was Thai-style buildings with ionic columns and balustrades decorated with Chinese-style ceramic tiles. As if to build on Khru Khongpae's sinicization of mural painting, another monk-painter, Khrua InKhong, introduced Western perspective and the chiaroscuro mood to the form. (His model, oddly enough, was a series of engravings of scenic views in the United States given to the Mongkut by President Pierce.) It is this hybrid style that, ironically, is now imagined to be "'traditional" Thai art.

Mongkut's successor, Chulalongkorn, went further. Court artists like Prince Naris created new royal coats-of-arms and other insignia by combining Siamese symbols with European aristocratic iconography; these were used on ceramics and glassware ordered from Sevre, Waterford, and Tiffany. The new Throne Hall grafted Siamese spires onto a neoclassical palace where marble pilasters supported three-headed elephants; the temple War Rajapodit included a chapel in a Viollet-le-Duc-inspired "Thai Gothic," complete with stained glass, pews, and an organ, while nearby “gothic” chedi and stupa containing the ashes of Siamese nobles approximated a Thai Père Lachaise.

Those with a shallow historical consciousness will look at such art as derivative. Such bastardized spawn are healthier and more real than an inbred “neo-tradition” whose sincerity is a sham. But can one morph tradition into a viable new identity?

III. Free For All

Sometimes the best art isn't art. That is to say, sometimes the most compelling images don’t come out of the academy, especially when that academy is a construct for showing off to the outside world. Pop culture can be the best barometer, because it serves the consumer, not the maker. It's about fun, not face.

The stagnation of Thai art after the 1932 military coup mirrored the stagnation of society as a whole, the replacement of Chulalongkorn's tolerant, gradualist approach to modernization with the fascist-inspired notions of Phibun, whose notions dominated policy until the 1980s. Phibun

12 and his cohorts wanted to force-feed modernity to Thailand, using heavy doses of bombastic propaganda to prove to themselves and the world that they had become “modern.” As premier of the Japanese client state, Phibun supported the 1942 foundation of Silpakorn University, the single-handed creation of Carlo Feroci, a post-Futurist Italian sculptor with strong fascist connections.

Silpakorn exemplifies the distortions created by such ill-conceived cultural transplants. Rather than the conversation between differing views implied by the Western concept "academy," it evolved into a kind of cult around Feroci, who took the Thai name Bhirasri and became the commissar of a new kind of official art. This led to such dubious achievements as the ironically named Democracy Monument, and the Victory Monument, which even Feroci, its designer, later called “The Victory of Embarrassment.” His views continued to have a paralyzing effect until the end of the 1970s, as the democracy movement emerged with the growth of an urban middle class.

From the 1980s onwards, fitful liberalization moved alongside exponential economic growth and, as people moved off the farm into the city, and the educated gained access to the wider world, a real modernity emerged, an authentic pop and a genuine avant-garde. As long as most Thais inhabited a pre-modern cosmos of sustenance agriculture, modernism could only seem faked, because there was no inner necessity for it.

Bangkokians reinvented themselves to incorporate the machines now central to their lives. Migrants from the poor northeast brought electric instruments into Laotian folk music to create the luk thuung sound now blaring from every taxi-driver's radio, while skills from traditional religions painting and sculpture are applied to intercity buses as crammed with images as a Gothic cathedral.

In the line of arts, new generations have arisen that want to meet the world on their own personal terms, inspired by a positive relationship with their “Thai-ness" but no longer ghettoized by it. Montien Booma creates installations and sculpture using material and metaphors—incense, herbal extracts related to traditional medicine “Lungs” that refer to meditative practices—which, while specifically Thai, speak a universal language of grief, compassion, and ultimately, healing. A younger generation of artists like Rirkrit Tiravanija, Navin Rawanchaikul, and Surasi Kusolwong have moved away from the iconic image towards actions aimed, in Rirkrit's words, at "getting art off its ass" and into everyday life. Rirkrit is best known for performances serving curry in a Manhattan gallery, while Navin achieved notoriety by starting a “gallery” in a Bangkok taxi. Surasi's work references both his childhood in Ayutthaya, the ancient capital, and the darker elements of Thai life. His “Free for All” involved creating items for people to steal, involving Bangkok's notoriously cavalier relationship with private property in the art process itself.

In April 1997, a Bangkok fruit-seller stole a package hanging from a shop's fence, using it overnight as a pillow. Waking up nearby to loud explosions, she realized she'd slept with her head on a time bomb.

Just another day.

This text was first published in the exhibition catalogue Cities on the Move, 1997.

13 Jonathan Napack in Yishu booth, 2005 Art Basel / Miami Beach. Photo: Lara Broyde.

Yishu Interview with Jonathan Napack Basel, Switzerland, June 13, 2001 Transcribed by Chunyee Li

Yishu: What do you think about the Asian participation in this year’s Art Basel?

Jonathan Napack: The Asian participation has been slowly growing. The intention that we had when I started working with the fair was to try to increase the participation of Asian galleries, dealers, collectors, and Asian artists. It would be a long process because this is a fragmented market. You can’t really talk about the Asian art market the same way you talk about the art market in North America or in Europe, but there is certain target area where I think there would be a slow but steady growth, and huge possibility in the future, namely in Japan and Mainland China. Korea of course is a smaller market but has been stronger in the past, hopefully when the economic situation has improved, people might come back into the market in a much bigger way, and Korea would also be a very big part of this process.

Yishu: What do you think is the main reason not too many Asian artists are included in Art Basel? Is that because not enough funding or the quality of art galleries is not so good?

Jonathan Napack: I think there are a number of reasons. First of all is the fact that Asian artists are not really plugged into the system as it exists, and there’s nothing you can really force or rush. But I think slowly it is growing. I think there’s a special situation which has to do with the fact that there’s a kind of vogue or fad for Asian art, which I think needed to pass. [And following the

14 vogue] is simply not structurally sustainable, and I think we are poised to have a much slower but more solid growth of interest in Chinese art and Chinese artists. And I think I would disagree on—even in consideration of what it was ten years or five years ago—[the belief] that Asian artists are much better represented—specifically Japanese and Chinese artists; in other [Asian] countries. You could say that artists almost seem invisible. Or even in the case of Kim Hong-joo who has gotten a lot of attention for his shows in New York and also within the Korean pavilion at the Venice Biennale, I would be quite surprised if his work became more well-known in other galleries participating in Art Basel.

Yishu: The number of Asian artists are increasing in Art Basel, but in talking about the galleries, dealers, are there many Asian galleries applying to the fair?

Jonathan Napack: I think a number of them applied. The Asian art market is much more fragile, so that there are many galleries which don’t feel financially confident enough to apply for this; there are also a very small, but growing, number of Asian galleries which are of some quality. I think this is a long-term project; it will be quite a long time before Asia plays as big a part in Art Basel as Europe, North America or even Latin America. But I think we will move in this direction. One thing you really see at this fair is that there are a number of younger, more experimental Japanese galleries which have appeared on the scene in the last five years have begun to participate in this fair. To me, this is one thing I’m quite happy about—that we have galleries like Scai the Bathhouse and Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo. I think there will be more in the future. Frankly, I believe for Asian artists, it’s really best this way because if there were a sudden, huge participation of Asian galleries and the quality was not sustainable, it wouldn’t have a really good effect. What I think is best is when people become more acquainted with Asian art and Asian galleries, the commercial connections that they make being here will become richer with time, and to repeat myself, I think the growth we’re looking at is slow and it will be a long-term project. It is moving in that direction. Also remember that the management of the [fair] has been pretty preoccupied this year, and possibly in the next one or two years, with Miami Beach, and they think really long- term anyway, so this is where it would work when looking into the future.

15 An Art Market with Chinese Characteristics

Jonathan Napack otheby's recent auctions of Chinese art in New York and Hong Kong were Swidely regarded as a watershed for the Chinese art market. Most pieces went for double or triple their estimate, with one lot, a painting by Zhang Xiaogang, selling for almost one million U.S. dollars to a Chinese buyer living in Singapore who was, apparently, previously unknown to everyone. The results were heralded as the avatar of China's rise as a new "cultural superpower."

The reality, however, is that the market for Chinese art has a long way to go, and these auctions have in many ways actually set things

Jonathan Napack, 2006. Photo: Hou Hanru. back. The real triumph belongs to Sotheby's, which manipulated public perception about the sale very effectively. Reporters like The New York Times's Carol Vogel were forced to rely on the auction house for information on the identity of buyers and other information on the sale.

While many spoke excitedly about the emergence of big mainland Chinese collectors, facts are that seventy per cent of buyers at the New York sale were Americans or Europeans. And probably the majority of the remaining thirty percent came from Taiwan. While there were many mainlanders seated in the audience, few of them bid or actually bought anything (of course there may have been many bidding on the phones). Many of them, like China Art Now's Huang Liaoyuan, seemed more in a hurry to get to Atlantic City.

Most of the Western buyers at the New York auction were dealers who have dabbled in the Chinese field before. Many of them have started "flipping" work as prices rise vertiginously. The result is more and more work being sold and resold within a relatively small circle of "players" looking to cash out while the going is still good.

Hong Kong of course saw more Asian buyers, but the media exaggerated the extent of the mainland role. The vast majority of the top lots were Chinese twentieth-century oil paintings that went to Taiwanese and, in one case, Indonesian-Chinese collectors. The auctions grossed roughly thirteen million dollars U.S. and sixteen million dollars U.S. respectively—respectable, but small change compared to Sotheby's and Christie's major annual sales.

A serious issue was the sale itself. Sotheby's has always had flexible ethical standards, but these auctions were more flexible than most. Works appeared in the catalogue with barely a provenance, if any—actually, most of the works were consigned directly from the artists, something Sotheby's never publicly admitted. And the condition of several works has been questioned by professional conservators. The sales were stacked with minor works by "big name" artists like Yue Minjun. The result looked a bit like those reject clothing sales. The calculation seemed to be unnoticed by the kind of speculative buyers Sotheby's were after.

16 While the extent of Chinese buying at the auctions, as well as the Chinese role within the broader international art market, may have been oversold, there is no question that there is for the first time an active market for contemporary art in China, and that expansion is changing the nature of the global market for Chinese art. This new Chinese art market is like a microcosm of China as a whole: growing rapidly, but growing badly. Standards of conduct are non-existent, and almost none of these new buyers qualify as a "collector" in the sense of commitment and knowledge.

Many people point to the fact that things are improving in China, that as China gets richer, serious collectors and museums, etc., will somehow inevitably emerge. I won't even bother with the fact that these "improvements" exist mostly for foreigners like myself and for the thin layer of well- connected Chinese who are now raking it in. Or that those who most often spout this line are totally self-interested. What is important is that nothing in this world is inevitable.

The mere fact that rich people exist in China doesn't mean that they will spend millions of dollars and countless hours of their time collecting work by artists over years and even decades. Collecting contemporary art is a very special taste. Even in the "developed" countries, there are inscrutable patterns. Why do Belgium and Switzerland have so many collectors, and Holland or Austria so few? Why does the U.S., with roughly double the population and GDP of Japan, have thirty or forty times the number of major collectors as the Japanese? Or why does India, with a similar population but half the GDP of China, have such a vibrant domestic market for its artists?

The fundamental issue is that China's economy is fueled by investment, not profits, which motivates people to position themselves to get more investments rather than planning for achievement in the long term. The current "boom" in the Chinese economy is all about positioning and manipulating perceptions to help attain certain short-term goals. This infects the art world as much as anybody else. Art has also become an asset class at a time when there are very few vehicles for wealthy people to invest in, due to an increased awareness of how rich people spend their money in other countries and the higher status of artists in Chinese society at the moment.

You might call China a blank slate for big ambitions. But too often they are shallow ambitions.

This is not to say there is no real basis for the current foreign interest in Chinese art. This huge country, for so long off the map, is producing artists who can draw on a wellspring of images, concepts, and issues that are totally unique to China and produce works that have that elusive "local flavour" increasingly rare in a globalized world. There is also a small but growing number of first-rate galleries in China. The current infusion of cash into the market brings them some short- term profits, but is also destructive in the long run. It inflates the expectations of artists and makes them even more exploitative of their galleries. It encourages pricing that is unrealistic in the long term. It prices younger or novice collectors out of the market, leaving many artists vulnerable to the whims of a few deep-pocketed collectors. It will one day crash, when the speculators who are now blindly following their "advisors" realize prices have started to fall and dump their collections on the market.

Watching these auctions, I began to wonder if things were actually "improving" in China at all. Maybe they were actually getting worse. The radical undermining of orthodoxy, the sense of mental and physical freedom, that crude playfulness and deep engagement with life itself that

17 made Chinese art so attractive, have been replaced in all too many cases by cynical, rote repetition without feeling or thinking.

“The problem is, these artists don't even like art anymore,” a friend recently observed. “They have forgotten why they wanted to be artists. It's just a business now.”

This text was first published on the Asia Art Archive Website in thier DIAAALOGUE section in May 2006.

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Jonathan Napack's memorial in Beijing. 1: Fei Dawei, Samuel Keller, Lorenzo Fiaschi. 2: Mian Mian and Luluc Huang; 3: Chen Wenbo, Jia Jia, Zhu Jia, Liu Ding, Philip Tinari, Yan Lei; 4: Wang Jianwei, Liu Wei, Chen Wenbo; 5: Yan Lei, Philip Tinari, Hu Fang; 6: Luluc Huang, Ma Sai, Wang Weiwe; 7: Bea Leanza, Naihan Li, Zhao Zhao, Jeremy Wingfield. Photo: Ai Weiwei.

18 18 Taipei Biennial 2006 Susan Kendzulak

Chou Meng-te, Urban Night Life, 1987-2003, crayon on board, 50.5 x 40.8 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

he fifth installment of the Taipei Biennial, held at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, opened in November 2006 and was titled Dirty Yoga by curators Dan Cameron (Senior Curator Tof the New Museum, New York) and Wang Jun-jieh (a Taipei-based artist and curator). It included thirty-four artists from around the world, including a large proportion of women and artists from under-represented regions.

The title Dirty Yoga provoked considerable discussion during the opening events, and many viewers tried to explain its meaning to each other. Comprehending the confounding and elusive title was akin to perceiving the famous Zen koan of “one hand clapping” just as the meaning seemed graspable, it would then slip away. Cameron stated that, separately, the words don’t

19 Left: VIVA, VIVA, 2006, mixed media. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Courtesy of the artist. Right: E Chen, One Thousand Year Bloom, 2006, yarn, machine. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Courtesy of the artist. necessarily have negative connotations, but that the combination of two such disparate elements is reflective of today’s age of globalized hybridity. In Chinese, the title euphemistically translates as “Restricted Yoga,” alluding to content that is X-rated. The curators noticed during their initial meetings in Taipei that the promotion of Yoga in that city differed from that in other parts of the world, where it is sold as upscale consumerist fashion. Their first press release was in the summer when they distributed a curators’ statement that is more straightforward than their title: “We will treat Taipei as the epitome of a globalized community, observing the different new and trendy lifestyles that people adopt through the extremely rapid social changes and fashions of living.”

Known as the forerunner of the Asian biennials—one third of the world’s biennials now take place in Asia—the Taipei Biennial may be losing its cachet. It did not link its opening with the concurrent openings in Singapore, Shanghai, and Guangju in September 2006, and consequently it missed a great opportunity to draw in more international viewers. Additionally, this year’s budget of twenty million NT was only an eighth of the Singapore Biennale’s budget, limiting Taipei’s exhibition to two floors of the museum. In spite of the financial constraints, the exhibition had a tight, crisp aesthetic, with mainly “white cube” viewing areas containing framed rectangular works, while videos and installations spiced up the exhibition rather than overwhelmed it. The clunky modernist architecture of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, with its rectangular blocks and low-ceiling picture galleries, created limitations in that some works, such as Yuko Murata’s paintings, had to hang on the walls in the poorly lit passageways visitors walked through, making it unclear how certain areas connected to the biennial.

Artists from Taiwan and Mainland China

Many of the more well-known Taiwanese artists have already exhibited in previous biennials, and this biennial offered an opportunity for other Taiwanese artists who are not regularly known in the local gallery Wu Chun-Hui, Europe Resurrection, 2006, colour circuit to show their works. Taxi driver Chou Meng-te exhibited his slides, 135 colour negatives, 135 black-and-white negatives, small, chromatic, pastel-like drawings of Taipei’s bar scene. These images 35mm films, 16mm films, S-8mm films, R-8mm films are rendered delicately in a way that makes them seem warm and cozy (screening format: 35mm on DVD). Courtesy of the artist. rather than debauched and decadent.

20 Taiwanese cartoonist VIVA exhibited comic strips based on Chinese classics and his days as a conscript in the military. They were exhibited in library filing cabinets in a white room that was painted with huge black outlines of cartoon figures. In his four-panel comic strips, loosely based on the genre of self-produced comics in Japan, VIVA conveys his life story and his

Arthur Ou, Aufheben (To Preserve, To Elevate, To Cancel), 2006, search for identity. Experimental filmmaker Wu paper, tape, 76 x 111 cm. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Courtesy of the artist. Chun-hui also searched for his identity via Stan Brakhage-style collaged pieces of found footage and montages of archival images that were projected at twenty-four frames per second, thereby creating a colourful mosaic of flashing memories.

For Duet in the Courtyard, Wang Hong-kai recorded footsteps that were broadcast into the courtyard where café tables were set up, so that over the din of clinking coffee cups, chit chat, and planes flying overhead, one could hear the constant sound of people walking.

E Chen’s installation consisted of cacti, a mailbox, and cinder blocks that were all knitted from yarn with strands attached to little motors in the ceiling. As each day of the exhibition passed, a bit of the work became increasingly unravelled, so eventually all that would be left would be a pile of yarn. This work pessimistically looks at Taiwan’s traditional industries, in particular the textile industry, and how it has come undone by the exodus of Cao Fei, National Father, 2006, mixed media. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Courtesy of the artist. factories to China.

Photographer Arthur Ou operates in what Homi Bhabha called the Third Space. Born in Taiwan and relocated to the U.S.A. when he was eleven years old, Ou has acquired a sense of distance in looking at ordinary objects and seeing their cultural significance and difference. Ou examines the power that objects hold and asks whether, if they are placed out of context and even time, do they still retain their original meaning? In his work To Preserve, to Elevate, to Cancel, a copy of a Marcel Breuer-designed fireplace stood in the centre of an exhibition room that also contained oddly shaped porcelain urns. Framed photographs, mainly of ceramic objects, surrounded the fireplace and urns. Ou seems to be saying that once objects are stripped of their original cultural significance and meaning, they then become merely empty decorative vessels. In his photography, Ou tries to capture the objects’ elusive nature before their meaning slips away for good, and in this process, he is also spiritually examining the essence of things with the concern of a metaphysician, trying to capture his own identity before it slips away into nothingness.

When Cheang Shulea first exhibited in Taipei during the 2000 Biennial, she gained notoriety with her casting of a porn film in the basement of the museum with participants actually performing live sex acts. This time, now working with artists Ilze Black and Alexei Blinov as the trio TAKE2030, they exhibited a long worktable with a computer and LED screens that proposed their idea of an imagined wireless future world where everyone has access to technology and the Net for free.

21 Take2030, Porta2030, 2006, mixed media. Courtesy of the artists.

Only two artists from mainland China were included. Guo Fengyi from Xi’an is gaining prominence with her idiosyncratic works. After practicing qigong for two years, she began having visions and then began to illustrate those visions as a way to release the energy from her body that is generated by the coordination of different breathing patterns. Several long scrolls of ink drawings on rice paper show fantastic creatures whose bodies consist of one head at the top and one upside-down, at the bottom. The undulating lines of colour create shimmering vibrations, creating the appearance of what is often termed “outsider art.”

Cao Fei’s odic National Father is, on a micro level, a loving tribute to her father, Cao Chong-en, a well-known sculptor of busts, most notably of Sun Yat-sen. On the macro level, it is also a tribute to Sun Yat-sen, who is credited with ending the autocratic rule of the Qing dynasty and with being the founder of a new and democratic China. This makes this work deeply poignant, site specifically relevant, and somewhat controversial. In the contentious stalemate between mainland China and Taiwan, Sun Yat-sen is a rare figure in that he ideologically unites both sides of the strait. For Cao’s installation, a bamboo-structured canopy covered a makeshift movie theatre—much like the public outdoor theatres found in both mainland China and Taiwan—that aired a popular serialized dramatization of Sun Yat-sen’s story that is still banned in China. On the other side of the screen are Cao Fei’s father’s bronze sculptures and printed materials about his work.

Globalization

As in many recent art exhibitions, in Dirty Yoga, globalization plays a dominant thematic role. But is globalization such a novel subject these days? And why does this theme keep emerging in almost every international exhibition? Isn’t it time to lay this worn-out idea to rest or to re-explore its origins? With this term “globalization” being bandied about ad nauseum, it may be good for all of us to reflect deeply on human history. Nowadays, with increasing new technologies, such as world currencies being tied to computerization that can be transferred via nanotechnology, we are given the false impression that borders are collapsing and that globalization is a unique phenomenon. Yet, globalization has existed almost as long as humans have—human curiosity and the need to better one’s life has long been an impetus for travel and exchange. Current ideas about globalization imply that it originated in the industrialized West. Globalization, however, first occurred in Asia during the Tang dynasty with booming trade on the Silk Road. What would

22 happen if a biennial focused on this earlier period of Asian globalization with its shift from the West as the central power to the East being the centre? Changing the premise of a hackneyed argument can create new insights.

Lobby as Social Barometer

The way artworks are installed in the cavernous lobby of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum for its biennials acts as a barometer for the social and cultural climate in Taiwan. One only needs to examine the lobby installations of subsequent installments of each biennial to get a true picture of Taipei’s social, economic, and artistic climate.

In 1998, for the first biennial, titled Site of Desire and curated by Fumio Nanjo, Dean E-Mei’s beaded Taiwan dollar curtain was suspended from the bank of escalators. Korean artist Choi Jeonghwa’s obese inflatable golden goddess statue, whose wings flapped, added to an atmosphere of excess that was akin to walking into a capitalistic arcade where the unabashed pursuit of money, market, and riches was waved in everyone’s faces. This paralleled the hope and excitement that Taipei residents felt at the time. There was a new mayor, and promises of riches seemed to be within grasp. The sense of opulence and optimism, with a bit of chaos thrown in, created a lively biennial. Cai Guo-Qiang’s bamboo structure of advertisements enveloping the outside and moving inside of the museum, combined with Hou Chun-ming’s erotic woodblock prints, created a mini scandal in the press, while Cai’s missile-shooting performance hinted at a promising future.

The 2000 biennial, The Sky is the Limit, curated by Jérôme Sans and Manray Hsu, created a more welcoming lobby. The entire floor was covered with Michael Lin’s pink-hued floral painting, while huge Guo Fengyi, Statue of Liberty, balloons of Jun’ya Yamada’s participatory calligraphic strips floated 2003, ink on rice paper, 503 x 97 cm. Courtesy of the artist. overhead. The dynamic conversation between these works created what seemed like a cozy space rather than a stuffy institution, encouraging visitors to forget politics and the economy and to just enjoy life.

In 2002, with the Great Theatre of the World, curators Bartomeu Marí and Jason Chia-chi Wang exhibited Rita McBride’s Arena, a large grandstand that transformed the lobby into a theatre space so that audience members became both performer and spectator, thus making the lobby an open forum for discussion.

Barbara Vanderlinden and Amy Huei-hwa Cheng’s 2004 Do You Believe in Reality? combined Chang Yong-ho’s voyeuristic viewing platforms, providing a kind of privacy that was similar to placing a peep show in a big public Lobby installation at 1998 Taipei Biennial. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. area. With Kuo I-chen’s shadow of a real plane

23 Left: Lobby installation at 2000 Taipei Biennial. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. Right: Lobby installation at 2004 Taipei Biennial. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. flying overhead, they created a lobby filled with marvel that made one want to look up in the air. The juxtapositions of works and viewing areas created a sense of shifting perspectives between reality and illusion.

For 2006, the placement in the lobby of solitary dark objects that did not interact with each other, that seemed solipsistic and bleak with little communication taking place among them, coincided with the Biennial's own snubbing of the September convergence of other Asian biennials. The combination of Regina Silvera's black footprints pasted all over the museum's façade, Daniel Ortega's portable black obelisk on wheels, Nari Ward's tarry snowman, Eko Nugroho's black wall drawing, and Katharina Grosse's pile of spray-painted dirt, unwittingly created an uncomfortable and uninviting atmosphere that left only one place to sit, a lonely bench sticking out of the dirt of Grosse's soiled painting. This dreary atmosphere seemed to symbolize the public's feelings about the current status of Taiwan: black and cancerous.

Paternal Curator Model

The Taipei Fine Arts Museum has two systems of hiring: one is through civil servants’ examinations and the other is through arts-related degrees. So it is understandable that many of the government employees may not be up-to-date with the art world’s movers and shakers; even some of the staff with arts degrees are not familiar with certain international curators and artists. So the Lobby installation at 2002 Taipei Biennial. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. process for choosing curators for the Taipei Biennial involves a selected committee that includes previous biennial curators who research a long list of names, narrowing it down and inviting several curators to interview.

24 Since 2000, a European or North American curator has been chosen first, and then he or she selects a Taiwanese curator. Dan Cameron said this shows a “lack of confidence” and a “colonial and provincial attitude,” but this system may be more redolent of an indifferent attitude of “if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.” As Fumio Nanjo stated in an interview I

Lobby installation at 2006 Taipei Biennial. Photo: Taipei Fine Arts Museum. conducted with him in September 2006 for Yishu, “there is always collaboration. The structure is not bad, but whether they should have the Taiwanese curator choose the Western curator first, perhaps this could change the results.”

This curatorial model is fraught with difficulties. The exhibitions of 2002 and 2006 seemed to come off without a hitch, but problems arose in other years. In 2000, the catalogue was delayed by two years over a wait for Hsu’s curatorial essay, which never materialized, and the well-publicized friction in 2004 regarding authorship prevented Chang’s submitted essay from seeing the light of day. After 2004, many artists called for an overhaul of the way the biennial was conducted. Its short preparation time of less than six months, its limited budget with little promotional means, and its paternalistic attitude towards the curatorial model prompted them to petition for an outside committee to be assigned specifically to the Taipei Biennial, rather than keeping it as part of the museum’s regular exhibition cycle. But no structural changes have been made.

Exclusion politics and nativism also seem to play a substantial role in Taiwan’s international exhibitions, as exemplified in the notable exclusion of non-Taiwanese artists who are based in Taiwan. The Singapore Biennale included non-natives working in Singapore. But no artists of aboriginal, Japanese, or European descent have been included in Taiwan’s representation in Venice or Taipei, and this policy promotes nativist thinking, or, rather, a balkanization of art, classifying it by nationality and ethnicity. On the other hand, this selection of artists that seems to arise from an institutional problem may boil down just to personal curatorial taste. Perhaps it is just the fact that local curators are not aware of the “other.” This appears paradoxical when on many levels—political, institutional, and societal—the dominant discussion in Taiwan is about the lack of inclusion on the world stage.

Future

In 1998, it was much easier to locate funds for such an exhibition, but the social climate has changed over the years, making it increasingly difficult to source funds. Government spending is constantly being reduced for the arts. At the time of this writing, Taipei mayoral elections were under way, and it is speculated that the new mayor-elect is likely to reappoint most of the heads of art institutions in the city, including the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. This really leaves the future of the Taipei Biennial up in the air. What monies are available, who will be running the museum, and whether the Taipei Biennial will change or continue is just as unknowable as Taiwan’s future status in world politics. However, in spite of persistent difficulties, Taiwan’s art scene constantly reinvents itself, and the arts continue to flourish.

25 Writing on The Wall (and Entry Gate): A Critical Response to Recent Curatorial Meditations on the "Chineseness" of Contemporary Chinese Visual Art Paul Gladston

etween July 2005 and October 2006, two major survey exhibitions were mounted that attempted to address the question of the “Chineseness” in contemporary Chinese visual Bart: The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art, which was first presented at the Millennium Art Museum in Beijing from July 22 to August 21, 2005 before being jointly shown at three venues in Buffalo in the United States from October 21, 2005, to January 29, 2006,1 and Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity, which was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, from September 6 to October 22, 2006.2 While these exhibitions responded to the question of “Chineseness” in markedly differing ways, both were used to support the shared view of their respective lead curators, Gao Minglu and Victoria Lu. These curators believe that contemporary Chinese visual art has been consistently misinterpreted by critics who seek to frame its significance solely from a Western theoretical-conceptual perspective. In addition, that there is a pressing need to reassess contemporary Chinese visual art not only by looking beyond the limits of Western theoretical-conceptual discourse, but also through a more precise understanding of the historical circumstances surrounding its production and reception within China.

As Gao has observed in a recent interview published in Yishu dedicated to a discussion of the theoretical and conceptual frameworks deployed and developed for The Wall, existing attempts to analyze contemporary Chinese visual art have proceeded for the most part on the basis of two ostensibly opposing Western views of linguistic representation: first, the binary ordering of signification characteristic of Western modernism, which seeks to articulate a scientific-rational understanding of the world according to non-identical, asymmetrically valued terms; and, second, the now pervasively influential theory and practice of deconstruction, which, it can be argued, has severely problematized the categorical truth claims advanced under the aegis of Western modernism by demonstrating a persistent, performative deferral of meaning immanent to all forms of signification.

According to Gao, while these differing views have now come to dominate the study of contemporary Chinese visual art, both impose significant theoretical-conceptual constraints that persistently underscore the notion that contemporary Chinese visual art—in its experimental or avant-garde modes, at least—might have a distinct identity beyond the run of its seemingly all- encompassing Western other. In the case of the former, this is because of, as Gao tacitly suggests, an inescapable, Orientalizing tendency to situate contemporary Chinese visual art as both belated and redundant relative to the earlier Western “historical” and “neo” avant-gardes; this positioning effectively overwrites considerations of contemporary Chinese visual art as existing on a separate footing to that of the West. In the case of the latter, this is because of, as Gao would have it, an inherent ahistoricism that undermines in advance any sense of a structured relationship between contemporary Chinese visual art and the specific historical circumstances within which it has arisen.3

26 In the same interview, Gao also suggests that this imposition of Western thought can be understood to have underpinned a wider Westernized discourse on globalization that “may not fit the Chinese model of modernity,” a model that functions, he argues, on the basis of ideas put forward by the Chinese thinker Hu Shi 4 “not as a marker of temporal logic (from pre-modern to modern and postmodern) in the Western sense,” but with reference “to a specific time and a concrete space and to the value-choices of society at that time.” As a consequence, Gao argues, Western theories such as those associated with feminism have been applied to contemporary Chinese art without any deep thought having been given to the “historical context and a close observation of its environment.” Gao goes on to contend that this state of affairs has, in turn, brought about a situation in which Chinese women’s art is now generally and mistakenly thought of as a “total duplication of the Western feminist model”—a move that can be interpreted, although Gao does not make the precise point himself, as a paradoxical extension of Western Orientalism. For Gao, there is, therefore, a necessity for a renewed enquiry that does not see contemporary Chinese visual art simply in terms of its relationship to the modernist and post-modernist discourses of the West, but also—and, as Gao would seem to have it, more importantly—in respect of its continuing interaction with a specifically Chinese socio-cultural historical milieu with its own specific temporal and spatial understanding of modernity. 5

As Gao himself has indicated, the curatorial decision to divide The Wall into three sections, “Wall as Memory: Reconstructing Myth and History,” “Wall as On-going Social Space: Displacement and Dislocation,” and “Wall as Concept: Cultural Boundaries and Identity,” can, therefore, be understood as an attempt to look beyond the limits of prevailing Western discourse by analyzing the precise relationship between contemporary Chinese visual art as a means of articulating and re-articulating Chinese cultural identity and the particular circumstances surrounding China’s present sense of its own modernity. Moreover, it is also possible to view Gao’s invocation of the figure of the “wall” in relation to the exhibition as both a real and a metaphorical presence that has, in his view, continued to give shape to China’s sociocultural identity, not least as part of the country’s current program of accelerated urbanization.6

The position adopted by Lu relative to Entry Gate is in many ways consonant with that presented by Gao in The Wall. In the catalogue for Entry Gate, Lu draws our attention to continuing attempts to give some sort of definition to the “Chineseness” of contemporary Chinese art and what she perceives as significant disagreements between Chinese and Western critics as to what might be considered specifically or quintessentially “Chinese.” On this basis, Lu then goes on to pose two questions: first, to what extent can contemporary Chinese art be understood to have “been led and shaped by the power of Western money and the sovereignty of Western discourse?” and second, “[d]o Chinese contemporary artists really tend to submit themselves passively to the power of the West?”7 Like Gao, Lu asserts a position that, from the very outset, supports the existence of a Chinese cultural identity that in some sense escapes the insistent purview of Western theoretical and conceptual orders.

However, unlike Gao, Lu does not seek to articulate that difference on the basis of an alternative, specifically Chinese concept of modernity. Rather, she argues that contemporary Chinese visual art can be distinguished in certain instances from that of the West because it involves a return to aesthetic values and attitudes usually associated with the Chinese tradition of literati art that developed over several centuries following the end of the Yuan dynasty.8 As Lu indicates, the values and attitudes that can be attributed to Chinese literati art are markedly different from those

27 conventionally embraced by Western art since the European Renaissance. Most notably, Chinese literati art involves an eschewal of the perspectival or anti-perspectival subject-object relations that have tended to characterize art in the West in favour of a pervasive sense of reciprocal immersion within nature that is without clear subject-object or spatiotemporal boundaries. Moreover, that sense of immersion is one that can be seen to grow, as Lu indicates, out of a pronounced subtlety (insipidity) of formal execution and incremental stylistic refinement that is somewhat at odds with a conventional Western valorization of strong aesthetic feeling and a continual desire for innovation. Indeed, as the French China scholar François Jullien has made clear, this combination of a sense of immersion within nature, extreme subtlety of form, and a gradual, almost imperceptible historical refinement in the Chinese literati tradition is one that gives rise to a category of aesthetic feeling largely overlooked in the West, one that, in drawing on a Daoist- Confucian philosophical tradition, seeks to uphold a profound blandness at the very limits of what might be perceived as flavour that, nevertheless, through its sheer marginality has the potential to draw the reader/viewer into an aesthetic experience (journey) resonating with traces of the widest possible range of tastes.9

For Lu, the revival of this aesthetic tradition is not, however, simply a matter of a direct, unalloyed return to conventional forms of artistic production and reception—that is to say, to the calligraphic works and monochromatic ink and brush paintings usually associated with China’s older literati tradition. Rather, it is the revisiting of what Lu sees as a wider aesthetic sensibility, or “connoisseurship of life,” growing out of the demands of the contemporary condition of urbanized (post)modernity. As Lu would have it, within this arena “artists not only have re- excavated history to build new interpretations and perspectives,” they have also pieced together “these perspectives with the artists’ individual experience of contemporary life.” Consequently, argues Lu, contemporary Chinese visual artists can be understood to have drawn upon the discernibly heterogeneous aesthetic sensibilities of the literati tradition not as a means of simply recreating that tradition, but, instead, to “break with traditional presumptions regarding Chinese literati art” by embodying “the vertical synthesis of China’s 5000 years of cultural history into a neo-aesthetics”10 that is also “an interbreeding of global civilizations.”11

Here, Lu’s argument would therefore seem to proceed from an underlying assumption that the problematic spatio-temporal disorientation and consequent loss of any categorical sense of subject-object relations often attributed to our experience of postmodern hyper-space12 not only finds resonance within the aesthetics of the Chinese literati tradition, but, in doing so, opens up a situation within which the aesthetic sensibilities of the literati tradition might be revisited and positively re-motivated. Consequently, while Lu does not go on to apply her discussion of neo-literati aesthetics to a detailed analysis of individual works of art in the catalogue for Entry Gate, and while some may argue that the choice of works for the exhibition may not have been entirely consonant with its curator’s intentions, what nevertheless emerges is a line of thinking that arguably has the potential to address the notion of “Chineseness” from the standpoint of a continuing recognition of the heterogeneity of contemporary Chinese visual art, but in a manner that embraces that heterogeneity as means of looking beyond the limits of conventional Western theoretical-conceptual perspectives.

The arguments proposed by Gao and Lu in relation to The Wall and Entry Gate are in many ways a welcome advance upon the general disquiet that many, including Rasheed Araeen,13 have felt about the continuing post-colonialist Orientalization of non-Western art within the international,

28 Westernized gallery system. Both posit an understanding of contemporary Chinese visual art that, while it does not seek to deny the indebtedness of that art to preceding Western models, also asserts the possibility of a significant re-motivation of recognizably Westernized forms within the context of a distinctively Chinese sociocultural environment—rather than the other way around, as is usually the case in an international gallery context. Moreover, both envisage that re-motivation as part of the reworking of distinct and identifiable cultural identities within contemporary China.

However, while these contentions undoubtedly bring some weight to the continuing debate that surrounds contemporary Chinese visual art, it is not entirely clear that the theoretical-conceptual frameworks put forward by Gao and Lu in this regard are either as radical as they may at first seem or, indeed, in the terms given, entirely justifiable. To begin with, Gao’s call for a reassessment of contemporary Chinese visual art through a more precise understanding of the historical circumstances surrounding its production and reception within China, though presented in Yishu as a significant and pioneering development in the debate surrounding contemporary Chinese art,14 is in many ways a highly predictable one. More sober commentators, skeptical of the wilder dealings of Western post-structuralist theory, would almost certainly look to Gao’s intervention as one that seeks to make the arguably common sense point that in approaching a given object of art-historical analysis, there is a continuing need for sensitivity to the specific contexts of time and place within which it is both produced and received and to the actual consequences of its production and reception in relation to those contexts. Indeed, more rigorous exponents of post- structuralist theory and practice would themselves almost certainly uphold such a view insofar as they would regard it as impossible to detach a text from its interaction with a wider sociocultural milieu without re-entering into an unduly and arbitrarily limiting neo-formalism.

Furthermore, it is not entirely clear that a Chinese cultural identity can be disentangled as cleanly from its Western counterpart as Gao would wish. While there are numerous points of substantial difference between Chinese and Western culture, it would be wrong to assume that they are simply antithetical to one another or that each has proceeded historically in total isolation from its counterpart. For example, there has been a long-standing historical process of cultural interaction and exchange between China and the West that has at various times seen each take the other’s artistic production and reception as an influence on its own. In recent years, there has arguably been a rebalancing of the historical tendency for that interaction and exchange to be of greater intensity in its movement from east to west. Moreover, Western philosophy has had a long- standing fascination with a Chinese “other” that it has attempted both to marginalize (Goethe, Russell) and assimilate (Leibniz). Conversely, Chinese thought has itself been marked by reciprocal strivings to come to terms with Western discourse, most notably, perhaps, the instrumental force of Western scientific rationalism. Consider here, for example, the May 4th movement and Mao Zedong’s upholding of dialectical materialism. Further to which, while it would almost certainly be wrong to map one straightforwardly and simplistically upon the other, there is arguably something of a conceptual similarity between the paradoxical modes of thought characteristic of the Chinese Daoist-Confucian philosophical tradition and the counter-rationalism of Western post-structuralism. Indeed, here, as Lu has indicated, rather than simply being straightforwardly inimical to one another, the trajectory of Chinese and Western intellectual traditions can arguably be understood to have found in recent years a certain amount of common ground through which to engage with the present state of economic and cultural globalization and the West’s associated conceptualization of post-modernity.

29 In addition to this, it could also be argued that Gao significantly underplays the potential of deconstructive theory and practice to attend to ways in which ideas have developed over time within differing sociocultural contexts. As Terry Eagleton has indicated, at its most rigorous, deconstruction cannot be divided from a close scrutiny of the historical narration of thought.15 Consequently, while the theory and practice of deconstruction can be understood as having the potential to severely undermine conventional notions of historical accretion and continuity, it should not be viewed, in Gao’s terms, as straightforwardly antipathetic to a detailed form of “historical” analysis. It can therefore be averred that rather than simply being a ready means of destabilizing any rational spatio-temporal ordering of the “present” relationship between the Western avant-garde and contemporary Chinese art, deconstruction also offers the possibility of detailed attention to the circumstances surrounding the extended interaction and exchange between Western and Chinese cultural traditions. When viewed from within this particular locus of thought, Gao’s own attempt in The Wall to articulate a multifaceted analysis of shifting Chinese cultural identities would seem to suggest, through its conspicuous incorporation of notions such as the reconstruction of history and myth, the continuing dislocation and displacement of social space, as well as dislocations and conversions between art language and context, something closer to deconstructive enactments of “history” as an unfolding chain of re-contextualizations and re- motivations than a logically structured set of historical relationships between texts and contexts.16 In light of this, Gao’s position could be understood to enfold a significant doubling back, one that sees him on the one hand upholding in print the existence of an “original Chinese context and its historical development”17 while at the same time performing an analysis of Chinese cultural identity through the presentation of a conspicuously Westernized avant-garde visual art that, as Gao himself agrees, severely compromises any notion of historical continuity and originality.

From this theoretical-conceptual locus, it is therefore possible to think of contemporary Chinese visual art as inescapably enmeshed—regardless of any genealogy of cultural hybridity that could and can be drawn up to undermine the primacy of Western art—with the prior example set by Western historical and neo avant-gardes. Consequently, despite the undeniable, and indeed necessary, openness of that art to reception from a position immersed in Chinese socio-cultural discourse, it is arguably always already itself a hybrid that, as such, invites attention both from the standpoint of the Western and Chinese social and cultural traditions—indeed, it might also be argued, from an undecideable, deconstructive “conceptuality” that plays across the boundary between the two. Put more simply, it is not at all clear that contemporary Chinese visual art can be addressed, given the complex circumstances of its historical development, simply from a Chinese cultural perspective without arbitrarily limiting our understanding of its significance.

Further, there is also a danger in relation to Gao’s position—arguably more sharply drawn by Lu’s assertions in the catalogue to Entry Gate—of the invocation of some sort of alignment between the presentation of contemporary Chinese art and (re)assertions of a belief in the actual distinctiveness of a Chinese national cultural identity. Seen from a Western standpoint—with its now widely ingrained distrust of ontological certainty—an alignment of this sort runs the distinct risk of an unjustifiable and ideologically questionable appeal to notions of cultural essentialism.

Gao’s position, while a telling and timely critique of the deterritorializing tendencies of transnational scholarly and curatorial presentation of contemporary Chinese art, is therefore open to criticism on the grounds that it implies an inversion of the polarities of Occidental-Oriental cultural reception in a manner that does not seem, in its present form at least, to pay sufficient

30 attention to the complex and potentially unresolvable discursive interaction between the two that is played out in relation to the corpus of contemporary Chinese art. What remains, then, is perhaps another archaeology, one that countenances from the outset the validity and necessity of the reception of contemporary Chinese art from the locus of an engagement with the history of Chinese culture and society but that does not overlook by turns a detailed comparative study of that reception in relation to the analysis of contemporary Chinese art from a Western cultural and intellectual standpoint; an indeterminate bifurcation of view points arguably prefigured and embodied by the inescapably hybrid standing of contemporary Chinese art.

Lu’s arguments in this regard are themselves open to criticism on similar grounds. While a Chinese literati aesthetic can be persuasively differentiated from traditional Western approaches to artistic production and reception, it is also possible, as Lu herself has argued, to discern a certain resonance between Chinese literati art’s irrational sense of subjective immersion and more recent Western conceptualizations of postmodernity—conceptualizations whose own irrationalism, having long been marginalized by the Western art-historical/philosophical tradition, could be averred from the locus of Wetern post-structuralism.18 Consequently, it can be argued that, while Chinese literati art and that traditionally produced in the West differ significantly in both form and content, their extended “histories” should not be separated out categorically one from the other—the former can be understood to invoke a continuing strain of conceptual illimitability resonant with that eventually seized upon by Western postmodernists.

Here it would appear, as previously suggested, that despite evident differences between the Western theory and practice of deconstruction and the Daoist-Confucian sense of immersive insipidity upon which Chinese literati art draws, both can nevertheless be understood to share a certain amount of common philosophical-conceptual ground. Clearly, while a deconstructive unsettling of opposing, asymmetrically poised concepts does not coincide precisely with thinking in the Chinese Daoist-Confucian philosophical tradition, which has (somewhat paradoxically from a Western rationalist perspective) conventionally sought to emphasize mutuality and reciprocity (yin, yang)19 and unity (yi ti; he yi; he, tai he)20 as persistent foils to continuing difference, there is in both cases a pervasive suspension of fixed conceptual boundaries. Furthermore, it could also be argued that this suspension is not simply a matter of detached intellectual wilfulness, but arises in both instances out of a concrete phenomenological engagement with the world that demonstrably confirms the practical futility of all attempts to secure lasting transcendental categories of meaning. On this basis, it is therefore possible to envisage, if not a direct correlation between Chinese Daoist-Confucian philosophy and deconstruction, some sort of continuing (though, perhaps, ultimately unresolvable) dialogue between the two.

It might then be contended that Lu’s position, like Gao’s, involves a doubling back on itself. On the one hand, she would seem to be at pains to emphasize the cultural distinctiveness of the Chinese literati tradition, arguing, as she does, that this tradition embraces an attitude “fundamentally different from that of the West.”21 At the same time, however, Lu would also seem to accept not only a certain resonance between that attitude and the heterogeneity of a postmodern, globalized culture, but, in addition, its conspicuous interactive entanglement with Western cultural influence—an entanglement that can be understood to reveal, when seen through the refracting lens of Western post-structuralism (although she does not herself argue the point), the perpetually uncertain spatiotemporal standing of assumed boundaries between Chinese cultural theory and practice and that of the West.

31 Doubtless, Gao would argue in response to these interventions that contemporary Chinese visual art has simply been dragged back, kicking and screaming, onto the ground of Westernized discourse in a manner that continues to draw our focus violently away from a detailed and necessary consideration of what it is that currently circumscribes its distinctive quality of “Chineseness.” However, any such reading could also, while running the risk, as previously suggested, of a problematic appeal to some sort of cultural essentialism, be seen to involve a further unnecessary abuse of deconstructive theory and practice related to that described previously. While numerous commentators, including Gao, have sought to frame deconstruction’s apparent ahistoricism as a paradoxically limiting assumption of the universal applicability of Western theory in relation to cultural and social contexts, such as those of China, which have their own distinct theoretical-conceptual traditions, on closer analysis this cannot be shown definitively to be the case. Deconstruction is—if it is to be defined at all—a form of close analytical reading that does not set out, in its most rigorous form, at least, from an assumption of its own absolute state of being. Rather, it accepts from the outset that as an intervention upon, and extension to, an existing chain of discursive signification, it too represents nothing more than a false entry into the play of meaning that remains open to the possibility of further linguistic re-contextualization and re-motivation. As such, deconstruction can therefore be understood as having the potential to productively interact with, rather than simply overwrite, existing categories of meaning.

While one may feel accord with the strategic desires of Gao and Lu to bring more strongly into play questions of Chinese sociocultural identity and their relationship to the production and reception of contemporary Chinese visual art, it is nevertheless unclear that their particular views on how, in fact, that might be achieved are entirely justifiable. Indeed, although neither clearly intends to do so, both present theoretical-conceptual frameworks that arguably have the potential to erect new barriers (walls) surrounding our understanding of contemporary Chinese visual art, thereby blocking off openings (entry gates) for a potential dialogue between East and West. Moreover, their stances might be interpreted by other less considered thinkers as license to present contemporary Chinese art as an expression of some sort of categorical national cultural identity or essence—a move with self-evident ideological overtones.

This is not to say that we should return ourselves simply to the status quo of Westernized discourses on the subject of contemporary Chinese visual art. As both Gao and Lu rightly point out, such perspectives are themselves unduly narrow in their outlook. Rather, this is to suggest that the undecidable standing of contemporary Chinese visual art, shuttling as it does between differing aesthetic and cultural traditions, is one that deserves a more complex reading than either Gao or Lu offer at present.

32 Notes 1 See Gao Minglu, The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art (Buffalo: Buffalo Fine Arts Academy, 2006). 2 Victoria Lu and Miriam Sun, eds., Entry Gate: Chinese Aesthetics of Heterogeneity (Shanghai: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 2006). 3 Yü Christina Yü, “Curating Chinese Art in the Twenty-First Century: An Interview with Gao Minglu,” Yishu (March 2006), 24. 4 See Zhou Yan, “Chinese Brand and Chinese Method: On the Exhibition The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art,” Yishu (March 2006), 11. 5 Yü, 24. 6 Yü, 28. 7 Lu and Sun, 15. 8 Yü, 28. As Gao Minglu makes clear in his interview in Yishu with Christina Yu, he also recognizes the emergence of “new traditionalists” or “new literati” in relation to contemporary Chinese art. 9 François Jullien, In Praise of Blandness (New York: Zone Books, 2004). 10 Lu and Sun, 16. 11 Lu and Sun, 18. 12 Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism (London: Verso, 1991), 38–45. 13 Rasheed Araeen, “A New Beginning: Beyond Postcolonial Cultural Theory and Identity Politics,” Third Text (Spring 2000), 3–20. 14 Yü, 23. Here Yu argues that while Gao Minglu is not alone in having voiced concerns about the use of Western theoretical- conceptual discourse to discuss contemporary Chinese visual art, he is “a pioneer in proposing some alternatives to the problem.” 15 Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), 148. 16 Hal Foster, The Return of the Real (Cambridge, Mass. and London: MIT Press, 1996). In The Return of the Real, Foster gives a persuasive and detailed demonstration of how deconstructive thinking could be used to narrate the complex historical development of contemporary visual art. 17 Yü, 23 18 See Paul Gladston, Art History After Deconstruction (Auckland: Magnolia Books, 2005). 19 Zhang Dainian, Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Edmund Ryden (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), 83. 20 Zhang, 266–270. 21 Lu, 16.

33 Starting from Zero: Wang Jianwei David Ho Yeung Chan

“[China’s development] seems to be cut off again and again, and every time you start from zero. You choose to forget, to deny, and as a consequence everything becomes a source of anxiety.” 1

his recent quote from artist Wang Jianwei encapsulates the essence of China's current frenzied development. In the name of modernization, the appetite for economic progress Tin a highly accelerated setting prevents many from obtaining a critical distance from what is happening around them. The statement by Wang Jianwei on anxiety is not made on a pessimistic note; instead, it suggests that the total assault on our senses offers a rich theatre for the proposal of new interpretations of time and space. Wang Jianwei’s practice is not a mere therapeutic exercise for a society that has gone haywire. Rather, Wang’s project lies in redefining the role of artist within a broader social domain, provoking a necessary space for the critique of normal situations, and fostering alternative forms of dialogue between artists and the public.

Wang Jianwei is an important figure in the contemporary Chinese art scene. He is one of the very few artists who has investigated the relationships among cultural production, society, power, and knowledge. After having graduated from secondary school in 1975, Wang was sent to the countryside for re-education. During this period, he observed peasants’ lives and their social conditions. During his study at the former Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou from 1985 to 1987, Wang was heavily influenced by French existentialist figures such as Camus and Sartre. He soon came to question the adequacy of painting as a means of expressing his concepts. In 1991, Wang abandoned painting and began to experiment with new media, and he completed his first video in 1995. Wang is not entirely interested in delivering a singular message to the audience. He states: “I consider myself to be a sociological observer, in the same manner as when I worked within theatre. I am not interested to know if my work is perceived as that of an artist or not, but it becomes as a form of experimentation in itself.” 2

First shown at Documenta 10, held at Kassel, Germany, in 1997, the video Production records the daily activity of different tea houses in the countryside. Shot in a documentary manner using a combination of still shots, zoom, and panning techniques, Wang seemingly captures the factual life experience of commune workers in five different counties across Sichuan province. One may discount the work as purely anthropological in its approach, but in fact the artist ponders issues surrounding artistic production. Why do artists produce artworks? For whom does the artist produce the artwork, and, more importantly, what are the subtle understandings between cultural producers and the public after the presentation of the artwork? Running contrary to the assumption that Wang’s oeuvre simply counters an ideological structure, art operates as a subtext for proposing a new space for negotiation, and, in his own words, “between artistic and non- artistic identity, between spaces related and unrelated to art, without providing any conclusive explanation.” 3

The title From the Mass, to the Mass (2000) was taken from quotations by Mao Zedong. Emancipatory socialist experiments conducted in the name of the people presuppose a cohesive collective, denying the plurality of individuals. Not entirely interested in representing such

34 a binary opposition, Wang examines the issue of spatial control. Wang’s two-channel video projection depicts two public spaces: one located outside a generic building inside a city, the other in a playground with students who are lined up listening to a public announcement. Wang documents the children’s movements in slow motion. Their eyes are gazing back at the audience and their movements seem instrumentalized. For the second part of the projection, Wang tracks the magical movement of a deserted plastic bag in a public space that ascends from the ground by a sudden draft of air. The juxtaposition of the unpredictable movement of a fleeting vessel versus strict behavioral regimentation in an institution sheds light on the everyday as the remaining site for freedom.

His cross-disciplinary artistic practice of engaging with theatre, performance, and new media is apparent in a work entitled Ceremony (2004), which was presented at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. His video Spider (2003) documents various masked characters inside an Internet building and brings to the Wang Jianwei, From the Mass, to the Mass, 2000, video fore issues of information control and social installation, 20 min. Courtesy of the artist. conformity. A more recent project entitled Flying Bird Is Motionless (2006) proposes multiple interpretations of a given moment. Taken from the Greek philosopher Zeno’s claim that a flying arrow is in fact motionless throughout its entire trajectory (because time is composed of isolated moments) and using the epic of Yang Jiajiang from the Song dynasty as the plot for his video, the work restages a popular fighting scene inside a closed, generic interior. The actors are given different roles to play and are then instructed to kill one another. In particular, Wang is interested in the way the actors disrupt a given narrative with their own actions and in doing so create a “non-site,” in a Robert Smithson sense, that is devoid of any real meaning. This can be read as a commentary on the deep sense of displacement from history in contemporary society.

Wang Jianwei, Flying Bird Is Motionless, 2006, video, 6 mins., 30 secs. Courtesy of the artist.

35 Wang’s new project is titled DODGE. The concept of DODGE comes from Jorge Luis Borges’s Book of Imaginary Beings, which claims that the possibilities for understanding the world are always uncertain. The focus of my initial discussion with the artist was to reflect upon the process of urbanization in China in an implicit manner. In creating a large-scale interdisciplinary project, DODGE stages a crisis that investigates the hidden potential of a compressed temporal and spatial environment. Incorporating architectural fragments (in the form of a toppled skyscraper lying on its side), human prototypes, video projection, and photographs, DODGE simulates a transitory state between the aural and the visual, the bodily and the architectural, the real and the imaginary, the private and the public, transforming the gallery space into a live theatre wherein individual elements function as props that provoke another meta-narrative to unfold.

The key artwork in DODGE is the toppled building, which is overwhelming in size and doubles as a staircase, covered with white, lava-like material that flows downward. Four human figures, slightly resembling those in Marcel Duchamp’s painting Nude Descending A Staircase (1912), appear as though they are being propelled forward. With architectural fragments protruding from individual bodies, the figures gradually become deformed, moving from being recognizable to becoming a mass of white matter on the floor. What we witness is a catastrophe executed to create a hybrid of architectural, figurative, and organic experiences. Approaching the building from its “base,” one sees a pink, hollow interior with a small mirror tucked inside that brings to mind a human organ. It follows that the gallery space is utterly transformed into an urban theater, and the overall landscape provokes psychological unrest.

Wang Jianwei, DODGE, 2006, installation, video 8 mins., 35 secs.. Courtesy of the artist.

36 Wang Jianwei, DODGE, 2006, installation, video 8 mins., 35 secs. Courtesy of the artist.

In many ways, the video constitutes the key to the entire exhibition. The video is housed inside a generic viewing chamber; it is as if the artist had sliced off a segment of another generic highrise and randomly inserted it inside the gallery. For the video, Wang rented a karaoke television space in Beijing and transformed it into an ad-hoc hospital. As we grow ever more accustomed to the multiple demands made upon a given public space, it seems almost normal for these spaces to coexist. The video opens with a shot that navigates down a long corridor of a karaoke television bar and surveys different patients awaiting treatment. The coupling of different spaces, in this case an entertainment venue and a hospital, is complimented by the sound of a moving train that penetrates the exhibition space. The effect is of sitting inside a train compartment, like a time capsule from Wong Kar Wai’s film 2046, suffering from the amnesia of time travel. The video surveys actors of varying ages accessing different spaces of the karaoke bar. In one scene, the actors are all lined up to watch a television screen that simulates a highly speculative environment. They might be in a stock market or witnessing a horse race. The initial exhilaration of a sure victory is followed by disappointment that amounts to nothing. The nurses in uniform then proceed to inspect one of the bystanders in the room. In the subsequent scene, a patient is being transported into another room for treatment. As the patient and the nurses enter the room, there are young and old people singing and dancing in front of a television on one side, while on the other side is an immobile patient reclining on a bed pending resuscitation. This juxtaposition of images of bodily submission with images of bodily control and autonomy comments on our contradictory demands on public spaces. A sense of social sickness is evident in the two photographic works in the exhibition that show figures with protrusive body parts. Whether one wishes to accept this predicament or not, the only way to negotiate it is to become more adaptable and to grow accustomed to divergent activities in a compressed space. To be cured and be entertained becomes a survival strategy for the onslaught of urbanization.

Wang Jianwei may be the modern character of Chinese novelist Tsui Pen as described in Borges’s short story "The Garden of Forking Paths." Tsui Pen spent thirteen years of his life constructing a labyrinth that everyone would become lost in. Borges writes:

I thought of a labyrinth of labyrinths, of one sinuous spreading labyrinth that would encompass the past and future and in some way involve the stars. Absorbed in these illusionary images, I forgot my destiny of one pursued. I felt myself to be, for an unknown period of time, an abstract perceiver of the world. 4

37 Wang Jianwei, DODGE, 2006, stills from video 8 mins., 35 secs. Courtesy of the artist.

Wang is far from being just an abstract perceiver. He does not forget the destiny of his pursuit, which is to contemplate the relationship among artistic production, the role of the artist, and the public. Wang wholeheartedly accepts uncertainty as a permanent condition for his contingent practice. The constellation of his rich practice is like a labyrinth of labyrinths, responding at will to what is happening with different methodologies, but never being pinned down by a particular medium. In the pervasiveness of the current commercial art system, Wang stands out as an advocate for preserving the intellectual value of the artist and for engaging openly with the new public of a tumultuous society.

Notes 1 Marianne Brouwer, "Wang Jianwei—Producing the Real," in Touching the Stones—China Art now, ed. Waling Boers (Beijing: Timezone 8, 2007), 71. 2 Statement by Wang Jianwei. 3 Francesca Dal Lago, "Space and Public: Site Specificity in Beijing," inArt Journal (Spring 2000). 4 Jorge Luis Borges, "The Garden of Forking Paths," in Labyrinths (London: Penguin Books, 2000), 48.

38 Shock and Awe: An Interview with Cai Guo-Qiang John K. Grande

John K. Grande: I am interested in the theatrical aspect of your work, not a theatre of objects and materials, but transient events like Christo and Jeanne-Claude, although even more ephemeral.

Cai Guo-Qiang: The era we are living in is totally transient. Politicians are actors; voters become performers and appreciators. The roles have changed. Even in war, the play we are putting on is very theatrical.

John K. Grande: Out of chaos we create culture.

Cai Guo-Qiang: If it is too clean, there is no way we can make any culture or art. The best place for an artist to be is between black and white.

John K. Grande: But you said the twentieth century is the era where everyone can be an artist, and the twenty-first century is the era in which every place can become a museum. If life is a museum, there is no death.

Cai Guo-Qiang: That is what Jean-Francois Lyotard said: “We have never been born.”

John K. Grande: And these are some of the gunpowder drawings. . . . You did a gunpowder drawing in Vancouver at the Charles H. Scott Gallery some time back.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Yes. In 2001, the drawing, Fountain, was made directly on the wall and there was a point where gunpowder was placed too high on the wall. The gallery had to call the fire department to extinguish the fire.

Cai Guo-Qiang, Long Scroll: Inopportune: Stage One, 2006, installed at the National Gallery of Canada, Shawinigan, Québec. Photo: Kazuo Ono. Courtesy of the artist.

39 John K. Grande: In a sense, the theatre of fireworks presents an element of uncontrollability, of something that is very much like nature’s processes.

Cai Guo-Qiang: I actually call my work “explosion projects” rather than “fireworks.” I am more interested in the explosion, which is the nature of gunpowder reactions. Fireworks are only one type of explosion.

John K. Grande: Do you feel the restricted environment in China before it became an open society was an impetus for the original Cai Guo-Qiang, Transient Rainbow, 2002, event in New York City. Photo: Hiro gunpowder works? Ihara. Courtesy of the artist.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Partially, yes. There is a saying in Chinese that goes: “When a thing reaches its extremity, it will reverse its course.” My use of gunpowder as a source of creativity was to liberate myself from the repressive political system and the burdensome cultural heritage. It is more of a personal act and reaction. Gunpowder in Chinese actually means “fire medicine.” Though it has traditional associations, I used it in a way to actually break with those traditions and to develop my own language.

John K. Grande: Some critics have likened this work to a scroll painting or a panoramic vision. . . . But these environments are still filled with objects, very much a material metaphor, something that remains a window we look through into a three-dimensional scene.

Cai Guo-Qiang: You are right. I made Inopportune: Stage One (2004) in a form that resembles three-dimensional scrolls. I also added the dimension of time to this installation. When you pass by the cars suspended in mid-air, you see the light shift from one end to the other on the lighting rods. There is this element of time in the installation. It is like explosions; there are time and different segments within the process. My earlier work Project for Extending the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters (1993) was an opening-up of the Gobi Desert with gunpowder, almost like opening up a scroll into the Gobi Desert. By the same token, the Transient Rainbow Project over the East River in New York (2002) also has this element of “opening up a scroll.”

John K. Grande: An unrolling or unfolding process. Does the element of artificiality you introduce into your work also have this notion that life is a window we look into through art?

Cai Guo-Qiang: Not just a window to look at life, but also a window to look through at our society. Through that lens we can also be connected to tradition.

John K. Grande: So we are not that different from animals.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Of course there is a difference between humans and animals, but to me, when I am making an artwork, I tend to anthropomorphize the animals, and to make them appear in a sympathetic fashion. I tend to choose fierce animals like tigers or crocodiles to demonstrate how we as humans have similar characteristics, even if we have these civilized institutions,

40 laws, and ethics. But in the end these artworks are intended to remind people of our animal qualities.

John K. Grande: All these arrows in your tigers remind me of your piece called Borrow Your Enemy’s Arrows (1998) in which arrows are used to construct a boat or vehicle that can carry one through life or on a journey. Can

Cai Guo-Qiang, Transparent Monument: Nontransparent you tell me something about the Earthworm Monument, 2006, installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: Hiro Ihara. Courtesy of the artist. Room (1998)?

Cai Guo-Qiang: This was done at the Bard Center for Curatorial Studies museum in 1998. I was invited and had only $1,000 in resources to realize my project. The piece, called New York Earthworm Room, was a comment on Walter de Maria’s Earth Room.

I had seen the de Maria piece at Dia Foundation. I wondered why this land art piece looked so dead. I wondered why there was no grass, no growth in the piece. I wanted to show the power of the earth. So I wanted to make a work about the power of nature. The grass kept growing throughout the duration of the piece, and the earthworms’ interactions continued throughout as well. Coming from a tradition in the museum that every curator must show a work from a collection and re-contextualize it, my work posed the question whether it was possible to re- contextualize a work, to give it a new meaning through re-making a concept in a new way.

John K. Grande: I feel that Asian artists have less fear of imitation than Western artists. One might consider the Cave of 1000 Buddhas in Japan, where objects are replicated over centuries. This act of replication existed in Western societies—in the icon, for example—and so there is originality in replication as much as there is in avant-garde art with its endless search for novelty. In Venice, you had one artist replicate his own work.

Cai Guo-Qiang: It was replication in the manner of the masters. In the 1960s in China, under the government’s guidance, artisans made realistic sculptures to depict the pain of the feudal system.

Cai Guo-Qiang, Transparent Monument: Nontransparent Monument, 2006, installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: Hiro Ihara. Courtesy of the artist.

41 Cai Guo-Qiang, Transparent Monument: Clear Sky Black Cloud, 2006, event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Photo: Teresa Christensen. Courtesy of the artist.

That was what my work at the 1999 Venice Biennale was: having one of the original Chinese sculpture masters re-perform the act of making the same works that he made in the 60s and bringing historical realism into the realm of contemporary art.

John K. Grande: Does nature always create without consciousness?

Cai Guo-Qiang: That is a very complicated question. Einstein and Tagore once had a debate over whether astronomy would ever mean anything if we had removed the Earth. The poet insisted that without people contemplating what this Earth means, it is all meaningless. Same analogy: flowers are beautiful, but without anybody appreciating them, then there is no such discussion about flowers or beauty.

John K. Grande: But they are still a part of the economy of nature. . . . Feng shui theory suggests that when you have a setting, people have to use it in a way that is not destructive to that place. This can apply to exhibitions as well, and to the arrangement of art in them.

Some people say assemblage is a bringing together of different elements. From a Native American perspective, it is a taking away from a context.

Cai Guo-Qiang: The artist’s role is not like a lawyer’s. Artists are not here to judge. They are not supposed to resolve conflicts. Conflicts are always there.

John K. Grande: At the Guggenheim in 1996 you made a piece that won the Hugo Boss Prize that is actually now part of the Guggenheim Collection. Can you tell me something about this piece?

Cai Guo-Qiang: The work, Cry Dragon/Cry Wolf: The Ark of Genghis Khan, consists of a series of Toyota car engines and sheepskin rafts that are traditionally used for transportation in Mongolia, even today. This is a work that develops a dialogue between the old and new. It is also a work that comments on the ancient Chinese power in connection with the car culture of today.

42 Cai Guo-Qiang, The Earth Has Its Black Hole Too: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 16, 1994, event in Hiroshima, Japan. Photo: Kunio Oshima. Courtesy of the artist.

John K. Grande: There are the monuments in New York on the roof of the Metropolitan this past summer. There are two of these: Transparent Monument and Non-Transparent Monument.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Transparent Monument is a fifteen-foot pane of glass sitting on the rooftop that frames the midtown Manhattan skyline, and there are fake dead birds that are placed on a pedestal underneath.

John K. Grande: Does the Non-Transparent Monument allude to the September 11th tragedy?

Cai Guo-Qiang: It is a nine-panel stone relief that has images of the contemporary world. This sculpture was made by artisans in China and uses images that I picked from the contemporary mass media. The images are recognizable and reference events one encounters in the news like the tsunami, portraits of world leaders, Hurricane Katrina, cloning, and plastic surgery. A small puff of black smoke was ignited each day from the rooftop of the Met during the summer in a ritual ceremonial called Clear Sky Black Cloud. It is a multi-faceted piece. My work does not use the Western approach of a single perspective. Instead, it has multiple perspectives.

John K. Grande: Do you find that Japan changed your aesthetic as an artist from China?

Cai Guo-Qiang: I feel the precision and my use of materials changed quite dramatically. When you look at traditional Chinese artists, whatever they paint or write, it is conceptual and political, with social commentary. In other words, they express political and social concerns through their work. Their concepts fit into whatever method they have to create their art. Japanese artists are very fixated on what materials they use, how they use them, and the details of their manufacture.

John K. Grande: That is like the Amerindian artists who have no hierarchy of materials and perceive them quite objectively in comparison with Western artists.

Cai Guo-Qiang: In the Chinese cultural tradition most people are conceptual, but they are less formalist, and people in Japan have a very different approach. For instance, when I make a

43 gunpowder drawing I am very particular about which type of gunpowder I use. It is important. The various literati painters in the Ming and Qing dynasties, for example, were very particular about what sort of ink they used for a particular scroll or composition. As you move towards the present, artists have become very eager to express what their frustrations may be, rather than concentrating on the material. This is true for the whole of society.

John K. Grande: But this can go full circle. An individual expression without an audience or a social context is not effective in any way.

Cai Guo-Qiang: I am not saying that either way is better.

John K. Grande: We are told that Chinese culture now is much more social than Japanese.

Cai Guo-Qiang: The conflicts and problems in Chinese society are more progressive. It is more difficult to live in China than in Japan. That is why people in China are more ambitious and have many more expectations of the artist and what he or she may produce. There is a lot of satire, for instance.

John K. Grande: We live in a society that is very much oriented towards spectacle. The fireworks pieces are very much spectacles we witness. How do you perceive them as art?

Cai Guo-Qiang: First of all, when there is a work that has a strong conceptual backing such as the Project for Extending the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters, done in Jiayuguan, China (1993), or The Earth has a Black Hole Too, in Hiroshima, Japan (1994), you see curators and museum visitors there. You know this is a piece of art from the type of audience that attends. When you move that to a grand scale such as the Transient Rainbow (2002) over the East River in New York, and have thousands and thousands of spectators watching the event, much like they might do for 4th of July fireworks display, there is a very different sort of emotion. With an art museum as a background, it is much easier. The social or cultural comment is accepted as art. But when you translate that into a larger audience and when the budget is much bigger, there are much greater expectations, and with such a big spectacle, you cannot distinguish it from other large-scale events that are not art.

John K. Grande: Your work has theatrical aspects that bring to mind Ando from Japan and Kounellis from Greece, but you work in an altogether different way, for you conceive of audience on another plane.

Cai Guo-Qiang: Gunpowder is a dangerous material. With these huge explosion projects, the danger is no longer the gunpowder, but how this can be a work of art. As I create large-scale works, they relate more and more to ceremonies, and large events. Why are ceremonies not considered an art form? The Olympics have happened for thousands of years, and we have never considered them art.

John K. Grande: I believe Claude Levi-Strauss mentioned that dance was the first art.

Cai Guo-Qiang: How to make ceremony and festive events art is one of my preoccupations these days, it’s like a shaman’s role even. Fans, for instance, are part of the origins of art, as are ritualistic performances. The aesthetics of explosions are always somewhat imperfect, which is a relief.

44 A Conversation with Shen Yuan Cécile Bourne | Translated by Wanja Laiboni

The Chinese artist Shen Yuan consistently negotiates her relationship with the everyday by summoning collective stories and legends. She subverts degrees of value by rendering the useful useless and vice versa. From the resulting oppositions, she creates something often humorous and devoid of presumption. For more than fifteen years, and on an international level, this artist’s work has questioned the subjects in which she chooses to intervene. In recent years, she has resumed exhibiting in China, and she has several ambitious exhibitions in the planning stages. It therefore seemed to me important to do an interview with this artist, whose work is not particularly well known but nevertheless has caught the public’s attention since the exhibition Paris pour Escale at the Arc/Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris Shen Yuan, The Great Wall Growing Together with the Tree, 2005. Lego installation. Courtesy of Casino Luxembourg. in 2001.

Cécile Bourne: In the exhibition La Force de L’Art, held at the Grand Palais in 2006, curator Hou Hanru chose your piece La Route Paris/ Luxembourg, which was conceived last year for the Galerie Beaumont Public. Why was this work chosen?

Shen Yuan: As a matter of fact, when the gallery asked me to collaborate with them on a project, I immediately thought about my peculiar status in Luxembourg. I have always had to prove my identity there: when traveling by car or train I tend to be stopped for security checks. In light of this, I decided to turn the situation around by creating a customized car that was capable of effectively hiding money or other objects, like belts, jackets, and shoes. I found that bringing the car to Paris sums up, in a theatrical manner, the sociopolitical status of myself, and of artists in France today.

Cécile Bourne: While in Luxembourg, you participated in the exhibition Sous les ponts, le long de la rivière II (Beneath the Bridges, the Length of the River II).

Shen Yuan: The Great Wall Growing Together with the Tree (2005), the work I made for Luxembourg, represents a fusion Shen Yuan, La route Paris-Luxembourg, 2005, mixed media installation. Courtesy of the artist and Beaumontpublic, Luxembourg.

45 Left: Shen Yuan, La grande mureille du pays sud, 2005, ceramic and wood. Courtesy of the artist and Guangzhou Triennale. Right: Shen Yuan, Une feuille, un bateau, 2001, mixed media installation. Courtesy of the artist. between the world’s largest structure, the Great Wall of China, and Europe’s smallest country. It entails a transposition of the scale of two opposite forces that are harmonious in spite of their different, yet similar, proportions. In my opinion, the Great Wall can be likened to roots working their way up the side of a mountain. In Luxembourg, the Legos I used are like lead soldiers that climb an age-old tree growing from under the bridge near the fortress in Luxembourg. The choice of grey Legos also evokes the bricks of the Great Wall as well as the fortress of the city of Luxembourg.

For the Guangzhou Triennale last year, I also made a piece, The Great Wall in Southern China (2005), that incorporated a similar idea of a fortress taking root in the earth. In Guangzhou, there’s a tradition of making miniature models of existing houses as a way of inscribing them with a past. This work calls to mind present-day confrontations and unjust struggles between real estate agents and the memory of places that are undergoing redevelopment. Yet again, I wanted to show the distortion of scale between that which is small and without any apparent value and that which is monumental.

Cécile Bourne: In this permutation of scale, you transform our perception: one is no longer able to look at those symbols in the same way.

Shen Yuan: If the Great Wall was constructed over a period of two thousand years, this process sums up the Chinese problem. It was destroyed and reconstructed, a process which, over time, put a lot of people in danger. This is a process that continues today. And this is emblematic of the life of the Chinese: they want to protect themselves from others, like in some ancient dwellings. Everything is closed in these dwellings, leaving only a small door as an entrance. This is the case in the south of Fujian province, where I come from.

Cécile Bourne: You often borrow forms that establish links between everyday customs and people and bring to mind the notion of displacement.

Shen Yuan: In 2001, at the Centre d’art contemporain de Québec in Montréal I made a boat because my life is also linked to immigration. This boat was made with many woks: I chose the wok because the Chinese take their cuisine with them wherever they go. It is accompanied by the sound of troubadours singing Chinese songs, which evokes the journey, survival. . . . In Bristol, I

46 also used the boat as a reference to the fortune made by that city through slavery. Like in France or Great Britain, China also has a weighty history of slavery. At the bottom of the boat there was some salt. It was as if nothing remained of the ocean. With some artisans, I made fish bones with blue glass from Bristol, as it is specific to that city. For me, blue, the colour of the ocean, is also the colour of death, and it embodies the idea of survival.

Cécile Bourne: During the Rond Point project in Kinshasa, you made a boat from banana leaves. Could you talk about that project?

Shen Yuan: Actually, with imagination, everything is possible, even making a boat from banana leaves. During a workshop with eight-year-olds, we made all sorts of vehicles: lorries, cars, ambulances, and other kinds of little boats, rafts. . . . On this occasion, I also rediscovered my

Shen Yuan, Une feuille bananier, 2002, making the installation and drawings. Courtesy of the artist and Halle de la Gombé, Kinshasa.

47 Shen Yuan, Une feuille bananier, 2002, mixed media installation. Courtesy of the artist and Halle de la Gombé, Kinshasa. capacity to make do with minimal resources when I had nothing—like when I was a child in China at the end of the 1950s.

Cécile Bourne: Is the bridge also a symbol of one’s relationship with the actual occupation of space?

Shen Yuan: I was once called upon to do an outdoor piece in the park of Leerdam, a little Dutch town. Once every four years, a factory in this town solicits artists to make artwork with the glass bottles. I used both the town’s containers and the beer bottles that they manufacture. Bringing these elements together, I made a floating bridge that was functional. This suspended bridge gave lightness to the material and the original purpose of the recycled containers.

Cécile Bourne: Like your installation at the NMAC Foundation in Spain?

Shen Yuan: There, the idea was to link different cultures within the same proposition: the connecting of Chinese and Moroccan porcelain in the form of a Victorian bridge. This elegant and non-practical form is reminiscent of the contradictions of our time, which are inextricably linked to the mechanisms of exchange that allow for knowledge and the interpenetration of cultures. This bridge is situated in a north-south alignment, which is not an accident; the work is at the periphery of the South of Europe, a few kilometers from the Moroccan coast. This bridge reflects the architectural stylization and motifs typical of the Arab-Andalusian and Chinese cultures.

Cécile Bourne: You are participating in numerous projects in which your relationship to the public is more playful.

Shen Yuan: Yes. Actually, for the Gwangju Biennale that took place in Korea in September, I showed Kinder Surprise (2001). Here, also, one finds oneself in odd situations whereby proportions are inversed. Like in the exhibition that I’m going to do with Hou Hanru in Milan, I am making a piece like the one I did for the Liverpool Biennial in 2004, Trampolines 12345. It

48 is composed of five trampolines covered with maps of Chinatown in five different cities: New York, Paris, London, San Francisco, and Liverpool. The idea is that children can play in an adult’s environment. Like in Kinder Surprise, there is a carpet on the floor that is in the shape of a map of the world and is chocolate and white in colour. China is chocolate in colour and the rest of the world is set out in white. . . . How would I be able to make an abstract effect of this immense country on which all eyes are now riveted?

On the other hand, when I go to China, I now feel like a tourist. Even my way of speaking. . . . Recently someone asked me to write a sentence on immigration: I believe that it’s leaving one place in order to settle in another. Art allows me to surpass the limits of my doorstep and of time. When you stay in a country for a very long time, you inevitably change. You feel like a stranger to your own country, which changes a lot of things.

Cécile Bourne: In everything that you do, the gestures of daily life are very present. What form does that take in your relationship with China, where you no longer live? During your residency in Nanling last year, you worked on what the inhabitants of a village lived through in China during the 1950s.

Shen Yuan: Following a government order, eleven people were sent out to chop down trees. Today it’s an important village that is marked by its history. It was a place for punishment; subversive intellectuals were brought there and tortured. Then, when the forest was entirely destroyed, the government changed its stand and decided to replant trees. However, they cut water for generating electricity so as to make money. This is a typical story. Thus, the idea of the project in Nanling was to show the times, to think about history, and to write it down from the viewpoints of these women because until now, only men had written it. All this work was shown in the village. I also left behind a copy of all the documents.

Shen Yuan, Trampoline 12345, 2004, mixed media installation. Courtesy of the artist and Liverpool Biennial.

49 The Poetics of Engagement: Ed Pien and the Three-Dimensional World Interview by Joni Low

Joni Low: Let’s begin by talking about the foundation of your art practice: drawing. Your drawings are well known for their fascinatingly hybrid, grotesque, and sensual characteristics. How did you become interested in these forms and begin drawing in this manner?

Ed Pien: Guo Pu (276–324 AD), exponent of The Classics of Mountains and Seas, stated that “a thing is not strange in itself; it depends on me to make it strange.” My work is always about the figure. The grotesque and hybridized beings in my work challenge preconceived notions related to the idea of normality—what is acceptable, beautiful, and perfect. This has to do with the fact that as a child, I immigrated to Canada. This was in the late 1960s, and I moved with my family to a small city. It was culture shock. I couldn’t speak any English. I looked different and felt completely self-conscious and out of place.

I am also interested in the ways we present ourselves to the world and how different bodies are perceived by ourselves and by others. I believe there is an enormous difference between how one presents one’s body and how that same body is read by another.

Joni Low: In your series 3 Minute Drawings: Spectacle of the Body (1998–2005), you created a wall- sized panel of over two hundred drawings, most of which were produced within the time span of three minutes. How did this discipline inform the development of your practice? Is there a ritual element in your more recent work that has carried over from 3 Minute Drawings?

Ed Pien: I still make three-minute drawings. It is an incredible way to cull from the subconscious and the imagination. It also frees me from feeling obliged to make perfectly controlled and finished drawings—whatever that means. Three minutes provides just enough time to put marks

Ed Pien, Promise of Solitude, 2006, installation detail, paper, wood, ink. Photo: Ilsoo Kyung MacLaurin. Courtesy of the artist and Centre A, Vancouver.

50 down and realize an image. When the time is up I can let that image go and tackle the next blank sheet of paper. The drawing sessions last from two to six hours, non- stop. Though they are intense and disciplined, at the same time it is a tremendously liberating way to draw.

In terms of how it carries over to my recent work, some of the mark- making is similar and the focus is still on the body. The approach has become more involved as the Ed Pien, Promise of Solitude, 2006, installation detail, paper, wood, ink. Photo: drawings have expanded onto Ilsoo Kyung MacLaurin. Courtesy of the artist and Centre A, Vancouver. larger papers that are pieced together. I have also begun to visually break down the figures even more. The bodies are opened up and the boundary of the body is ambiguously defined. These are my attempts to achieve a sense of movement and suggest that the figures are undergoing some form of transformation. It is my strategy to achieve a sense of non-fixity.

Joni Low: This is interesting, since you’ve mentioned before how you don’t like to have things fixed, a preference which is reflected in your choice of medium—drawing is very mobile, flexible, inexpensive. Would you say that nothing is fixed in your world?

Ed Pien: The destabilized state that I attempt to realize in my work is purely conceptual and imaginary. My engagement with it is also temporary. It would be quite uncomfortable and dangerous if one were to be living in it all the time.

Joni Low: Much of your work traverses a liminal space—where the distinction between creatures, genders, cultures, and emotions are often blurred. Is this related to your imaginary space and your world view?

Ed Pien: Everything is in flux. This flux is slow enough that human beings don’t have a chance to notice it most of the time. Change also occurs in terms of ideas or thinking, it occurs through time, and through reconsideration and re-evaluation of ourselves and of the rest of the world.

Joni Low: You’ve also described your practice as an "obsession with making," and indeed, passion can border on obsession. How do you balance your existence within this imaginary space and not be consumed by it?

Ed Pien: Quite simply, real life takes over and pulls me out of it. I can’t control that. For instance, I have to teach, I have a partner, I have a life to live. In terms of daily realities, I’m constantly pulled away from being completely consumed by my work. While I am working, it is consuming and obsessive because of my process and having to address the fragility of the materials used for the installations.

51 The artist Paul Mathieu and I were talking about this in relation to The Promise of Solitude at Centre A in Vancouver. It’s important to me that although a lot of work is put into the piece, it doesn’t look unnecessarily laboured.

Joni Low: Yes, I get the sense with your work that it’s very methodical, very process-based, and requires a lot of patience. However, the resulting energy conveyed to the viewer is not of exhaustion, but of vitality. It almost seems as though you create a structure of discipline by relinquishing some of your control of the art and the process of making it, where you can let your consciousness go and let things have their own life.

Ed Pien: Right, and there are always constraints. The materials I choose dictate the process and approach: at a certain point either the materials break or I do. I’m limited by physical materiality and what my body can do. There’s no sense in pushing materials if they will break or stress out. So I do have constraints—some I don’t wish to have, but that’s just the way it is living in a three- dimensional and gravity-based world. Drawing is more liberating because I can create a realm where the only limitation is the two-dimensional surface that will hold it; within that, the work is bounded by the limit of my imagination.

Joni Low: Yet you have even pushed the limits of that two-dimensionality with your installations, where you build up your drawings into walls and labyrinths. Your kite works also bring your drawings to life in a very performative way. Can you talk about your loyalty to drawing as the foundation of your work?

Ed Pien: If I was to take drawing for granted it would become uninteresting for me. Drawing is important for all the reasons we’ve discussed so far, and for other possibilities that I’m still exploring. The appeal of drawing lies in its sense of open-endedness. Furthermore, it is accessible to almost everyone because a drawing is relatively inexpensive to make. There is a common ground from which everyone can begin, so drawing is very democratic.

Joni Low: Recently there has been a surge of interest in drawing as a relevant medium in contemporary art. Why do you think this is? Can you talk a bit about how this has evolved during your practice as an artist, teacher, and curator?

Ed Pien: I began to take drawing seriously around 1994. At that time in the art world there was already a general sentiment that drawing was gaining more attention and greater status. From my research into the recent history of Canadian drawing, I found that during the 1970s drawing (printmaking too) was quite popular. I was curious why the interest in drawing and the activity of drawing waned and why recently the relevancy of drawing re-emerged. Interest Ed Pien, Promise of Solitude, 2006, installation detail, paper, wood, ink. Photo: Ilsoo Kyung MacLaurin. Courtesy of the artist and Centre A, Vancouver. in drawing seems to rise and fall

52 like the tides—and our memory of drawing’s past is very short. I think the cycle will repeat itself at a certain point in time.

Currently, drawing is hugely popular, and I surmise it is partly tied to the rise in popularity of comics. The recognition of comics as a legitimate art form is fairly recent but long overdue. There is a strong relationship between drawing and comics. The approach to comics could be as direct and similarly democratic as drawing. Besides, most of us were exposed to comics (and drawing) when young, and it has left a lasting Ed Pien + Johannes Zits, Moon Beings, DVD, 2004, duration: 10 mins. Courtesy impression. of the artists and Centre A, Vancouver.

Joni Low: You mention research as a response to your own curiosities about the world. I understand you have received several research grants to expand your ideas, which you used to study childhood myths and ghosts from both European and Asian traditions. I’m interested in your research methodologies and how research can complement art without becoming too academic or fact-laden. Rather than being a sort of scholarly approach, your research seems almost intuitive, like a recalling of a collective historical memory.

Ed Pien: Yes, I would never call it scholarly because in a way it’s like my drawings—quite organic. In Taiwan, I started my research by making a few contacts, asking a handful of people for information. I was interested in experiencing first-hand the different rituals, festivals, and celebrations. To witness a culture so alive with past belief systems and then see them assimilated into contemporary realities was such a rich experience for me. The Taiwanese are very future- oriented—their biggest industry is information technology—yet there is a need to hold onto elements of the past. Their past grounds everything in the present and paves the way for the future.

In London, my research was more systematic in that I went to different museums, and to the Print and Drawing Archives [at the Victoria & Albert Museum], to look at actual drawings. I also bought many books. I was researching how colonial Britain perceived the people they colonized by the ways they depicted them. I compared this to how the wealthy, the elite, and the royalty in Britain chose to represent themselves. There are complex visual codes that perpetuate the dominant power structures.

Joni Low: I’m curious about your research in Taiwan with respect to the idea of the "other," and how people perceive the "other." In the particular case of these rituals and festivals, it seems like this "other" refers to other spirits rather than other people.

53 Ed Pien: The whole notion of the "other" is interesting because it’s a postmodern term that evolved from cultural theory. It is a problematic word and so is the word "White" because such words tend to polarize and be reductive. Once, I jokingly said, “The Whites are the other’s other.” To me, there is a sense of circularity. The "Whites" may be more dominant politically and economically in the world, but nonetheless, no one is exonerated from having preconceptions or stereotyping groups of people who are different from oneself.

What is fascinating about ghosts, spirits, or gods as the other, in cultures that do believe in them, is their necessary existence and function—especially in this day and age when technology and science seem capable of explaining almost everything we need to know about the world. This relationship [with ghosts] is a healthy one. They are real in that some people need them in order to feel grounded and to negotiate their own realities.

The existence of ghosts and spirits implies an "us" and "them" scenario. Why are they here? Why do we need them? Are concerns with fear and guilt part and parcel of ghosts and spirits? As Edward Said suggests, we create this other and set up a dichotomy in order for the other to help us construct our own sense of identity.

My interest in ghosts comes from having been brought up in a culture that believes in them. I was in China two years ago, asking people if they believe in ghosts, and most said they didn’t. Most go on to add that they were told by Mao that there are no ghosts and no gods. Of course they are only suppose to believe in Mao. One man I encountered said, “Well, the issue isn’t whether or not we believe in ghosts. The fact is, everyone is afraid of them.”

Joni Low: You were raised in Taiwan before you moved to Canada with your family at the age of eleven. Were you brought up believing in ghosts? Is this somewhat embedded in your psyche?

Ed Pien: I won’t say that I believe in ghosts—I have seen ghosts once, but that one time is not enough to categorically state that I believe in their existence. Possibly I need to have repeated sightings before I can offer a firm answer. However, the existence or non-existence of ghosts is not the issue. It is their effect on me.

Joni Low: So where did you see the ghosts?

Ed Pien: At York University’s student residence in 1983 when I was living there and going to York. One afternoon I woke up from a nap and saw a blond-haired boy and a girl, about nine and twelve years old, standing in the furthest corner of the room. They were from a Little House on the Prairie era. They faced me directly and had their hands out as if wanting to take or give something. They were motionless, but it wasn’t like a still photograph. Their presence was real. To my surprise, I wasn’t afraid. I just felt that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I didn’t know what to do so I asked them to “please go away”—and they just vanished.

In 2003, I made a video documenting people who have encountered ghosts. Ghosts are not made out of flesh and blood. You can’t just kill them or kick them out; alternative strategies must be applied which involve negotiations and truce. That’s a model we might apply to the real world.

Joni Low: I’d like to touch briefly on your work and its relationship to your Chinese heritage. In a recent interview during your London residency at SPACE, Mary Doyle asks whether your choice

54 Ed Pien, Flying Creatures, 2006, kites. Courtesy of the artist and Bizart Gallery, Shanghai. of using brush and ink to draw is a conscious reference to Chinese calligraphy. My question is more about your work in relation to literati painting, a tradition formed by Chinese scholars who describe painting as beyond representation, as an expression of the ideas and spirit within the artist rather than an attempt at formal likeness. I see a lot of these elements in your work. Are those conscious? What elements of Chinese culture would you say are active in your art?

Ed Pien: It’s true, the literati spend years looking, contemplating, and practicing. Then when they make work, it’s a sum total of all of that coming through. I have spent a lot of time practicing and experimenting, and the 3-minute sessions allow me to be expressive and spontaneous. What I try to avoid is illustrating, and instead embrace play, letting the unexpected enter the work.

Joni Low: I also want to talk about your experience with the contemporary Chinese art scene. In the past five to ten years there’s been an explosion of activity and interest in contemporary Chinese

55 art. Increasingly, you’ve been exhibiting in China and in context with other Chinese artists. How has the rise of contemporary Chinese art affected the way your art is perceived or understood? Do you find it has opened more possibilities for your work?

Ed Pien: The interest in contemporary Chinese art hasn’t opened up more possibilities for my work. This is because in the eyes of the art world, I am not Chinese enough. I wasn’t born in China and wasn’t part of the wave of Ed Pien, Flying Creatures, 2006, kites. Courtesy of the artist and Bizart Gallery, Shanghai. artists coming from there. In fact, it has been somewhat negative. This past summer, my relationship with my Berlin dealer came to an end because he wanted to focus solely on mainland Chinese artists. China is one of the fastest developing nations. Along with the sense of optimism is the flux and uncertainties in their culture. Many Chinese artists are able to convincingly capture these contemporary realties. Even so, I can’t help but relate part of this success to Westerners being seduced by a sense of "authenticity" and "exoticism."

Joni Low: One thing that strikes me about your work, which can be quite refreshing in contemporary art today, is that it’s not specifically political, and not positioned as social commentary or social critique. Your work is personal, it’s private, it’s sensual—it’s very intimate. But your interest in investigating fear and the "other"—in opening things up and exploring alternative ways of dealing with fear—is a very relevant topic today, especially in our post-9/11 world and the war on "terror" in its many forms. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Ed Pien: I’ve seen an evolution in what makes me afraid—it started with childhood fears of ghosts and monsters and evolved into fears of terrorism. It is quite humbling. Individually and collectively it would be nice to feel more empowered and have more say in the ways the world is shaped.

My work has its political and social edge, but they are hopefully embedded in the poetic, the materiality, the sensuousness, and the colours. Colour and form couldn’t possibly sustain my interest for too long. I need to pursue and somehow address the complexities and contradictions in the world. As part of it all, I am obliged to be engaged, to participate. Issues don’t need to be forced on the viewer.

Joni Low: What would you do if you couldn’t draw? It seems like it gives so much meaning to your life.

Ed Pien: It would affect me differently at various points of my life. If you were to take drawing away from me right now, I would just read a bit more and rest. Just as much as I need to draw, it is essential that I have time away from drawing. And as I’ve stated before, I have to continually question and challenge anything I do; otherwise, I become complacent and bored. That lack of interest will show up in my work and the viewer will see it and sense it.

56 Documenta 12 Magazines Feature on Education A Response to the Yan’an Forum on Education in China Lisa Norton

I was so moved by the autumn 2006 issue of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art that I felt compelled to respond and relate my own situation. I really value the focus on education and on the future at a time when most journals are relentlessly hyping the international gallery and biennial scenes. And the candid, passionate emphasis on envisioning a third way, particular to the Chinese context, was refreshing and made for a meaningful synthesis of complex sets of issues.

t seems that, in keeping with the spirit of the Long March Project, Lu Jie and Cai Guo-Qiang encouraged a revolutionary zeitgeist necessary to bring revision to the table in an authentic Iway. Today’s generation of educators is creating a contextually tailored curriculum that, if the sample curricula of Cai Guo-Qiang and Qiu Zhijie are any indication, will surely redress the geopolitical inheritance of studio art instruction in China in the twentieth century while also engaging meaningfully with China’s indigenous legacies.

Although it has been a source of great suffering, the interdependent relationship between art and political life has always been recognized in China, and this is admirable. I am actually grateful for the complex utilitarian dilemma that has been set into play in contemporary times via Mao’s historic formation at Yan’an. I am drawn to this ongoing ideological debate in China precisely because of what is at stake at this moment in history, which is so full of potential and at the same time so full of risk. The global issue of the relative utility of art has a special urgency in China, especially in the context of this forum, but is a relevant question anytime, anywhere. The issue of instrumentalism threading through the entire conversation sums up for me the contradictions

Yan'an, photo: Zheng Shengtian.

57 and crises inherent in arts and cultural educational pedagogy at this time in history. The role of artists seems to be the lever upon which the issues pivot. There is no subject more worthy of our attention. Issues of instrumentalization have to be foregrounded for students so that they are prepared to make conscious choices about their practice relative to military/capital/industrial forces.

Li Gongming, Qiu Zhijie, and others stressed the importance of the influences of historiography and sociological research as avenues to new definitions of arts education. I was inspired by Qiu Zhijie’s teaching model and his concept of a socially progressive praxis. I agree that the true integration of sociological and other methodologies into critical cultural practice is one of the great challenges of our times. These unconventional modes of inquiry provoke exciting questions on the role of art in our times.

The liberal arts educational model is now obsolete, as Wang Nanming and others echoed, as it is unable to carry the complexities and crossovers of today’s conditions. That model is being supplanted by a model that is fluid and interdisciplinary in nature, expanding into visual cultural studies, social sciences and beyond. This hyper-expanded field invites artist-scholars into areas such as economics, sociology, philosophy, marketing, administration, and policy, to mention a few. I agree with Wang Nanming’s perspective that the future will likely bring a radical cross-disciplinary redistribution within an open system of knowledge that transgresses lines of professionalism and class. As a matter of fact, I think it is precisely from within such interstitial knowledge areas (for example between art and law) that true innovation will occur.

Alternative visions and agents of change acting from outside the academic system came up throughout your discussion, the Long March Project being the most prominent example among many. Young practitioners are emerging from outside the academy, forging alternate routes to the production of powerful and contrary subjectivities. As centres shift and we find ourselves in post-national ideological spaces, the Web and other emergent systems will continue to produce different criteria and different types of actors. Nodal, distributed reactions such as these are the most appropriate for today. Post-national, network models are most useful in describing how we interact and cohere. Yet, despite all our synchrony and access, local variations are, thankfully, still factors at play. It may indeed be that the pioneers in myspace.com and podcasting are crafting and distributing the cultural texts most uniquely and explicitly of our times. And, further, that tomorrow’s project will explicitly involve the de-centering of the academy.

The breadth and ambition of your forum had me wondering how history will remember arts education in the West in the early twenty-first century. As was noted, in the Western art academy today, the so-called “experimental” model often degenerates into a loose format lacking rigour, a type of studio atmosphere that promotes not the blurring of the boundary between life and art, but the reification of certain studio tropes that often contribute to the estrangement of art from life. Much was said at Yan’an about two tiers of artists: practical artists and elite artists, art for life and art for art, etc. No matter what hierarchy we prefer, there is of course no pure and uncompromised space within the empire we call contemporary art. Current rhetoric to the contrary, the still-elite art world has indeed painted itself into a very narcissistic, very irrelevant corner. I warn my students about the dangers of existing in a self-reflexive place of inscrutability from which it is impossible to communicate reciprocally with any public. Internationally, arts education systems are slowly recognizing the fact that the elite model doesn’t play into the real world.

58 I agree with Li Gongming that (in different countries for reasons, but all involving the overcoming of the weight of recent histories) we are now in the role of making evident the factors of political economy and social memory that reside in our public systems. As art begins to take up this project in any real kind of way, we perform triage on the practice of art in our time while complicating a general field of inquiry about society that encompasses, but is not limited to, what we now refer to as art. Tony Fry uses the term “re-directive practitioner” to describe such new cultural workers. Brian Holmes uses the term “activist-researcher” and Stephan Wright would probably forego the use of the term “artist” altogether. Maybe we should just substitute the term “conscious humans.”

In the United States today, models for successful, socially engaged art are relatively few. It is still a challenge for students and professional artists to forge new ways of directly engaging with society. Art that is truly plugged into real-world outcomes is still the ideal rather than the norm. The norm is actually the unconscious split between a U.S. at war in Iraq and business as usual in the cynically detached art world. One of the few fortunate aspects about being American these days is the opportunity to witness the categorical paradigm shifts in our post-superpower scope of influence. We all exist within webs of power and influence. Artists are always keenly aware as they live out these contradictions and complexities. Whether by participating in international biennials, providing eye candy for foreign markets, or designing corporate logos from global transnational capital, instrumentalism is always at hand, always contingent.

Can we trade our swords for ploughshares, our weapons for delicate instruments? I often talk with students about being conscious of being a tool. My students think I am being cynical when I ask “what kind of tool do you want to be?” But then they realize I am asking in earnest. The more productive question for students to try to answer is not “am I a tool or not?” but, rather, “how am I a tool?” and “how do I choose to serve?” This empowers young artists to take responsibility for how their acts are connected, indebted to, and contingent in their worlds. Viewed from a position of protecting our knowledge or identity, the idea of art as a tool feels technocratic and deadening. But if we view art as a tool of service in the hands of a skilled and thoughtful human being, we need never fear losing our personal power. It is a means of leveraging the love economy in the sociopolitical realms.

The public art arena is very uneven and fraught with these dilemmas. Public sculpture symposia are the typical examples of instrumentalism, positioning artists as extensions of the government in pumping the local tourist industries and serving as decorative brooches on the lapels of global transnational capital. I am trained as a sculptor, and my research specialties are in craft theory and decorative arts. Over time, I have transitioned into what might be called re-directive cultural practice in the public realm. At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the most trans- disciplinary schools of art in the U.S., my teaching has evolved over time into a synthesis between environmental sustainability, experimental design philosophy, and ethics of practice that is intentionally not positioned as art.

Issues in my work have turned on this issue of social value and utility for many years. Through a long process of questioning how to teach cultural action, my teaching has come to mirror the conditions I encounter in my own professional practice, migrating from the realm of sculpture into interdisciplinary arenas such as cultural economy and sustainable development. Both my personal practice and my teaching have found a home base in the oft-maligned zone of “design,” where precedent assumes that the rubber meets the road. I see this as a radicalized functional

59 position. This deeper, more profound way of formulating design enables a range of possibilities that cannot be achieved from a trajectory within the art world.

Thinking about design in this way posits it as a methodology for creative world-making. It leapfrogs over tired, old notions of “applied art” and enters into new options and new zones of agency in a lived experience that is well-suited to the way artists think. Amidst the unprecedented blurring of professional boundaries in all disciplines, artists are needed on development and research teams for their critical, non-linear, and ethical insights into problems in diverse areas such as biotechnology, medicine, and global warming. Here, I want to distinguish the production of citizenship from instrumentalization.

I teach a seminar class called “Design Denied,” a project originally developed by Archeworks, the Chicago-based experimental design school founded by Eva Maddox and Stanley Tigerman. Graham Foundation funding stipulated that the final phase of the grant for this class disseminate the course in other school curricula. Thus, School of the Art Institute students now have the opportunity to benefit from and expand upon the original findings of Archeworks students. The course surveys social justice and ethics in society through analysis of evidence in the form of existing typologies of the built world. Fieldwork involves looking at institutions—among them prisons, hospitals, elder care facilities, and zoos—from a social justice perspective and with an effort to reimagine lackings as opportunities for new ways to be artists and designers. In doing so, student research teams must confront the post-natural condition of our world and see that everything before our eyes is a product of a collective design that we call civilization. For artists to radically take responsibility for the constant creation and destruction of the world moves questions of instrumentalism and deployment onto tangible levels. Students work in teams to develop bodies of research that result in propositional and instigative challenges to the status quo. We stress group collaborations because collective thought and teamwork models a hopeful, progressive alternative space for action and resistance to globalization and other anti-cultural forces. Post-studio models like this allow students to test different tactics and to develop different aspects of their character.

Another course, “Economies of Sustainable Practice,” gives students an understanding of dominant and marginal systems of exchange and their various impacts on global flows. The terms “art” and “design” are equally inadequate to describe these new zones and modes of cultural engagement. They cannot fully describe practices that problematize relationships in the real world and have actual impacts on knowledge. I challenge my students to be relevant to the world, not only to the art world. In order to be relevant, they must be informed across a wide range of ideas, they must develop a personal ethic, they must understand what is at stake, and they must develop new strategies for engaging and re-purposing existing systems and channels. For example, in order to practice visionary ecological design, one must look at human behaviour in context rather than through visual, aesthetic factors or styling. Rather than being “industrial” (that is, instrumentalized and technocratic in nature), this “undustrial” design approach is a form of resistance in the world and is intrinsically political. At its core is a philosophy of creative people incorporating the shadow, embracing the other. It is only by taking ownership and responsibility for world conditions that we are empowered to author groundbreaking new leaps of knowledge. For example, students must understand the complex factors of desire, production, and consumption that design landfills in order to design alternative inscriptive design scenarios for the future of waste systems. Students can then learn to redesign the idea of waste itself.

60 Yan'an Forum on Education in China, photo: Zheng Shengtian.

The Euro-western Enlightenment construct of nature has given way to ways of relating to the world outside of a natural/artificial dichotomy. True innovation can’t occur in the context of dichotomies like profit vs. purity, instrumentalism vs. freedom, practical vs. elite, art vs. design. Tony Fry and Anne-Marie Willis, co-editors of Design Philosophy Papers, use the term ontological cycling to refer to the impact of the built world upon us, and in turn the impact of human designs upon the environment. Seen from this perspective, objects and systems that we design derive from ways of being (ontological factors) in the world. Once codified, our designed world acts on our expectations, affecting our behaviours, our designs, our thoughts. Thus, the designed world ontologically designs us, as artists and designers. The ethical opportunity for young designers is to grasp that they can have so much power to create good. And that design is not arbitrary, trendy or superficial, but to grasp its profundity in global world that is changing.

Although macro-societal pressures instill neo-liberal self-interest among young people, there is a tremendous range of value sets, the self-gratifying “ideology free” position of the me-generation being fortunately only one among many. I admired Yang Dongping’s perfectly apt formation, “education of life, education by life, and education for life.” Teaching cultural action involves considerations at a societal scale. Can arts education mitigate the loss of local culture? Can arts education leverage the formation of ethical citizenry of the future? Ultimately, we must ask: What is the nature of the core contribution that art knowledge makes to humanity? How does art think? What does art know? It knows first-hand about critical thinking, desire, embodiment, and social inquiry, just for starters. The world has never been more in need of what art and design intrinsically “know,” yet never have our disciplines been so estranged from society at large. These are the makings of a new revolution of real engagement in the social, the spiritual, and the political.

61 Documenta 12 Magazines Feature on Education Interview with Zhu Naizheng Zheng Shengtian | Translated by Chunyee Li

Professor Zhu Naizheng is a distinguished artist and former Vice President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing, China. He was born in Zhejiang in 1935 and graduated from CAFA in 1958. In 1959, he was assigned to work in Qinghai Province where he lived for 21 years. He was transferred back to teach at the CAFA in 1980. He is currently sitting at the Academic Board of CAFA, and holds positions as Director of China Artists Association, Chairman of Oil Painting Art Committee, Vice Chairman of China Oil painting Society and a member of National C.P.P.C.C. His works, including oil and ink paintings, calligraphy have been exhibited and collected widely at home and abroad. This interview was conducted in May 2006 when he and his wife, photographer An Yuying took a short residence in Vancouver.

Zheng Shengtian: Currently, the art world has gone through immense changes, not only in China, but also in the West. Under such circumstances, how should art education in China change accordingly, or what is the role of art education in the midst of change? This is a topic worth investigating, and has generated a lot of interest internationally, but few resources are available outside of China as a lot of the printed material was not written in English, even in the university's brochures. In general, what is your perspective on the purpose of art education? Does it serve to provide vocational training, or to cultivate and encourage creativity? Does it serve to nurture the elite, or to popularize art in the society? Does it serve to enrich the intellectual life of mankind, or to create mainly material wealth?

Zhu Naizheng: I was Vice President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts and Vice Director of the Academic Committee during the 1980s. During my term, I had to supervise the academic programs and consider what theories, policies, and practices should be introduced to students. However, I resigned in the 1990s owing to my health. Since the mid-1990s I have not been in a position of leadership, and am hardly ready to take a teaching job. Even though I still at times participate in faculty events and forums, I haven't been actively engaged in such discussions. At the Professor Zhu Naizheng in Vancouver, 2006. Photo: Zheng Shengtian.

62 same time, China has gone through accelerating changes, ones so rapid that we have not been able to pause and review what had been done in the past or consider what can be done in the future. It is certainly a very difficult task.

Here's my observation: the changes in regards to the operation of a contemporary art college— from its mandate to its admission policy, to the expansion of the campus—have caught us by surprise. The current leaders of the Central Academy of Fine Arts basically keep the previously offered disciplines untouched, and expand all other programs and special fields intended to fulfill new societal needs, especially in the area of design. It used to be very simple. Now it has extended to architecture, all disciplines of design, even jewelry. Other programs like oil painting, Chinese ink painting and printmaking are now lumped together under the same roof of the School of Fine Arts.

Aside from the Central Academy, the China Academy of Art has expanded its campus—its application rate has increased to thirty thousand students, whereas we used to receive only a few hundred applications every year. The training of a student—from admission to graduation—has become a process radically different from ours.

The generation that came of age in the 1950s grew up in a society where the entire social structure, educational system, and societal needs were driven by a sense of idealism. Education itself was an ideal, a systematic instruction designed to educate one's mind. As students became professionally trained, they were then assigned to various job positions based on needs of the society. Basically, the fifties was a time when China was heightened with a sense of purpose, and education was simply a reiteration of those values, or a means to achieve its ideals. Such idealism slowly subsided after the fifties and sixties, in China as well as in the rest of the world, to be replaced by pragmatism and economic materialism. So in recent years, what has been the impetus for such significant growth in mainland China? Many art colleges are expanding their campuses to accommodate the increasing number of students. More students means more funding. The accelerating economic growth therefore has created a great demand for professionals from various disciplines, especially in the area of design. Currently, even many universities that focus on general science and technology have fine arts and design programs. Pragmatism and economic growth have become the prime focus for all levels of development in China.

Zheng Shengtian: In a speech given at Yale University this April, President Hu Jintao said he was “a materialist.” When the interpreter translated this term into English, the audience livened up. Hu was referring to the dialectical materialism in Marxist notion, but people might associate it with the overwhelming materialistic drive in today’s China.

Zhu Naizheng: Now the students and the educational system are all driven by practical demand and benefit. The idealism has lost its thrust and is continuously losing its voice. Under such circumstances, what can we cultivate in a student? In the past, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, including China Academy of Art, focused on higher learning and training of superior arts professionals—painters, artists, and arts educators. And now the concern has been reduced to whether your training will guarantee you a good job.

With the development and expansion of art colleges comes higher admission fees. Many high school graduates who fail to get into the universities of their choice turn to fine arts as an alternative. Since artists are now receiving higher status and recognition in society, there is a large

63 number of applicants from the most populated areas—Shandong, Northeast China, Hunan, Hubei. On average, there are more than ten thousand applicants to our Academy each year, yet how many admission officers nowadays are willing to put as much care and attention like we did into the admission process? I remember how tired our eyes were from reading the students' applications, and how the colours and charcoal left markings on our faces after we flipped back and forth through the pages of their portfolios.

After admission, students had to take care of their own living expenses, and for many who were involved in a relationship, they needed extra earnings to pay for dining and entertainment. Tuition alone costs RMB $10,000, and in order to pay for other expenses, many first and second- year students started to teach pre-admission classes for high school students wanting to get into the fine arts program. As you can see, the college is now surrounded by satellite art classes and studios. Within a year, many of these second or third-year students can already afford to buy a car, or even an apartment! It is almost impossible to expect these students, many of whom run their pre-admission classes like a business, to focus on their four-year training with total devotion. As they now live in a society where everything is measured in monetary terms, there is little room left for idealism, something that has come close to disappearing entirely. Even though many students focus on creating art for a living, there are some who still pursue art as a form of spiritual and mental advancement. Yet, how many of them can withstand the market pressure? Those who can paint decently have already paved their way into the market and found their niche prior to graduation; some can even sell their pieces at quite a high price. My perspective on the current trend of Chinese art education is that idealism has been gradually replaced by pragmatism and realism.

Zheng Shengtian: Earlier you mentioned that one of the reasons propelling the expansion of art colleges is that Chinese artists enjoy a higher social status and respect in China, so let us focus on this issue: why do Chinese artists receive more respect? Don't you find that this phenomenon is quite unique, as this may not hold true in other countries?

Zhu Naizheng: This respect for art is not based entirely on the recognition of its cultural significance. China has a very special social phenomenon: if you are an entrepreneur, in order to gain the favour of government officials to grant you land or material aid, you need to give them benefits. In the past, some businessmen would give cash, then a television, then cigarettes or alcohol. Corruption was rampant in China, which was already a known fact. In an attempt to be rid of this notoriety, people started to bribe with paintings, which in the beginning was mainly Chinese painting and calligraphy. Following the modernization of architecture, many apartments were built in a Western style. Gradually, people preferred to hang Western style paintings on their walls. Consequently, the price of an artwork began to depend on the fame of the artist; one became more famous if the artwork was in great demand. So how should we determine the value of art? Should we measure its cultural significance by its monetary value and popularity in the market?

Zheng Shengtian: So basically you are saying that art has become a profession that promises financial rewards, and that it is a field that is now in great demand?

Zhu Naizheng: Definitely. It is the consequence of economic development; the rising value of Chinese art is directly correlated with China's rising economic power.

64 Zheng Shengtian: What is the function of an artist in society? According to you, art has become a popular profession, and the artist seems to have become merely a tool to satisfy market demand and certain special societal needs. Is this really the role of an artist? Should artists serve other purposes?

Zhu Naizheng: It would be very tragic for any artist if his/her artwork were used by others to seek profit and favours, rather than being appreciated for its artistic values. It is a peculiar social phenomenon in China: the new interest in Chinese art surges according to market forces rather than the natural rhythm of art as it develops. The advent of China's economic power has morphed so many facets of our society, including art education. Many art educators are left powerless, feeling that their opinions and skepticism can hardly surmount the current of this new prosperity. Education was supposedly supported by the state, but during the term of our former premier Zhu Rongji, the policy has changed so that many schools and institutions are left on their own to survive or extinguish. So how can you expect art institutions to not expand their campuses for the sake of survival?

Following the massive changes during the past decade, it is difficult for art education to not to become part of the race. As the development of educational institutions continues to be subject to societal needs, the cycle continues to move faster and faster. Till when? This question remains unanswered.

Everyone who is concerned with China's current education system raises the very same question: how has it evolved since the Open Door policy of the past twenty years? Many art educators are concerned about what they should cultivate in a student and what the roles are of an artist. Why does society have artists? Because their intellectual contribution is needed.

Zheng Shengtian: The question of Chinese art education has been raised amongst art educators from the older generation, such as Cai Yuanpei. He put forward the idea of replacing religion with art education, proposing that art was a form of spiritual creation, a spiritual force that invigorated society at large. Although we won't take his proposition literally to mean that religion can be replaced, we have to consider that there are times when religion may not be as accessible, when art can provoke and enrich one's psyche in ways that religion cannot, especially in China where the ruling party does not really encourage religious practice. Because religion plays a less significant role in China, it may give room for art to thrive and to cast a greater impact on the people.

Just as you mentioned earlier, art education has become a vocational training. My personal belief is that art academies should aim at training intellectuals and thinkers who can enrich society's intellectual stratum through visual thinking. Yet, the main focus of many art students has been to keep up with the market rather than cultivating thinking and intellectual rigour. We are concerned about how many outstanding artists will emerge in our epoch. Are there many art educators, artists, and municipal officials from cultural departments who are also conscious of the problems arising from the current pedagogical approach?

Zhu Naizheng: There are some people who are keen enough to understand the crux of the problem and the consequences it entails. In the atmosphere of modernization, many art institutions can only accommodate the changes by shifting their focus towards finding different ways to increase funding and resources so that they can cover the hydro and electricity expenses which have become exorbitant after the expansion of the size of campuses.

65 Even though society is driven to material prosperity, there are still people, although few, who genuinely care and ponder questions about art and social development, of higher learning and the elevation of one's mind and spirit. The challenge therefore remains: how can a few doses of idealism impact the art world and art academy? In China, changes can only be made with the approval of government bodies. But in some instances, the remedies reside in the hands of ordinary people and art lovers, like the Chinese Oil Painting Society, which is solely founded and run by artists. This is an example showing that there are still people who care for the future of art education. We all try to contribute as best as we can.

Zheng Shengtian: From another perspective, art academies are developing in unprecedented ways—the campuses are well built and aesthetically pleasing, more art departments are being created, and more students are attending. All these changes give many art educators a sense of accomplishment because the Chinese art scene has not for years flourished like it is now. Despite all the problems concerning the current educational system, many art educators still believe that Chinese art is moving in the right direction. Do you share their optimism?

Zhu Naizheng: This is really a question of perspective. The new generation of art educators may see improvement and feel that art academies are developing as the facilities are under better management. But my students all feel nostalgic for the old art colleges. It is quite strange that even though there are many new campus buildings, none have assigned faculty studios. Campuses are enlarged, but resources are not fully utilized, and sometimes they are even wasted.

The campus facilities have been improved but not the faculty. Many teachers from the older generation have retired, and some of my students who have taken up their positions, like Yang Feiyun and Wang Yidong, are gradually resigning. When teachers cannot apply their talent and teaching in an appropriate way, how can they find meaning in their work? If people find no value in my teaching, I'd be a happier person if I could be transferred to a different unit, where I can at least have some freedom to paint.

Zheng Shengtian: So why do these faculty members feel unappreciated? Is that because their teaching method clashes with the new approach?

Zhu Naizheng: Many of them had already achieved a certain level of recognition in their field before joining the teaching faculty. So naturally they would want to offer the knowledge that they consider best for their students. It is quite unfortunate that the focus of these art colleges is not on education. Take for example the China Central Academy, where there has not been much progress or new ideas informing how changes should be made in terms of pedagogical approaches, curriculum, and content in fine arts which has been the strength of the academy. Several disciplines are combined to form a new school—but how can we make improvements in these fields? In the midst of change and modernization, perhaps we are still in the process of slowly adapting and exploring before we can find our direction within it.

The general attitude towards studying art is quite different now: in our time, we took two to three weeks to finish a drawing of a plaster statue. Now? Time is a commodity. Many students are only interested in learning skills that will enhance their popularity in the market. No matter how much effort you put into teaching, your students are not receptive to you. So who would still be interested in teaching?

66 Another problem concerning art education is that the Chinese art colleges lack the ability to recruit new faculty members. In China, a lecturer or an associate professor receives about $300– 500 RMB monthly. In Macau, it's $12,000–20,000. In Hong Kong, about $50,000–60,000 for a professor. Under this circumstance, many art educators have to enter the market to supplement their income. But these educators cannot give up their positions at the Academy because they need the credibility of the art institution to ensure their position in the market. Here is another example where much time, effort, and energy is spent elsewhere, rather than on education.

Zheng Shengtian: Does this problem still exist?

Zhu Naizheng: Very much indeed. In fact, it's getting worse.

Zheng Shengtian: Would you say teachers are investing more rigour and enthusiasm in the new emerging disciplines such as design, new media, and architecture? Younger educators may feel invigorated by these new disciplines. Or are they also market driven in their professional development?

Zhu Naizheng: Many teachers from these disciplines have other jobs as designers or architects. Being a teacher is just one of their many professional roles. Therefore, you cannot expect them to teach wholeheartedly. Another challenge is that more pressure is added because of larger classes. In the past, if a teacher was absent for a week, students would still come to class religiously to work on their paintings. Now, if you are absent for a day, you would face an empty classroom.

Zheng Shengtian: You have travelled abroad to observe different art colleges. What was your impression of Western art education? Do you have any new ideas or wisdom we can use as reference? Or should China create an entirely different art educational system that stands on its own?

Zhu Naizheng: From the 1980s, I traveled to the United States, U.K., and Germany and had chances to observe their educational system. Their pedagogical approach was quite different from ours because their focus was to nurture creativity instead of apprenticeship. The Chinese art education system used to operate on the master/apprentice model, in which students were expected to continue the legacy or artistic achievement of the generation that preceded them.

Our schools are facing many difficulties and dilemmas. Besides the conflict between the ideal and reality, another question is the tension between tradition and foreign influences. We can not entirely give up our tradition, but the challenge from outside since the opening of China has been irresistible. Thus, our discussion should be directed towards how an artist can become self-reliant, how one can handle foreign influences with discerning eyes. How can an artist be self-reliant if one does not know how to guard or embrace one's tradition and cultural identity?

For the past fifty years, the Chinese art world has not allowed itself the time for growth and modulation when tradition becomes entangled with foreign cultures. Ever since the Communist Liberation, we severed our chord with our own tradition, and in its place we brought one from the West that we implanted in our consciousness, and we have subsequently grown nonchalant towards Chinese tradition and spirit. This issue of tradition-versus-the-West continues to perplex many artists and art educators.

67 After the May Fourth Movement, China had begun the process of radicalizing its education system with the Western model in mind, pioneered by Liu Haisu, Yan Wenliang and Lin Fengmian. Chinese ink painting has been reduced merely to a professional field and has lost its place as the main force that sustains our cultural vitality. Yet many of these educators themselves were thoroughly trained in Chinese culture and art. Thus they were able to carry on the traditional culture while using Western methods. The dilemma we are facing nowadays is that despite efforts being put into promoting the Chinese ink painting, for example, by setting up a School of Chinese Painting at the Central Academy, the entire pedagogical approach does not follow the spirit of the Chinese art tradition. We simply lack individuals in an influential position who are well-informed about Chinese art and Chinese philosophy.

Zheng Shengtian: Let us return to one of our earlier questions regarding the ways of transmitting and passing on the Chinese art tradition. How did the traditional teaching method differ from the West?

Zhu Naizheng: Essentially, the West emphasized the rigourous training of reason, whereas our traditional method focused on following the master-apprentice model in a disciplined fashion. Once I bow to you to be my teacher, I have to always lower my head in reverence. Very few students would dare to say, "I'm going to surpass my teacher!" In other words, the traditional method required students to systematically imitate and learn the techniques of their teachers. After attaining the correct degree of craftsmanship, students were left to develop their own style and individuality. One thing was changed after the Communist Liberation: instead of learning from their masters, students were expected to have their eyes opened to the form and rhythm inherent in nature, in day-to-day living, in the spirit of proletarian culture, and, most of all, in realism. Realist sketching was encouraged—a drawing technique that deviated from the spirit of Chinese traditional brush painting where artistic value did not lie in verisimilitude. In the past, we inherited forms, painting techniques, and postures from our teachers, but during the Communist era, students were taught to study composition and form from nature. Realism and the imitation of nature were two elements that westernized developments in Chinese art.

Zheng Shengtian: What do you think this generation of intellectuals and artists is pursuing? Is it financial well-being or another form of idealism? During our generation, we envisioned a utopia generated by the Communist ideology, then we fell from this abstracted height and learned to find contentment in earthly living—all is well and in perfect harmony as long as our bellies are full and we are warmly clothed. Our vision of ideal living has really become more practical.

Zhu Naizheng: I think we all have our own utopias and we all dream of life differently. I have already passed the age of seventy, and, having been tossed about by life's various dramas, in my quiet moments, I have realized that what matters is that I can pick up the pieces from the past and consider what more I can contribute to the future. If I have more time and my spirit is at ease, I would like to immerse myself in painting—this is my ideal way of living.

Although this middle-class society is designed by our country to foster economic development, as an artist, I have my own vision and set of principles I stand by so that I can view all matters and happenings objectively. Despite the fact that not many people are in favour of the way I paint now, I still continue my pursuit. You are most free when you can follow your desire without expecting anything in return.

68 Another challenge faced by many Chinese art educators is that art education is a form of higher learning, a system that introduces theory and practice to students. However, this system can sometimes be in conflict with the goal of cultivating creativity and individuality in students. It is bound to be contentious when you put creativity and standardized learning side by side. On the one hand, teachers want their students to develop a solid foundation through systematic learning so that they can spread their wings and fly high. Yet, very often, students become impatient with the process, and are not willing to follow through, especially when they think about how an artist’s success is marked by distinguished creative expression. Hence, it is quite a tough task for teachers to try to instill both creativity and systematic learning in students.

Zheng Shengtian: Is the antithesis between creativity and systematic learning set? It is true that Western education places a strong emphasis on creativity and less on systematic training. Some students from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design in Vancouver, for example, complain that they did not learn much from school because their instructors never taught them how to draw or paint, or how to handle exposure or black-and-white treatment in photography. The whole education in the West has become prone to conceptual thinking,while in China, students are complaining they have lost the ability to think independently during rigid systematic training. What would be an ideal solution?

Zhu Naizheng: It is difficult to find a system that brings into balance these two elements. But the responsibility can lie only with the teachers. The analogy is like a physician giving a prescription to a patient: a good doctor can immediately treat your ailment with the correct diagnosis and dosage of medicine. Otherwise, the ailment may progress to terminal illness. Students often overlook the fact that foundational training is what constitutes the bedrock of a creative mind. New ideas can only drip through after a long period of fermentation when one contemplates and surveys what our predecessors have passed on to us. So the key is whether a student is receptive to an instructor's advice: if you are weak in digestion, I give you iron; after regaining your heath, when your spirit is robust, you can journey from East to West or West to East.

Now we come upon the question of determining when a student arrives at the end of foundational training. Do we judge by how many courses this student has taken? A good teacher will rely on close observation and guidance to measure a student's growth.

Zheng Shengtian: So a good teacher plays an important role in a student's education? The Chinese have a saying that “A good teacher brings in a stream of talents.” Can you name any educator in China who deserves respect for being able to instill discipline and cultivate creativity in a student?

Zhu Naizheng: I would like to mention Professor Dong Xiwen from the Central Academy. He never formulated foundational training as a one-plus-one-equals-two concept. He taught his students to seek change and variation through rules and regulations, but not to be ruled by them. Another name worth mentioning is my teacher Wu Zuoren. Educators like him taught with scant words unlike most of us who teach till our mouths run dry (consider how many theories and histories we need to instruct). When I was a student, Professor Wu was responsible for a class of about ten students. He would quietly come behind us while we were painting, nodding, and commenting, "This is good. Here you exaggerated the colour a bit." He had just a few words of advice, which at first did not appear unusual to me. Then I recall an instance when I finished a painting within a few days. Professor Wu came behind me and said, “Zhu Naizheng, a sage is

69 Lobby of Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, 2006. Photo: Zheng Shengtian. often in the guise of a fool.” His words were few, but they made a lasting impression on me, like a distilled picture, which subtlely lit up my way towards artistic refinement.

Zheng Shengtian: He meant that you should avoid speed and not draw with cleverness.

Zhu Naizheng: So a teacher like Professor Wu, or another one, Wei Qimei showed that art is organic and requires time to nourish. It is a way of teaching that goes in line with the spirit of Chinese painting, one which stresses the temporal-spatial relation. On the one hand, teachers from his generation taught that any attempt to systematize art will only kill its life force; yet, on the other hand, these teachers took great care to ensure that their students learned all the basics and developed a solid foundation.

Zheng Shengtian: For the past several decades, the main criticism I know of related to teaching is that our method has been too rigid. Our weakness is that students do not possess a strong creative drive. At the same time, the criticism I heard from the West regarding their education is that students often lack the techniques for creative expression. It seems like both East and West are heading towards a separate extreme. Once I accompanied professor Ken Lum of UBC to visit the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. He said something I found very thought provoking: “Is it possible to have an academy devoid of academism?” An academy is operated by a system of regulations and standards, designed to transmit knowledge and histories through formal training. However, such a system can sometimes become dogmatic, posing a restriction upon one's creativity. It seems unavoidable that higher institutions often breed academism. Since we

70 are now exposed and open to the Western educational model, do you think it is possible for us to synthesize both creativity and discipline into our system? Or do you think these two elements will always remain in opposition?

Zhu Naizheng: Such contention between creativity and discipline will always exist; however, it does not mean that the two cannot complement each other. Ever since the opening of China, we have been exposed to all styles and schools of Western art developed in past one hundred years. Any avant-garde or contemporary art movement you find in the West can also be found here. Furthermore, many art students nowadays have great exposure to the Western art world as many Chinese art colleges maintain scholarly exchanges with major institutions all over the world. Therefore, they have witnessed how students in the West fully utilize their creativity under the western educational system. However, real changes do not come about through fervent imitation, not to mention the synthesis of both Western and Eastern values, which cannot take place when one leaves aside what constitutes the make-up of Chinese culture—its historical tradition, values and philosophy. My view is that before we become susceptible to foreign influences, we have to first acknowledge our strengths and weaknesses—the same rule applies when we survey other cultures—and then allow time for a period of trial and error before true integration can take place.

At present, contemporary Chinese art is mostly transplanted but not rooted in the earth of Chinese society and culture. Although some artists have achieved true success conforming to the regular pattern of artistic development; others work bears a shallow modernity which may appeal to the Chinese art world as novelty, but in the West it will be seen as passé.

Fifty years from now, if we ask ourselves, “In the aspect of personal development, where did we stand in history?” The answer will lead us to understand why we could not create our own contemporary art. Despite the fact that we have come to the digital age, it is not enough if modernization only happens in the external aspects of dress, transportation, and communication. Creativity cannot be learned through simply adapting a contemporary life style; instead, it can only be cultivated through self-knowledge attained by understanding the historical influences, societal make-up, and class relations of Chinese society. Many people appear to be very modern, but in their bones they are very conservative and closed-minded in their relationships with friends, daughters and sons. So how can people with such temperament create outstanding contemporary art?

Zheng Shengtian: So your view is that art is not simply a commercial product, but a form of creation that manifests one's intellectual character and moral refinement? Thus, an artist cannot produce good art when s/he is market driven. True art can only emerge when one's intellect and spirit are actively engaged in understanding the mechanism of contemporary society.

Zhu Naizheng: This is very true. In present-day China, there are many distorted notions directing the development of Chinese art, many of which are propagated by the new art colleges, galleries, and the media. Success that is exaggerated by the media can sometimes dissuade students from creating art based on their own creative self-discovery.

My belief is that even though there is an overwhelming trend of imitation and mass production of both traditional and Western art, time will eventually wash away all works that are market-driven and the art created with sincere intention will slowly surface.

71 Zheng Shengtian: So there are still people who have not lost their ideals in the midst of this confusion?

Zhu Naizheng: Yes, I believe so.

Zheng Shengtian: Would you say the Ph.D program in Chinese academies helps to cultivate good artists and idealists?

Zhu Naizheng: The Ph.D. program of fine arts is a novelty in China. In the past, we only had the Masters program. Tsinghua University was the first institution that established a Ph.D. program, and students who wanted to pursue advanced studies would transfer to Tsinghua or the China Acedemy of Art. I initially opposed the Central Academy's decision to set up our own doctoral program, which in part was an attempt to keep our students and talents from transferring to other institutions. It was indeed quite a challenge to create the selection criteria for the admission committee: should we accept students into the program based on their painting techniques, or their research skills and knowledge of theory? In the end, students who were admitted to our program showed that they had both the ability to become a decent painter and a theorist. But this three-year doctoral training could make them neither into an elite painter nor an elite theorist. Last year I was the examiner for these Ph.D. candidates. The first day was a test of their skills in sketching, the second day, oil painting. I went to the studio to examine their work and was stunned to find that their skills were worse than undergraduates. This is why I no longer find the motivation to supervise. If I were to supervise these students, by the time they finished the three- year program, I would already have turned seventy-five. I would be happiest if they emerged as distinguished scholars or painters, and I would then attribute their scholastic achievement solely to their own efforts and natural talents. However, if they fell short of what an average painter or theorist is capable of, people would question my ability and integrity.

Zheng Shengtian: Such an impressive title—Ph.D. painter.

Zhu Naizheng: Do you find this credible? What does this title tell you about the level of skill and knowledge these students possess? Since Tsinghua University is under the governance of the Ministry of Education, ample resources and funding were allocated for research and recruitment. As you know, money makes one's spirit boastful, and when Tsinghua opened its door to recruit students, they mainly targeted Ph.D. candidates. Their doctoral program is 70% theory-based and 30% practice-based.

One last thing I wanted to mention is that the present-day art colleges no longer have their own unique characteristics that set themselves apart from each other. The Design Department in the China Central Academy is no longer that different from the ones in Tsinghua and other technical colleges.

Zheng Shengtian: Thank you very much for your time.

72 Documenta 12 Magazines Feature on Education Cultures of Assessment: Distinctive Characteristics of Assessment in U.K. Art and Design Higher Education and their Implementation in China Allan Walker and Raz Barfield

“In the end, one part of schooling will be the big school one attends for a while, and the whole of society will be the big school that one attends forever.” –Mao Zedong1

Introduction

his text identifies and discusses some of the distinctive strengths and weaknesses of assessment currently in use in higher education, particularly within art school Tenvironments dedicated to “creative education” in architecture, art, and design. It translates Reflections on Assessment, the findings of the 2004 Scottish Enhancement Theme on Assessment, at a subject level and in so doing highlights ways in which creative pedagogy might have application to non-art and design subjects. It uses as examples a recent assessment of a new first-year Design Studies program delivered in China, operated by the Glasgow School of Art in collaboration with the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing.

By “creative education” we refer to the distinctive methods of learning and teaching, including assessment, that typify the best practice in the art and design sector. Creative education is situated in a studio-based learning environment with relatively high staff/student ratios where students learn through individual and group projects based on work based/real life or live scenarios. It

Allan Walker, GSA/CAFA Project Leader, talks to students at CAFA, January 2006.

73 focuses on individual problem setting and solving, group collaborative work, and group critique involving self-reflection through the integration of theory and practice. Creative education in art and design is also typified by staff who are actively engaged in the professional worlds of their disciplines and often by a relatively high percentage of part-time or visiting staff.

The identification by governments of the need to develop creative thinkers in order to remain competitive within a global market has led to a renewed focus on the methods of learning, including assessment, in art and design. In the U.K., there has been considerable debate following the review by Sir George Cox2 of creativity in business and of the role of education—particularly design education—in developing creative thinkers. There is common consent that art and design education has much to offer in the development of creative thinking, and in the U.S., foundation courses in art and design are already finding their way into the humanities.

The above quotation by Mao Zedong, too, has resonance, in view of learner experience and the underlining of the real purpose of education as we now accept it—learning for life. It helps in setting the context for this essay, which includes the exchange of Chinese and Western academic culture in general, the application of U.K. assessment methods in China in particular, and a commitment to identifying new, developmental, and adaptable methods.

In China, higher education is regarded as a force in modernization and economic development. In 2006, nearly 11,000 Chinese students were studying for U.K. higher education programs within China, more than a quarter of whom will complete their studies in Britain.3 Within this context, U.K. models of art education are being adapted within a wider push for the development of creative thinkers, and traditional Chinese views on education are being challenged. As Gao Shiming has put it, “education itself is not a field that can be regulated; it is a field of experimentation. I think this point should be clarified.”4 This is a far cry from prevailing Confucianist or Maoist orthodoxy and is an example of an ostensibly Western methodology. While it is significantly different from the Western “academy” system as originally imported in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it is a model with a newer, contemporary emphasis on experimentation as found in western art and design education since the 1960s.

Higher Education Sector Context

In the U.K., there has been considerable focus and work on assessment during the past ten years since the reports of the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education and its Scottish Committee (the Dearing and Garrick reports) were published in 1997. Consideration of assessment has been integral to the activities of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) since its formation, also in 1997, and of the Higher Education Academy, which emerged in 2004. The QAA first produced a Code of Practice on Assessment to provide guidance to higher education institutions in the maintaining of quality and standards in 2000. This has been revised, and the second edition was published in 2006 following wide consultation. This new code reflects sector-wide thinking with its acknowledgement of the variety of purposes of assessment, and, in particular, its renewed emphasis on formative methods that support student learning.

The forms and purposes of assessment as outlined in the Code are:

1. Promoting student learning by providing the student with feedback, normally to help improve his or her performance.

74 2. Evaluating student knowledge, understanding, abilities, or skills. 3. Providing a mark or grade that enables a student’s performance to be established. The mark or grade may also be used to make progress decisions. 4. Enabling the public (including employers) and higher education providers to know that an individual has attained an appropriate level of achievement that reflects the academic standards set by the awarding institution and agreed U.K. norms, including the frameworks for higher education qualifications. This may include demonstrating fitness to practice or meeting other professional requirements.5

Scottish Enhancement Themes

The assessment challenges facing the Scottish higher education sector as a whole were explored as part of an Enhancement Theme organized by QAA in 2004. The scale of the theme continues the high profile role for assessment in the development of Higher Education. In Enhancing Practice: Reflections on Assessment, the publication produced to summarize the enhancement theme, five major challenges facing the higher education sector in terms of assessment were identified. These included:

1. Too much assessment. 2. The need to find a better balance between formative and summative assessment. 3. The need to provide effective student feedback and improve its quality. 4. The need to ensure the match between teaching, assessment, and learning outcomes. 5. The need to develop innovative assessment techniques.

How does art and design fare in relation to the five challenges identified in “Reflections on Assessment”—somewhat indistinct and overlapping, as they are, with a general focus on the relationship between formative and summative assessment?

Regarding too much assessment, this has always been a characteristic of modular and/ or unitized programs, and as such is not discipline specific. It is worth noting that over- assessment is a characteristic feature of the excessive compartmentalization of academic study. Compartmentalization of this type has tended to be considered as detrimental to art and design programs, which have traditionally favoured a more holistic approach—one that places more emphasis on the whole experience rather than the sum of its parts. The challenge facing programs is to create a balance within this holistic experience that allows for student choice and flexible delivery of learning and teaching while providing methods for integrating learning that match real life scenarios. Assessment as part of this system would also reflect the different functions of specific and integrative courses or units of study.

“Reflections on Assessment” indicates good practice in art and design, particularly in relation to the use of formative assessment. Of critical importance for the effective use of formative assessment is the learning environment itself, which in art and design is focused on the studio and its multilayered uses of space, including opportunities for permanent personal study, collaborative work, and formal and informal academic and social activities. This environment, when managed appropriately, is highly conducive to academic and social exchange and provides for constant informal assessment and opportunities for formative peer learning and self-reflection.

75 Within this studio environment, perhaps the most characteristic form of learning is the project, which can be tutor-led or group- or self-initiated. The project itself is an integrative form of learning where a variety of knowledge and skills are brought to bear in responding to a brief, which again may be staff- or student-initiated and led. The structure of projects provides many opportunities for formal and informal formative assessment, and most projects are organized around key stages that can be used for formative or summative assessment.

The learning outcome for assessment for these projects is usually of a “portfolio” nature that provides opportunities for students to document and reflect on their thinking, their working processes, and the various stages of the projects, as well as the final results or end products. The term “portfolio” in this sense refers to a collective and representative body of work, possibly of a range of different types, that reflect experimentation, thinking, theoretical engagement, and developmental process, as opposed to a single end result. Portfolio assessment provides for creative decision-making at every stage in the realization of a project, and in so doing connects assessment as an integral part of the learning and production process.

Opportunities for student involvement in the assessment process in studio-based environments occur in a variety of ways and include peer and self-evaluation through staged critical reviews and tutorials as a project develops. Student involvement in these activities includes presentations both individually and/or as part of a group, and these are major methods for developing students’ abilities to articulate and discuss their ideas and creative processes within a historical/ theoretical and/or professional context. This type of assessment activity can be very productive in terms of learning opportunities and efficient in terms of staff and student time and can help support students in targeting personal objectives and learning outcomes as the weighting shifts progressively from formative towards summative assessment. The more students are allowed

Students exploring dynamics, weight, and balance in architectural "body-building" exercises, September 2005.

76 choice and participation in formative components, the more they are able to own and contribute to the whole of the learning process.

Conversely, critical reviews and tutorials are not always sites for successful learning and can have powerful negative impact that can destroy a student’s confidence. Critical reviews in particular rely on a public performance by individual students that are undertaken with the academic and social support of peers as well as one or more staff members. Following the presentation, students will be engaged in debate about their work, often through a question-and-answer session. With an increasingly diverse student population, the conduct of these types of review is vitally important. It is important for both staff and students to know the “rules of engagement” for a critical review and that the expectations and requirements on all parties are understood. There is a lot of work to be done to ensure that learners and their tutors provide the type of environment in which all students benefit from having to present their work to an inquisitive “client” or “public.”

Students can also be involved in the marking process of their own and others’ work at assessment, either informally or formally, on the basis of whether their contribution is included in the final mark. The authors’ experience6 is that involving first-year M.A. fine arts students in assessing second-year final exhibition work provides them with insight into assessment requirements and standards as expressed in learning outcomes.

Feedback in relation to formative learning, through studio peer review and self-critique, plays a key role in formative assessment, particularly if managed as non-threatening. Increasing formative assessment reduces the risk of overloading on “high-stakes” summative assessment and reduces the burden on staffing and resources during high-intensity stages of the term.

Feed-back and feed-forward, both of which are central to tutorials and critical reviews in art and design, form part of a two-way communication process in higher education. Timely feedback and sound formative assessment have been recognized as effective ways of enhancing learning.7 In addition, the motivating role of feedback, the building of self-esteem, and the provision of learning opportunities are major positives that help to diminish students’ obsession with marks. Feed-back and feed-forward serve to foreground developmental comments that provide an important role in assisting students to increase their own evaluative capabilities as well as helping to transfer the responsibility for learning to students.

Assessment as a model of effectiveness and efficiency

Summative assessment has often been considered the Achilles’s heel of art and design and has been accompanied by a sense of anxiety over our own methods and standards. Amongst the possible reasons for this, two stand out prominently. First, the nature of the subject matter does not yield itself easily to assessable—or even necessarily definable—outcomes or quantitative “model answers,” and second, the very intensive nature of the majority of assessment models required, makes them appear to be relatively resource inefficient in comparison to other subjects in the sector.

The effectiveness versus efficiency model, based on Hornby,8 identifies that many of the methods routinely used in art and design teaching are located in the “high effectiveness” zone or are in a developmental position towards high effectiveness.

77 Art and design tends to lean heavily on methods high in effectiveness but low in efficiency. Take as an example the portfolio presentation, and its equivalents, which are recognized for their effectiveness although they are often demanding on staff time. Case studies and learning contracts are also commonplace and are valuable in self-assessment and formative models because they focus on the needs of individual learners, but this also makes them resource intensive in terms of assessment. Hornby has recognized9 that in terms of assessment methods art and design resides in the “Rolls-Royce” category, but the delivery of these comes at a cost.

Yet despite relatively poor efficiency, art and design offers reflective, self-critical methods that are now becoming accepted as transferable, with their value being understood in wider contexts, such as, for example, in relation to employment, with an emphasis on the verifiable evidence of what potential employees can actually do. In many senses, assessment processes in art and design create experiences for students that are arguably closer to so-called real-world professional scenarios than many other subject areas.

Clearly, in any model there is a point at which the increased drive towards efficiency will begin to undermine effectiveness. There is an optimum point on the “efficiency curve” in assessment in art and design in which the maximum benefit for learners is achieved with the minimum of resources. After this point, effectiveness diminishes as “efficiency” rises. The reasons for diminished effectiveness may be either insufficient available time or the application of inappropriate assessment methods. All assessment practices should employ methods that aim developmentally toward maximizing both efficiency and effectiveness.

Computer-aided assessment is often considered one of the most efficient methods but is also considered to lack the critical and evaluative qualities required for art and design. At a superficial level it would therefore appear that it is of little value here. It could be fair to say that art and design does not deal in the kinds of quantitative and factual information (or data) found in computer-aided assessment because it has no “model answers.” For this reason, computer- aided assessment is widely considered to be a disadvantage for arts-based subjects. However, its mechanisms can be used to tremendous advantage in delivery of teaching and in supporting ongoing student-led and various other forms of formative assessment.

Virtual learning environments are becoming more interactive and intuitive, their inbuilt communication tools enable peer learning and support, and virtual learning environment courses and tests provide opportunities for ongoing self-evaluation and assessment. Many art and design academics are also well versed in new media as practitioners through the creative application of technology. From experience in developing units delivered through blended learning (classroom and virtual learning environment), including assessment,10 it is clear that notwithstanding some shortcomings vis-à-vis tutorial feedback, group notice boards and forums enabled highly effective formative assessment as part of the learning process.

The Chinese Context

Taking place against the backdrop of rapid internationalization in higher education,11 the introduction to China in 2005 of a well-established U.K. undergraduate design program has provided opportunities for two-way intercultural exchange, and the stimulation of new approaches relevant to existing programs in both countries. This joint program,12 delivered to Chinese students in Beijing, has responded to a series of challenges as staff and students come to

78 grips with new and unfamiliar processes, including learning and teaching in English, unfamiliar staff-student relationships, expectations of teaching and learning roles in China, and the legacy of Confucianism, all within the changing nature of education in China since the Cultural Revolution, and, more especially, the opening up of China’s education system since 1989. One of the areas where the differences between the U.K. and Chinese higher education systems are most profound is that of assessment.

In the West, there is a perception that the difficulties encountered by overseas students in general, and those of a Confucian culture in particular, are the result of a fundamentally different cultural heritage. John Biggs provides a counter-argument13 that suggests that the difficulties faced by these students are fundamentally the same as those of indigenous students and are broadly related to adjustment. There is evidence from our recent experience in China to support both views, although the observation of older students would suggest that they are able to adjust and adapt better, which tends to support the view put forward by Biggs:

Many university teachers report difficulties in teaching international students. Their complaints refer not only to deficient language skills, but also to learning-related problems that are seen as ‘cultural’ in origin, such as reliance on rote learning, passivity, teacher dependence, lacking creativity and so on. These perceptions are, like most stereotypes, distortions of the real situation.14

This viewpoint is supported by Jude Carroll and Janette Ryan in Teaching International Students,15 in that they provide specific guidance in relation to the assessment of international students, in particular about the need for staff to be explicit about length, format, criteria, and compulsory aspects of any work to be submitted. They pose a series of question prompts for teachers when reviewing their own assessment methods, including: “Are requirements and expectations explicit? Are there hidden codes or prompts? Are students being assessed on what they have learnt or what they already know? Can opportunities for plagiarism be designed out by choice of assessment task and topic?” These questions point to a new and more transparent approach to assessment in which the purposes of assessment, and how they are realized in learning outcomes, are made more explicit.

In contrast, the Confucian model, with its two and a half thousand years of developing the teacher as a symbol of absolute authority and source of knowledge, led to a narrowly defined system dominated by a continuous process of submitting to examinations. According to Mao Zedong,16 in 1917, Chinese pedagogy was so dominated by rote learning and curriculum overload that seven of his fellow students died as a result of excessively long hours Exploring vector-based image construction through physical materials, November 2005.

79 studying without proper breaks. He declared: “in the educational system of our country, required courses are as thick as hairs on a cow. Even an adult with a tough, strong body could not stand it, let alone those who have not reached adulthood.”

The impact of Mao Zedong in China and in the West also provides some interesting insights in the field of education and on the ways in which assessment is carried out. Although in China research is still not permitted into the Cultural Revolution, there is increasing investigation into Mao’s impact on the West and the extent to which it has been overlooked. Andrew Ross argues that while the

Students collaborating on small-scale models of installations, December 2005. heritage of Maoism is selectively recalled in China, in the West there remains an inadequate comprehension of the effects of Maoism on its own cultural politics. His essay17 attempts to chart the path of Mao’s influence on educational reform and cultural and community activism. He argues that precepts like self-criticism, youth revolt, and consciousness- raising, which are all characteristics of art and design education, albeit it in a commodified form, have had a longer and more successful career in the West than in China itself.

Ross quotes the American critic Rey Chow, who asserts that the only place the Cultural Revolution still flourishes is in American literary and cultural criticism. She finds it surprising to encounter among U.S. critics characteristics associated with the Red Guards such as skepticism of all things western, an instinct for moralistic persecution, and the belief that only victims speak the truth.18 Maoism was received in the West in a highly idealized form, far removed from its active manifestation in state collectivisation, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution itself.

Ross reflects on Edwards Said’s “traveling theory,” which refers to a set of ideas originally conceived in one context and subsequently appropriated to fit another. In this regard, much of Mao’s thinking on education, which can be seen as similar to that of John Dewey and Paulo Freire, has been absorbed into Western culture generally and into the philosophy of teaching and education in particular. Mao’s notions of an anti-elitist, open system as well as an aversion to books have particular resonance. Included in this are commitments to public declaration, self-reflection, and peer assessment through public critique—all essential characteristics of a Western education system, and particularly art and design education. If this model is true, then it could be argued that the West is re-exporting Maoist theory to China in a new guise.

The authors’ experience of operating the program in China, based on the benefit of observation, the reflections of staff and students, and specific action research investigating Chinese students’

80 existing and developing understanding of the learning process and the value of assessment, suggests that what constitutes assessment is fundamentally different in China, and that this is one of the widest differences between the two cultures across the pedagogical spectrum, notwithstanding the preceding comments regarding Maoist principles. The evidence of our research thus far19 suggests that what constitutes assessment in the sample group is essentially analogous to summative assessment of portfolio work and/or exhibition in art and design.

Responses contained in questionnaires issued at the start of the action research project indicate that in general the students are confident in explaining why learning needs to be assessed, and most are able to offer at least one example of how, as the learner, they know that they have learned, but this falls away sharply when they are asked to explain how anyone besides the learner is able to assess whether learning has taken place in anything other than general terms.

Evidence gathered during group discussions held with the students on the subject of the questionnaire in November and December 2006 clearly demonstrated students’ current understanding that the teacher is the central figure in the process and that other forms of assessment, such as those of a predominantly formative nature, essentially diminished in value in proportion to their proximity to recognizable summative assessment, accompanied by a mark. This is encapsulated in the often-repeated (and always the first) response to the question “who is responsible for your learning?—the teacher.”

However, the fact that these students do not necessarily see, or, to begin with, cannot articulate a connection between their new learning contexts and assessment does not prevent them from accruing at least some of the potential benefits. They can be equally engaged in learning activity without recognizing it as contributing to formative “assessment.”

Perhaps due to their schooling within the Confucian learning culture of China, the students display a tendency to see any project brief (even an open and experimental one without determined outcomes) as a problem to be solved. There is a focus on the “solution” and a “finished product.” The importance of the solution is also reflected in these students’ difficulties in compiling or gathering together work that reflects the process or journey undertaken to reach a result. The concept of the portfolio is not familiar to Chinese students other than in the presentation of finished work.

Much teacher input has attempted to assist in expanding the “comfort zone” in order to engage with uncertainty, and the students have demonstrated a preparedness to face it and to engage in experimentation. Working in teams and small groups to face practical challenges in the studio, the students have shown no shortage of ability to learn through developing their own methods and experimental approaches when the objective is defined and made explicit.

In relation to the cultural context of the region, Biggs has cited the “inside/outside” behavioural model20 to describe what appears to be happening in the peer learning and group dynamic context. In our experience in China, the new character of the studio as a place of making mistakes and of learning through experimentation tacitly permits or possibly even demands cultural acceptance of the adoption of a different method of interpersonal working, one normally reserved for less formal contexts, and of what is appropriate for the learning context and situation.

81 Experience has shown that, in critical review sessions, if the teachers focus their input on the objective of what knowledge should have been acquired, and, by implication, should be transferable to new contexts rather than on the particular practical solutions to this or that specific problem, students both express and demonstrate a clearer sense of understanding of the purpose of a project. Crucially, the connection between the learning outcomes of the particular project or exercise and the practical experience of students’ work is strongest when the critical review occurs in the studio, in the midst of the work, where the connection between specific practical experience and generally applicable knowledge or skills can be made. This is also a scenario in which the input of theory staff can be of maximum benefit in linking practice to underpinning theoretical frameworks.

Engaged in group activity of this kind, students quickly move to level three of Biggs’s three-step ladder,21 learning through doing—the praxis-based environment of the group studio project, of collaboration and learning through experimentation, offering a concentrated environment for individual and collective self-evaluation, peer criticism, group feedback, and other forms of formative self-assessment within the learning process. In critically reviewing a series of exercises in the studio, almost all students were able to make the link between the activities they had participated in and the concepts and knowledge acquired and could clearly see the value of understanding the “learning outcome,” however described, during the working process. The activities that support and enable learning across cultures may perhaps differ less than the cultural understanding of the necessary conditions and appropriate “behaviours.” The cultures at odds may not be those of learning, but of experience.

Summary and Conclusion

The requirement to develop creative thinkers in order to remain competitive globally is one of the forces behind the increasing acceptance of creative pedagogies in non-art and design subjects.

Some of the most important assessment processes in art and design create experiences for students and provide tangible evidence of learning and skills that are arguably closer to so-called real-world professional scenarios than in many other subject areas. What the assessment methods of art and design may lack in efficiency, it might be argued, they more than make up for in effectiveness, despite their apparent resource inefficiency.

The notion of the straight “best line” on the “efficiency graph” described above may be misleading; as Land says, “[w]hat is efficient may not be effective, and vice versa. Any adopted blend of assessment practice entails both an opportunity cost and an implicit perspective on the nature and purpose of learning. It may be that as we widen and deepen participation in the U.K., in higher education we will need to ‘repurpose’ our assessment methods to suit these changed circumstances.”22

Some experience of virtual learning environments in art and design suggests that students exploited the inherent potential for formative (peer-group and self) assessment as part of the learning process, the environment in some ways equating to the “space” of the studio and also possibly the non-threatening “outside.”

Our experience in China suggests that a change in accepted “appropriate” behaviour for the learning context, implemented through unfamiliar learning scenarios and challenges, goes,

82 Detail of completed group work in design studio, December 2006. in tandem with critical review and other supported self- and peer-assessment of a formative nature, to offer students insight into assessment requirements, in the form of learning outcomes, supporting acquisition of knowledge.

The importance of a shift of emphasis from summative to formative assessment was highlighted in the Enhancement Themes, and our experience in China confirms its benefits in both increasing awareness for students and enhancing learning process, and also in increased efficiency. This suggests that increasing students’ awareness and understanding of learning outcomes may be an important consideration in moving toward the “star” quadrant of high efficiency and effectiveness.

However, while the drive for efficiency may be motivated by the pressing realities of resources and staffing, the inherent danger is that of what we risk losing. Art and design has not been good at expressing, and has perhaps been too defensive of, its values. The subjective nature of art and design assessment relies on the professional relationship between staff and students, and this is particularly dependent upon the rich learning environment of the studio. The conditions necessary for appropriately rigorous assessment of students of these disciplines cannot fully exist independently of this highly specialized environment and experience.

There is a clear need for more research into students’ views into assessment within art and design, into the most appropriate formats for students’ input into the process(es) of assessment, and the development of strategies that will best enable the specialized culture of the studio to become embedded within assessment.

83 Notes 1 Philip Short, Mao: A Life (London: John Murray, 2004), 73. 2 The Cox Review of Creativity in Business, HM Treasury, 2005, http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/cox_review/ coxreview_index.cfm 3 U.K. Higher Education in China: A Summary of the Quality Assurance Arrangements, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education report (QAA 133 12/06), http:www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/international/china06/summary.asp, introduction. 4 Gao Shiming, “Yan’an Forum on Art Education,” Yishu 5, no. 3 (September 2006), 59. 5 Code of Practice for the Assurance of Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Education, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, Section 6: Assessment of Students—September 2006, paragraph 12, http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/ codeOfPractice/section6/default.asp, introduction. 6 Wimbledon School of Art, M.A., Fine Art: Print. Both authors led this course during periods between 1999 and 2004. 7 Ray Land, Streamlining Assessment: Making Assessment More Efficient and More Effective (conference paper), in Reflections on Assessment: Volume 1, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2005, 30. 8 Win Hornby, Dogs, Stars, Rolls Royces and Old Double-decker Buses: Efficiency and Effectiveness in Assessment (conference paper), Reflections on Assessment: Volume 1, Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, 2005, 21. 9 Ibid. 10 Undergraduate Level 2 Digital Media elective, run at Camberwell College of Arts, University of the Arts, London, in October and November 2002. All project briefs were delivered and all student work submitted, including weekly logs and journals, electronically via the virtual learning environment. This was combined with three days’ work per week in a normal studio situation. 11 See, for example, Ritchie, Ella, "Internationalisation" in Academy Exchange no. 5 (winter 2006), The Higher Education Academy, York, 13–15. 12 The Glasgow School of Art and the Central Academy of Fine Arts Joint Programme in Design Studies. This is a GSA first-year programme delivered at the CAFA campus in Beijing. On completion, students matriculate into stage 2 in Scotland. 13 John Biggs, Teaching for Quality in Higher Education (Buckingham: SHRE and Open University Press, 2002), chapter 7, 121–138. 14 Ibid., 121. 15 Jude Carroll and Janette Ryan, eds., Teaching International Students, Routledge: London and New York, 2005, 32. 16 Short, 73. 17 Andrew Ross, “Mao Zedong’s Impact on Cultural Politics in the West,” in Cultural Politics 1, no. 1, 5–22. 18 Ibid., 8. 19 Action research project (ongoing, begun November 2006) by the authors conducted within the context of the GSA/CAFA joint programme. Working title: “Chinese Students’ Experience of Assessment.” 20 Biggs, 127. 21 Ibid., 124. 22 Land, 29.

This is the keynote paper delivered at the “Enhancement in Art, Design & Media” conference in Dundee, Scotland, October 2006.

84 Documenta 12 Magazines Feature on Education Some Thoughts on Art Game: An Experience of Agency in Contemporary Art

Yü Christina Yü

pening at He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, in June 2006, Art Game: An Experience of Agency in Contemporary Art was a somewhat unusual exhibition, Osomething readily revealed in its title referring to art as a game. As such, the exhibition was geared to a young audience and solicited their participation in artworks that, according to the Museum’s statement, would “connect experimental art with art education of children” and “demonstrate the public function of museums.”1Among the numerous exhibitions produced in the last five years or so in China, this exhibition stands out just for these reasons—instead of being curated for the contemporary art community itself, it expands the horizon of contemporary art and thus offers artists and curators in China a greater opportunity to demonstrate a larger responsibility towards society. While the exhibition was promoted as an “experience” in the contemporary art world, its appearance at the outset of the new millennium was a sign of new forms of contemporary Chinese art yet to come.

Children painting Chen Changwei’s sculptures of white zodiac animals.

85 Visitors participating in video works by Studio 12.

Art Game was curated by Feng Boyi, who is one of the most active curators working in China today and who is responsible for more than twenty exhibitions of different magnitude each year. Perhaps because of this deep involvement with contemporary art in China, he is also acutely aware of its inadequacy and inefficiency in engaging society at large. One such problem, or blind spot, is contemporary art’s aloof detachment and “distance from mass taste.” This, however, may have been inherited through the particular historical development and trajectory that contemporary art in China has followed prior to this moment. In the exhibition catalogue, Feng Boyi summarizes three reasons for this distance: the exploratory and rebellious nature of contemporary Chinese art, the degree to which the current official Chinese artistic system holds itself against experimental art, and the stagnation of art education in China.2 Although taking a game-like approach, this exhibition nonetheless serves as Feng Boyi’s attempt to “correct” such ignorance and to shorten, if not bridge, the distance between art and the public in China today.

Indeed, since its inception, contemporary experimental art in China has claimed its alternative nature and its independence from the officially appropriate mainstream. This self-proclaimed identity to a great extent determined the peripheral position of its art and artists within society at large. It generated unorthodox modes of creation, and, for some, experimental styles that tended towards the extreme. From the avant-garde movement in the 1980s to the fragmented but pervasive artist’s “villages” in the 1990s, a more individual and idiosyncratic artistic output replaced the collective, organized efforts, while a network of the contemporary art continued to take shape. In the past decade, a more open policy, increased professionalism, and multiplying exhibition venues, while invigorating both the production and consumption of contemporary art, also consolidated a sense of community among artists who shared similar ambitions,

86 Children selecting toys from Fuji Hiroshi’s Kaekko Project and exchanging them with their own. concerns, and visions, if not the practices and mediums of creation. If diversity and globalization are keys to understanding recent contemporary art, they also give rise to a poignant issue: How to speak to the average domestic audience from whom artists have so long been disengaged in their pursuit of a socially and artistically “alternative” status.

Taking Mao’s phrase “art for the people” as the point of departure, most of the works Feng Boyi selected for this exhibition were designed literally so that children could have hands-on and/or an interactive experience with contemporary art. The work by Chen Changwei, for example, is a set of white sculptures of zodiac animals cut into small pieces. Children were invited to use acrylic pigments to paint on them. The pieces were then hung on the wall in places chosen by the children. Within the first several days following the opening of Art Game, a multi-coloured exhibition wall was completed through this process of collective participation. Three members of Studio 12 from the Xu Beihong Art School at the People’s University of China took advantage of computer technology and created a series of three digitally controlled interactive works. All three pieces required active viewers, turning the participants into creators by having them pour water into a tank, hitting objects, or playing with a computer mouse that triggered imaging changes and shifts. Art here became a “platform” for an interface that provided unexpected results, at least for the artists. In their own words: “Only with the participation of the viewer can the work open and expand; only with the participation of the viewer can the work be complete; only with interaction can the work achieve its full artistic potential.”3 This voluntary release of the artist’s prerogative to the right of art creation brings into play the public and renews its tie to art while critiquing the issue of authorship and authenticity that has been so prevalent in contemporary art.

87 The relationship between the artist and audience was also central to another interesting but provocative work, Kaekko Project, by Japanese artist Fuji Hiroshi. Calling his work Kaekko, a childlike word for “exchange,” Fuji brought his own collection of toys to the museum and laid them out on the exhibition hall floor, where they were exchanged for toys brought by visiting children. The number of toys stayed the same, but the visual effects and dynamics constantly changed as the swift “transactions” of children exchanging one toy for another took place. In the process, the position of the artist and the audience were also exchanged and renegotiated. To Fuji, artistic purpose aside, this art game was also a visualization of transactions that are omnipotent in the contemporary world, and it engaged the yet-to-be socialized children to participate in its dynamics.

In addition to these directly interactive works, others included in the exhibition guided children to explore different visual languages and perspectives. Wang Qiang painted stuffed animals to scale and juxtaposed the canvases with their models. The result was a playful dialogue between the

Wang Tiantian, Tribute to Van Gogh—Life as Summer Flowers, 2006.

88 three-dimensional and the two-dimensional. In another work, Wang Tiantian’s Tribute to Van Gogh, the artist took inspiration from the famous Sunflowers series, but twisted the impressionist’s language by using cartoonish paper-cuts and other media to recreate the sunflowers in a way that recontextualized them in the modern world. Yin Qi’s gridded notebook pages (tiangeben) were the most familiar to Chinese children who learn to write at school by transcribing characters inside these grids. But instead of writing inside the grids, Yin drew or even doodled graphic images as if completing elementary school homework as a painting. Such visual interplay among the arenas of games, art, and learning helped children become more familiar with contemporary art and its expression, creation, Yin Qi, Tian, Grid Notebooks—A Game of Words and Images, and sources of inspiration. 2003–06.

Among the artists in Art Game, Xiong Wenyun was the most direct in presenting educational ambitions for children. Creating a simulated classroom, Xiong’s installation was set up to encourage children to make paintings and then to exhibit them together on the walls. To provide a corrective to the stagnation in art education that Feng Boyi is concerned with, this installation, or even conceivably the entire exhibition, encouraged its audience to be physically and actively involved in the process of creativity and brought the artists into the realm of the masses. Reaching so far beyond the contemporary art community appears to have been a successful maneuver in shortening the distance between art and the public, and concurrently offered a reconsideration of whether the role and goals of experimental artists need to remain peripheral. The subtitle of the Art Game exhibition, An Experience of Agency in Contemporary Art, suggests a complexity in the rethinking of these issues. Who has agency here? Is it the art, the artist, or the participating children?

Today the contemporary art world is not only removed from the public at large, but has also broken away from other local art scenes—especially the more traditional ones such as ink painting and calligraphy. A growing commercialism, in particular the visibility achieved by the creation of non-traditional artworks for the global art market, has also motivated many artists to work for exportation. Artists who regularly participate in experimental art exhibitions, especially biennales and international exhibitions, see the global as their new context. In the past few years, however, closer to home, this small and nearly enclosed circle of contemporary artists has been locally energized by the appearance of new, modern, commercial exhibition spaces and museums, which are creating greater attention inside China. A call for an art of and for contemporary society in present-day China appears not only timely but also necessary.

In both Fuji Hiroshi’s Kaekko Project and Wang Tiantian’s Tribute to Van Gogh, art is no longer a static object but is, instead, an interface through which a deeper significance and understanding can be explored. This is only the first step toward achieving an “educational” purpose—in this case, by eliciting the visiting children to take part in the exhibition with a simple, everyday activity,

89 Song Dong, We Are Together, performance, 2003. Courtesy of the artist. that is, playing games. The attempt that has been made with Art Game is both welcomed and encouraged. What we need more of is precisely this kind of contemporary art program organized around an interaction that facilitates an intimate conversation among art, artist, and audience.

Exhibitions aiming at expanding the audience are common in various types of museums in the West, but they are still extremely rare in China. Within the sociopolitical context of contemporary China, this kind of open-ended art exhibition, one that incorporates multiple agencies, also enables experimental artists to assume greater social responsibility. Prior to Art Game, another exhibition had already prefigured the possibility of engaging the participation of “outsiders” in the contemporary art community. We Are Together, Comrade Rural Workers was held in Beijing in 2004. The exhibition focused on the so-called migrant workers (mingong) who have flooded from rural regions to the major cities and comprise a particular community within society, a social phenomenon too large to be ignored in the China of today. Relocation to the metropolis displaces these socially disadvantaged migrant workers, leaving them in a state of cultural shock an issue that is overshadowed by the rise of China’s economy. In order to create an open forum and put the related issues into sharp focus, many of the artists featured in We Are Together created works specifically for the exhibition and intended to encourage the participation of migrant workers. Song Dong, for example, used ropes to literally connect himself with more than two hundred workers in a performance for the exhibition.

We Are Together and Art Game were both experiments, and their stated intentions and goals are no doubt provocative. Artists who seek to break through the wall and bridge the distance by engaging the public and public issues are beginning to find their place in the diversification of contemporary art in China. It is one step, and one that needs to be further developed .

Endnotes 1 Foreword to the exhibition catalogue Art Game: An Experience in Contemporary Art (Shenzhen: Hexiangning Art Museum, 2006), 1. 2 Feng Boyi, “An Exhibition, or, Another Class: Thoughts on Ability and Movement in the Game-ification of Contemporary Art” in the exhibition catalogue Art Game: An Experience in Contemporary Art (Shenzhen: Hexiangning Art Museum, 2006), 8–9. 3 Ibid, 36–37.

90 Documenta 12 Magazines Feature on Education Building a Contemporary Art “Campus Aircraft Carrier”—A Discourse on How to Encourage Contemporary Questions About Art Among Taiwanese Youth Lin Ping | Translated by Stan Blewett

s a creator, educator, and contemporary art curator, I have always held a particular conviction. I believe the reason art needs to exist is the awareness, beauty, commonality, Aexperience, compassion, and ability for critical thinking it contributes to humanity. In every era and every society, art, through its unique capacity for therapy and awakening, allows

The poster and its icon the Cake Prince.

91 Kids playing with the "Monopoly" game designed for the educational project. humanity to achieve self-recognition, observe the predicament of existence, and accomplish communication with others. Michael Brenson brought up the bridging effect of art in the Culture in Action art program carried out in Chicago in 1990. This cultural scholar believes that art can be used to break down barriers in communication, listen to dissenting voices, treat the morbid state of society, heal the wounds remaining in our memories, and, ultimately, change society and create new perspectives on life.

The influence of technology and the media on contemporary society means people must confront the spectacularization of visual-cultural phenomena. Such social activities as advertising, product placement, and media manipulation have caused the current generation to become addicted to a culture of excessive materialism and information, and they face a never-ending consumption of images. The development of art since the 1990s has witnessed an active interaction with society, a return to realism, and a concern for modern cultural life and political and economic circumstances. Contemporary art was anxious to exit the white box sanctuary of the art museum and enter the diverse and complex space of society and history. When art loses its aloof aura and aspires to establish a connection with its audience, it cannot avoid entering into the everyday context of public life, and it is no longer based only on the elitist rhetoric of the art world and symbols of middle class values. Contemporary art employs all types of mass behaviour, consumption channels, and information channels to infuse itself into the world of the average person. This is an attempt to serve social functions and to supply an experience of beauty based on caring for the world and its visual forms. We cannot help be surprised that the functions and roles of art in this post-capitalist information society are rapidly changing. Contemporary art’s entry into society and meta-thinking has resulted in the “event” superseding the “object,” and the “issue”

92 to superseding the “experience of beauty.” Moreover, the application of interdisciplinary methodology has nearly revolutionized the communication and connection between art and audience. Art no longer exists as a “significant form,” static and isolated from the currents of society, but rather has been transformed into a simulation of information society, a catalyst for social movements, and an apparatus for cultural Kids are playing with the "Monopoly" game designed for the educational project. criticism.

When school-aged children and adolescents, accompanying their parents or participating in extracurricular activities arranged by their schools, step into the sanctuary of art, what most people consider the art museum to be, they are surprised to discover that art is no longer a beautiful picture or sculpture. How are we going to let the next generation understand “contemporary art?” How can they get to know contemporary society and themselves through art? Availing ourselves of the clever and profound questions posed by contemporary artists, how are we to break past traditional forms of art appreciation in order to gain insight into the intelligence and attraction of contemporary art? How can we make the reading of art into an important project shaped by humanity? How can we make the cultivation of visual literacy a critical issue in education projects? Are art museums and art organizations properly prepared? Are educational organizations able to see the urgency of this mission?

Government agencies in Taiwan, through their cultural policies in recent years, have been placing greater emphasis on exhibiting provocative contemporary art and have been active in awarding and supporting all types of exhibition-planning projects. In addition, fine arts museums and arts and culture organizations have, over the last two years, also organized education fairs in order to establish alternative options outside of the art education system. Receiving support from both the government and the private sector, my 2006 exhibition A Piece of Cake—Contemporary Art Campus Tour Education Fair, first opening at the Museum of The historical files desk designed for the exhibition.

93 Contemporary Art Taipei, a vital venue for the exhibition and performance of contemporary art situated in the heart of Taipei, became the first concrete example of these two trends and remains one of the largest in scope. This exhibition was commissioned as part of the National Culture and Arts Foundation’s (NCAF) “Planned Exhibition Subsidy Plan” and received funding for exhibition planning and the education project from Quanta Culture and Education Foundation, an organization whose primary objective is the promotion of art education in Taiwan. With these two major foundations, one established by the government and one resulting from private enterprise, working towards a common goal, I hope that in promoting contemporary art they can not only employ the museum education system, but can delve further into campus art The MOCA site of A Piece of Cake. education as well.

In fact, upon completing an analysis of the special characteristics of the five exhibitions that received subsidies under the NCAF’s Planned Exhibition Subsidy Plan for 2006, one becomes immediately conscious of the urgency of bringing contemporary art to school campuses. First, these exhibitions quite clearly revolved around issues that have received special attention in contemporary art in recent years, including globalization, the information society, consumerism, post-colonialism, public space, and representation. Secondly, two-fifths of the exhibition sites were located outside of traditional art venues and in historic city streets and districts as well as commercial areas. This clearly demonstrated the blurring of boundaries between art and society and allowed the contact the public and students have with contemporary art to become an immediate and personal issue. These phenomena prompted the A Piece of Cake education fair to focus above all on a planning direction based on issues such as contemporary conceptual art and popular culture and to broaden its exhibition content to encompass Taiwanese contemporary art since the 1990s together with relevant Western historical currents. A Piece of Cake thereby served as a more comprehensive substitute for the piecemeal accounts that were at the core of these five exhibitions and proactively applied the concept of the “education resource box” to build a contemporary art “Campus Aircraft Carrier.”

A major discrepancy has always existed between the different ways the term “education fair” has been defined by modern art museums and science museums. Art museums for the most

94 part believe objects of “beauty” require a greater degree of direct appreciation and experience, while science museums on the other hand place greater emphasis on the objects they display that require explanation and interpretation. To be sure, contemporary art needs to be recognized and experienced directly. However, thanks to conceptual art and the cross- cultural and interdisciplinary explorations within Western contemporary art theory, we are seeing more contemporary art that is not intended to be an object created for appreciation, but, rather, is a phenomenon that requires the application of a broader cognitive system. Kids play with the "Labyrinth Game" designed for the educational project. Due to the topical nature and “meta-cognition” of contemporary art, it has become increasingly difficult for us to use the term “appreciation.” We would do better to adopt the term “reading.”

The phenomena of spectacle and the expansion of the media in contemporary society have led to an excessively entertainment-oriented approach to art events and education methods. Moreover, affluent society has raised children to be unquestioning and has thus weakened their intellects. We must work to curb the organization of educational activities around unlimited Internet access and the application of a celebratory approach to art festivals. And we must acknowledge as well that children are much smarter than we think, and that they have the ability to engage in multi-level reading and play behaviour. The array of art we present to young people and audiences should not be an endless consumption of images, but a more profound and sustaining experience of, and reflection on, humanity. Teaching children how to engage in constructive, meta-learning- based reading behaviour, whether it involves texts or images, is the purpose of the reading guide published for this education fair and its related exhibitions.

Traditional school art education in Taiwan often arises from the equation of three terms: “learning,” “school,” and “education.” Consequently, in the learning experience, the acquisition of “new” cognitive information is overemphasized, while the interactive application of pre-existing or present concepts and information, and individual personal experience Teens visitors get involved with A Piece of Cake.

95 The MOCA site of the A Piece of Cake. and sociocultural currents, are ignored. Learning is the positive process of absorbing information. However, it is not simply the absorption of new cognitive information. It is also influenced by the motivations, existing knowledge, beliefs, emotions, attitudes, and perceptions of the individual. It is an accentuation of individual differences. Of late, theories of learning have been placing added emphasis on the deep influence of society and environmental currents. Therefore, perceptions of the learning experience are an example of constructed truths. School art education frequently emphasizes knowledge of art history and its styles and of the making of art. This approach is capable of satisfying neither the art system that is attached to contemporary art nor an exploration of multicultural discussions. Furthermore, it fails to take into account the personal life knowledge of the learner and trends of social cognition, which leads to the formation of the mysterious belief that, because “the artist says it is so,” it must be so.

Art history education as found in fine art museums involves the emergence of a universal psychological phenomenon in the average audience member. The classical art that is displayed in traditional fine arts museums portrays religion and society in all its forms figuratively and thereby causes the audience, as a result of the expectations created by these concrete images, to overlook the formalist aesthetics of art. Then, the abstract forms and terminology propagated by modernism cause those who have received no visual training to view works of art as if they were attempting to make out flowers in the fog. Accepting a summarized version of art based on the legend and life story of the artist, a solitary hero, is related to self-expression and the voicing of emotion. The art in contemporary art museums has at last once again come close to the realities of life and society. Nonetheless, under some conditions, it can still leave viewers feeling they do not understand, and thus alienated and filled with regret that art has lost the romance of images.

Hence, the informative educational model commonly adopted in both schools and museums causes the audience to accept difficult principles with humility and to conclude that contemporary art has no relation to their lives. Educators have obviously overlooked that “learning,” in addition

96 to needing to facilitate the acquisition of information, further involves inspiring motivation and curiosity, using the exhibition environment to shape peoples’ abilities for perception and recognition, and employing the power of groups and communities so that they come to identify with special social issues and experience cultural differences.

For the exhibition A Piece of Cake, we selected a number of critical questions specially pertaining to issues of contemporary art that are presented to students from the higher grades of primary school and up, as well as participants, teachers, and members of the Dialogue between Lin Ping, the curator/educator, and a young public possessing a curiosity for contemporary visitor. art. It was hoped that the childlike guidance of the exhibition’s theme-character, Cake Prince, would facilitate the recognition and experience of contemporary art. What distinguishes the strategy used in this educational program is that it is intended to destroy the systematic, theme-based, object-oriented format traditionally found in museum exhibition planning, while at the same time hoping to avoid allowing its format to become like the educational planning found in the average school, which is designed around the use of a single textbook for a single academic Visitors browse and read the contemporary art files. field. Simply speaking, this educational strategy possesses two characteristics of a mobile educational platform: it can drop anchor for stays at designated organizations, just as it can weigh anchor and set a course for museums and schools around the nation. Through the indistinct gender and sense of mischief of the indulgent and naive Cake Prince, participants are led to a collection of visual art files and an art context that attempts to systematize contemporary art issues. At the same time, this context provides specific hands-on and reading study appropriate for various age groups, a model that stresses individual study and group interaction as well as in-class and between-class participation. As a model that encourages formal and informal education, it also permits comprehensive cross-humanities instruction through the use of art files. This exhibition does not simply desire to encourage school children to learn on their own, it further emphasizes the systematic construction of knowledge systems. Ultimately, we hope to use the study of art to create an educational strategy for the exploration of humanity and cultural criticism, and to create societal reflection.

The exhibition format for A Piece of Cake avoids the traditional art museum approach of placing works of fine art on display for admiration, instead opting for the compilation of files on visual art conceived in accordance with the encyclopedic and participatory models used by science museums. Adopting the format of documents increases the readability of a work of art and its related concepts. Artistic production remains the primary theme in this form of education

97 Top: School teacher and children with their families participating in the project. Middle: Kids read and handle the contemporary files. Bottom: The MOCA site of A Piece of Cake.

98 exhibition. The art files are divided among four contemporary Taiwanese art file tables and one Western history file table. The four colour-coded tables of Taiwanese art utilize highway billboard icons and humorous cartoon images to indicate four major categories of issues: “contemporary society/world,” “new aesthetics/ contemporary art theory,” “the transformation of the rules of Children and their families participating in the project. art,” and “the transformation of the art system.” The tables present transformations that have occurred in both the world at large and in the world of art, covering a total of thirteen basic concepts. Colour coding serves as a conceptual reminder of the issues related to each artwork on file and makes it more convenient for school children to do their own filing. The Western history file table provides students and teachers with a reference book area that offers opportunities for knowledge searches, stories, fantasies, analogies, and learning from life experiences. Students relate to the file tables as they would to a dictionary, thereby gaining training in researching, making connections, comparing and contrasting, and identifying. The exhibition site also functions as a recreational reading area, providing a place for a “wandering” style of situational teaching and permitting learning to take place in an environment—dominated by a white, cloud-shaped signboard inscribed with the words “contemporary art”—in which participants can move from one virtual, man-made island to another.

Each art file is arranged with an emphasis on the visual. An image of the work, accompanied by leading questions, is displayed on the front of each file. In the course of answering questions—a process formulated around identification, contemplation, and discussion—students actively develop their visual literacy and critical thinking about images. Relevant information is supplied on the back of each file, providing opportunities for deeper comprehension and extended study. This format avoids the passive information dissemination methods of text found in most guides. Through the process of the exhibition, we allowed students to assume the role of the “Little Detective” investigating a contemporary art caper. Emphasizing the fundamental model of constructive learning, the Cake Prince boldly led students on an adventure that fostered a study ethic based on voluntary exploration, inference, and hypothesizing, and enhanced the students’ abilities in perception, experience, logic, and speculation, as well as in reflecting on life experiences.

The exhibition’s special strategies and resource structure can be divided into the four following categories: icon file tables and contemporary art file reading area (four colour-coded file tables of contemporary Taiwanese art); one Western history file table with a reference book area; a teaching, demonstration, and collective creation area (providing blank wall space and Internet- ready computers); and a game area (including Monopoly for older students and Maze for younger students). There was no need to clearly delineate the space surrounding the four areas. Instead, due to the mobility and autonomy of the exhibition, the placement of the four tables could be adjusted depending on the space and teaching structure for schools’ exhibition visits.

99 The conceptual map of the exhibition.

For use outside of the exhibition site, I provided a reading guide to contemporary art titled “Thirteen Questions Regarding Contemporary Art.” This guide contains a multitude of resources, including an introduction and guide to thirteen essential contemporary art concepts from the four categories above, questions intended to stimulate students’ thinking, and teaching pointers. Moreover, it provides examples of some of the art files in the exhibition, a glossary of important terms, bibliographies of reference books for teachers and adults (and picture books for children), teaching plans for group creation in schools, and based on rules for the games Monopoly and Maze.

In light of the continuous evolution of contemporary art concepts and the uncertainty of social phenomena, the exhibition design of this contemporary art education fair has maintained “phase- based” and “augmentable” aspects. As time goes by, the exhibition will continue its exploration of the numerous facets of contemporary art through diverse formats and multi-level content in order to add to the contemporary art document files. “Art,” in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s explorations of language, is an open concept. Contemporary art is not simply taking place, it is a concept that is continually in the process of developing. Therefore, this campus education activity aimed at young people and school children is not an attempt to come to a static conclusion, but, rather, to maintain openness towards discussion and language.

The exhibition offers the following suggestions to teachers regarding its actual application in schools.

1) Within the appropriate parameters for the management and usage of the exhibition, encourage students to use their class time to engage in autonomous study and play. This may include such activities as file reading, researching, Internet browsing, and game playing. Children read and handle the contemporary files.

100 The image side of a contemporary art file.

2) Teachers must read thoroughly all information provided in the reading guide and make use of the large volume of visual art files, historical images, children’s books, and games in designing their worksheets and teaching plans. Teachers are encouraged to adopt teaching models based on an interdisciplinary approach, educational experimentation, and group interaction.

3) The reading guide contains a teaching plan for collective creation based on “rhizome theory.” Teachers in charge of the exhibition at each school visited are encouraged to implement this plan in the classroom. Completed works should be displayed on the empty wall space provided at the exhibition site so that each school builds its own unique community genealogy. The creation of these walls permits the direct experience of the diversity and interconnectedness of contemporary art and the social nature of self-identity in school children, and the walls themselves will remain as original works of art at every school on the exhibition’s tour.

The educational philosophy behind A Piece of Cake is, foremost, to adopt a inquisitive approach as a replacement for the informative model of education. Questions can lead from “What do you see?” to “What is it that you do not see?” And, from “Is what you see what you see?”—a question arising from formalism’s descriptive analysis of images—teachers can gradually move on to “What societal norms, cultural conventions, and power structures do you not see?” This philosophy means providing mechanisms for voluntary learning so as to encourage the audience to explain the codes and discover the answers on his/her own, as well as giving emphasis to divergent viewpoints. Secondly, the exhibition’s philosophy highlights an ability for self-examination through meta- cognition by asking “What is art?” “What is the process of art?” and “What is an art system?” and then presenting the statement “Art is thought!” in order to allow the audience to consciously monitor the process of self-awareness in art and develop the ability to doubt, hypothesize, and apply evidence-based reasoning when it comes to beliefs about art. Moreover, we stress that the exhibition is a stage and provides an environment that serves to permit the audience to rely on his/her own prior experience, knowledge, beliefs, and memories and thereby engage in a dialogue with the many conditions inherent to the exhibition site. This becomes a Adult visitors browse the contemporary art files.

101 constructive learning experience through the process of which the audience achieves awareness and realization. Going a step further, in addition to the art content provided by this exhibition being used for art education, it can also prove useful to teachers designing worksheets and teaching plans for “multiple intelligences learning” and “integrated/interdisciplinary The MOCA site of A Piece of Cake. teaching.”

With the assistance of the Quanta Culture and Education Foundation, we are currently planning over the next year or two to visit cooperating arts and culture organizations and primary and middle schools in villages and towns all around Taiwan, including the Kaohsiung Fine Art Museum.

Contemporary art is a condition that continues to happen. In the language of postmodern art there are limits to young boys and girls gaining a full comprehension of issues of fine art styles. Superseding this is a different type of art education that moves with the pulse of contemporary society. With this type of art education, collaboration with exhibitions at fine art museums or contemporary art exhibitions and performances will create greater opportunities for real learning about art and facilitate discovery through the process of experience and inquiry. Ultimately, with this new approach, we are giving contemporary art education a constructive kind of encyclopedia very different from textbooks that emphasize uni-directional transmission of traditional knowledge.

Does contemporary art that involves itself in the currents of life and an average member of the public run parallel to each other? Or do they have an intersecting relationship? Effective learning approaches laid down by contemporary art education can allow audiences to choose freely the pace of their explorations from within their own life experiences, and, with the guidance provided by critical thinking about contemporary art, construct their own individual viewpoints concerning contemporary society. Within this, “education” and “learning” form a referential relationship that is both parallel and intersecting. In the process of providing instruction, teachers of the arts and humanities, whether playing the role of a farmer cultivating his crops, a caring gardener, or a knowledge provider, can gain inspiration from contemporary art that will help them bring into play their roles as school counselors, directors, actors, and designers. The study of art will forever be an inspirational process of questioning for both the mind and spirit. Contemporary art is not simply an academic field of knowledge. More importantly, it is a method for the delivery of information, the manifestation of inquisitiveness, the expression of oneself, and the demonstration of concern for the world.

102 Documenta 12 Magazines Feature on Education Potentially Wise? The Boom in Hong Kong Contemporary Arts Education Jaspar K. W. Lau

Jeder Mensch ist ein Künstler, potentiell. –Joseph Beuys1

he field of contemporary art is increasingly recognized as one of global production and consumption. But how is contemporary art education possible when the question T“What is Art?” the new paradigmatic thesis of contemporary aesthetics (the legacy of Marcel Duchamp), remains a nominalistic one? In our educational institutions, the traditional methodologies of art history are threatened not just by the growth of new approaches to art history as in past decades, but also by new challenges arising out of some even deeper self- reflectivity: a re-recognition of its own nature as just another kind of art historical writing on the one hand, and claims of the end of art history itself on the other. The high/low de-hierachization of visual culture, proclaiming itself an heir of postmodernism, is taking on the canon too, while the grand narrative of art history dissolves into pluralized, de-centred, multi-cultural “stories of art.” In spite of all this, the practical stream of art-teaching worldwide seems to keep the supply of students going strong. This short article will not be able to delve into surveying the complex interdisciplinary relationship among art education and aesthetics, art history, theory, or visual culture. Yet it will try to cast these disciplines within their specific local perspectives and consider them together under the constellation of the problem of modernity and contemporary aesthetics.

First, a bit of background. Art education in Hong Kong over the past decade has experienced a spectacular boom. For a long period, the Department of Fine Arts of New Asia College (first launched in 1957), which was later incorporated into the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUFA, founded in 1963), represented the prime source of new graduates entering the art field. The annual B.A. class for CUFA is made up of a little more than twenty students. Despite its early and continuing focus of Ph.D.s in art history in Chinese art, the current role model for Hong Kong art education is a unique combination of studio practice and art history studies drawn from both Chinese and Western art. In contrast, the Department of Fine Arts of the Hong Kong University, established in 1978, tends to focus primarily on art history.

The boom that I refer to can be considered to have begun in the 1990s. The Polytechnic (with its School of Design) was upgraded to a university in 1994. City Polytechnic founded its School of Creative Media a bit later, in 1998. Then the Art School, founded in 2000 (renamed Hong Kong Art School in 2006, hereafter referred to as HKAS), evolved from the Arts Centre Education Department courses it had offered since 1994 and started its first part-time degree in collaboration with Australia’s Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in 1999. According to the HKAS Web site, the school has a student body of over 4,000, with almost 800 “full-time-equivalent” students, an alumni figure of over 100,000, and a faculty list of nearly 200.2

The latest wave in this boom is the recent addition of the Academy of Visual Arts at the Hong Kong Baptist University, launched in 2005 with some forty students and now settled in one of the

103 former Royal Air Force officers' mess halls, a 3,500-square-metre historical building of twentieth- century colonial architecture. In contrast, the Creative Media department of the City University is expecting to move into new headquarters designed by Daniel Libeskind. Even at the pre-tertiary level, arts education in Hong Kong is undergoing huge changes, not just in curricula, but also with ambitious projects such as the Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity. This newly opened upper-level secondary school, founded by the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture, is among the first to try to break away from mainstream curriculum that is set for the general secondary schools by the Education and Manpower Bureau by providing courses oriented to the creative industries.

Alongside such huge expansions in the size and scale of these institutions, the number of courses provided is quickly escalating. CUFA’s M.F.A. program began only in 1995, marking another milestone in local arts education development. Prior to this, artists usually had to go overseas to get a taste of what was on offer in M.F.A. programs. While artists who study abroad and then return to Hong Kong represent a continued and forceful push in the development of the local arts scene, their numbers remained limited. The HKAS master’s class just had its first graduation exhibition this summer; this class included more than twenty students, with around fifteen anticipated for each of the coming years. This is already five times or more the number of M.F.A. students CUFA produces annually. The Academy of Visual Arts of the Baptist University is also planning to launch an M.A. program in 2007.

Though it is not part of the HKAS program, RMIT also produced two D.F.A.s [doctors of fine art], who are now both working at HKAS. One of them is Ho Siu Kee, the Academic Head of HKAS Director’s office. He was formerly a CUFA B.A. graduate, and he then completed his M.F.A. at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, before the local M.F.A. program began. But unlike his teacher, Chan Yuk Keung, who also studied at Cranbrook and has taught at CUFA since 1989 (the same year for Ho’s graduation there), Ho then further enrolled in RMIT and obtained his D.F.A.3 This seems a clear example of how local artists, with help from overseas resources, can further their studies, and, more importantly, re-invest their knowledge and experience into local art education.

II.

To further illustrate this situation, I will focus on HKAS, the newcomer that best represents this boom. Although a much younger institution than CUFA, HKAS has quickly outgrown its forerunner in scale and ambition. Taking over as the major source of art education in Hong Kong, HKAS inevitably has to satisfy much of the arts community’s expectations that were previously shouldered by CUFA. In light of this, the main question that has been repeatedly asked, as was evident in the 2003 CUFA 40th anniversary publication Cheng Ming in All Directions, is whether the focus of CUFA should even be on producing artists.

But while CUFA as a university offering a B.A. degree has the tradition of providing a general education, early discussion in the arts community about the founding of a proper art school was aimed at pushing toward more focused and professional art training. Of course, no one could be so naive as to believe the small local art scene could really sustain so many new graduates with M.F.A.s as artists. Nor could anyone be so blind as to not see that a healthy art ecology needs more than just artists. But as the B.A. students of CUFA could only take either the practical or the art history stream and share a number of courses with another stream, their training in CUFA was not particularly occupational specific.

104 HKAS, on the other hand, offers professional certificate courses in arts management. At one point, under the guidance of project director of Oscar Ho, HKAS even offered professional certificate courses in visual arts management and curatorship with guest lecturers coming from the Guggenheim. (Note: the latest news is that Oscar Ho has joined the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong as the programme director for their MA Programme in Cultural Management. Meanwhile, Pamela Kember has taken over as the programme coordinator teaching professional certificate in exhibition studies and art curatorship at the Art School.)

But education is tricky, because besides being a reproduction mechanism for society, it is also about investing in and shaping the future. Under a new entrepreneurial spirit, this boom in arts education seems to suggest a reverse argument: that only with a sufficient pool of talent and subsequent practitioners can the supply break the deadlock and produce a cultural ecology and market demand that was previously non-existent. The problem with this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy is, of course, that the bright future has not yet become a reality. So, meanwhile, there seem to be two ways to dissect this phenomenon. One is that art education keeps inflating itself and advancing itself in the name of professionalization; the other moves in quite a different direction, that of expansion of knowledge about the future of the creative industries.

Instead of becoming artists, many CUFA students became art educators in the pre-tertiary level, using their B.A. degrees as teaching qualifications. Yet the M.F.A.s, with their more advanced qualifications, were in a better position to enter a higher level of teaching. By sustaining themselves via part-time teaching in different tertiary institutions, or the now new option of HKAS, they are able to retain, to a certain degree, their status as artists.

The boom in Hong Kong hence represents the ripening of a local self-reproduction mechanism that can also be seen as a reflection of the global M.F.A. boom.4 The flip side here is, of course, that teaching is a much more secure occupation than being an artist, especially considering that there is still no sustainable art market. And even in the last few years, B.A., then M.F.A., graduates of HKAS are teaching at their alma mater in no small numbers.

But what draws B.A. students in? Or where does the optimism seemingly come from, if even teachers are unable to make a living out of being an artist? According to Matthew Turner, Director of HKAS, the supply of polytechnic arts education in Hong Kong still lags far behind his home country of Scotland. Nevertheless, a great shift has actually occurred here in what we are talking about as arts education. HKAS at least has a clear distinction between its degrees in Fine Art and that of Applied and Media Arts.

The key here is undoubtedly the seeming link between “creativity” in modern arts education and the anticipation of future jobs in the “creative industries.”5 Except for the few universities fortunate enough to have funding to carry out academic research, most of them are not exempt from becoming occupational factories. “The polytechnics, re-imagined by Margaret Thatcher’s government as the liberal arts universities,” as scholar James Elkins ironically puts it,6 seems to speak to the situation here too.

The program objectives of the Academy of Visual Arts of the Baptist University state plainly that the university “will cultivate artists and designers who can meet the urgent need of the creative industry in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta to produce artistic works incorporating fine

105 arts skills and computer graphics.”7 The mission statement of the School of Creative Media is no exception: “[Students] are being prepared to assist the media industries in adapting to change and new technologies and in creating world standard content. . . . They are also well-equipped to understand the business and legal environments in which media industries operate.”8

From the point of view of the government, what could be better than having all these educational detours (starting from different certificate and diploma courses, many of which are self-financed) to help lift the burden of a high youth unemployment rate? Creative industries are thought of as the panacea for a seemingly stagnate post-97 Hong Kong economy, able to generate money by duplicating a British example. With the major project of the West Kowloon Cultural and Entertainment district, the city naively assumes there will be a boost in the culture industry and tourism (and, maybe, in turn, lessen the unemployment rate among the “overeducated”?).

Unlike the subsidized universities, HKAS inevitably has its own marketing concerns. This is most clearly illustrated in the marketing strategies that reveal what the boom in arts education is actually about. Executive director of HKAS Louis Yu understands well the “technology plus creativity means money” formula and that “people often associate creativity with art” is the reason that many people now spend time learning art.9 Even the motto for HKAS, “lifelong learning for arts and creativity,” was half borrowed from the government’s propaganda encouraging citizens to enrol in continuous education and different value-enhancement programs.

III.

As the boom in arts education moves in these new directions, a comparative reduction in the visibility of fine arts departments in the universities is already starting to be felt. With high-profile guest lecturers utilizing its campus downtown, with the publishing of its own regular art magazine, and with a tiny gallery run by its alumni, HKAS has been exploring new areas in which to reach the public and interact with the community (well understood as a source of potential customers). But as art schools and universities approach art education on different footings, a differentiation between them should lead to positive ends in the long run. So far, the major differences likely arise from the different types of students who are drawn to enrol.

While art schools becoming less immune to market demands may not be such a bad thing, it would be frightening if universities were to move in the same direction. Yet, there is also the grave danger of the fine arts departments in universities moving too much in the opposite direction. By clinging to conservative modes of art history studies, it could become increasingly pedantic and detached from the contemporary art scene, as well as society. A good comparison and contrast in this respect could be made, with, say, the kinds of guest lectures, forums, workshops, publications, or online articles that the independent Asia Art Archive has produced that serve the arts community in engaging and accessible ways.

Throughout the years, the strength of the university model has helped neither scholars nor artists foster a vibrant local milieu in the critical discourse on contemporary art. Art history, as a nineteenth-century construct, as the dominant component of the academic discipline, as the unquestioned way of learning about art, might have something to do with it. The annual Hong Kong Visual Arts Yearbook from CUFA (with additional funding from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council) was perhaps the best effort by the art historians to try to bridge the gap with the local art scene, yet it kept itself visibly distant from art criticism of an interventionist nature.

106 Art criticism and theory were never specially encouraged within the CUFA B.A. course structure. These subjects seem, however, to have gained a bit more attention in the past few years via the addition of a new course, Art as Profession, and the hiring of a foreign professor who is not only well versed in theory, but, more importantly, eager to write for local, non-academic publications. Yet, to study further in contemporary art theory and its discourses, one has to switch departments and enter Cultural Studies or Comparative Literature instead.

Cross-disciplinary coordination between university departments, too, is unfortunately rare. Even though courses in aesthetics might be provided by the Philosophy department, at CUFA, for example, they are at times taught by professors more inclined toward the analytic aesthetics of the Anglo-American tradition, leaving other forms of contemporary aesthetics untouched. To fill in such gaps, since 1999 the Arts Development Council overseas scholarships scheme has helped a number of local practitioners studying outside of Hong Kong, resulting in some M.A.s being received in the Feminism and the Visual Arts program at the University of Leeds in the U.K.

One noteworthy local university department that offers more interdisciplinary studies in the arts is the Visual Studies Program in the Department of Philosophy at Lingnan University, which is also among the first local institutions to set up a Cultural Studies department. The curious thing about this landing of visual culture in Hong Kong is that it happened outside of the few strongholds of tertiary arts education. Its import seemed therefore irrelevant to the general crisis in art history as it has appeared elsewhere. Some professors teaching visual culture do not seem to have any particular interest in raising theoretical challenges to the disciplinary mode of art history as taught in the local establishments, or vice versa.

IV.

But I am neither a proponent of visual culture nor a sympathizer with art history facing its end. Art history, in scholar Thierry de Duve’s words, is “first of all constituted by the evidential record of previous aesthetic judgments.”10 The kind of art history that pretends to be scientific, shying away from recognizing itself as judgmental and value-laden, built up a distance between the object of study and its observer that might, in contrast to visual culture, make it barely relevant to the real world. On the other hand, its logic actually parallels visual culture in levelling the difference between “high” and “low.”

More importantly, contemporary art experience has made traditional art history methodology irrelevant as historiography became problematic after the finale of modernism, as scholar Hans Belting suggests.11 Yet, contra the art history that seems to lag behind its contemporary challenges, it is as interesting to consider how many cultural studies scholars came to acknowledge that their discipline “has lost its way”12 and hurried to jump on the bandwagon of visual culture. Even the Hong Kong Institute of Education has published a book of collected essays on visual culture in an attempt to introduce it to primary and secondary arts education.

For visual culture, two critical comments from different perspectives can help us see the symptoms in current arts education. The first one comes from scholar Rosalind Krauss in the special October issue reporting on their questionnaire about visual culture. To her, what visual studies really does is help “to produce subjects for the next stage of globalized capital”13 (or “better consumers,”14 as James Elkins would put it, more bluntly). The other one comes again from Elkins, in his Skeptical

107 Introduction to Visual Culture, that “what matters most is the ease: visual studies is too easy to learn, too easy to practice, too easy on itself.”15

Instead of choosing between visual culture (postmodernism) or art history (of a post-history era), I rather see modern aesthetics as the key to the problem of modernity, and staying within its paradigm. The nominalist crisis of contemporary art Duchamp posed to Kant’s aesthetics16 actually resembles the “groundless ground” as mentioned in scholar Scott Lash’s Another Modernity.17 I did not intend to explicate this personal position of mine in detail here, but I hopefully show how it all comes full circle where I am back at the primal question that I raised at the forefront, “How is art education possible?”

In one of the HKAS promotional posters, a number of these questions were posed and answered with wit:

Can art be taught? Art can be learnt. Is art a profession? Integrity and discipline form the basis of professionalism. Is talent requisite in art learning? Practice makes talent visible. Should we aim for innovation in art making? The exploratory process is more significant than the innovative outcome.18

Yet in demonstrating their wit, these sentences also exposed the Achilles's heel of the modern art education paradigm, which could be summarized in Joseph Beuys’s dictum that potentially “everyone is an artist” in mind as the myth of creativity.

“Art can be learnt,” for example, avoids confronting arguments posed in Elkins’s Why Art Cannot be Taught. “Practice makes talent visible,” too, does not dare to challenge the modern academic pedagogic view of arts education that upholds creativity as a faculty natural to all (instead of just the gifted). On the contrary, art education often reinforces the professional status of the artist alongside other “professionals.” This preservation of the artist’s unique status, rather than encouraging reflexivity, even self-doubt, is still very much at the heart of art education.

“Is art a profession?” is in this regard also a kind of self-parody, especially if one remembers the fact that art schools here are filled with artists surviving as educators (part-time lecturers). Ho Siu Kee himself once suggested that Chan Yuk Keung went straight from an M.F.A. to teaching, and the experience he could provide is that of a teacher rather than an artist.19 A second level of parody is art schools that claim that they do not aim to “turn out” artists, but do stress professionalism.

Locally speaking, “art as a career” is still a relatively novel idea (one traceable record has to be Leung Chi Wo’s account of how this idea came to him during his internship in Jan Hoet’s museum and his subsequent trip with the team to Documenta in 1992).20 But with a number of graduates returning from the United Kingdom during the past few years, the “Young British Artists” phenomenon has undoubtedly been taken as a model for artists of the younger generation. The “occupational hazard” (marketing skills, contacts, confidence, just name a few, for cut-throat survival) of the myths about the “YBA” phenomenon of spectacle and stardom is still relatively unacknowledged. Reflected this is Chan Yuk Keung’s complaint that the recent practice of “marketing and strategizing,” in gaining recognition, has overtaken the importance of the quality of the art itself.21

108 Lane Relyea wrote in Public Offering, “the art school, with its supposedly solitary environment encouraging the undistracted pursuit of studies . . . [is] now perceived as totally enmeshed within the web of market forces. . . . Such increased proximity between commerce and art education has been paralleled by a rise in dismissal of criticism as no different from product promotion.”22 In a review appearing in the HKAS publication, part-time lecturer Enoch Cheung recently mused on whether to call his art students artists. This might seem trivial at first sight, but as discussed in Public Offering, some “Global Academies” (art schools such as CalArts) do emphasize that they treat their students not as students, but as artists who happen to be in school.23 What does this imply? Some psychology of careerism?

In one of his recent texts, titled “monologue,” Chan Yuk Keung reflects upon the mutual influence between his teaching and artistic practice. Such literature is rare and worth quoting at length:

My position at the university has given me its advantages as well as its limitations. At least I would be concerned if the approach and presentation met a certain “professional expectation.” . . . At present, when certain areas of “chain development” in Hong Kong art have yet to reach professional levels, artists are the ones who simultaneously play different roles, as educators, critics, and cultural agents . . . . In this sense, the word “artist” cannot refer only to people working in a particular area of art. Yet, the role of “art educator” is even more complicated. S/he must agree and understand the universal values of art and their actual application in society, and at the same time be able to demonstrate the feasibility of certain ideas. . . . As an artist, I tend to choose approaches that are “accountable” and ”understandable” as a framework for creation, whereby I expect to experience elements of design during the production process of my works. . . . I could search for a rational but unconventional solution. This type of work is generally considered as “witty,” but lacks “wisdom.” . . . My artistic orientation directs my basic belief as an art teacher—the activity of art is nowadays an intellectual exercise of knowledge. . . . Sometimes, the pursuit of “universality” (as an art teacher) and the pursuit of “uniqueness” (as an artist) conflict with each other.24

It is no wonder that in another interview, Chan Yuk Keung exposed his gradually increasing doubt about the idea that a good teacher can also be a good artist.25 Maybe, as James Elkins put it in one of the many “why art cannot be taught” propositions, “great art cannot be taught, but most run- of-the-mill art can be,”26 but what interests me even more is Chan Yuk Keung’s contrast of wisdom with wit.

The wit of the HKAS promotional poster’s questions and answers evades tackling the modernity problem inherited in aesthetics, like that of elitism versus democracy, the fundamental paradox of pedagogic enlightenment. To borrow Elkins’s phrase, it has left arts education simply “too easy,” and problematically has also de-politicized it. Thierry de Duve’s “Joseph Beuys, or the Last of the Proletarians”27 is perhaps the harshest critique of this visionary artist that I know of, for its attack focused on Beuys’s core belief in creativity, thus surpassing even scholar Benjamin Buchloh’s infamous piece “Beuys: The Twlight of the Idol.” Yet his comment on how creativity in the cultural field failed to replace money as “capital” might be another timely reading in light of the creative industries’ craze for manufacturing the boom in art education. For a mockery of what kind of future generation the current Hong Kong education omni-emphasis on creativity will produce, the Mcdull film series hit the bulls-eye again with Mcdull The Alumni (2006).

109 The following quotation from Thierry de Duve, at the close of the Rediscovering Aesthetics conference held in Cork in 2004, despite drawing good-natured laughter (as the transcript records), speaks of something that I wish I could remind people of—the importance of modern aesthetics that is often neglected in contemporary art education:

I’d say with a leap that Kant’s Critique of Judgment formulates a transcendental—I say transcendental, not utopian or anything like that—foundation for democracy and peace on earth.28

Understanding this, I believe, makes contemporary art education not just possible, but also meaningful.

Notes 1 Friedhelm Mennekes, Beuys zu Christus (Stuttgart: Verl. Kath. Bibelwerk, 1992), 48. 2 Note: The staff reconfirmed for me these startling alumni figures, which, however, I still can’t help but be suspicious of. 3 See James Elkins, ed., The New Ph.D. in Studio Art, Printed Project no. 4 (2005). 4 See Howard Singerman, Art Subjects: Making Artists in the American University (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 6. 5 According to the A Study on Creativity Index, commissioned by the Home Affairs Bureau, creative industries are “a group of economic activities that exploit and deploy creativity, skill, and intellectual property to produce and distribute products and services of social and cultural meaning—a production system through which the potentials of wealth generation and job creation are realized.” The domains identified as such include advertising, architecture, art, antiques and crafts, design, digital entertainment, film and video, music, performing arts, publishing, software and computing, television, and radio. 6 James Elkins, “Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction,” Web PDF version, http://www.jameselkins.com/html/books_academic. html, 1. 7 http://va.hkbu.edu.hk/about.htm. 8 http://www.cityu.edu.hk/scm/aboutus/mission.htm. 9 “Standard,” Hong Kong Art School, unpaginated leaflet, undated. 10 “The Art Seminar,” in James Elkins, ed., Art History Versus Aesthetics (New York: Routledge, 2006), 60. 11 See Hans Belting, Art History after Modernism, translated by Caroline Slatzwedel and Mitch Cohen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 10. 12 Nichloas Mirzoeff, “What is Visual Culture?” in The Visual Culture Reader (New York: Routledge, 1998), 10. 13 Margaret Dikovitskaya, Visual Culture—The Study of the Visual after the Cultural Turn (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2005),18. 14 James Elkins, “Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction,” 14. 15 James Elkins, “Visual Studies: A Skeptical Introduction,” 84. 16 See Thierry de Duve, Kant after Duchamp (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1996). 17 See Scott Lash, Another Modernity—A Different Rationality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999). 18 “Standard,” Hong Kong Art School, unpaginated leaflet, undated. 19 Leung Po Shan, “Writing Backward,” in QK—A Specimen Collection of Chan Yuk Keung (Hong Kong: Para/Site Art Space, 2003), 147. 20 See “Leung Chi Wo,” in Someone Else’s Story—Our Footnotes, Contemporary Art of Hong Kong (1990–1999) (Hong Kong: Hong Kong Arts Centre, 2002), 92. 21 Chan Yuk Keung, “Monologue,” in QK—A Specimen Collection of Chan Yuk Keung, 10. 22 Lane Relyea, “L.A.-Based and Superstructure,” in Howard Singerman, ed., Public Offerings (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2001), 259–58. 23 Howard Singerman, “From My Institution to Yours,” in Public Offerings, 287–66. 24 “Monologue,” 8–11. 25 “Chan Yuk Keung,” in Someone Else’s Story—Our Footnotes, Contemporary Art of Hong Kong (1990–1999), 88. 26 James Elkins, Why Art Cannot be Taught (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005), 99. 27 See Thierry de Duve, “Joseph Beuys or The Last of the Proletarians,” October 45 (1988), 47–62. 28 “The Art Seminar,” 65.

110 VITAL: International Chinese Live Art Festival—Reflecting on Contemporary Practices Andrew Mitchelson

n a cold and fresh November morning I arrived in Manchester, U.K., to visit the Chinese Arts Centre’s latest ambitious program—a festival of International Chinese OLive Art. VITAL was a courageous attempt by the Chinese Arts Centre to present the work of fourteen internationally renowned artists from the Chinese diaspora. I was intrigued to see how the work of artists from China, Hong Kong, the U.S.A., mainland Europe and, of course, the U.K., would be contextualized within the festival format. While attending the four-day event, I was excited to witness, partake in, and interrogate the artists’ works and to reflect upon my own understanding of art and culture, from both within and outside of the Chinese context.

Since its opening in 1986, the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester has sought to correct an imbalance in opportunities available for Chinese artists within the United Kingdom. Addressing frustration on the part of British-Chinese artists, the Centre has pushed forth into the new millennium with a strong program of activity aimed at ensuring contemporary Chinese art is promoted to the widest possible audience. At the same time, the Centre offers support to a range of artists. Through residencies, education programs, and training opportunities for artists and exhibitions, the Chinese Arts Centre has placed itself at the forefront of support for the artistic practices of artists of Chinese descent in the U.K.

VITAL could be seen as the next development in the presentation of Chinese Live Art in the U.K. following on the successes of China Live—a previous collaboration with Live Art UK, the Live

Marcus Young, Pacific Avenue, 2006, VITAL: International Chinese Live Art Festival, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, U.K. Photo: James Champion.

111 Edwin Lung, Light by Light, 2006, VITAL: International Chinese Live Art Festival, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, U.K. Photo: James Champion.

Art Development Agency, and Shu Yang of the Dadao Live Art Festival in Beijing. The program for VITAL was developed by Sarah Champion, CEO of the Chinese Arts Centre, in consultation with the Live Art Development Agency. Together, they set out to strengthen and further develop an international network of artists, audiences, scholars, critics, and curators who could share their ideas about Live Art. The term Live Art describes the development of certain artistic and cultural practices that seek to understand the nature and experience of art in contemporary society.

Live Art practices are often seen to be inherently positioned in the present and the experiential. Although I had been engaged as a spectator, audience member, and even participant in numerous pieces that interrogated the nature of interdisciplinary practices and performance-based work, thus far I had witnessed only documentation of work by Chinese Live Artists, which offered me merely a partial glimpse into their practices or performances. Such documentation exists after the moment of the event as a mediatized trace, or reminder, of what was, with many references and meanings remaining lost. I was hoping that the Festival would offer me insight into how a generation of new Chinese artists might be creating and presenting distinctive work within a shifting and changing sociopolitical and economic landscape, and how notions of cultural heritage, of the traditional and the contemporary, might be distinguished through contemporary performance art and Live Art practices.

Opening the festival in a public space in the city centre, Marcus Young (U.S.A.) brought his slow- walking project Pacific Avenue to the streets of Manchester for VITAL. Emerging from the Arndale Centre on Corporation Street, the usual five-minute walk to St. Ann’s Church took Young, dressed in a long, beige Chinese garment, around three hours to complete. He smiled widely and without words engaged everyone he passed by, and as I watched I could feel his slowness disrupting the pace of the surrounding urban life. This public intervention was met with reactions that ranged

112 from intrigue to bemusement when passers-by encountered this slow-walking artist with his umbrella. In consciously seeking out Young walking his Pacific Avenue through the city streets, I experienced the action from a slightly different perspective. As the theatre of everyday life unfolded around him, my gaze shifted from watching the artist as performer (or object) to watching the actions of those around him. The piece offered a refreshing experience that led me to understand that I am often too busy trying to get somewhere or do something that I forget to notice the richness of what is happening around me.

Young, whose previous work has often been conceptual in nature, reflected on the project as offering a kind of symbolic acupuncture to the urban environment. Drawing upon the effects of energy flow inherent to Eastern medicinal practices, he considered how his own actions serve to ‘heal’ or unblock the hectic flow of the city and draw attention to our everyday existence. “The walk gives me lots of time to smile and greet people and think. I like it when people respond to me and my actions, whatever the responses may be,” commented Marcus Young during a later post- event discussion. “I don’t want to be captured on a mobile phone or a camera; it is not myself that is important. I would like people around to just slow down a little, and perhaps stop to notice and reflect on what is happening around them in the same way that slow-walking gives me this opportunity.”

Young also provided insight into how his work is shaped by each individual city and highlighted how important it was to visit and walk around the city before performing, to get a feel for the most appropriate route to take and where to start and end. During the four days of slow walking, Young emerged from a site of consumerism and disappeared into a place of worship. This added a further layer of meaning to the work, emphasizing both contemporary and traditional focal points of the city’s landscape. I wondered if Young had consciously wanted to contrast these two opposing ritualistic activities—the contemporary, post-modern place of consumerist worship and the traditional site of prayer. Young previously performed Pacific Avenue in Beijing, Liverpool, Minneapolis, and New York, and I wondered how different each walking experience must have been, and how the reactions might have varied in very differing public sites and cultural contexts across the world.

Back in the tearoom at the Chinese Arts Centre, which became a vibrant meeting and focal point for the festival, audiences were able to gather in anticipation of the next presentation and talk about their differing experiences of the art. On a daily basis, audiences were also able to book one- to-one meetings with some of the participating artists, offering a rare opportunity for the public to engage merely in dialogue with the artists. This dialogue dissolved boundaries between art and artist and enabled deeper, more meaningful contact with the work. It has been noted by Lois Keidan, director of Live Art Development Agency, that in the context of Live Art, the audience and artist can be complicit partners in the making and reading of meaning. Opportunities to discuss ambiguities in meaning were provided by these informal meetings.

The first performance to take place within the gallery spaces was an intervention by Dai Guang Yu (China). Painting the words “I Love You. What can I do to please you” on the floor with a brush in his mouth while being coerced to do so by two menacing Klu Klux Klan figures, Yu’s highly politicized actions left me slightly bewildered. I left the intervention questioning my relationship and understanding of both the art and artist, and I was left confused as to whether I had just witnessed a personal and suggestive art action or a much broader comment about wider relationships of power—or indeed both. The figures immediately reminded me of racial struggles

113 in America during the early 1900s and offered me this point of reference, yet I felt that Yu was making a broader political reference to civil or human rights. But I could not ground my reading of his actions on this point.

Two days later, some of my curiosity about Yu’s work was satisfied when he presented an artist’s talk to a packed Education Suite in the Chinese Arts Centre—a space where discussion and talks in a slightly more formal setting occurred. In the talk entitled “Live Art in Mainland China.” He provided insight into the difficulties of presenting and practising Live Art and performance art in China. Yu spoke of the tensions that can arise when the government is not understanding of the contemporary art scene and its practices. In contrast, in the U.K., Live Art has developed along a rich and varied path that offers a space for artists to contest politics and its relationship to contemporary culture and has never suffered to the same extremes as artists in China having to negotiate fears of censorship by those in positions of power. Yu highlighted that in China, where the cultural climate is so different, relationships with the media and local governments need to be carefully nurtured so that the art practices can be better understood and interpreted for the benefit of both artists and the wider society.

In the publication China Live, Dadao curator Shu Yang, in charting the development of Live Art in China, had previously maintained that Live Art offers a strategic departure from the problematics of earlier Chinese performance art, which had undergone censorship and control from the government. Yang further maintains that due to the specific sociopolitical and cultural climate of China, performance art as a practice from the 1980s to 1990s was at a point of offering artists a place for “engaging and commenting on the realities of life in their native place,” yet they still experienced the threat of imprisonment for their actions.

As Yu talked of the differences in presenting work in Chengdu, Sichuan province, compared to the political, economic, and urban centres of Beijing or Shanghai, I began to appreciate the politically treacherous journey of performance artists from China. As he grounded his practice historically and offered fresh perspectives on the development of Live Art practices in China, I understood how prominent the fight for civil rights and freedom of expression must have been for certain artists. I understood how this reality had been contested in his intervention that I earlier witnessed. Again I was grateful for a carefully selected program format that allowed me to gain deeper understanding into the context of the artist’s practice.

Suffering similar political censorship during his earlier work as an artist, Zheng Laijie, now based in the U.S.A. and considered one of the most prominent performance artists of his generation, screened one of three pieces he created between 1997 and 2003 titled My Life in New York. This moving documentary film showed Zheng visually overcome by the New York landscape as he removed eggs from a bird’s nest and proceeded to break them open in a downtown coffee shop. I understood his actions as perhaps representative of the longing for the fertility of his own mind through the symbolic cracking open of the eggs on the table and then smearing the yolk across his forehead. At the screening, Zheng also showed his most renowned work, Binding the Lost Souls: Huge Explosion 1993, which was banned in China because it questioned the symbolic ideology of the Great Wall beyond the period of the Cultural Revolution. Providing insight into the difficulties in making and presenting work in China was a particular strength of this festival.

Two artists who presented their work at VITAL used participatory devices to engage audiences in their work. I was invited to participate in a performative installation by Lisa Cheung (U.S.A.) and

114 Cai Yuan and JJ Xi (Mad for Real), 2006, VITAL: International Chinese Live Art Festival, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, U.K. Photo: James Champion. also contribute to a movement performance by Edwin Lung (U.K./Hong Kong). Cheung, whose decorative glass-sculpted lights hang from the tea house in the Chinese Arts Centre, presented a new performance installation with a beautiful yet sombre piece of work. Within the darkened gallery space, Cheung invited me and others to set up a series of lamps in the room and then proceeded to immerse the walls in colour, text, and light projected by the lamp’s swirling spinning shades. The emotive effect changed dramatically when it became apparent that I was immersed in something sinister. “The tide is coming up,” I read from one swirl of text across the gallery wall. “Tell my family to pray for me,” said another. Cheung’s light installation powerfully and provocatively transported me into the desperate final moments of the Morecambe Bay cockle- pickers as I read their final messages to their loved ones before they perished in the rising tide. I felt sickened and dizzied by the thought of the immigrant Chinese cockle-pickers’s deaths, and this feeling was heightened by my immersion in the movements and patterns created across the darkened room. The work pointed out the tragic situation of migrant workers in the U.K., who are often paid minimum wages to endure the worst social and economic realities.

In contrast to Cheung’s work addressing tragedy, Edwin Lung’s offered me a sense of hope for the future in his uplifting performance and participatory experience Light by Light. Initially, Lung took his inspiration from another symbol related to the U.K. coast, that of the lighthouse and its references to community and homecoming. From a balcony in the Chinese Arts Centre’s partner venue Urbis, I watched Lung’s dancing, swirling body from above as he spun around at high speed with a drum placed around his neck on a rope. The performance was set against a backdrop of projected light and the sound of traditional Chinese instruments. Lung’s speed and skill transfixed me, and when prompted by a light change I was invited, along with others, to send a ping-pong ball etched with my wishes and dreams for the future towards the swirling drum as if it were a target. Cheers and applause ensued as some of the lucky participants hit the drum and

115 watched their wishes fly off across the space below. This piece of work, Edwin’s first in the U.K. in ten years, explored our everyday relationship with wish-making, and as Edwin continues his residency working with the Chinese communities in Manchester, his legacy from Vital will grow. I particularly appreciated the collaborative aspect of both of these performances and how they engendered a shared experience among those attending.

A mixture of film screenings by Lee Wen (Singapore) and Mad For Real (U.K.), and artist talks by Patty Chang (U.S.A.), Ying Mei Duan (Germany), and He Yungchang (China) further fleshed out the festival program. The artists referred to their past work and were keen to openly demonstrate the way their bodies were often used as vehicles for communication. For example, as an East Village artist who now lives in Germany, Ying Mei Duan shared thoughts about her practice and highlighted how she presents her performance actions in a way that is at odds with her physical environment in order to pose questions to the viewer.

Patty Chang showed her films A Kiss Isn’t Just a Kiss and Shangri-La, which posed questions about our physical realities and what we might consider both imagined and real spaces. In Kiss, she sucks water from a mirror, revealing some beautiful visual moments of play between her real and reflected face, and in Shangri-La, Chang explored the story of a mythical utopia located on the Tibetan border and cited in the novel Lost Horizon. This film questioned the way we understand the imagined and the real and also posed questions about the ideological construct of Chinese and Western perspectives.

Lee Wen and the Mad for Real artists, Cai Yuan and JJ Xi, both reviewed their past works through film. These artists each use their body as a way to represent an exaggerated perspective on their ethnicity and identity, and the films presented symbolic representations of what it means to them to be Chinese. Lee Wen performed a number of gallery interventions as the persona “Yellow Man,” and Mad for Real showed their “Monkey King” interventions, which, alongside other works, offered a wry sense of humour. I was later crammed into the back of a white van outside Urbis with a number of other festival goers, students, and shoppers as Mad for Real continued their exploration of raw everyday materials and the experiences of trafficked peoples by juicing tomatoes in a blender and preparing a freshly made drink for the intrigued captive audience.

One-to-one performances by Yadong Hao (U.K.), Yeun Kin Leung, and Leung-Po Shan (Hong Kong) offered me a way to approach a kind of art I had not encountered before. With some hesitancy about what my experience might be, I booked my meeting with Leung-Po Shan for her piece Itchy Itchy. In retrospect, this seems the most emotionally and intellectually challenging work of art in VITAL, provocatively layered with meaning, intimate moments, and raw emotion. In a private encounter in a gallery space, lit with warm and soft yellow light, Leung-Po invited me to massage her naked body with oil, whilst her feet were delicately bound and restricted by red ribbon, offering a sense of perceived passivity. Carefully, Leung-Po used the process of embodiment as a means to deeply challenge my notions of presence, and as a metronome ticked beside me, we immersed ourselves in each other’s touch.

This remarkable work made me feel uncomfortable and yet at home. I felt at ease to immerse myself within a precious sensual moment, yet the experience shattered a whole array of preconceived notions about beauty, consent, sexuality, gender, power, and responsibility—and this unsettled me. On the other hand, the control held by Leung-Po and her role as an artist

116 He Chengyao, 2006, VITAL: International Chinese Live Art Festival, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, U.K. Photo: James Champion. enabled the shifting of power to its extremes. She presented herself as a submissive body, yet the constructed space and objects surrounding me heightened my experience, gently reminding me of being in the present moment and how precious that is. Never before had I engaged in such a challenging piece of art, one that confronted my own preconceived notions so viscerally and that transcended time. The fifteen minutes I spent with her felt like forever as Leung-Po enticed my intellect to a place where my personal beliefs could collide, shift, and dissolve. Upon leaving the room, Leung-Po presented me with the flower from her mouth and an almost empty bottle of oil was placed in a signed envelope; relics that would take me back to that time, and yet never come close to the intensity of those shared moments. Within the context of a Live Art festival, I began to fully appreciate just how alive and in the moment the work can be.

Similarly, Yadong Hao’s one-to-one performance Let me wash your hands of me . . . with me was a gentle opportunity for me to participate with the artist in the act of washing as ritual cleansing. This gentle piece involved us washing our hands together in a bowl of warm water in which, placed at the bottom of each bowl, was a personal photograph from Yadong’s past. This beautiful work offered me a moment of intimate contact with the artist and visual representations of her life and family. Although the pictures presented a world I knew nothing about, the scenes and events shown were powerful points of reference that any human being could relate to. Yadong later suggested to me that VITAL was for her an opportunity to focus upon experimental artwork rather than to push forward with political agendas or spectacular productions—perhaps a point of criticism of earlier performance art festivals in China.

Yuen Kin’s first performance in the U.K. was a sensitive, action-based piece. He explored themes of growth and the conditions required for germination through a series of actions in which he invited audience members to interact with one another by touch in an attempt to germinate and water

117 seeds that had been carefully “sewn” under bandages to his arms and legs. From the warmth of body heat, ice cubes melted between the participants’ hands, and the water dripped onto the seeds, metaphorically giving them the sustenance needed to grow and develop. This work beautifully commented upon the basic needs of our existence through collective actions.

By attending VITAL, I gained a deeper understanding of Chinese culture but also interrogated the manner in which representations of culture are constructed and presented. I was forced to reconsider my values and beliefs through immersive experiences and thought-provoking talks and screenings. VITAL was an overwhelming but fruitful experience. From the swirling death of tragedy to the sensitive touch of another’s hands, from the visceral and challenging to the close and intimate, the festival offered an opportunity to reflect upon the personal and the political, the real and the imagined, the contemporary and the traditional.

Ensuring the Festival closed on a high note, VITAL saw one of the few practising female performance artists in China, He Chengyao, present possibly the most visceral and highly politicized performance of the festival. He offered ten years worth of hair for sale by means of a candle auction. The atmosphere in the Chinese Arts Centre became highly charged as the candle burned to its end and the auction ended at £300. He’s actions were carried out in recognition of her bloodline and as a symbolic gesture to her parents, commenting on the artist as object as well as the growing focus on Chinese art within the contemporary art market.

On the final afternoon of VITAL, the artists gathered together with an inspired and diverse audience to discuss the impact and merits of the festival. It was encouraging to hear some of the artists express their gratitude to the Chinese Arts Centre not just for offering a platform for the presentation of their work, but for providing a space for dialogue, for the brokering of new relationships and networks, and for the artists to collectively belong without being reduced to their ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, or any other social construct. The only agenda for the Chinese Arts Centre appeared to be doing what indeed was vital at this time for the Chinese context— offering a space for the international artists to present work and to receive deserved attention from the audiences.

118 China Power Station: Part 1— Serpentine Gallery Offsite Project at the Battersea Power Station Nav Haq

ithin the context of a British art scene that of late has presented countless exhibitions of art from China, China Power Station: Part 1 was destined to induce a “not- Wanother-Chinese-art-show” mentality within the art establishment. Numerous institutions, including the Victoria and Albert in London, have already presented exhibitions of art from Chinese practitioners over the last year, and with a forthcoming survey of Chinese art taking place at Tate Liverpool in early 2007, and a performance festival of Chinese artists that recently took place in Manchester in the fall of 2006 (Vital 2006), concerns have been arising over the problematic situation of artists from China facing the burden of always being representative only of a region or nation. Amongst all of this, the Serpentine Gallery produced China Power Station: Part 1—a highly ambitious off-site project that presented a selection of twenty-two primarily emerging artists from China and was the first in a series of three China Power Station exhibitions to be presented in London, Oslo, and Beijing. Overlapping with another Serpentine show, Uncertain States of America—a major survey exhibition of young artists from the United States—it was as if the Serpentine was consciously attempting to engage simultaneously with the current global superpower and the hotly tipped future superpower. China Power Station was presented in the former Battersea Power Station, a monumental structure from the same era as the former Southwark Power Station now known as Tate Modern. Presumably though, in the context of this exhibition, there has been more of an emphasis on the symbolic use of the power station as a landmark about to be reawakened as a cultural centre, as opposed to being just a derelict relic of its former self.

Lu Chunsheng, History of Chemistry 2, 2006, DVD. Photo: Sylvain Deleu. Courtesy of the artist and ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai.

119 Installation view, China Power Station: Part 1, Battersea Powerstation. Photo: Sylvain Deleu. Courtesy of Serpentine Gallery, London.

The exhibition was presented in half of one of the power station’s two immense former turbine halls, with visitors led on tours around the exhibition. The participating artists included a number who are more internationally renowned, such as Cao Fei and Yang Fudong, alongside rising stars like Liu Ding and Xu Zhen. Curiously, the exhibition consisted of nearly all video works presented in neat, uniform rows on two of the three floors within the bare structure of the building. There were certainly some interesting contributions, including Lu Chunsheng’s new work History of Chemistry 2—a video that clearly develops his trademark dream-like meta-narratives with anonymous protagonists embarking on an unspecified journey through a typical southern English landscape. Chunsheng’s work is an exemplary production and a definite highlight of the show, concentrating on character development and scenarios with sumptuous, labour-intensively composed imagery. Another compelling work was Zhang Pei Li’s video Happiness, which consisted of a montage appropriating footage from Chinese propaganda movies. Produced in an overtly constructed way, the work utilized crowd scenes of people gleefully applauding at the slightest utterance of a few words from a generic, dictator-type figure. The work is in some ways very simple, yet, through its knowing, self-ironic stance, was highly effective in being critical of artistic practices that present bite-sized packages of cultural heritage for the consumption of a Western audience.

The main concern for visitors and for the exhibiting artists with the reception of the video works was twofold. First, the uniformity with which they were presented allowed little flexibility for the artists themselves in relation to the specific intentions of presentation for their individual works, though perhaps a positive aspect of this is that it meant that artists such as Yang Fudong, who has access to resources for high production values, were placed on a level playing field with artists who have never had the economic possibility of doing so. The second concern about the video presentations focused on the circumstances of their collective display. Presenting a number of video works together in wide, open spaces meant the sound from each work entered the authorial

120 Zhang Pei Li, Happiness, 2006, DVD. Photo: Sylvain Deleu. Courtesy of the artist and ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai territory of each of the other’s. This didn’t always work to good effect, as it often led to some confusion when experiencing the individual works. For example, it was difficult to determine whether Qiu Anxiong’s contribution In the Sky had a soundtrack or not.

Though the exhibition did not have enough participating artists to be considered a comprehensive survey of contemporary Chinese art, it is important to bear in mind that there are two more episodes of the China Power Station series still to materialize in other cities. The exhibition was remarkable in its physical undertaking, and it is a profound demonstration of how its new Co- Director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects Hans Ulrich Obrist has set substantial ambitions for the Serpentine’s future program. It has also proven to be a genuine public success in terms of attracting huge crowds, eager to see both the exhibition and the power station itself. Yet with no real underlying theme or conceptual sensibility, the exhibition rested on being a representation of regionalism and offered no self-reflexivity in any form, no analysis of the growing international concerns about the problems inherent in regional representation exhibitions. These concerns center on the fact that artists are presented as regional “representatives,” sometimes without their knowledge, categorizing them within the increasingly limited and superficial criteria of geographical origin. There is widespread consciousness of this problematic situation, and a question remains about whether allowing curatorial privilege of access to artists en masse should take precedence over their individual artistic sensibilities. Unnecessarily limiting exhibitions in this way can lead to an awkward relationship between curators and artists.

121 Review of 3030: New Photography in China Philip Tinari

n the few days preceding the onset of 2007, I picked up two books that provided new energy to a mind tired of the same few now infinitely reproduced images that have come to stand in Ifor “Chinese contemporary art.” The first was Gao Minglu et al.’s 1991 Chinese Contemporary Art History 1985–86, the major historical account of the 1985 New Wave Movement, featuring grainy black-and-white illustrations of works by somewhat forgotten avant-gardists like Meng Luding and Wei Qimei alongside the now predictable early works of Wang Guangyi and Zhang Xiaogang. Rediscovering the peers of the auction darlings seems almost like a hedge against the inevitable collapse in prices for the “four heavenly kings” of Wang, Zhang, Fang, and Yue.

The second book arrived from the offices of the newly established 3030 Press in Shanghai just a few days after Christmas. John Millichap, a British journalist formerly based in Hong Kong with the South China Morning Post, founded this operation last year, naming it after his inaugural title and the subject of this review, 3030: New Photography in China. The numbers denote the book’s content: presentations of works by thirty Chinese photographers under the age of thirty. Millichap has succeeded in piecing together a group of lively young artists, some of them extremely talented, who break free from the rotely social, political, and ethnic themes of the photographers making up the “Between Past and Future” generation.

Take for example the work of Lin Zhipeng, which graces the book’s cover. This image of the crotch of a young woman who is wearing long pink socks, white fishnet stockings, and silver cantilevered shoes has nothing markedly “Chinese” about it. Instead of faded political slogans or vast Blade Runner cityscapes, we get only a trickle of fluid coming from the top of the frame and splashing into a white puddle on . . . pavement? flooring? The fluid, its surroundings, and its subject are all

Lin Zhi Peng, Kiss, 2006. Courtesy of the artist and 3030 Press.

122 Birdhead, Birdhead World, 2004–2005. Courtesy of the artists and 3030 Press. indeterminate. The image even gains in significance when we look closely at Lin’s biography and the other images presented, and realize that these all belong to a commercial project commissioned by Rem D. Koolhaas’s shoe brand United Nude. (Note to CCTV groupies: This is the “real Rem’s” nephew.) This sort of Jurgen Teller-like crossover between art and fashion is, in its texture and nonchalance, almost jarring in a context where too many works seem excessively conceptualized and shoddily executed.

Following in this bad-boy vein, Song Tao and Ji Weiyu (collectively Birdhead) serve up a smattering of snapshots that appear incidental and arbitrary at first glance, but somehow alchemize to present a quirky and poignant glimpse into two young lives in Shanghai. Not unlike the paintings of their contemporary Song Kun (but less serious, less Central Academy), they are the work of two guys on the loose with cameras. And Liu Yiqing, aka Yiki, is Ryan McGinley reincarnated as a Chinese woman with a blog.

Also curious are the works of Peng and Chen, a Shanghai-based couple who staff the media empire of the late Chen Yifei as art director of the Yifei group and editor of Vision magazine respectively. Thankfully, the images share absolutely nothing with Chen Yifei’s work: Instead of sentimental Western women playing cellos, we get staid portraits of provincial businessmen in bad (Western) suits. This series, called Suit, transcends the now cliché of what-does-it-mean-for-Chinese-to- wear-Western-clothes that underlay works like Hong Hao's Mr. Gnoh series in the 1990s and gets to the quirky pathos at the heart of the self-consciously put-together men-on-the-street of millennial Shanghai. Their Flashlight Series is even better: well-composed and darkly lit images of solitary female figures standing in front of architectural elements (mounds of plastic culverts, say,

123 Peng & Chen, Bed, 2004. Courtesy of the artists and 3030 Press.

124 Peng & Chen, Bed, 2004. Courtesy of the artists and 3030 Press.

125 Birdhead, Birdhead World, 2004–2005. Courtesy of the artists and 3030 Press. or a forlorn wall with a netless basketball hoop) and illuminating themselves with a flashlight. The best part? The flashlight has a cord, inexplicably plugged into something out of the frame.

Su Hanguang, who goes by the English/pen name Alex, is another to watch. Born in the same year and city as Cao Fei (1978, Guangzhou), he serves up chic portraits of styled twenty-somethings, as in his series Same Glasses Different Life. Yao Yichun uses a square-format camera to capture fire hydrants and dogs, seaport cranes and plastic animé figures, all surrounded by mystic black halos. And Liu Bo might just be a fantastic ironist, serving up images that ape Bernd and Hilla Becher in one case and Philip Lorca-DiCorcia/Gregory Crewdson in another. The Becheresque works strike me as particularly strong: one can imagine them installed in that Miami private-collection way, a large square arrangement of small square photographs in clean white frames, the Bechers's postwar meditations on industrial geometries replaced by, say, the water tower on the campus of Chinese Central Normal University in Wuhan.

Chen Wei, who produces solitary-figure landscapes, and Zhang Jungang, who creates architectural and beach fantasias, work in Hangzhou and Shanghai, respectively, and share the one potential flaw of excessively resembling Yang Fudong and Lu Chunsheng. Yet if one were to model oneself after image-makers working in China today, one could do much worse than Yang and Lu. I particularly delighted in Zhang Jungang’s (aka K1973) still of a cage full of maritime birds bizarrely lacking in context, and another of a decrepit paddleboat with a fibreglass cat for a prow sitting in a verdant patch of weeds beside a lake. That image is titled Shanghai Pudong #1 and is far from the Pearl of the Orient TV Tower skyline those several words conjure.

Of course there is also no shortage of more established artists, with recognizable samplings from the oeuvres of Cao Fei, Chi Peng, Liang Yue, and Liu Ding. Cao Fei’s contribution, a Cosplayers redux shot over a few hurried days surrounding a Beijing-Tokyo Art Projects opening last April,

126 Chen Wei, Countless Unpredictable Stand 1, 2006. Courtesy of the artist and 3030 Press. underwhelms, particularly given her proven talent. Likewise, Chi Peng, for his remarkable personal style, has a little too much Cang Xin in these early photos for someone ostensibly twenty years the junior of that older generation. Naked flying fairies with Photoshopped wings over a misty sea? It’s like Miao Xiachun’s Last Judgment cycle meets one of Xu Lei’s innumerable tattooed ocean horses. Of these more identifiable contributors, I have always enjoyed Tang Yi’s A Souvenir for Adolescence, in which the artist blows up different coloured balloons inside a birdcage, leaving the viewer to presume their eventual poppage. As Werner Herzog said of his masterpiece Fitzcarraldo, the images seem “a metaphor for something.”

Of course there is much work in this book that seems blandly derivative, uninterestingly sentimental, or just poorly executed. An inexplicable editorial decision was made to print the artists’ names and vitae in white on yellow, only squintingly legible even to younger eyes. The two forewords seem unnecessary. And despite decent printing and paper, something in the design and typography still cries “Made in China.” But despite these flaws, Millichap has succeeded in compiling a catchy snapshot of photographic practice in urban China today. He has also, quite generously, provided URLs for the numerous blogs, zines, and personal Web sites maintained by these artists, allowing the curious reader to gain seemingly limitless information on his picks. If 3030 Press succeeds in distributing and publicizing this new work, he will have done much (much more than, say, the exhibition The Thirteen: Chinese Video Now at P.S.1 last year) to bring us all a sense of the dynamism and variety that characterize this generation. It might even create some new auction darlings.

3030: New Photography in China Published by 3030 Press (Hong Kong: 2006) Edited by John Millichap with essays by Gu Zheng and Ou Ning www.3030press.com

127 Cityscapes, Crazy Consumption, and Collective Memory: Chen Shaoxiong’s Mimetic Reality Rosalind Holmes

hen Shaoxiong creates art that evokes the synaesthesia found within urban life, exploring narratives of memory production, collective experience, and the Cmetamorphosis of existence in the face of post-urban expansion. In his work, the dynamics of China’s rapidly changing cityscapes form a visual canvas against which reality and illusion frequently collide.

A resident of Guangzhou, Chen has witnessed the startling transformation of China’s southern coastal region, where a new model of modernization has been created that ultimately consumes the city to its core. In Chen’s art, Guangzhou is frequently presented as a city imploding under the strain of its own immense economic and social transformation; in this sprawling metropolis fuelled by economic growth and material desires, the city itself becomes a playground against which the fears, desires, and anxieties of urban dwellers are projected. Through his video and installation work, Chen captures this ephemeral world of urban explosion and the suddenness, temporality, and dislocation of the city in the face of its own shifting reality.

Chen is a founding member of the Big Tail Elephant group with fellow artists Lin Yilin, Liang Juhui, and Xu Tan. The establishment of this group in the early 1990s was a response to the unprecedented urbanization and economic shifts taking place in China’s Southern Coast. The group’s combination of personal creation and collective presentation was a means of engaging with this new social reality; their shows often employed unexpected tactics to intervene in the fluctuating urban space. By expanding the parameters of contemporary art beyond galleries and museums, they used the city itself as subject, site, and material for their interactive installations.

Chen Shaoxiong, Anti-Terrorism Variety, 2002, video, 5 mins., 14 secs. Courtesy of the artist.

128 Chen Shaoxiong, Collective Memory—Guangzhou, Haiyin Bridge, 2002, inkpad, rice paper, 205 cm x 375 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

This concern with the effect of rapid urbanization on people’s lives can be seen in Chen’s earlier works such as Streetscapes (1997–present), in which the artist created three-dimensional photo collages of panoramas taken in various cities including Guangzhou. Later versions of the work showed the artist holding and re-photographing these collages in the street itself, in areas where the collages seem to blend harmoniously into the background. These photographs within photographs have the effect of disrupting or warping the scale and detail of a conventional cityscape, creating a visual disjuncture while at the same time playing with the viewer’s perception of illusion and reality. Like the series entitled Homescapes (2002–present), which depicts miniature scenes of private apartments, these portable cityscapes and interiors combine the one-dimensional medium of photography with that of a three-dimensional collage, thus blurring the association of location and space.

The deliberate mutation of reality is also prevalent in Chen’s 2002 video installation Anti-Terrorism Variety, in which the artist examined the synthetic reality produced by a post-9/11 society. Again the city is the site of production against which various famous landmarks are shown, from Guangzhou’s Zhongxin Plaza to Shanghai’s Pearl TV Tower. Computer manipulated images of airplanes are shown on apparent crash courses with these structures and yet at the expected moment of impact, the buildings warp, inflect, or extend themselves, or the planes magically metamorphose into unexpected forms, thus successfully deflecting collision. Intended by the artist as an ironic means of maneuvering against future terrorist attacks, the series portrays the artist’s whimsical humour as well as offering up a wry observation on the nature of media consumption.

The 2005 work Ink City is a logical extension of this series. It develops the artist’s concern with capturing the changing reality of contemporary urban existence. In this work, Chen filmed over three hundred ink drawings depicting scenes of Guangzhou’s shifting skyline as well as its street life, culture, and people. These scenes are linked together to form an “ink video,” and they appear in rhythmic sequence correlated with live audio footage. The still ink snapshots are thus transformed into motion pictures; the reality that is captured is as fluid and immediate as the ink strokes with which it is rendered. Similarly, Ink City’s role as an “animated painting” obscures the distinctions between ink painting and video. Tradition and modernity, reality and illusion, it becomes a place where production and consumption collide. In this way, Chen prompts the viewer to examine whether, in addition to being a concrete, physical entity, the city itself might also be a site for memory, a synthesis of the traces left by infinite individual moments. This synthesis mimics the very motion of ink on paper: arbitrary and incidental, yet ultimately converging into

129 Chen Shaoxiong, Ink Things, 2006–2007, video, 3 mins. Courtesy of the artist. a compelling series of images. In the process of this transition, the reality of the cityscape and the mind’s impression of it temporarily co-exist in the same space, creating an echo of reality, a Möbius strip of memory and illusion.

Chen continued this investigation with his 2006 work Ink Diary, which, like Ink City, employs over one hundred ink paintings linked together in animated form. Ink Diary, however, confronts the viewer with a more personalized perspective. Fragments from Chen’s daily life meld together with images from the media; news broadcasts, political issues, scenes from Guangzhou’s nightlife, restaurants, pornography, and prostitution converge in a collective stream of visual consciousness that recreates the hectic pace and absurdity of everyday existence. In this multilayered construction, Chen manages once again to capture the sensory overload engendered by contemporary urban existence, its frenetic and visceral appropriation of culture and commodity, its dark undercurrents of decadence and disposability.

Ink Things (2006/2007) is the latest installment in this series. It completes the artist’s progression from generic cityscape to more localized and specific components of urban life. Set against the backdrop of an imaginary skyline, the artist explores the minutiae of everyday existence: a pair of slippers left outside a door, a bottle of hand wash, a tree seen through a window, things which we frequently disregard as mere paraphernalia of urban existence. Stitched together, these inanimate objects become visual metaphors for memory and collective consciousness. Moving between these discreet scenarios, the artist recreates a sense of the city’s confusing magic in which memory is compressed, disjointed, and multi-layered.

In his Collectivity Memory series from 2002, Chen delves further into the collective psyche of city dwellers. These large works (averaging 2.5 x 3 meters) depict the urban landmarks, symbols, and architecture of China’s metropolises, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shenzhen. Rendered through thousands of monochrome fingerprints, they evoke a visual landscape of the mind, their textured, grainy, and indistinct surfaces recalling the deconstructed beauty of a pixelated image. While fingerprints are traditionally regarded as a marker of individual identity, their employment here suggests narratives of mutual recognition and the hazy lines created by transitional space; these landmarks define the city itself and become indelible symbols etched into collective consciousness.

130 Chen Shaoxiong, Streetscape, 2005, photo-cut collage. Courtesy of the artist.

Chen’s latest work, entitled Visible and Invisible, Known and Unknown, is a synthesis of his previous mediums and themes. An installation work that incorporates the original ink paintings from his video Ink Things, it represents a physical recreation of the concepts that define both Ink City and Ink Diary. Visible and Invisible, Known and Unknown features a model train that runs continuously on a sealed, looping track. Perched three meters above the viewer, the train weaves its way on an imaginary, unknown journey. The original ink paintings from the video Ink Things run parallel to the track in a simulation of billboard advertisements, while a small camera mounted to the engine of the train records these images and simultaneously projects them onto three eye-level screens.

This synchronization of images recalls the voyeuristic scenes glimpsed from train windows; however, instead of highrises, sky scrapers, and fleeting snatches of external lives, the train passes by the neglected imagery of our everyday existence. Projected onto large screens, these insignificant objects assume the importance of symbolic landmarks; the set speed of the train and its continuous motion mean that the viewer is deprived of the right to choose how they view these images. Forced to confront the reality of this continuous stream of visual stimuli, the viewer is confronted with the temporary nature of the city itself, where everything is in a state of constant flux.

In Chen’s work, Guangzhou’s new cityscape represents a lexicon of cultural commentary and social allegory. In this mimetic reality things automatically become unfathomable. They are filled with implications of the movement between urban and personal space, where collective and individual memories collide. His video and installation works illustrate how this environmental restructuring of urban space has in many ways subverted the established order of city life, causing people to be shown merely as referential actors in its midst.

Reflecting changes in the mode of living for urban dwellers, the artist effectively portrays their reactions to this constantly mutating city by focusing on visual perception, exposing the multilayered construction and overlapping dialogues that underscore the panoply of contemporary Chinese culture. Through this combination of reality and fiction, Chen paints an accurate description of a shifting world.

131 Chinese Name Index

Cai Guo-Qiang Guo Pu Liu Yiqing Wang Yidong 蔡國強郭璞劉一青王沂東 Cai Yuan Hao Yadong Low, Joni Wang, Jason Chia-chi 蔡元郝亞東劉植紅王嘉驥 Cai Yuanpei He Chengyao Lu Chunsheng Wei Qimei 蔡元培何成瑤陸春生韋啟美 Cang Xin He Xiangning Lu Jie Wong Kar Wai 蒼鑫何香凝盧杰王開衛 Cao Chong-en He Yungchang Lu, Victoria Wu Chun-hui 曹崇恩何雲昌陸蓉之吳俊輝 Cao Fei Ho Siu Kee Lum, Ken Wu Zuoren 曹斐何紹基林蔭庭吳作人 Chan Yuk Keung Ho, Oscar Lung, Edwin Xi, JJ 陳育強何慶基龍植池奚建軍 Chan, David Ho Yeung Hong Hao Meng Luding Xiong Wenyun 陳浩揚洪浩孟祿丁熊文韻 Chang Yung-ho Hou Chun-ming Miao Xiachun Xu Beihong 張永和侯俊明繆曉春徐悲鴻 Chang, Patty Hsu, Manray Napack, Jonathan Xu Lei 張怡徐文瑞降落傘徐磊 Cheang Shulea Hu Jintao Ou Ning Xu Tan 鄭淑麗胡錦濤歐寧徐坦 Chen Changwei Ji Weiyu Ou, Arthur Xu Zhen 陳長偉季煒煜歐宗翰徐震 Chen Jiaojiao Kuo I-chen Peng Yangjun Yan Wenliang 陳皎皎郭奕臣彭楊軍顏文樑 Chen Shaoxiong Lau, Jaspar K. W. Pien, Ed Yang Dongping 陳劭雄劉建華邊亦中楊東平 Chen Wei Lee Shau Kee Qiu Anxiong Yang Feiyun 陳維李兆基邱黯雄楊飛雲 Chen Yifei Lee Wen Qui Zhijie Yang Fudong 陳逸飛李文邱志杰楊福東 Chen, E Leung Chi Wo Shen Yuan Yang Jiajiang 陳逸堅梁志和沈遠楊家將 Cheng, Amy Huei-hwa Leung-Po Shan Shu Yang Yao Yichun 鄭慧華梁寶山舒陽姚軼淳 Cheung, Lisa Li Gongming Song Tao Yeun Kin Leung 張詩敏李公明宋濤袁堅樑（丸仔） Chi Peng Li, Chunyee Su Hanguang Yin Qi 遲鵬黎俊儀蘇焊光尹奇 Choi Jeonghwa Liang Juhui Sun Yat-sen Young, Marcus 崔正化梁鉅輝孫中山楊墨 Chou Meng-te Liang Yue Tang Yi Yü, Christina Yü 周孟德梁玥湯藝喻瑜 Chow, Rey Lin Fengmian Tsui Pen Yue Minjun 周蕾林風眠崔朋岳敏君 Dai Guang Yu Lin Ping Wang Guangyi Zhang Jungang 戴光郁林平王廣義張君鋼 Dong Xiwen Lin Yilin Wang Hong-kai Zhang Pei Li 董希文林一林王虹凱張培力 Feng Boyi Lin Zhipeng Wang Jianwei Zhang Xiaogang 馮博一林志鵬汪建偉張曉剛 Gao Minglu Lin, Michael Wang Jun-jieh Zheng Laijie 高民潞林明弘王俊傑鄭連杰 Gao Shiming Liu Bo Wang Nanming Zheng Shengtian 高士明劉波王南冥鄭勝天 Gu Zheng Liu Ding Wang Qiang Zhu Naizheng 顧錚劉鼎王強朱乃正 Guo Fengyi Liu Haisu Wang Tiantian Zhu Rongji 郭鳳怡劉海粟王田田朱熔基

132 133 134 135 136 Art & Collection insert by Taiwan