Chinese Experimental Art in the 1990S an Overview of Contemporary
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NOVEMBER 2002 FALL ISSUE Chinese Experimental Art in the 1990s An Overview of Contemporary Taiwanese Art Contemporary Art with Chinese Characteristics The Long March Project 2002 Zunyi International Symposium US$10.00 NT$350.00 YISHU: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art Volume 1, Number 3, Fall/November 2002 Katy Hsiu-chih Chien Ken Lum Zheng Shengtian Julie Grundvig Paloma Campbell Larisa Broyde Joyce Lin Kaven Lu Judy Andrews, Ohio State University John Clark, University of Sydney Lynne Cooke, Dia Art Foundation Okwui Enwezor, Curator, Art Institute of Chicago Britta Erickson, Independent Scholar & Curator Fan Di An, Central Academy of Fine Arts Fei Dawei, Independent Curator Gao Minglu, New York State University Hou Hanru, Independent Curator & Critic Katie Hill, Independent Critic & Curator Martina Köppel -Yang, Independent Critic & Historian Sebastian Lopez, Gate Foundation and Leiden University Lu Jie, Independent Curator Ni Tsai Chin, Tunghai University Apinan Poshyananda, Chulalongkorn University Chia Chi Jason Wang, Art Critic & Curator Wu Hung, University of Chicago Art & Collection Group Ltd. Leap Creative Group Raymond Mah Gavin Chow Jeremy Lee Karmen Lee Chong-yuan Image Ltd., Taipei - Yishu is published quarterly in Taipei, Taiwan, and edited in Vancouver, Canada. From 2003, the publishing date of Yishu will be March, June, September, and December. Advertising inquiries may be sent to our main office in Taiwan: Taipei: Art & Collection Ltd. 6F, No. 85, Section 1, Chunshan North Road, Taipei, Taiwan. Phone: (886) 2-2560-2220 Fax: (886) 2-2542-0631 e-mail: [email protected] Subscription and editing inquiries may be sent to our Vancouver office: Vancouver: Yishu 1008-808 Nelson Street Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 2H2 Canada Phone: (1) 604-488-2563 Fax: (1) 604-591-6392 e-mail: [email protected] www.yishujournal.com No part of this journal may be published without the written permission from the publisher. Subscription rates: one year: US $48; NT $1500; two years: US $90; NT $2800, international airmail. We thank Mr. Milton Wong, Mrs. Elaine Bao, Paystone Technologies Corp. for their generous support. Cover: Xu Bing, Ghosts Pounding the Wall, 1990-91, rubbing on paper. Production view on the site of the Great Wall at Jinshanling. Courtesy of the artist Contributors A “Domestic Turn:” Chinese Experimental Art in the 1990s Wu Hung p. 4 Illusion of Reality a Real Illusion: An Overview of Contemporary Taiwanese Art Yao Jui-Chung Contemporary Art with Chinese Characteristics: Shen Fan, Ding Yi, and Xu Zhen Amy Pederson p. 23 Globalization, Urbanization, and New Chinese Art Zhang Zhaohui Long March: A Walking Visual Exhibition Lu Jie and Qiu Zhijie A Conversation with Lu Jie Philip Tinari p. 40 The Long March to Lugu Lake: A Dialogue with Judy Chicago Sasha S. Welland International Symposium – Curating in a Chinese Context Denise Blake Oleksijczuk 2002 Zunyi International Symposium p. 106 Enhancing Variety Versus Diluting Diversity Monica Dematté Identity Politics? Allegorical Existence? On the Way to the Fantastic David Ho Yeung Chan Chinese Name Index p. 121 DAVID HO YEUNG CHAN is an M.A. candidate at the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College in New York as well as a curator based in Hong Kong and Vancouver. MONICA DEMATTÉ is an independent curator and writer. She has curated a number of international exhibitions including As Seen from Afar (Beijing: Italian Cultural Office Gallery, 2001). WU HUNG is Harri A. Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor in Chinese Art, Director of the Center for the Art of East Asia, Consulting Curator of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, and Chief Curator of the First Guangzhou Triennial, Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000). His most recent book is Chinese Art at the Crossroads: Between Past and Present, Between East and West (Hong Kong: New Art Medium, 2001). LU JIE is an artist, writer and independent curator. He is the founder of the Long March Foundation, and co-curator of The Long March: A Walking Visual Display with Qiu Zhijie. His writing has appeared in such publications as Shin Tao Daily (Hong Kong) and Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing (China). His book, Jiang Guo Fang: The Forbidden City, received the Best Produced Book Award from the Hong Kong Government in 1994. YAO JUI-CHUNG is a curator, critic and artist. He represented Taiwan at the 1997 Venice Biennale and was included in the exhibition Asia Sanpo in Japan in 2001. He is the author of Contemporary Installation Art of Taiwan: 1991-2001. DENISE BLAKE OLEKSIJCZUK, a former Curator of Contemporary Art at the Vancouver Art Gallery, recently completed her Ph.D. in Art History at the University of British Columbia. She currently holds a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London. AMY PEDERSON completed an M.A. at the University of British Columbia in 2000 and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History at the University of California in Los Angeles. PHILIP TINARI is a freelance writer, curator, and translator based in Beijing. His first exhibition Made in Asia? was held at the Duke University Museum of Art in 2001. His writing has appeared in The Far Eastern Economic Review. SASHA SU-LING WELLAND is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She conducted fieldwork, as an affiliate of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, on contemporary Chinese art worlds and late socialist public culture in Beijing from 2000-2002. Her writing has appeared in Chain, Flyway Literary Review, From Beijing to Port Moresby: The Politics of National Cultural Policies, and Hedgebrook Journal. ZHANG ZHAOHUI is the Art Director of S-Ray Art Center. He received an M.A. in Curatorial Studies from Bard College in New York in 1998 and has curated a number of exhibitions including Mask vs Face in Beijing in 2002 and New Urbanism in Guangzhou in 2002. His writings have appeared in Art China and Jiangsu Art Journal. QIU ZHIJIE is an artist, writer and co-curator of The Long March: A Walking Visual Display with Lu Jie. He organized Phenomena and Image, the first video art exhibition in China, in 1996 and served as Managing Editor for the contemporary art magazine Nextwave in 2001. His own work has been included in a number of exhibitions including the 2002 Gwangju Biennial in Korea. “ :” Figure 1: Artist Village in Yuanmingyuan. Photo: Zheng Shengtian Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000), the First Guangzhou Triennial organized by the Guangdong Art Museum, provides a comprehensive survey and attempts a systematic explanation of Chinese experimental art of the period. The three main themes of the exhibition are “Memory and Reality,”“Self and Environment,”and “Global and Local.”This essay discusses the first two themes, which together point to a new direction in Chinese experimental art of the 1990s – a “domestic turn” that transformed experimental art into a powerful vehicle of social critique. Before focusing on actual works of art, however, it is necessary to investigate the preconditions of this movement by looking at important changes in the lifestyle and social identity of experimental artists. These changes were crucial in that they encouraged social engagement and gave the artists a sense of independence – two factors indispensable to any kind of social criticism. China underwent a profound socioeconomic transformation during the two decades after the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Starting in the late 1970s, a new generation of Chinese leaders initiated a series of reforms to develop a market economy, a more resilient social system, and an “open door” diplomatic policy that exposed China to both foreign investments and cultural influences. The consequence of this transformation was fully felt in the 1990s. Major cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai, were completely reshaped. Numerous private and joint venture businesses appeared, including privately owned commercial art galleries. Educated young men and women moved from job to job in pursuit of personal well-being and a large “floating population” entered metropolitan centers from the countryside to look for work and better living conditions. Many changes in the world of experimen- tal art in the 1990s were related to this larger picture. Although a majority of experimental artists received formal education in art colleges and had little problem finding jobs in the official art system, many of them chose to become freelance “independent artists” (duli yishujia) with no institutional affiliation. There were, of course, artists who still wished and even struggled to maintain their jobs in public institutions but Figure 2: Fang Lijun, Series 3, number 15, 1993. Courtesy of the Tacoma Art Museum they were often forced to give up such and the Henry Art Gallery options – as a result of their unorthodox artworks and approaches or their unconventional lifestyle and irregular travel schedule. To be “independent” also meant to become “professional” – a move that changed the career paths, social status, and self-perception of these artists. On the surface, freelance artists were free from institutional restrictions. In actuality, however, they had to submit themselves to other kinds of liabilities and rules in order to support their livelihood and art experiments. It was in the 1990s that experimental Chinese artists learned how to negotiate with art dealers and curators and obtain funding from foreign foundations to finance their works. Quite a few of them developed a double persona, supporting their “unsaleable” experiments with money earned from the sale of their paintings and photographs. Starting in the late 1980s and especially during the 1990s, a large number of experimental artists emigrated from the provinces in China to major cultural centers, especially the country’s capital, Beijing. The result was a situation that differed markedly from the 1980s.