DECEMBER 2005 WINTER ISSUE Special Feature on Hong Kong By
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DECEMBER 2005 WINTER ISSUE INSIDE Special Feature on Hong Kong by Tobias Berger, John Millichap, Lee Weng Choy, Eliza Patten, Norman Ford, Sean Chen Monumentality and Anti—Monumentality in Gu Wenda’s Forest of Stone Steles-A Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry Zhang Dali: The Face of China A Visual Koan: Xu Bing's Dynamic Desktop Interviews with Oscar Ho, Uli Sigg, Xu Bing About the Chinese Presentation at the 2005 Yokohama Triennale US$12.00 NT$350.00 US$10.00 NT$350.00 Art & Collection Editor’s Note Contributors Hong Kong SAR: Special Art Region Tobias Berger p. 16 The Problem with Politics: An Interview with Oscar Ho John Millichap Tomorrow’s Local Library: The Asia Art Archive in Context Lee Weng Choy 24 Report on “Re: Wanchai—Hong Kong International Artists’ Workshop” Eliza Patten Do “(Hong Kong) Chinese” Artists Dream of Electric Sheep? p. 29 Norman Ford When Art Clashes in the Public Sphere— Pan Xing Lei’s Strike of Freedom Knocking on the Door of Democracy in Hong Kong Shieh-wen Chen Monumentality and Anti-Monumentality in Gu Wenda’s Forest of Stone Steles—A Retranslation and Rewriting of Tang Poetry Wu Hung From Glittering “Stars” to Shining El Dorado, or, the p. 54 “adequate attitude of art would be that with closed eyes and clenched teeth” Martina Köppel-Yang Zhang Dali: The Face of China Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky Collecting Elsewhere: An Interview with Uli Sigg Biljana Ciric A Dialogue on Contemporary Chinese Art: The One-Day Workshop “Meaning, Image, and Word” Tsao Hsingyuan p. 71 An Interview with Xu Bing: Nonsensical Spaces and Cultural Tattoos April Liu A Visual Koan: Xu Bing’s Dynamic Desktop Christian Monks About the Chinese Presentation at the 2005 Yokohama Triennale Lu Jie A Short Review of a Very, Very Long Book John Clark Chinese Name Index p. 103 Editor’s Note YISHU: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art Volume 4, Number 4, December 2005 This issue of Yishu presents several texts Katy Hsiu-chih Chien exploring the art scene in Hong Kong. Within the Ken Lum complexity of what constitutes China, Hong Kong holds a peculiar position, one that has, more than Keith Wallace Zheng Shengtian any other constituent in what is currently Julie Grundvig considered China, fully straddled the East and Kate Steinmann the West. The implications of this situation and Larisa Broyde its effect on art production and the art community Joyce Lin Chunyee Li have been put forward in various ways by the texts we are presenting. On some levels it appears that the cultural ecology in Hong Kong is fraught with struggles and contradictions, but this Judy Andrews, Ohio State University John Clark, University of Sydney can serve as a catalyst to spur an art community Lynne Cooke, Dia Art Foundation into productive action. Okwui Enwezor, San Francisco Art Institute Britta Erickson, Independent Scholar & Curator Fan Di'an, Central Academy of Fine Arts We are also pleased to present a number of other Fei Dawei, Guy & Mariam Ullens Foundation Gao Minglu, New York State University aspects of contemporary art in China. Martina Hou Hanru, Independent Curator & Critic Köppel-Yang offers a proposition about where art Katie Hill, University of Westminster Martina Köppel-Yang, Independent Critic & Historian in China stands internationally by looking at the Sebastian Lopez, Daros-Latinamerica AG Lu Jie, Independent Curator opening of the China pavilion at the Venice Charles Merewether, Australian National University Biennale in comparison to the Stars group in the Ni Tsaichin, Tunghai University Apinan Poshyananda, Ministry of Culture, Thailand 1980s. Wu Hung and Patricia Karetzky bring Chia Chi Jason Wang, Independent Critic & Curator updated perspectives on the work of two Wu Hung, University of Chicago prominent artists, Gu Wenda and Zhang Dali. Art & Collection Group Ltd. And Biljan Ciric interviews Uli Sigg, an influential Leap Creative Group collector of contemporary art from China who is Raymond Mah presenting it in exhibition form to both Eastern Gavin Chow and Western audiences. Xu Bing is featured with Jeremy Lee an interview, an overview of a one day symposium relaITconsulting, Vancouver on his work, and a discussion of his video work, Chong-yuan Image Ltd., Taipei Dynamic Desktop. - Yishu is published quarterly in Taipei, Taiwan and edited in In a gesture that is not the norm, our cover image Vancouver, Canada. The publishing dates of Yishu are March, June, September and December. does not relate to any of the texts found inside. Editorial inquiries and manuscripts may be sent to the Instead, one week before we go to press, the Editorial Office: Beijing Suojiacun International Art Camp pictured Yishu on the cover, built in 2004 and home and/or 410-650 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC Canada V6B 4N8 studios for more than one hundred artists, is in Phone: 1.604.649.8187; Fax: 1.604.591.6392 E-mail: [email protected] the process of being demolished with many of [email protected] the studios still containing artwork and furniture. Subscription inquiries may be sent to either the Vancouver address Apparently, neither the developer nor the local or to Hawai’i: authority had proper permission and papers to Journals Department University of Hawai’i Press build the complex, so the central Government has 2840 Kolowalu Street, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA ordered them to be demolished. In light of China’s Phone: 1.808.956.8833; Fax: 1.808.988.6052 E-mail: [email protected] growing art community and its support of contemporary art, this action comes as a shock. The University of Hawai’i Press accepts payment by Visa or Mastercard, cheque, or money order (in U.S. dollars). Advertising inquiries may be sent to either Vancouver address Finally, on a brighter note, we are pleased to or Taiwan: announce that Yishu is entering its fifth year Art & Collection Ltd. of publishing. This has been achieved with the 6F. No.85, Section 1, Chungshan N. Road, Taipei, Taiwan 104 Phone: (886) 2.2560.2220; Fax: (886) 2.2542.0631 commitment and devotion of the publisher,Yishu E-mail: [email protected] staff, our subscribers, and especially the many www.yishujournal.com writers who have been so generous with their No part of this journal may be published without the written contributions. Yishu is highly respected interna- permission from the publisher. tionally and it is the writers who have made it so. Subscription rates: one year: US $48; two years: US $86 Subscription form may be downloaded from our Website We thank Mr. Milton Wong, Mr. Daoping Bao, Paystone Keith Wallace Technologies Corp., Raymond Mah, and the Leap Creative Group for their generous support. Cover: Beijing Suojiacun, November 23, 2005. Photo: Wang Wei. TOBIAS BERGER completed a Curatorial Training Programme in Amsterdam before working for three years at the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel. In 2002 he was the artistic director of the 8th Baltic Triennial of International Art in Vilnius and from 2003 until 2005 the director of ARTSPACE in Auckland. In 2004 he also was commissioner for New Zealand at the Sao Paulo Bienal. Since April 2005 he has been the executive director at Para/Site Art Space in Hong Kong. SHIEH-WEN CHEN is currently a curator at the Chinese-American Arts Council in New York City. She received her M.A. in the John D. Draper Interdisciplinary Program of Humanities and Social Thought at New York University in 2003 and worked as Public Relations Representative and Assistant Researcher at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan, from 1990 through 1997. LEE WENG CHOY is an art critic and artistic co-director of The Substation, an arts centre in Singapore. He has lectured on art and cultural studies and written widely on contemporary art and Singapore; his essays include “Authenticity, Reflexivity, and Spectacle; or, the Rise of New Asia is not the End of the World” (Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique, 2004) and “Just What Is it that Makes the Term Global–Local So Widely Cited, Yet So Annoying?” (Over Here: International Perspectives on Art and Culture,The New Museum and The MIT Press, 2004). BILJANA CIRIC received an M.A. from East China Normal University, Shanghai. She is Director of the Shanghai Duolun Musem of Modern Art's Curatorial Department and is a regular writer for Art China magazine. JOHN CLARK FAHA, CIHA, is Professor in Art History at the University of Sydney. Among his books is Modern Asian Art (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1998). His recent work includes two book drafts: Modernities of Chinese Art and Modernities Compared: Chinese and Thai Art in the 1980s and 1990s.From 2004 to 2006 he is working on the new Biennales in Asia under an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant. NORMAN JACKSON FORD is an artist, photographer, curator, writer, and educator resident in Hong Kong. He recently completed his Ph.D. at the University of Hong Kong, where he focused on Hong Kong and mainland China’s lens-based media. In 2001–02, he curated Re-considered Crossings: Representation Beyond Hybridity,an arts and cultural exchange between Hong Kong and Vienna. His most recent work includes Con/deCon (2003–05) a photo/video/online project on the commodification of multiculturalism, and ICU,a curatorial strategy group working with networked and public art activities both online and in the city. WU HUNG is the Harrie A.Vanderstappen Distinguished Service Professor in Chinese Art History in the Department of Art History and the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He is also the founder and Director of the Center for the Arts of East Asia and Consulting Curator at the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.