PAINTERS WITI–IOUT BORDERS

112 113 academically trained artists, particularly those the controversial aspects of what the artists are academy of art. The Bauhaus was destroyed and In 1994, Mark Tansey, moved by the who work with fairly anodyne subject matter— doing to disturb or subvert it. They see the critique, instead National Socialists started to rebuild the artwork of young Chinese painters beautiful women, for example, or nostalgic scenes while Westerners disregard it or don’t understand tradition of “the hero.” of an old Shanghai. But Liu Xiaodong is differ- the context from which it emerges. I suspect that I understood the history of twentieth-century who had recently arrived to New ent; he often works with dystopic Beijing scenes— in the ’80s and ’90s, when these artists arrived in art as not just the history of Cubism, abstract art, York, organized an exhibition of gritty city streets and displaced people. His paint- New York, some of them might have felt somewhat and Abstract Expressionism but also of totalitarian their work titled Transformations. ing skills are so good, it would be hard for Western frustrated, as many had already been highly rec- art, which was occurring in Spain and Italy as well. and Chinese audiences not to take note, but even ognized in China. That may have been discourag- Chinese and Tibetan art were proto-abstract geom- Over twenty years later, Tansey so, in general I’d say he’s not as widely recognized ing, but in some ways it was good because many etry. Abstract Expressionism couldn’t be popular and Peter Drake have co-curated in the West as he is in China. went back to China and did great things there. For [in China] because Chinese hieroglyphs are by con- PD Even though he’s represented by a powerful example, Ai Weiwei was more or less working in cept, by origin, the same as Abstract Expression- Figurative Diaspora, which American gallery, his audience is still mostly Chi- obscurity when he lived in New York in the ’80s. ism. That’s why Chinese artists themselves were presents paintings by fve Chinese nese based. It wasn’t until he went back to China in the ’90s attracted by the realistic depiction of nature, and artists, three of whom participated JDB Yes, that’s my feeling. The big change in visi- that his career as an artist and instigator began to to poetry, and sometimes combined the two. That’s bility around these artists—at least in the last ten to take off. one way to understand why the tradition of realism in Transformations, alongside work fifteen years, and particularly for those who retain a VK When I came to the United States, I tried to was so popular and is still popular in China. by fve Russian artists, all of whom closer connection to the Socialist Realist tradition— understand the echoes of the past, the realistic In Russia, there was a different reason for the create “unoffcial,” subversive, non- is that Chinese audiences have grown significantly. and academic art in the West. In Russia during explosion of academic art. The height of Russian And now these audiences not only have the means the first years of the revolution an academic sys- art was during the end of nineteenth-century sym- state-sanctioned art, thus tracing to collect, they also understand the grammar and tem of education was destroyed as a bourgeois tra- bolism. It was famous, even in Europe. The idea of the influences of art across borders. the tradition. They see where it’s coming from. dition. It was rebuilt in the beginning of the ’30s. depicting another, imaginary world was reflected They respect the academic training and recognize Simultaneously, Germany established a totalitarian in the communist idea of building another world, a new world, an ideal society on this earth. It was ETER DRAKE Figurative Diaspora, at the and Russia responded to this. Our studio became PD Mark, I remember going to that show in your Previous spread: a great illusion, which ended tragically in Russia. Mark Tansey, Landscape, 1 New York Academy of Art in early 2018, a kind of meeting place. apartment and needing you to guide me on under- 1994, oil on canvas, 71 ⁄2 × It was a tragic lesson to all humanity because was in some ways motivated by the PD When you saw work by the Chinese artists, standing why Yu Hong’s work was progressive 144 inches (181.6 × 365.8 sometimes it’s very dangerous to turn a fairy tale Transformations exhibition that Mark did you immediately recognize traces of the edu- because when I saw it, I thought it was just pic- cm) © Mark Tansey into reality. Tansey put together back in 1994. It was cation that you had received in Russia? tures of women. There was nothing about it that Opposite (top): Chen PD Part of what you’re known for, especially hosted in his apartment and consisted VK Yes. Moscow represented a traditional West- struck me as progressive until you put it in the con- Danqing, Tears Flooding the when you were collaborating with Alexander, was Autumnal Field, 1976, oil on 5 1 of four Chinese Socialist Realist art- ern academy for China in the same way that Rome text of Socialist Realist work, and then suddenly it canvas, 64 ⁄8 × 92 ⁄2 inches an ironic repurposing of the grammar of Soviet ists: Liu Xiaodong, Chen Danqing, Yu did for Russian artists in the nineteenth century, felt extremely unusual but also refreshing, even (164 × 235 cm) © Chen Socialist Realism. That’s been a thread through Danqing Hong, and Ni Jun. In Figurative Dias- when Russian artists were moving to Rome to study potentially dangerous. your work—using this language, repurposing pora there is a notion that while a visual the Renaissance and Baroque periods. MT Her painting involved self-representation Opposite (bottom): tropes from the ’50s, from the film world, from illus- Komar and Melamid, PD language was marginalized in the United States Mark, were you and Vitaly friends at that with a sensitive exuberance that was well beyond AntiChrist (Glory to God), tration, from art history, and turning them on their and Western Europe, it was also migrating across point? the agenda of Socialist Realism. 1990–91, oil on canvas, 72 × heads. Mark, was that something you found in the 1 MARK TANSEY PD 54 ⁄8 inches (182.9 × 137.5 cultures, still being preserved to a degree in the Yes, we had met. I very much admired Xin, do you know if the Chinese artists were cm), Collection of Neil K. work by the Chinese artists? East. There, reanimated as propaganda, this lan- Komar and Melamid’s work and how they had puzzled by the American reactions to their work? Rector © Vitaly Komar and MT Danqing’s work in particular involved guage was kept alive. internalized critical content in the Socialist Real- I’ve heard that Chen Danqing was disappointed Alexander Melamid cross-cultural juxtaposing and repurposing of Vitaly, you were the one who originally intro- ist form. that the level of success he had achieved in China Left: images of different times. What the artists had in duced Mark to these artists, so maybe you can PD Were you ever in a studio of theirs at the time? was so different from what he was achieving in Yu Hong, Resolution, 2015, common was an emerging sense of self-reflection 7 acrylic on canvas, 70 ⁄8 × MT 3 explain how you first encountered their work. The first time I visited their studio was for one America. 78 ⁄4 inches (180 × 200 cm). and self-authorship. VITALY KOMAR At that time, Alexander Melamid and of the evening meetings Vitaly mentioned earlier. XW I wouldn’t even say he had an American Private Collection © Yu Hong PD But always with authenticity, right? They

I published a call to artists in Artforum magazine. That’s where I first saw slides of Chen Danqing’s reception, because there was a lack of any main- Below: weren’t indulging in some of the notions of a bank- We asked for proposals of what to do with Soviet pictures and was introduced to him. stream recognition of these artists at the time, Ni Jun, China Central rupted culture that a lot of ’80s postmodern artists communist-era monuments or Socialist monu- PD Danqing was living in the States for about before contemporary Chinese art started appear- Television under were. Construction, 2008, oil on 3 3 ments to Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. Russia twenty years, wasn’t he? ing in major museum exhibitions in the 1990s and canvas, 17 ⁄4 × 17 ⁄4 inches MT There was a vitality that stood out against the started to destroy these monuments in the early XIN WANG He came in 1982. subsequently as an art-market phenomenon in (45 × 45 cm) © Ni Jun narrow presence of the ’80s commodity critique. I 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Art- MT I remember a very striking painting by Dan- the mid-2000s. I don’t know what kind of feed- Following spread, left: don’t know how to put it simply. I noticed a qual- ists from countries including Germany, China, qing, of a field worker listening to a radio announce back they got from the Transformations exhibi- Liu Xiaodong, My Hometown, ity, a depth, a complexity in the work. I saw that in 2014, oil on linen, 30 × 38 the death of Chairman Mao. It struck me. tion because that was a more intimate crowd of inches (76.2 × 96.5 cm). Komar and Melamid’s work as well as in the Chi- JANE DEBEVOISE It’s an interesting early work of his people who probably understood them on some Arthur Zeckendorf Collection nese artists’ work. that was shown at the Guggenheim Museum in 1998 level. After moving back to China, Chen Danqing © Liu Xiaodong PD From the New York Academy of Art’s point in the exhibition A Century in Crisis: Modernity and published several extremely popular memoirs Following spread, right: of view, our interest in Figurative Diaspora is this Tradition in the Art of Twentieth-Century China. and essays about his time in New York, and one of Erik Bulatov, Red Horizon, notion that a certain language, while it was mar- 1971–2000, colored pencil 1 MT I was intrigued by the idea of presenting the these chapters was dedicated to his friendship with on paper, 11 × 12 ⁄4 inches ginalized in the US and Western Europe, could unpresentable, of visualizing the auditory. That Mark. In this essay and others, he wrote candidly (27.9 × 31.1 cm). Collection be migrating across cultures, being preserved and of Neil K. Rector © Erik goes beyond realism, it gets to realization, it’s about his frustrations but also offered insightful Bulatov reenlivened, even though it was being repurposed where things come together. observations about anachronisms of the New York for propaganda. This language was kept alive, PD In your essay for the Transformations book- art world, its hierarchies, and how it functioned to which explains why artists from the Central Acad- let, you said, “Chen’s work served as an introduc- distinguish the “mainstream” and the peripheral emy of Fine Arts in Beijing have a phenomenal skill tion to me to the works of Liu Xiadong, Yu Hong, practices—a category as much stylistic and tempo- set. You look through a book of drawings of student and Ni Jun. And this transformational edge in his ral as historical. He was so amazed that Mark took work and you can just be blown away by the facil- work led me to appreciate the importance of under- an interest in the realist works by him and other ity. I don’t know if you could go to any academy in standing their work in terms of extending tempo- Chinese artists and offered to reflect on their prac- America and find that level of talent. It has disap- ral transformations of their culture rather than the tices in an exhibition context. peared inside of two generations. narrow temporal postures of mine.” You were see- PD Yu Hong and Liu Xiaodong have had phe- MT We have an American history of the avant- ing it through a very particular point of view and it nomenal success as artists. Was any part of that garde, where abstraction supplanted representa- took you a while to adjust. due to Transformations? Did a kind of bump hap- tion. In the late 1970s and early ’80s there was a MT It was common at that time to view contem- pen afterward? return to figuration, but even so, it’s fascinating to porary art as existing in a singular, formal pres- JDB Yu Hong and Liu Xiaodong’s acceptance see other things happening in different cultures, ent. But apprehending the art of Chen Danqing or and celebration have grown significantly since the to see the flows of official and nonofficial and -aca Komar and Melamid involved multiple times, mul- 1990s, but I feel their audience is still mostly Chi- demic versus avant-garde. tiple styles, and multiple relations between form nese. Mainland Chinese are wealthier than they VK Early on in postmodernism, at the beginning and content. were in the 1990s, and some have embraced these of the ’80s, the New York Times ran the headline

114 115 “Today’s Avant-Garde Artists Have Lost the Power VK I guess it depends on how long you stayed in PD There’s a certain kind of disenchanted ide- re-presenting, metaphorically. It’s about the inter- to Shock,” above an article by Hilton Kramer. The New York. alism that uses irony to sort of attack one’s previ- action of seeing, thinking, and making. And when I avant-garde had lost the element of surprise. HEIDI ELBERS Vitaly, Chinese artists exhibited in ous faith. Mark, do you feel that the word “irony” see people doing it with verve, it’s a pleasure. It can MT Yes, it had become academic. Moscow when you were studying. Do you remem- implies a lack of faith, or a lack of authenticity? be dangerous, satirical, ironic, critical, insightful, PD It became mainstream. ber what kind of art was shown? MT It seems inadequate to try to put a tight defi- revelatory. . . . JDB The continuation of figuration and realism VK It was Chinese Socialist Realism. nition on it. Satirical artwork, humor, visualiz- VK Also sometimes sarcastic. and their pervasiveness outside the Euro-Ameri- HE In the ’60s? ing irony—there are relationships that are volatile, MT Its many reflective modes show the adequacy can sphere is something that fascinates me. It pro- VK In the ’60s it was different. It was a more pro- beautiful, and funny at times, but how they come of representation as a form of signification. poses a certain kind of resistance to the mainstream vocative time. together is quite explosive, an enigma. HE Peter and Mark, you have been working as we have developed it, this hegemonic view of XW Mark, you were very tuned in to unpack- VK “Explosive” is a good term. toward the Figurative Diaspora exhibition for quite what is and what is not art. There is a Euro-Ameri- ing something about these Chinese artists, and PD That’s funny, because I remember back when a while. Can you talk about your thought process? can modernism, and then there is modernity, and you mentioned the conceptual and perceptual critics felt your art depended on one-liners, so you PD At the start we wanted to focus on techni- then there is the socialist modernity. We don’t seem in our previous conversations. That seems to be started to embed text in your work. cal sophistication, but over ten or fifteen years, the to adequately acknowledge that modernity comes the duality where irony or ironic meanings would MT I realized that text as texture can become proposition changed dramatically, and now it’s in different packages, and that socialist modernity manifest. Interestingly enough, however, in these picture. something more like traditional skills and contem- is just as relevant to world culture as Euro-Ameri- Chinese artists’ works, there is not the same PD They didn’t see the complexity of the work. porary discourse. The artists in both Transforma- can modernity yet is almost never embraced, almost kind of irony that you practice or subscribe to in They weren’t willing to invest themselves in decod- tions and Figurative Diaspora have made an enor- never validated in Euro-American institutions. your work. ing its complexity. mous effort to acquire an incredibly difficult set Whatever we think about totalitarianism, there is MT I’m not sure to what degree irony overlaps MT At that time, even though a lot of attention of skills, and they’re trying to do something pro- something within the wreckage of Mao’s social- with humor or satire. There is an outward aggres- was certainly given to representational artists, the gressive, something that hasn’t been seen before. ism that still resonates in the minds and hearts of sion in humor that can be alleviated by laughter. critique of representation had it that representa- Part of what makes their work so interesting is many artists in China. Acknowledging that may But Vitaly had said recently that irony is “related tional meanings were “single coded,” “single mes- that the language has morphed as it has moved make their artwork by people like Yu Hong or Liu to the idea of self-reflection.” That’s what I saw saged,” and “totalizing.” But if you go beyond that along. Some of the tropes from Soviet Social- Xiaodong more legible and clarify their desire to vividly, in multiple senses, in the work of the reductive thinking it becomes apparent that there ist Realism still show up—you’ll see figures por- continue to communicate broadly. It may be inter- Chinese artists. is inherent complexity in how the perceptual and trayed from below, or lit with artificial light. But esting to think through realism and figuration in VK Sometimes I feel that my self-irony is very the conceptual interact with the making of a rep- those devices are used in different ways now, and a broader, more ideological sense, as well as an close to self-destruction. Because in purifying resentational picture. That’s the vitality of the fig- it feels like there’s a real connection between all artistic sense. yourself you’re also losing part of yourself. urative, you’re not redesigning anything—you’re three cultures. PD Part of that must be how the avant-garde posi- tioned itself in the culture, wanting to be exclusive in Beijing, or the China Academy of Art in Hang- JDB That duality is embedded in the work of a lot and not for the masses. To a certain degree there zhou, for instance. Behind the conceptual art that of artists who want to maintain a certain kind of was a kind of intellectual elitism that was not inter- the Guggenheim curators decided to present are visibility, or work within the system, and yet at the ested in speaking to the average person. The notion amazing realist painting-and-drawing skills. same time feel deeply about the social problems of communication to a broader audience, whether After June 4, 1989, and through much of in China. it’s through Socialist Realism or any other form of the 1990s in China, public museums, which were PD In America, earlier generations of concep- realism, is sort of antithetical to the avant-garde. almost entirely state run, were prohibited from tual artists have now become deeply embedded in VK In Russia, the avant-garde ended in the late displaying so-called avant-garde art, exemplified academic life and there seems to be little interest 1920s, when it lost the ability to attract official by much of the work that you saw at the Guggen- in technical training. It’s a very strange moment. power within the government. From the begin- heim. Artists like Yu Hong and Liu Xiaodong, both These are people who took chances with their cre- ning, they’d said the masses did not understand students and young teachers at the Central Acad- ative lives, saw themselves as progressive, but then the abstract art of Kazimir Malevich and the others. emy in the late 1980s and ’90s, may have wanted institutionalized their beliefs. You go around the At a certain point, even Malevich started to paint to continue to exhibit their work publicly, to con- country now and even foundation programs are realistically. tinue their conversation with the public. In one of being done away with. And there’s very little room PD De Chirico changes also, a little earlier. his essays Vitaly used the term “official conceptu- for that training in the larger art marketplace. It’s VK There was a tendency to change in search of alism,” which I thought was lovely. Is that what we an entirely different sort of institutional culture. the “new.” Paradoxically, realism became new for have here? XW At the same time, it feels like a familiar story, a short time at in the end of the ’20s, beginning of PD Wasn’t it also true that Yu Hong was taking where progressive and democratizing goals almost the ’30s. Nowadays we have an entirely new situ- some chances with her own career? inevitably become institutionalized. I think what ation, where all kinds of art coexist. Just to take a JDB Yes, but she stayed with a more traditional- Jane has just laid out about China specifically is walk in Chelsea and you will see video art, realist looking vocabulary and she perfected it. As important because it’s not just about preserving art, photographs, abstract expressionism, abstract did Liu Xiadong. They were truth-tellers in the something—a tradition or a genre—it’s also about geometry, surrealism, etc. That means our crite- sense that they were showing a Beijing that was expanding and transvaluing it into something ria of what’s good in art have opened up. We have not bright, shiny, and red, required characteris- completely different, often in response to chang- become tolerant of many contradictions. tics of politically acceptable art during the stri- ing times and cultural/political climates. PD But that also creates a critical crisis. dent Maoist years. That willingness to tell the PD That’s the most important thing. Part of VK Sometimes crisis is the period before you go truth was controversial within a mainstream con- what’s frightening about traditional atelier practice back to health. text. For example, one work by Liu Xiaodong in is that the drawings that come out of it frequently PD Jane, it’s interesting that in contemporary the recent Guggenheim show showed two boys, look very similar. But in China at the moment, Chinese art, particularly with the artists who liúmáng or hoodlums, burning a rat—marginal- you don’t actually see this salon sensibility of just were in Transformations, there remains a strong ized, unemployed guys hanging around, doing repeating the past, you see really great figura- attachment to realism. Where does this attachment nothing, being bored, and burning a rat. That tive work, and it’s looking to the future. It’s taking come from? was the flip side of the new economy that was advantage of all these linguistic skills but deploy- JDB We just had a show of contemporary Chinese beginning to surge. People were going to be left ing them in ways that haven’t been seen before. It’s art at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. It’s behind. Liu Xiaodong communicated this new fascinating and exciting. interesting to note that the curators of this show reality in a language that was at once legible JDB It’s interesting to consider the community made a choice to omit painting, at least for the most and unsettling. of Chinese artists who came to New York around part. Among the paintings that were included were PD That’s one of the aspects I was attracted to in the time of Mark’s Transformations exhibition, a works by Yu Hong, Liu Xiaodong, and a few oth- Lu Liang’s work too. He does these incredibly bleak community that included both Ai Weiwei and Liu ers, but the core of the exhibition relied on other pictures of ghost cities and strange vistas, on an Xiaodong. On one hand, they came from a sim- media—installation, performance, and video. We enormous scale, you feel like you’re stepping into ilar milieu and were friendly colleagues in New should remember, however, that many of the artists reality in a strange way. All the skill sets are there. York, yet there’s a divide in terms of their approach in that exhibition started out as painters and have He’s using everything he’s learned and deploying toward the system. Vitaly, when people from Russia retained the skills you mentioned. They are aca- it to make a very dark statement. But they’re still first came to the United States, did that same sense demically trained artists from the Central Academy incredibly beautiful, hauntingly so. of community pervade?

116 117 In 1994 Mark Tansey hosted the exhibition Trans- When I first saw one of Chen Danqing’s large triptychs Chen’s work served as an introduction to me to the formations in his apartment which featured four several years ago in his studio on 42nd street I was works of Liu Xiaodong, Yu Hong, and Ni Jun. And this Chinese artists living in New York at the time: deeply struck and puzzled. The Socialist Realist gram- transformational edge in his work led me to appreciate Chen Danqing, Ni Jun, Yu Hong, and Liu Xiao- mar taken to the hilt was combined with recent familiar the importance of understanding their work in terms dong. Long before any awareness from critics This transformational vanguard conventions of appropriation and juxtapo- of extending temporal transformations of their cul- and discourse, they recognized the potency and edge in his work led sition normally associated with the 1980s postures of ture rather than the narrow temporal postures of mine. TRANSFORMATIONS: bandwidths of realism—marginalized by Con- neutralized meaning. My immediate reflex was toward In Liu Xiaodong’s art, painted just after Tianan- ceptualism then as well as now—in each other’s me to appreciate quick judgment. However, it didn’t take me long to men Square, one can follow a transition of increasingly drastically different practices, informed by rad- take my temporal blinders off and realize that I wasn’t robust individuation away from the restrictions and ically different cultural, pedagogical, and tem- the importance of looking at these paintings—they were looking at me. uniformity of Socialist Realism. The work of Yu Hong, poral parameters. It is serendipitous that Tansey understanding their Two thousand years of ink painting, about forty years “who expands Eastern attitudes of women’s liberation” and the Chinese artists were connected by Vitaly of Socialist Realism, and three years of cultural surge by painting women, including herself, makes readily NEW YORK, 1994 Komar, part of the Soviet artist duo Komar and work in terms of since Tiananmen Square were grinning at my tem- apparent a transition from her Socialist Realist to an Melamid, not least due to the legacy of Soviet extending temporal poral chauvinism. The triptych panel on the far right, exuberant celebration of the human body. Ni Jun goes brand of Socialist Realism that continued to loom based on Caravaggio’s Death of the Virgin, showed me directly to gesture grammars of power and political large in art academies in China. Thank You For transformations of their that Chen’s hand was closer to Caravaggio than any transactions, which may be the most fundamental site Your Love 1994, a forthcoming publication edited I’d ever seen. In the panel on the left, a wounded girl of cultural transformation. by Xin Wang with contributions from Cindy Qi culture rather than being lifted from Tiananmen Square shows his Social- It’s my hope that this private showing will add to Xingyi, will delve deep into the circumstances the narrow temporal ist Realism at its source. And in the center panel one a progressive international discourse based on the and confluences of Transformations, a singu- sees any of us at a New York club in our glorious pre- renewed vitality and complexity of the pictorial lan- lar event that speaks volumes to the constella- postures of mine. cision obsolescence. What holds the pictures together guage we have in common. tion of contemporaneous experiments as well as is the similarity of gesture, the figural dynamics, and Mark Tansey anachronistic connections in the increasingly the Socialist Realist voice. But the edge between each globalized art world in 1990s New York. panel is a cultural temporal maelstrom. —Mark Tansey, 1994

Opposite: Mark Tansey, Action Painting II, 1984, oil on canvas, 76 × 110 inches (193 × 279.4 cm) © Mark Tansey

Left: Ni Jun, North Korea, 1991, 1 3 oil on canvas, 31 ⁄2 × 26 ⁄4 inches (80 × 68 cm) © Ni Jun

Right: Yu Hong, A Girl At Leisure, 1 1993, oil on canvas, 47 ⁄4 × 1 35 ⁄8 inches (120 × 89 cm) © Yu Hong

118 119 Left: Opposite: Liu Xiaodong, The Heavy Chen Danqing, Leather Rain, 1993, oil on canvas, 56 Shoes and Leather Boots, 3 1 1 ⁄8 × 72 ⁄8 inches (143 × 183 1987, oil on canvas, 22 ⁄8 5 cm) © Liu Xiaodong × 27 ⁄8 inches (56 × 70 cm) © Chen Danqing My experiences tell me that Below: Ai Weiwei at John Ahearn’s Studio (1993). Photos by Liu artists here are open-minded Xiaodong and they communicate with each other no matter what race or nationality. Chen Danqing

itting at a bar on the Lower West Side to make appointments or reschedule our meet- there, Mark would say, “I hate it. I hate their attitude friends feel uncomfortable about having their Over time, I have heard voices questioning the one night in the early 1990s, Mark ings. Living in the contemporary era and in the of, ‘You’re all wrong and we’re correct.’” He would paintings hung in my place?” His worry reminded cultural centralism and hegemony of the West. I’ve Tansey took a look at photos of my same city, he wrote letters instead of making phone also make a kick in his leather shoes, reminis- me that Westerners are often extremely serious, also seen earnest efforts in the United States to paintings that had been given to him calls—such a long-absent, old-fashioned gesture. cent of the domineering gestures made by avant- even with casual events. advocate for and support non-Western and non- by a mutual friend and simply said, However, talking to Mark face-to face sometimes garde artists. Mark wanted to make the event special. A few white art. The “loudness” of these efforts makes “When you have time, we need to have confused me, so much so that I often got lost in lan- To this day, he often speaks contemptuously of days later I went to pick up the paintings. We sat me uncomfortable, however. Perhaps we are just a longer conversation.” guage, even in Chinese. He patiently instructed the “mainstream.” I would comment, “You’re on in his kitchen smoking. He had a cigar and, with fine without them, but these activities make us On a brutally cold day a week later, me in words such as “structure,” “deconstruc- that mainstream list yourself,” to which he would a hint of sentimentality, he said, “The paintings see the “center” and smell the “hegemony.” This Mark traveled to my place by subway. tion,” “metaphor,” “rhetoric,” etc., by referenc- reply, “No, no, I’d rather not be.” had to outshow ‘the mainstream!’” He then said, is probably what Mark was referring to when he When he arrived, he sat down and was ing the English-Chinese dictionary I would bring Mark always stands in a nonmainstream posi- “Mainstream means that some things get to be talked about the “political game.” Nonetheless, quiet for a while, but we eventually ended up talk- with me. But I would get confused again when the tion and views the mainstream as a foe that he exhibited, but others don’t.” I laughed. “Is that my experiences tell me that artists here are open- Sing until midnight. words mixed together in his long sentences. Some- knows well. He respects non-Western mainstream funny? No, that’s their political game and it’s not minded and they communicate with each other no To use an old Chinese term, Mark is a shu-sheng times when we discussed my paintings, I would art, however. He once asked me timidly about the interesting to me at all.” matter what race or nationality. Jean Renoir, the (scholar). He contemplates while discussing, some- respond, “I don’t get it.” He would reply seriously, issue of space in landscape paintings of the Song Mark wanted to reach out to galleries for me, French film director and son of the Impression- times smiles, but just for a second, and soon returns “Yes you do. You have it in your paintings already. dynasty. He assumed that I knew much more than but made the suggestion in a roundabout manner. ist painter, called himself “a citizen of the world to pondering. He seldom talks about himself, never I can see that.” he, but I could only tell him that the concept of Out of stubbornness or laziness, or maybe both, of films” in the last chapter, “An End to Nation- interrupts, but is both forthright and cautious. If he After long conversations with Mark, I would “space” did not exist yet in Song-dynasty China. I had not tried to reach out to galleries for about alism,” of his memoir My Life and My Films. He speaks for longer than he deems appropriate, he feel exhausted and intrigued. That said, I often Another time he took me to a party during which eight years. I worked on my own. Mark could see wrote, “If a French farmer should find himself din- will stop himself: “Oh, I think I’ve said too much. wondered if a three-person conversation might be he listened intently, like a college student, to artists through this and tactfully suggested, “I totally ing at the same table as a French financier, those What do you think?” more interesting than just he and I trying to under- from the former Soviet Union. Mark also visited one understand you. But things just need to be shown. two Frenchmen would have nothing to say to each Sometimes he is just shy. stand one another. He would often apologetically Whitney Biennial that had received a bad review Let them have a look and decide.” Of course, Mark other. . . . But if a French farmer meets a Chinese Mark’s personality seems to contrast with the remark, “I wish I could speak Chinese.” As time from the New York Times. After seeing the installa- knew more about galleries’ strategies than I did. farmer they will find any amount to talk about.”1 Is irony-tinged content of his paintings: a cow is led passed, however, I realized that we did under- tions by young artists, he commented, “Well, yes, But he was a friend with whom I wanted only sim- this postulate true? Very possibly. Renoir’s com- to an oil painting; a TV host extends a microphone stand each other, and that Mark wanted a confi- it was strident, but the New York Times writers just ple discussions, with no worldly business involved. ment was based on his experiences after he had to a sphinx statue for an interview; a group of paint- dant. He needed a listener, someone with whom want to remain in the glory days of Abstract Expres- I promised I would comply with his suggestion but moved to Hollywood and developed close relation- ers sit in front of their easels and sketch mushroom he could talk to about the possibilities of painting sionism to ensure the steady victory of holding the never called him back. ships with American directors. Notably, his obser- clouds; two literati scuffle on the edge of a preci- and so-called conceptual art—of not giving up on authority in their hands. The kids should have fun Almost half a year passed. Eventually, Mark vation mirrors the situation between Mark and pice composed of words. I saw the last piece at the canvas while also indulging in conceptualism. He playing their own games. Vitality, that’s the most called me, and with his clumsy self-deprecating me. With regards to language, we may only under- Whitney Biennial in 1985 but did not know that one appreciated having a sounding board to explore his important thing!” tone said, “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t contact people stand partially, but we indeed fully comprehend of the two literati depicted was Jacques Derrida. thoughts on the matter. He repeatedly emphasized In early 1994, I brought a few young peers from that often. I know it’s bad.” each other. What does that mean? At the time, I thought I could that his success was only one of a very few excep- Beijing to pay Mark a visit. He had decided to The thing is—it was my bad. I should have apol- see through everything but I still didn’t under- tions among the postmodern paintings of the 80s. hang our paintings in his home (for which he had ogized but I didn’t. I invited him to my place and —Chen Danqing, 1998 stand. There must be some implication or intention. As to his recognition among major art museums cleared out a large room). He prepared good wine he came without bringing the note with my new Clearly, the artist had taken ignorance and knowl- and collections, he simply felt that he was lucky. He and food and gathered dozens of people, including address and phone number on it. He wandered Translated from the Chinese by Qianfan Gu edge into consideration; in other words, our knowl- would speak of the word “lucky” in a self-depre- his gallerist and the professor and art critic Arthur around the building, finally went home to call me, edge becomes useless in front of these paintings. cating tone, but with remarkable anger when talk- Danto. It was a snowy day, and Mark seemed more and apologized several times. The next day he Our early correspondence was quite formal. ing about “avant-garde art.” With his eyes glaring excited about this event than about preparing his came back with a pack of beers. I feel Westerners 1. Jean Renoir, “An End to Nationalism,” in My Life And My Films Mark mailed me handwritten notes a few times down at a corner, as if avant-garde art was lying own show. He even asked me twice, “Would your drink beer like water. (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2000), pp. 279–80.

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