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Art and China's
Revolution at Asia Society
By Qing Qing
Every person of Chinese descent will
walk out of Art and China's Revolution with their
own stories to relate. That is the magnitude of the subject
matter— the Cultural Revolution — a time when
one man was Chairman, Emperor, Sun and God. However touched
up, glorified and forgotten, undisputed is its mark on a nation.
Some forty years later, my mother — daughter of a denounced
landlord — still has such a hard time making sense of
"those days" that, in the end of our conversations, she would
resign to underwhelming and exasperating utterances of "maddening,"
and "impossible to explain to you."
But just as the show, spanning three gallery halls to unravel
three decades from the founding of the People's Republic
of China (P.R.C.) in 1949, is nuanced, the effects of this
period on today's China are just as complex. Amidst
a boom in recent Chinese contemporary art, curators Melissa
Chiu and Zheng Shengtian have invited the conversation back
from China's chronic fascination with the present to
suggest that the past may speak for the future more than we
think.
Every artwork, artifact, and photo in this exhibition brings
a historical era back to life where memory falters. It is
fitting then, that the show begins with an archival collection
to serve as historical narration for these chaotic times.
The section Art, History, and Politics, comprised
of photographs, posters, artifacts, video and a timeline,
may be the closest we will ever come to know the truth behind
a time so estranged from reality. Perusing through this packed
exhibition hall with Chairman Mao beaming from banners, sculptures,
and even tin mugs, I was reminded eerily of the time when
my grandmother took out her trove of Mao pins, rendering a
small metallic flood on the table. Here in the museum setting,
the glint from the collection of Mao pins is no different.
There is the same �red, bright, shining� that uniformly describes
the decor that were once the allotted aesthetic in every home.
Through hair combs, vanity cases, bowls, toys and even cookie
jars, everyday private household goods became an opportunity
to parade one�s devotion to Mao. The gentle absurdity of what
the Chairman has become today � a pop art element in any given
contemporary Chinese art piece, T-Shirt, or tote mass produced,
versus the totem that was forced upon millions, is perhaps
reminder of the Chinese spirit as a whole: resilient, optimistic,
forgetful.
The most telling pieces from the exhibition may be the photographs
included in this archive. Taken during the beginning of the
Cultural Revolution in 1966, one photo shows the Chairman
standing atop the red walls of the (once) Forbidden City at
Tiananmen Square, waving to an emphatic crowd of Red Guards
below. While he does not loom larger than life compositionally,
the sense of euphoria and reverence guided toward him is not
unlike that of propaganda posters popularized during this
time.
A series of stunning black and white photographs taken by
photojournalists further punctures the sentiment of surreal
reality. Kept in secret at the time they were made, these
photographs offer insight into a world that had been kept
in a shiny mantle of what was essentially China�s most ambitious
public relations campaign. The photo stories include: Ancient
statues defaced, with dunce caps hanging over their drooping
heads; synchronized swimmers boasting a portrait of Mao floating
in water; a man bent-over in self-criticism; a man avowing
his allegiance to the Chairman with a clutter of pins and
medals strewn across his shirt and cap. While films from China�s
fifth generation filmmakers set during the era have made such
scenes familiar to the modern viewer, nothing quite prepares
us for the sheer theatrics rooted in absolute reality � not
a stage set designed with the director�s vision, nor an idealized
painting commissioned by the party � this is about a moment
frozen in time, captured.
As for the model paintings chosen by the party and reproduced
as posters, prints, stamps and the like, the majority of them
are all on display in the main gallery of the exhibition,
and all exist to deify one man. It is as the artist Chen Danqing
acknowledges in one interview �At the time I felt there was
no difference between me and the Renaissance painters: They
painted Jesus; I painted Mao.�
In Chairman Mao Goes to Anyuan (1969), a young heroic
Mao, who would soon incite the workers rebellion of 1921,
seems to dwarf the mountains and guide the clouds of change
behind him. In Chairman Mao Inspects the Guangdong Countryside
(1972), a crowd of farmers unfolds from his side, to his left
and right. In Strive Forward in Winds and Tides (1971),
the painting commemorates the historic event in which, at
the age of 73, Mao swam in the Yangtze River for over an hour,
thereby asserting his political influence through physical
prowess. The cult of Mao is at work, essentially rendering
him as a God-like figure in these paintings. He is as the
sun. His expression is always radiant, lifting those around
him who look to him, euphorically, for guidance. Indeed, one
of the many folk songs rewritten during the time refers to
Chairman Mao as �the sun in our hearts,� a line that reappears
in movies, staged dramas, and as slogan on propaganda posters.
Big, red, bright and shining, perhaps no symbol encapsulated
the Party�s idealized Mao better.
Works that do not focus specifically on Mao in this gallery
adhere nevertheless to the strict socialist realist style
championed by the Party. For Shen Jiawei and his immensely
popular work Standing Guard for Our Great Motherland
(1974), to simply depict revolutionary themes isn't enough.
The oil painting, which portrays three Chinese soldiers guarding
the border against Soviet threat, had to be partially repainted
to the Party's vision before it could be shown in public.
In the revision, the faces of the soldiers were made fiercer,
their cheeks rosier. The subtlety of which doesn't seem all
that removed from the compulsive side of the Party today�overseeing
every meticulous detail of the 2008 Olympics, including what
one cute little girl's face may come to symbolize over another's.
To understand artists of this time as either puppet or victim
of the authoritarian state, however, would oversimplify the
picture. Among the roster of such leading contemporary artists
as Xu Bing, Chen Danqing, and Zhang Hongtu who grew up during
the Cultural Revolution, Shen Jiawei confesses that it was
the Revolution that "turned me into a painter, and,
what is more, a painter who achieved fame at a very young
age." As part of a work unit that painted portraits
of Chairman Mao, Shen was able to keep the expensive leftover
paint to further his artistic interest. These young artists
regard the years of their "re-education" —
living and working alongside farmers in the countryside —
as the formative years of their artistic careers. It is with
these sketches of the rural life that the exhibition ends
in a tender spirit.
Yet the most memorable paintings in the main gallery are
neither the official propaganda nor sketches from the rising
stars of the era. The most memorable works often belong to
the forgotten. With a departure from social realist style,
the traditional ink brush paintings of established masters
like Pan Tianshou, Lin Fengmian, Shi Lu and Li Keran startles
one with their deviation in not only technique and style,
but subject matter and emotion. If revolutionary art was bold,
loud and invulnerable, the works of these masters drew on
minimalism to create a spiritual lushness. Their fall from
grace chronicles the shift in ideology, when pine trees standing
for nobility, solemnity and dignity are replaced by jubilant
faces surrounding Mao.
The most powerful painting among these "Black Artists," so
labeled for their counter-revolutionary works that utilize
traditionalist, old cultural themes and technique, may be
Li Keran's Sunset on the Pass (1964). The ink on
canvas of a looming bronze mountain landscape in rough ink
strokes of traditional technique shows the People's army with
their red flags, threading through the mountain. Like many
of the established artists who were heavily criticized and
denounced during the Cultural Revolution, Li Keran's incorporation
of revolutionary themes into his traditionalist styled paintings
is a monument to his artistic mastery, while the soldiers
serve as reminder of the artist's concessions in order to
survive. The mood of the piece is at once triumphant and lush,
the irony unsaid. Another master of Chinese painting featured
in the gallery was less fortunate. Lin Fengmian, who personally
destroyed his own works by soaking and flushing them down
the toilet, could not escape imprisonment; among countless
artists who were jailed or sent to labor camps at the time,
he spent over four years in prison.
It is the most ordinary paintings that accentuate the incongruity
of the times. A series of landscape and still-life paintings
by the fittingly named No Name Group seems entirely
out of place in the throng of revolutionary art. Their depiction
of everyday subjects, while not radical in form and technique,
is rebellious in their very existence.
The last section of the exhibition features the Long
March Project, a "walking visual display" by a contemporary
artist collective set to retrace the 6000 mile retreat by
Communists from Nationalist forces that mark the ascent Mao's
power between 1934 and 1936. Installed as panel displays of
photographs that recorded art events at twelve different sites
along the route, the ambitious project is, in one of the organizer's
own words, not simply an artistic chronicle of an historical
event, but "an abstract symbol of achieving a [modern day]
revolution…"
A revolution in the making may be fitting to describe the
contemporary art scene in China today. Spearheaded by projects
like The Long March, artists push the envelope with
not only their unique artistic voice and medium, but by taking
strides in shaping the space, the society in which they reside
in. As it is with many exhibitions on China, each visitor
may walk out of Art and China's Revolution more perplexed
than before. The sheer otherworldliness and catastrophe of
the three decades chronicled remind us that this world was
only a generation ago. Today's generation, enduring its scars,
feeling out its effects, remembering and forgetting, will
have critical material to march on with for a while.
M
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New York's Lower East Side aka LES: An Update
By Mary Hrbacek
New York's Lower East Side (LES) gallery scene continues
to experience rapid growth as new galleries turn up in unexpected
locations. Just east of the Bowery, for example, along the
northern border of Great Jones Street, Bond Street and East
Second Street has seen a lot of activity lately. To help visitors
navigate the terrain, please refer to the Village/LES map
in this magazine (page 40). A confluence of venues between
Rivington Street, Stanton Street and Chrystie Street branches
off themain artery of the Bowery, where the pristine, entirely
new building of the New Museum is proving to be a
major attraction. This area has drawn vernerable Chelsea venues
such as Feature, Inc. and White Box, while
at the same time inspired new start-ups. Gallery Nine
Five, at 24 Spring Street and Bowery, is a new space
with an ambitious international program. And too, there are
long established neighborhood fixtures such as such as Fusion
Arts Museum on Stanton Street, ABC No Rio on
Ludlow Street, and the Gathering of the Tribes, north
of East Houston, that continue their unique multidisciplinary
programs.
While the majority of these spaces are intimate to mid-sized,
Fusion Arts Museum Gallery has opened an extra large,
two-story flagship establishment with a program that focuses
on large-scale installations, video projections and visual
art. 31 Grand, named for its orignal address in Williamsburg,
moved to 143 Ludlow Street in the LES last year. Many of the
art spaces are new businesses run by gallerists who are suavely
friendly and welcoming. The atmosphere is unpretentious and
relaxed, and the works they show are often surprising and
creative.
For example, at the start of this season 33 Bond,
north of East Houston Street, showed large-scale graphite
on paper drawings by Jeremy Lawson, with narrative scenarios
of youths in rundown settings. Werkstatte, on Great
Jones Street, showed David Malek's carefully mixed diamond-shaped
oil on canvas tints and tones and Clare Brew's investigations
of neon light. Zurcher Studio, located on Bleecker
Street, just opened its doors last month. Across the Bowery,
Rivington Arms on East Second Street recently featured
a show by Leigh Ledare that included photographs, a video
installation and sound art.
Walk further south down the Bowery, past East Houston Street,
and you find Feature, Inc., which exhibited new photographs
by the uncensorable Richard Kern. Nearby, on Chrystie Street,
Lehmann Maupin (in addition to their Chelsea location)
shows the huge wall-sized computer-generated and digitally
animated projections by Jennifer Steinkamp. Her meadows of
swaying pink, yellow and black flowers recast nature in a
slightly menacing mold. Another abstract projection in the
show featured silky, flowing fabric cascading in repetitions
over a wall in the gallery. On the Bowery, the New Museum
building exudes an aura of hip architectural splendor, where
informative lectures and an innovative exhibition program
give added gravitas to the area's experimental feel.
Situated in a quiet enclave called Freeman's Alley, Salon
94 shows ghost-like religious paintings and sculpture
by Vidya Gastaldon. Alissa Friedman, the gallery's attentive
director, responds gladly to visitors' questions; there is
no attitude on display here, just art. Thierry Goldberg
Projects, at 5 Rivington Street, was showing an Islamic
inspired free-form painting show by Jeffar Khaldi. At Eleven
Rivington, a group show curated by Fernanda Arruda called
Active Forms utilized an unusual mix of art materials,
from leather and wood, cow skin, rice paper, paint, painted
metal to plexi-glass. Created by artists De Sauza, Galen,
Schendel and Spoati these offbeat materials comprise the works
that inspired the show's title. At 53 Stanton, Luxe Gallery
presented Marie Losier's installation of photographs
and film stills of industrial rockers, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge
and Lady Jaye. Located at 57 Stanton, Fusion Arts Museum,
a long established Lower East Side institution, offered a
freewheeling group show entitled Woman. These women
artists assert, in accord with the poet Ovid, "What one beholds
of a woman is the least of her." The show reminds us how our
pop-culture emphasis on sexiness and appearance tends to push
women to accept a low view of female eroticism. At Gallery
Nine Five, even the graffiti has graffiti in Monia Lippi's
photographs of illuminated Brooklyn factory frescos. DCKT,
at 195 Bowery, featured ten night photographs of urban and
semi-urban structures by Lia Halloran, where squiggling shards
of tinted white light magically disrupt and interpenetrate
the images. Envoy, at 131 Chrystie Street, featured
darkly, strange oil on canvas nudes and portraits by Piet
Pollet. Nearby, Kukumu, at 42 Rivington Street is
another new gallery that just opened.
At Nicelle Beauchene, 163 Eldridge Street, there
are intricate landscape-based abstract paintings by Rebecca
Saylor Sack; the gallery owner is easy to point out, she brings
her beautiful baby to work. 31 Grand, 143 Ludlow,
was showing Jeph Gurecka's diverse sculptural forms in a variety
of materials. White, cast-resin images of people, ships, and
animals, mounted on wood, recall the porcelain figures of
Italian artist Della Robia. John Isaacs two-floor installation
at Museum 52, located at 92 Rivington Street, features
unusual sculptural objects such as a highly realistic elephant's
foot. At Smith Stewart, 54 Stanton, Rashawn Griffin's
denim/fabric panels reference the gallery's architectural
design elements.
There are certainly more LES galleries than can be mentioned
in this overview, and despite (or perhaps because of) tough
economic times, it seems more galleries move here all of the
time. While the whole area can easily be covered by foot,
it's best to plan two or three visits to see everything.
The gallerists are largely helpful and notably unpretentious,
and the intimate size of the exhibition venues, many of which
are converted storefronts, makes for a truly unique gallery-going
experience.
M
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Asian Contemporary Art Fair 2008: A Report
By M. Brendon MacInnis
What distinguishes Asian Contemporary Art Fair (ACAF)
from so many other art fairs launched amidst the art market
frenzy of recent memory, is that its owner, Cristal Kim and
Korean based sponsors — comprised of an extended family
of private supporters — seem genuinely interested in
promoting Asian art and culture. Certainly everyone wants
to sell art, but the emphasis here on decidedly noncommercial,
quirky and innovative works, presented together with a robust
lecture series that includes prominent speakers from around
the globe suggests that the fair organizers really mean it
when they proclaim their mission to continue the growth and
appreciation of Asian culture in and around the world.
A sampling of the educational programs offered during the
course of the five day event reads likethe syllabus for a
graduate studies semester. Victoria Lu, creative director
of MOCA Shanghai, explained the intricacies of balancing
public and private funding sources in her tireless efforts
to secure a future for private contemporary museums
in a rapidly developing China — a future beyond the
attention span of real estate speculators. David Elliot, 2010
artistic director of Biennale of Sydney, gave an informative
talk about the behind the scenes workings of the museum world
by comparing and contrasting his experiences in Tokyo and
istanbul, on the same pannel discussion, titled Private
Passions in Public Spaces: The Rise of Private Museums in
Asia.
Other pannel discussions included: Biennials and Beyond:
Contemporary Asian Art and Art Markets; Art and Asia's Islamic
World: Iran, Indonesia and Pakistan; Re-Orientation: Art from
Central Asia, Caucasus and the Middle East.
Of course, given that this second edition of ACAF
took place against the backdrop of a world-wide economic tsunami,
sales expectations were kept in check, and attendance was
modest. The crowds were mostly comprised of art world insiders
and more than a few serious collectors. For example, Jack
Tilton and friends made a point to go through
the fair, and the former president and CEO of MTV Networks'
VH1, Edward A. Bennett, was seen chatting up dealers. A prominent
collector of Asian art, Mr. Bennett currently heads Bennett
Media Studios in New York, and is active in numerous social
causes, most recently promoting music teaching in public schools.
The fair also managed to bring together a dynamic albeit
quirky mix of heavy-weight dealers, such as Max Protetch,
New York; Chambers Fine Art, New York- Beijing; Red Gate,
Beijing; ifa gallery, Shanghai, along side relatively
new, but promising galleries, such as ippodo gallery,
New York-Tokyo; 798 Avant Gallery, New York; and
Eli Klein Fine Art, New York.
Particularly notable works included Yibin Tian's All for
One and One for All, at Tenri Cultural Institute
of New York. The ambitious installation that is part
sculpture, part performance piece and photographs, utilizes
the example of North Korean Soldiers
and that country's somewhat excentric application of "Juche"
(self-reliance) to showcase the absurd. Liu Bolin's Notice
for Government Affairs at ifa gallery,
Shanghai, further touched on a theme addressing the role of
the individual and the state. Jin Zi's One Man's Battle,
featuring doll-like figures painted on canvas utilized the
repetition of the motif to highten the sense of anonymity.
Chicara Nagata's Art-1
chrome laden motorcycle sculptures at ippodo gallery,
New York-Tokyo confounded the lines of Kitsch, fashion and
art.
On balance, this second edition of ACAF reveals the
fair as a valuable cultural asset that, with some luck and
determination on the part of its organizers and participants,
could well take root and become one of New York's cultual
gems. It's already one of
my favorite fairs to visit this time of year.
M
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