Considering Huanjing: Positioning experimental art in China

Positions

Volumn 12, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 711-731

  Berghuis, Thomas J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 60950387573     PISSN: 10679847     EISSN: 15278271     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/10679847-12-3-711     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. These reactions will be further discussed later in this essay. They include Wang Nanming, "How to Deal with Rights - A Criticism of the Violent Trend in Chinese Contemporary Art," Chinese Type Contemporary Art Magazine 4 (2001), www.chinese-art.com. In addition, following the "Post-Sense Sensibility" exhibition (1999), where many of these works were shown for the first time, several people openly stated their criticism of these recent trends, including Hans van Dijk in the message board of the Chinese Type Contemporary Art Magazine
2. Wu Hung, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China (Chicago: David and Albert Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 2001)
3. On the notion of an urban society in distress producing these kinds of "cruel images," see Britta Erickson, "From the Edge of Beyond: Artists Probe the Mundane and the Horrific," Chinese Type Contemporary Art Magazine 4.3 (2001)
4. Jean Baudrillard, "La société de consommation" ("Mass Media Culture"), trans. Paul Foss and Julian Pefanis, in Baudrillard, The Revenge of the Crystal: Selected Writings on the Modern Object and Its Destiny, 1968-1983, ed. Paul Foss and Julian Pefanis (London: Pluto Press, in association with the Power Institute of Fine Arts, University of Sydney, 1990), 63
5. See also Karl Marx, "The Eighteenth Brumaire of Luis Bonaparte," in Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, ed. Lewis S. Feuer (Glasgow: William Collins, 1959), 360
6. John Clark, "System and Style in the Practice of Chinese Contemporary Art: The Disappearing Exterior?" Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art Magazine 1 (2002): 16-19
7. These two comments can be found in John Clark's Modern Asian Art (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998), 15
8. A number of artists from other parts of Asia have mentioned a similar relationship between their work and the concept of "environment," as can be extrapolated from a comment by Malaysian artist Yeoh Jin-leng, whom Clark quoted in the conclusion of Modern Asian Art, 298
9. During the 1990s there were numerous examples to be found of studies that position the production, mediation, and reception of contemporary Chinese art in terms of the official (guanfang) art of the academy vis-à-vis the nonofficial position taken by many experimental artists. See, for example, Chang Tsong-zung, "Into the Nineties," in China's New Art, Post-1989 ed. Chang Tsong-zung (Hong Kong: Hanart TZ Gallery, 1993)
10. and Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Twentieth Century (Chicago: David and Albert Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 1999), 17-22
11. Interestingly, a year later Wu produced another publication on experimental art in China in which he starts to note more clearly the problems involved in using the terms unofficial and official, whereby artists in particular "have found terms like 'unofficial art' and 'avant-garde art' misleading: the former exaggerates the political orientation of this art and the latter exaggerates its artistic radicalism." See Wu, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China, 11
12. For example, in the report published online in the news magazine Artnet (www.artnet.com): "After a long visit to China, Szeemann invited participation by 15 Chinese artists 'who have escaped the tradition of social realism.'"
13. Karen Smith, "Contagious Desire - The Other in Contemporary Chinese Art," ART Asia Pacific 31 (2001): 57
14. Zhongguo dandai yishu shi, 1985-1986 (A History of Chinese Contemporary Art, 1985-1986), ed. Gao Minglu, Zhou Yan, Wang Xiaojian, Shu Qun, Wang Mingxian, and Tong Dian (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1997), 384
15. In the preface to the Venice Biennale catalog, Harald Szeemann uses many phrases that help in positioning the idea that the Biennale has become "open to all," a position understood as somewhat ironic by several people, including those writing outside Asia. See, for example, Emma Bedford, "The Venice Biennale: A Personal Perspective," www.artthrob.co.za/ 99july/news.htm
16. Hou Hanru, "Towards an 'Un-Unofficial Art': De-ideologicalisation of China's Contemporary Art in the 1990s," Third Text 34 (1996). Both unofficial and nonofficial appear to be translated from the widely used term fei guanfang in Chinese
17. John Clark, "System and Style in the Practice of Chinese Contemporary Art: The Disappearing Exterior?" Yishu - Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 1 (2002): 13-33; my emphasis
18. See Wang Jing, High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng's China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 48
19. Hank Bull, "The Third Shanghai Biennale November 2000 - Reviewed," Chinese Type Contemporary Art Magazine 3 (2000)
20. Francesca Jordan, "China Report No. 1 - The Third Shanghai Biennale," Chinese Type Contemporary Art Magazine 3 (2000)
21. Francesca Jordan, "China Report No. 2 - 'Satellite Exhibitions,'" Chinese Type Contemporary Art Magazine 3 (2000)
22. Wu Hung, "The 2000 Shanghai Biennale - The Making of a Historical Event," ART Asia-Pacific 31 (2001): 42-49
23. Bu Hezuo Fangshi/FUCK OFF, exhibition catalog, ed. Ai Weiwei and Feng Boyi (Beijing: Privately published, 2000)
24. For further reference on the different types of censorship in China, see Wu, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China, 121-26
25. This self-censorship was imposed following intense discussions with the curators, Ai Weiwei and Feng Boyi, the director of the gallery, Li Liang, and several artists, including Zhu Yu, Zhu Ming, Yang Zhichao, and the Gao Brothers in 2001 and 2002
26. See Wu, Exhibiting Experimental Art in China
27. One could have indeed stated that this has been the most provocative artwork produced in recent times, were it not for the fact that Zhu Yu continues to produce other intensely provocative works, along with a group of artists who have been identified as "le groupe Cadavre." See Fei Dawei, "Transgresser le principe céleste - Dialogue avec le groupe Cadavre" ("Transgressing Celestial Principles - Dialogues with the Cadaver Groups"), Artpress, May 2001, 60-64
28. This translation has been made from a postcard that Zhu Yu produced after his performance piece. The postcard, which was distributed by the artist to anyone who asked him about his work, featured a photograph of the performance, on the back of which was printed the artist's statement
29. Initial press reaction suggested that the performance was conducted in Taiwan and not in the People's Republic of China. This report was first published in a Malaysia tabloid magazine and was severely criticized in Taiwan. For further reference, see the report "Baby-Eating Photos Are Part of Chinese Artist's Performance," Taipei Times, March 23, 2001, www.taipeitimes.com/news/2001/03/23/story/0000078704
30. Despite the fact that during an interview on November 28, 2001, the artist told me that he did eat the fetus, I have strong doubts about the veracity of this statement. In particular, it is my view that the artist intended only for his viewers to believe that he was eating the fetus
31. As documented by Jasper Becker, Hungry Ghosts: Mao's Secret Famine (New York: Henry Holt), 1998
32. See Martin Kemp and Marina Wallace, Spectacular Bodies: The Art and Science of the Human Body from Leonardo to Now (London: Hayward Gallery and University of California Press, 2000)
33. For further references on visceral references in art history, see also Barbara Maria Stafford, Body Criticism - Imagining the Unseen in Enlightenment Art and Medicine (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991)
34. and James Elkins, Pictures of the Body: Pain and Metamorphosis (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999)
35. In further respect to my own discussion on the use of body parts, I argue that the fact that Zhu Yu, unlike Rembrandt, uses his own body suggests that the body is used as both an allophagic and autophagic reference in his work. See also Thomas J. Berghuis, "Flesh Art: Performance and Body Art in Post-Mao China," Chinese Type Contemporary Art Magazine 4 (2001)
36. See Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (London: Allen Lane, 1979)
37. The Birth of the Clinic, trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Vintage, 1975)
38. and Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Random House, 1979)
39. See Berghuis, "Flesh Art."
40. Drew Leder, The Absent Body (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 5
41. Also see the introductory essay in Chinese Art at the End of the Millennium, ed. John Clark (Hong Kong: New Art Media Limited, 2000)
42. Georges Bataille, Theory of Religion (New York: Zone, 1992), 28
43. Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 11-12
44. On this point, I am indebted to a conversation with Julian Pefanis at the University of Sydney
45. Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Explained to Children, trans. Don Barry, Bernadette Maher, Julian Pefanis, Virginia Spate, and Morgan Thomas (Sydney: Power Publications, 1986), 16
46. Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication, trans. Bernard Schutze and Caroline Schutze [New York: Semiotext(e), 1988], 21-22
47. Wang, "How to Deal with Rights," www.chinese-art.com
48. Hu Heqin, "'Combination: Balls of Characters' - Wang Nanming," artists' section of the Web site of the Shanghai-based art studio Biz-Art, www.biz-art.com/en/art/artists/index.htm
49. For further reference, see arts.tom.com
50. Jonathan Napack, "Chinese Avant-Garde Art Is a 'Social Evil'-Cadres of the National People's Congress Denounce Contemporary Art," in Art Newspaper.com, international edition, www.theartnewspaper.com/news/article.asp? idart=5477
51. Hou Hanru, Fan Di'an, and Gabrielle Knapstein, Shenghuo zai cishi/Living in Time (Berlin: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 2001), 127
52. See also Hans van Dijk, together with Andreas Schmid, "The Fine Arts after the Cultural Revolution: Stylistic Development and Theoretical Debate," in China Avant-Garde: Counter-Currents in Art and Culture, ed. Jochen Noth, Wolfger Pöhlmann, and Kai Reschke (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1994), 26
53. See also Gao Minglu, "Conceptual Art with Anticonceptual Attitude: Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong," in Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin, 1950s-1980s, ed. Jane Farver, Luis Cammitzer, and Rachel Weiss (New York: Queens Museum of Art, 1999), 136-37
54. For full descriptions of these and other performances at the event, see Zhongguo dandai yishu shi, 1985-1986 (A History of Chinese Contemporary Art, 1985-1986), ed. Gao Minglu, Zhou Yan, Wang Xiaojian, Shu Qun, Wang Mingxian, and Tong Dian (Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1997), 384-87
55. Lyotard, The Postmodern Explained to Children, 16