First published in LEAP, Volume 1 Issue 1.
Text by Robin Peckham.
Wang Chunchen was announced as the second biannual recipient of the Chinese Contemporary Art Awards Criticism Prize established by Uli Sigg and judged by Sigg, Richard Vine, Xu Bing, and Qiu Zhijie. Naturally, netizens had some choice words for Wang. Some remarked that his winning topic, “Art Intervenes in Society,” is either logically faulty or old ground already covered by critics Wang Nanyan and Wu Wei, but proposing that Wang Nanyan may not be a politically viable choice. Others questioned the openness of the proceedings, noting that judges Qiu and Xu could be looking out for their own interests. Still others took the opportunity to accuse Chinese critics in general of opportunism.
Director of the Guan Shanyue Art Museum in Shenzhen, Chen Xiangbo, made a series of questionable statements to the press on the occasion of the opening of a large-scale new media art exhibition in his institution. Among other things, he claimed that art is historically behoven to its sponsors, thus justifying government interference with the content of contemporary art. Critic Wu Wei responded with an eloquent argument about the nature of government sponsorship and public tax funds, earning much support among netizens who went on to call for a “cleaning up” of the official or bureaucratic art world.
The geography of the Beijing art world continues to change as an increasing number of studio districts face demolition. The most high profile redevelopment incident occurred recently when the Zhengyang Creative Art District, home to leading painters Liu Xiaodong and Yu Hong, was levelled. Although the hastily organized protest exhibition including artists from Zhengyang and neighboring districts received criticism, netizens by and large delivered a great degree of support to the artists forcibly evicted from their studios.
Online conversation turned to censorship when major blog hosting website Blogbus suddenly became inaccessible. Blogbus was the first and largest professional hosting company in China, and this closure hits the art world particularly hard because its servers host sites for galleries like Vitamin Creative Space as well as a number of well known artists and critics. Other major websites ranging from video hosting to translation portals to microblogging have also been closed over the past several weeks. In response, netizens began posting photographs of the Velvet Revolution and poetry by Bei Dao.
For his latest piece of art writing intended for reading only within an online forum, critic Zhu Qi compares the situation of Chinese contemporary art to the parable of Achilles and the tortoise. As usual, netizens were divided over whether this is a profoundly deep analysis or just petty personal criticism of a handful of artists, but a game of guess-the-artist ensued to the delight of all commenters. Zhu Qi mentions Li Songsong and Yan Lei by name, while netizens also suggested He Yunchang, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Wang Jianwei, Qiu Zhijie, Zhu Yu, Liu Xiaodong, Yang Fudong, Cao Fei, Liu Wei, Cai Guo-Qiang, Gu Wenda, Chen Zhen, Wang Du, Zhang Huan, and Gu Dexin.
In an exciting development, Hey! Shehui announced and began accepting nominations for the 2010 Miss Gallery Pageant, a competition that aims to provide a platform for gallerinas to show off their many assuredly impressive talents. So far notable entries include Weng Ling, curator of Beijing Center for Contemporary Art, Agnes Lin, owner of Osage Gallery, Sun Ning, director of Platform Gallery, and Han Ji Yun, owner of Art Issue Projects. The winner of the prestigious prize should be announced by the end of January.
Netizens proved their willingness to jump the gun when they accused artist Mariusz Tarkawian of copying a range of well known artists ranging from Damien Hirst to the Gao brothers. The truth ultimately emerged that Tarkawian works by sketching iconic sculptures and compositions in large-scale wall drawings, but not before getting in an inordinate amount of criticism for all involved: “Weird, this fucking foreigner even copies Chinese artists–it’s not good to copy anyone, but are the Gao brothers really that famous?”
Ai Weiwei remains a popular subject of discussion as he continues along his trajectory from contemporary art to professional activism. Recently a large number of interviews with the artist have surfaced on the major forums, allowing netizens an opportunity to air their political grievances. At this point they remain relatively evenly split between the camp with no tolerance for the art or politics of Ai Weiwei and the group that sees him as a visionary leader, but the domestic art world seems to pay less and less attention on the whole.
As we embark on a new decade, some netizens have been enjoying making predictions for the next two years in the Chinese art world. According to the professionals, painting will reconsolidate mainstream trends, Wu Shanzhuan and Wang Xingwei will reassert and strengthen conceptual painting, Liu Wei the younger will contribute to trends in abstraction, Chu Yun, Pak Sheung Chuen, and Cao Fei will popularize “junk food art,” the sea turtle “China card” artists like Cai Guo-Qiang, Xu Bing, and Ni Haifeng will deliver new perspectives on China, Shi Qing and Zhang Hui will emerge into the mainstream, Qiu Zhijie will continue unabated but unchanged, Gu Dexin and Chen Zhen will become more important the less they are exhibited, MadeIn will break theoretical barriers, and Ai Weiwei will offer new creative possibilities. One commenter wonders: “Prediction or divination?”
Also falling under the question of censorship, Shanghai art-punk band Top Floor Circus has been banned from performing for some weeks, and their viral anthem “Shanghai Doesn’t Welcome You” has been deleted from all online video hosts. The incident, which sparked a gag order in the media and may have contributed to the closure of live music venue Yuyintang during the Shanghai Expo, encouraged solidarity between art and music circles in the online forums. Rumors circulated that lead singer and sometime artist Lu Chen had been fired from his job as a clerk with the customs department, but this was quickly proven false.
During an apparent lull in the news cycle, netizens were absorbed in highly abstract questions like “why are Ai Weiwei and the Gao brothers more famous than F4 overseas?” The name F4, originally referring to a Taiwanese boy band, has been repurposed to refer to the stars of the Chinese art world, generally some combination of Zeng Fanzhi, Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Wang Guangyi, Yue Minjun, Liu Xiaodong, and so on. This debate largely took the form of an excuse for commenters to complain about how foreigners will never understand China.
As painter Fang Lijun attempted to add some critical and historical weight to his tarnished image with an archive exhibition at the Guangdong Museum of Art curated by Guo Xiaoyan and “academically chaired” by Lv Peng, the critics ran rampant. Zhu Qi published an essay mocking the pretenious exhibition, and even the Southern Metropolis Daily got in on the action. In an intriguing but perhaps confused metaphor, one journalist compared Fang to teen idol Li Yuchun. Meanwhile, Artforum published a series of F4 portraits taken at the opening in Guangzhou.
During a panel discussion at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art including Liu Wei and Lu Jie among others, Chen Shaoxiong took Xu Zhen to task for his flippant outsider approach to art–a rant that has since made the rounds as a popular video. Xu Zhen, proud of his lack of formal training in art, was accused of failing to graduate from middle school when he misinterpreted the exhibition title, literally “Core,” as “In the Middle.” Chen Shaoxiong expressed his dissatisfaction with generational dynamics in the Chinese art world to the delight of observers and commenters: “Xu Zhen’s success explains the failure of Chinese art.” Fortunately an equal number of Xu Zhen fans came to the rescue, and the debate continues.
Speculation arose around an announcement that artist Gu Dexin would be retiring from the art world. Following on his refusal to exhibit in Beijing during the year of the Olympics and several well-received solo exhibitions after that, the declaration had something of the sound of an attempt to leave triad society behind. Although Gu Dexin’s supposed retirement may be more or less political, commenters noted that Cang Xin has also been refusing phone calls from curators and collectors, albeit for different reasons. In related news, Faye Wong may also return to show business this year.
Relatively obscure scholar Huang Yiming announced that he would be suing Fan Di’an, head of the National Art Museum of China, for plagiarism after an essay by the former appeared in a catalog under the name of the latter. The incident (and the artist and exhibition involved) remain relatively obscure to most art world observers, but commenters took the thread as an opportunity to discuss issues about bureaucratic art criticism, the widespread practice of scholarly ghostwriting at the level of figures like Fan, and the unimportance of extra-institutional scholars like Huang.
In a rare crossover appearance on the art websites, godfather of Chinese rock music Cui Jian has been making waves for his views on the entertainment industry (“collective fraud”) and politics. Following trends similar though not as extreme as Ai Weiwei within his own world, Cui Jian complains about the “so-called culture” of contemporary China, pushing for more political engagement within art and music. Netizens reacted less positively than with Ai Weiwei, and it seems that Cui Jian’s audience continues to shrink.
Rumors continued to circulate regarding the untimely death of Taiwanese gallerist Chen Ling-hui, whose Beijing space faced property management and debt collection issues over the last year. Her husband, artist Chang Zhi-cheng, has since been formally charged with assisted suicide, confirming all but the most macabre suspicions of online commenters. A small gang was also arrested for debt collection tactics that supposedly pushed to couple to suicide over a surprisingly small amount of money, rumored to be less than RMB50,000.
The ongoing open-ended debate between critic Zhu Qi and artist Qiu Zhijie continues, recently congealing around the participation of the latter in a government-established institute for research on contemporary art. This move was widely received as an attempt to gain more official control over the image of China within international contemporary art circles in a push for “soft power.” Netizens have been openly critical of this institute and its attempt to hire the majority of major Chinese artists, but offer little sympathy to Zhu Qi.
Hong Kong collector Hallam Chow was apparently punched in the face in a gallery in Shanghai, an incident he described in length in an email and forum post in an attempt to garner support for his cause. The offender was a gallery assistant in Hangzhou, and Chow requested that Ai Weiwei, Zhang Peili, and other major figures cut ties with the gallery in question as part of his plea for the elimination of gangster behavior in the art world. Commenters, who had never heard of Chow prior to the post, politely reminded him that Shanghai is not Hong Kong, and the name of the website is, after all, “heishehui.”
Ye Yongqing, one of the earliest artists to face studio demolition, has come out as a supporter of a potential reduction in art districts–a position many cynically tie to his newfound status as a member of the government-backed contemporary art institute. Ye claimed that art districts, as a combination of art and real estate, are the purest form of speculative bubble imaginable (though one commenter disagrees: “Ye Yongqing is the biggest bubble”). The senior artist also implied both that not every young artist needs a large studio and that many individuals in art districts now would probably not continue as artists if they were to lose their property.