It's not just Kung Pao Chicken: proof of the continued existence of contemporary art in China

Shen Shaomin, Standard Portrait Mao Zedong, 2009, Courtesy M+ Sigg Collection, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and National Portrait Gallery.

On September 10 Ai Weiwei wrote in the Guardian, timed to coincide with the 'Art of Change: New Directions from China' exhibition at Southbank in London, that there is no artworld in China, and no contemporary art, due to the restrictions on artists' freedom of speech. In speaking about the work of the new media artists represented in the show, he said, "It is like a restaurant in Chinatown that sells all the standard dishes, such as kung pao chicken and sweet and sour pork. People will eat it and say it is Chinese, but it is simply a consumerist offering...." 

You can read Ai Weiwei's article here: Ai Weiwei: China's Artworld Does Not Exist. 

Ai Weiwei, Sunflower Seeds, Hand-Painted Porcelain, image reproduced courtesy of
White Rabbit Gallery

Having seen the new show of contemporary art from China at White Rabbit Gallery in Sydney, which includes a pile of those extremely famous Ai Weiwei sunflower seeds, I have to disagree with the world's most famous dissident and iconoclast. And then having seen the 'Go Figure!' exhibition of contemporary Chinese portraiture from the Sigg collection (a genre which is interpreted very loosely indeed by the curator, thank heavens) at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, again I must disagree with Ai. Contemporary art in China is alive and well despite the many strictures faced by artists and curators.   This exhibition also includes a work by Ai Weiwei - his hyper-realist sculptural portrait of Uli Sigg reading a newspaper.

Ai Weiwei, Newspaper Reader, Courtesy M+ Sigg Collection, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and National Portrait Gallery.

As so often in China's past, artists manage to circumvent restrictions and no-go areas with clever double-coding and veiled layers of meaning. One just has to look at Old People's Home, a hyper-realist (and hyper-active) sculpture in the SCAF exhibition to read it as a barbed comment on the rule of old men, and the fleeting nature of power and youthful vigour. 

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Old People's Home, 2007, mixed media installation. Detail. Courtesy M+ Sigg Collection, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and National Portrait Gallery. 

Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Old People's Home, 2007, mixed media installation. Courtesy M+ Sigg Collection, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and National Portrait Gallery.

I have written about my responses to this exhibition, and to the talk given by Uli Sigg at the Gallery, in a conversation with highly respected curator Claire Roberts, in The Art Life in my piece 'Yasser Arafat has escaped twice today'. Follow the link to read the whole article: http://theartlife.com.au/?p=7027

I loved the show at White Rabbit Gallery, 'Double Take', and have written 2 reviews - follow the links for The Art Life and for Daily Serving.

Lu Xinjian, City DNA Beijing, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 200 x 400 cm, image reproduced courtesy of 

White Rabbit Gallery

A 'double take' and some cognitive dissonance...

Old and new China, Shanghai, April 2011, photograph Luise Guest

So as usual I am attempting to immerse myself in all things Chinese and all things contemporary Chinese art. This sometimes leads to some strange cognitive dissonance. This week I am reading three books at once and jumping backwards and forwards from one to the other. The first is Jonathan Fenby's 'Tiger Head Snake Tail: China Today, How it Got There and Where It is Heading'. As you might guess from the title, this book delivers rather less than it promises. Despite being genuinely interesting, many chapters are essentially a series of lists and factoids in search of a narrative which could make sense of them. There are some great quotable bits and pieces though, like the story of the 6 year old child on a TV quiz show who was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. 'An official', she said. 'What kind of official?' 'A corrupt official', she said. The book certainly paints a fascinating picture of a nation on fast forward with all the excitement and the inevitable problems that entails. The second is Tani E. Barlow's 'The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism' which I am earnestly and optimistically dipping into and then  putting down with a sense of exhaustion. The third is a book that surely must have been written just for me: A crime novel in an affectionate homage to the hard-boiled private eye genre, with a female protagonist (an American born Chinese) set in New York, with a plot centering around the Chinese contemporary art market. For me this already ticks all the boxes. And S J Rozan can really write. I totally love Lydia Chin!

And of course meanwhile I am neglecting to do my Chinese homework - I should be learning how to discuss the weather in Chinese for my class on Thursday but the 'tianqi yubao' (weather forecast) is so far failing to fascinate. And I make such tiny baby steps towards some kind of minimal level of competence that it is just depressing. Especially when I hear westerners speaking fluent Chinese and think 'But how did you GET there?!'

Meanwhile I have just got home from an absorbing and illuminating conversation held by the Power Institute at the University of Sydney, between Chinese curator Pi Li and Sydney art academic Thomas Berghuisen. Pi Li is here for 'Go Figure!', the big Contemporary Chinese Portraiture show opening at the  Sherman Foundation and the National Portrait Gallery later this week. He is in transition between Boers-Li Gallery and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and his new role at M+,  the new Museum of Visual Culture housing Uli Sigg's collection in the West Kowloon Cultural precinct in Hong Kong.

Pi Li gave a history from his own personal recollections of the development of contemporary art from the early 1980s in China, with all the many transformations and developments along the way. One of the fascinating things he commented on was the profound influence of the Sensation Exhibition and the yBa artists such as Hirst and Emin on a new generation of Chinese artists seeking another path following the commodification of the 90s wave of Cynical Realist and Political Pop painters. He identified Qiu Zhijie, Zhang Huan and Yang Zhenzhong among those who saw the use of ephemeral artforms, and rotting or impermanent materials as a way to reignite the avant garde. There was also some very interesting discussion of the impact of the returning diaspora of artists. When I met Yang Zhenzhong at his studio in Shanghai last year he was re-editing his iconic work 'I Will Die' into an 8 hour version for a European exhibition. He was the very model of the contemporary Chinese artist - essentially a global brand. But with an interesting and hugely significant body of work.

Yang Zhenzhong in his Shanghai Studio, April 2011, photograph Luise Guest
 (the artist  trying to give directions to my taxi driver on his way to pick me up from the studio - quite a challenge!)

Last Friday night saw the opening of the new White Rabbit exhibition 'Double Take'. It is clever and thought provoking and a wonderful chance to revisit some familiar works, such as paintings by Liang Yuanwei, painted 'neihua' bottles by Liu Zhuoquan, and even some of Ai Weiwei's sunflower seeds. I have written at greater length inhttp://theartlife.com.au/ and you can read more about my responses to the show here: Double Take at White Rabbit

A favourite work from the show? Gao Rong's fabulous simulacra of her Beijing basement apartment entrance, entirely fabricated from fabric and embroidery.

Gao Rong, Level 1/2, Unit 8, Building 5, Hua Jiadi, North Village (2010) fabric, thread, sponge, metal, image reproduced courtesy of the artist and White Rabbit Gallery.

Charting memory, charting matter: installations by Tony Scott and Anne Graham

I really enjoyed seeing the show by Anne Graham and Tony Scott at William Wright Gallery here in Sydney. Two artists who have been affected by experiences of living and working in China - in Tony Scott's case, for many years - present work which is evocative, compelling and memorable.

Anne Graham, Nobody, 2012, Organza, Metal, 162 x 86 x 15 cm, image reproduced courtesy of the artist, photograph Jenny Carter.

Here is how I described the works in my review of the exhibition for 'The Art Life':

"The ghosts of some artworld figures past and present are invoked in Chart at William Wright Artists’ Projects on Stanley Street, a show of installations by Tony Scott and Anne Graham. Duchamp is here, and Beuys, and in some works the sardonic iconoclasm of Ai Weiwei makes an appearance. Linked by time spent working in China, a central element in the work of each of these artists is an interest in the human body and the ways in which physical sensation and memory reside in objects and the material presence of ‘things’.

Graham’s work on the ground floor beckons the phantom presence of Joseph Beuys, who seems for a moment to be here with us in the gallery, hanging as a transparent apparition on the wall in the form of a suit sewn from filmy white organza. The title of this piece, ‘Nobody,’ reveals the artist’s ironic bent, and a suggestion that we need to look below the seductive surfaces of her works, in order to find the meanings which will reward those who are willing to do so. The use of black and white felt in stacked or sculptural wave-like forms is another deliberate reference to Beuysian notions of the artist as shaman. Graham has participated in numerous artist residencies in Japan, Korea and China, and these influential experiences have shaped her ideas and her material practice, as seen in this recent work." Read more here:The Art Life

Tony Scott, Breathing Apparatus, 2012. Found objects: Lung draining machine, stethoscope, electric current meter, Light Box, digital print 43 x 32 cm. Installation various dimensions, image reproduced courtesy of the artist, photograph Tony Bond.