中国日记 China Diary: 17 Artists and 13 Days

Artist Ma Qiusha in her Beijing Studio, photo: Luise Guest

You can find blog posts, news items and much more besides on the new website where the White Rabbit Collection and White Rabbit Gallery now live - including my description of a recent whirlwind trip to Shanghai and Beijing to interview some wonderful artists. I'll be writing more about these interviews in the coming weeks, so please take a look!

Note: it seems that the archive of blog posts and articles about artists is no longer available on the White Rabbit Collection website

The purpose of the trip to China undertaken in April 2019 by myself and gallery coordinator Hannah Toohey was to visit artists in their studios and record new interviews for the archive. Undertaking a marathon 17 interviews in 13 days, the conversations that ensued were intense – and intensely interesting. In between visiting artists they visited exhibitions in museums and galleries, and met arts writers, curators, gallery managers and museum directors to discuss the ever-changing Chinese art ecology.

Research Manager Luise Guest, artist He Sen, and Gallery Coordinator Hannah Toohey

The artists visited on this trip included acknowledged pioneer of Chinese video art, Zhang Peili; iconoclastic young creator of Electromagnetic Brainology, Lu Yang; influential painter and conceptual artist Zhu Jinshi; magical realist Yang Shen; deeply philosophical Qiu Anxiong – creator of the sublime and terrifying New Classic of Mountains and Seastrilogy of animations – and painter Dong Yuan, who is creating a new version of ‘Grandma’s House’, documenting in paint every room, and every object, in her grandmother’s house in Dalian.

Research Manager Luise Guest with artist Yang Shen, Beijing April 2019, following an interview that covered topics ranging from Cultural Revolution propaganda to the novels of Marquez and Borges and the painters of the Leipzig School.

Dong Yuan with part of her new version of  ‘Lao Lao Jia’ (Grandma’s House) in Beijing. The discussion ranged from memories of her rural childhood to her inability to attend ancestor worship ceremonies at her grandmother’s home now that she is a married woman (and hence attached to another family).

Lu Yang in her natural habitat – behind multiple computer screens.