北京日记: Air, Art and Artists

Beijing Door - Xingfu Cun Lu (Happiness Village Street)

The grey is back. After a few glorious blue sky Autumn days, by late this afternoon the sun was an ominous red disk in a murky sky and people were wearing masks once again. Some young women are sporting masks with lace trims and floaty chiffon wisps that trail over their faces like an orientalist fantasy yashmak from "I Dream of Jeannie". The general disquiet about air quality doesn't extend to cigarette smoke though - I talked with an artist yesterday afternoon while he chain smoked for two hours. We sat in front of his expensive air purifier.

Despite the clammy metallic air, this evening on my way back to my hotel I saw that people were still eating stacks of dumplings and chuan'r (skewered lamb - maybe!) at roadside tables outside Mr Shi's Dumplings and children played around all the apartment compounds. Two pigtailed girls on the backs of their mothers' bicycles sang at the tops of their voices. Elementary school kids in red Young Pioneer scarves rode home on the backs of motorscooters, or in some cases up front while a baby was carried on the back. No child is strapped in anywhere, I note, and most babies are carried in arms - it seems that prams and strollers are accessories of the very upwardly mobile. Babies seem generally contented and are rarely fretful, I would think as a result of the constant cuddling and contact. But I won't romanticise; twice in one week I have seen parents chasing wailing small children down the hutong, threatening them with a broom. Babies are everywhere I look, although statistically few city people have taken advantage of the relaxation of the One Child Policy - raising a child in Beijing or Shanghai is expensive.

High schoolers in their shapeless brightly coloured track suits loitered - loudly - at the snack cart on the corner, in the time-honoured tribal ritual behaviour of teenagers everywhere. The bicycle repair lady was having a shouted altercation with a customer, and motor scooters and tiny tin can "beng beng" taxis wove their way in and out of the traffic, often driving on the footpath. Bicycles are often left unlocked, casually leaning on their stand or lying on the ground, although everyone has stories to tell of stolen bikes. People ride whilst smoking, and making calls on their mobile phones. One night I crossed the road at around ten thirty and saw a most beautiful young woman, like a young Gong Li, black plait flying in the wind, riding high above the traffic seated on a giant stack of recycled cardboard, while her husband pedalled the three wheeled vehicle carrying it all. She looked like a goddess, surrounded by every imaginable kind of wheeled vehicle.

Cell phone addiction on Gongti Bei Lu - on the footpath

In addition to my continuing attempts to learn the language (tilting at windmills, that!) and interviewing artists for a new book project, I am also trying to see as many exhibitions as possible. Here in Beijing I enjoyed the show of young emerging artists at Red Gate Gallery, 'Surge',  (more about that in a later post.) I found very slim pickings in the once-exciting 798 Art District, but was interested to see Liu Xiaodong's paintings from his time in Mongolia, recording the encroachment of urbanisation. I loved the David Diao exhibition at Ullens - he is an artist I now want to know much more about. An emigre to Hong Kong as a child, and then a participant in the New York artworld in the 1970s and 1980s, his works are visually and conceptually exciting. Sardonic links with the way Abstract Expressionists appropriated Chinese calligraphy as pure mark-making, in particular, interested me,as did his constant referencing of Malevich.

David Diao, "Let a 100 Flowers Bloom"

David Diao, "Pardon Me Your Chinoiserie is Showing"

David Diao - Kline and Malevich

I reviewed the show at Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art by emerging video artist Tao Hui, who has just won a major prize at Video Brasil, for Daily Serving. You can find the link to that article HERE. At the Arte Nova Art Fair (held in the spartan Soviet style surrounds of the Agricultural Exhibition Centre) where ten galleries had each been asked to select ten artists, I enjoyed the woven ribbon works of Dai Dandan, and an installation by Li Lin of tiny, old school desks, with an imaginary landscape like a tiny diorama contained within the space under the lid of each one. Completely charming and surreal, they reminded me a little of the exquisite miniature worlds inside shopping bags created by Yuken Teruya.

Li Lin, Decameron

A child enjoys Dai Dandan's installation at the Arte Nova Art Fair

Also highly memorable was an installation of classical black marble busts whose heads had been replaced by twirling, moving gilt mechanical toys. Nightmarish and intriguing.

In my visits to studios, in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu as well as Beijing - 18 so far with more to come - I have had fascinating encounters with many artists, including Wang Guofeng and Wang Qingsong on the eve of the opening of the Beijing Photo Biennale at the CAFA Art Museum, Qiu Xiaofei preparing his show for Pace New York next year and reflecting on his childhood in far north, frozen Harbin, Bingyi and Bu Hua (both of whom feature in my book about women artists in China) and Liu Zhuoquan who is thinking about his exhibition in Melbourne next year and planning a new installation project of more than 6000 of his painted bottles. Liu says he thinks of his bottles as a library containing everything in the world.

Liu Zhuoquan in his Beijing studio, photo LG, reproduced with permission of the artist

The writer with Bu Hua in her studio filled with her collection of antique dolls and tin toys, image reproduced with permission of the artist

In Shanghai I was interested to see the exhibition of women artists at Pearl Lam - and delighted to see that it included Zhou Hongbin, who is included in my book 'Half the Sky', and some beautiful and lyrically evocative video works by Yang Fudong at the Yuz Museum, but the highlight was at Rockbund. I was moved and overwhelmed by the Chen Zhen exhibition, "Without Going to New York and Paris, Life could be Internationalized". Paris-based, in the last ten years of his life Chen returned to his native Shanghai over and over again, recording and representing the extraordinary and tumultuous changes his city was undergoing. The resulting installations are dramatic, theatrical and poetic. I wrote about the show for Daily Serving:

Chen Zhen, who died (much too young) in Paris in 2000, was a significant artist with a hybrid Chinese and European identity. Although after 1986 he essentially lived and worked in Paris, his personal history and deep cultural roots lay in China, and specifically in Shanghai. From the mid-1990s he returned over and over to a city on fast-forward. Shanghai was undergoing a massive, controversial transformation, in the process of becoming the global megalopolis it is today. The current exhibition at Shanghai’s Rockbund Art Museum presents works from this period, which curator Hou Hanru explains reveal a balance between Chen’s examination of a dramatic external reality and a conceptual criticality. Sometimes witty, sometimes profoundly beautiful and melancholy, Chen Zhen’s works are steeped in his identity as a Chinese artist at a historical “tipping point.” As the artist said in his online project Shanghai Investigations, “without going to New York and Paris, life could be internationalized.”

Chen Zhen. Purification Room, 2000-2015; found objects, clay; approx. 850 x 1100 x 450 cm. Courtesy of Rockbund Art Museum and Galleria Continua, San Gimignano/Beijing/Les Moulins.

Entering the Art Deco spaces of the Rockbund Museum, visitors encounter the rather spectacular Purification Room (2000–2015), a large space filled with everyday objects—sofas, TVs, chairs and tables, bicycles and shopping trolleys—all entirely coated with mud, as are the walls and floor. Traditionally, Chinese medicine used mud to cleanse and detoxify, and Chen Zhen thought of it as representing purity, simplicity, the natural world, and the peace of being laid to rest. The experience is one of stillness and silence, as if we have entered a mysterious unknown civilization revealed by an archaeological excavation. The quotidian artifacts of our modern daily lives seem to have a greater significance, becoming unfamiliar and strange.

Chen Zhen. Crystal Landscape of Inner Body, 2000; crystal, iron, glass; 95 x 70 x 190 cm. Courtesy of Rockbund Art Museum and Galleria Continua San Gimignano/Beijing/Les Moulins.

Click HERE to read the rest of that review.

And read my next post to find out about Huang Yong Ping at the Red Brick Art Museum, Ai Weiwei at Galleria Continua, and more!

Landmines in the Gardens of the Literati

I have been thinking about the ways in which contemporary artists in China continue to use and be informed by the traditional forms of ink painting such as the continuing references to Shan Shui (mountain / water) painting which seem to be everywhere right now, and by the scholarly traditions of calligraphy. Sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes subtle. Sometimes overt, sometimes nuanced. Sometimes in order to pay homage to the long history of the Chinese prior to the humiliations visited upon them by western powers in the 19th century and the chaos of the revolutionary period. Sometimes to combine that respect for tradition with a wry or downright satirical view of the contemporary world. But always there is this looking back - at times almost wistfully - to a time before the landscape was covered in advertising hoardings for mobile phones and fast food. This may be perverse - after all ordinary Chinese citizens enjoy a measure of moderate prosperity now that was unimaginable thirty years ago, let alone in the distant past when those who passed the imperial examinations became scholar officials, and developed their passion for painting and calligraphy. But nevertheless it is a consistent feature of so much contemporary art being made in China today that it clearly reveals something of significance about the 'zeitgeist' (whatever the Chinese term for that may be! Google Translate provides this: 時代精神 - someone might tell me if this is even remotely accurate.) And not just in the PRC, but in Taiwan and Hong Kong too. Past and present - always layered in rich and sometimes surprising ways.

Yang Yongliang, 'A Bowl of Taipei', source http://www.yangyongliang.com/index.htm

Lam Tung-pang in his studio with works in progress, photograph Luise Guest

Lam Tung-pang, Horse and Rider, charcoal, acrylic and ink on plywood, double-sided work on wheeled panel, photograph Luise Guest, image courtesy the artist

In Hong Kong artists such as Lam Tung-pang revere the traditions of the Chinese ink painting masters, and refer to them constantly. Lam spends long hours in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum working from their collection, however the historical images are transformed to become works in a new idiom in his own unique medium of charcoal and acrylic on plywood. Lam uses the themes of landscape to reflect on what is happening to his beloved homeland. Wong Chung-yu, likewise, admires the tradition of ink painting and some years ago he decided to reinvent it using his skills as a computer programmer. His works often involve the audience and use real-time video.

Lam Tung-pang installation view, image courtesy the artist

Lam Tung-pang, Travel and Leisure series, detail, image courtesy the artist

Lam Tung-pang, small detail of commissioned work, image courtesy the artist

Wong Chung-yu, When Time Flows Away 2011, water, digital projections and web cam operating in real time
image courtesy the artist

In Wong Chung-yu's ‘When Time Flows Away’, two screens are hung one above the other. On the top screen a traditional ink grinding stick is activated when an audience member takes a ladle of water and pours it into the vessel below the screen. A computer program designed to calculate the effect of ink infiltration then interacts with the water in real time. Virtual ink begins to flow downward into the second screen, ‘washing away’ images from the last 100 years of Chinese history, including the Japanese occupation, Mao Zedong, Cultural Revolution propaganda, Deng Xiaoping and images of the 1997 handover. The ink grinding represents China and the ebb and flow of its history, and the work involves the audience in its alteration. Wong believes that ink painting expresses the deepest beliefs and philosophies of the Chinese people: “What I am interested in is how to reinterpret Chinese traditional art in a new way,” he says.

In Shanghai, Yang Yongliang also works with video and digital media, creating works which initially appear to be tranquil Shan Shui paintings, until you realise that everything in the misty landscape is in motion - the mountains are made up of towering skyscrapers, cranes reach their arms into the air, cars travel on Jetsons-style freeways and planes criss-cross the sky. These works are very disconcerting - beauty juxtaposed with the uncertainty of modern life. In China the only certainty is change and these works certainly reflect that.

Yang Yongliang, Phantom Landscape, Blu-Ray HD, source http://www.yangyongliang.com/video.html

Yang Yongliang, Viridescence, Ultra Giclee Print on Epson Paper
source http://www.yangyongliang.com/Photography/35.html?a=5

It is in Shanghai, too, that Shi Zhiying experiments with the removal of colour from her vast canvases depicting oceans, expanses of grass, the raked spirals of Zen Gardens, as well as the humble objects of everyday life. In Shi's case, there is a specific reference to Buddhist belief.

Shi Zhiying's brushes, photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artist

Shi Zhiying in her Shanghai studio, photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artist

Work in progress photographed in Shi Zhiying's studio, photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artist

Some might attribute the continued focus on ink painting and Confucian or scholarly tradition as an aspect of Chinese nationalism, with all the implications and complications that suggests. Others see it as a welcome reversal after 30 years of Maoist policies of 'Smashing the Four Olds' and breaking with tradition (literally, in so many instances of the destruction of artworks, artifacts and buildings.)  Some, like artist Jin Sha, a painter of 'contemporary gongbi' works, see ink painting as a later version of Chinese culture which is not truly Chinese at all! Like everything else in China, it is complicated, contested and open to multiple interpretation.

So thinking all these thoughts about the enduring nature of - and in fact the increasing interest in - Chinese traditions, I wrote an article for a new web site peek365.com/ about how this plays out in the work of Monika Lin, a painter and performance artist based in Shanghai, whom I met first in April 2011 and again in December 2012; and the photographer/painter/sculptor Huang Xu and his very interesting and somewhat enigmatic wife, Dai Dandan, whom I interviewed in their Beijing studio.

Here is an extract:

Monika Lin is an American-born artist of Swiss and Chinese heritage, living and working in Shanghai, who focuses on socio-political and historical issues in her paintings and performance works. Lin is simultaneously part of the Chinese world and also, by virtue of her ‘foreign-ness’, separated from it. She views contemporary China with a clear and critical eye and in the performance ‘Ten Thousand’, presented last year at the Performance Art Institute in San Francisco, she reflected on Chinese history. In Imperial China, scholars who passed the Imperial Examinations were appointed to administrative positions overseeing populations ranging from small villages to entire provinces. Many of these scholarly civil servants – the literati – devoted themselves thereafter to the practices of the fine arts. An uncomfortable truth often overlooked, Lin says, is that their privileged life of contemplation depended on the work of innumerable peasants.

Monika Lin performance, 'Ten Thousand', image courtesy the artist

For the performance, Lin decided she would write the character for ‘rice’ – 米 – 10,000 times. Ten thousand as a numerical denomination (‘yi wan’) is unique to the Chinese language and signifies ideas about eternity and infinity. Lin chose the character for rice in part for its beauty and simplicity but also for its ironic resonance: rice was produced by peasant farmers who were taxed on it, but could not afford to eat it. Lin wanted to work in a physical way to connect herself to the labours of the peasantry rather than the literati. Influenced by endurance-based performances by artists such as Marina Abramovic and Kiki Smith, the result was 833 sheets of paper. The act of placing each sheet down on the gallery floor was so physically challenging that it appeared to some observers akin to the act of planting rice.

Monika Lin, Ten Thousand, image courtesy the artist

The American audience perceived Lin’s silent enactment of the act of calligraphy, an act that she describes as unspeakably arduous and emotionally powerful, as ‘beautiful and tranquil’. Lin told me that she saw this as an orientalist interpretation of her work, a misreading of her intentions. It was the backbreaking physical labour of the peasants, which made possible the countless hours (represented by the symbolic number 10,000, or万) that the literati were able to spend contemplating nature in their gardens, perfecting their calligraphy and painting. Is there a resonance here with the position of artists as privileged elite? Lin suggests, perhaps, that the contemporary artist, like the scholar in his garden, is seeing a convenient constructed version of the ‘natural’ world. She is wary of romanticising Chinese history, of falling into the kind of Chinoiserie that westerners living in China can fall prey to. Lin’s other works have dealt with the oppression of women in Imperial China, the ‘lotus feet’ resulting from foot-binding, and the ‘flower houses’ or brothels in Shanghai.

Monika Lin 'On the Way to the Imperial Examinations' - sculptures created from the 'mi' covered paper after the performance. These were shown in a curated exhibition at OV Gallery in Shanghai, 'Learning from the Literati'

In Beijing, photographer Huang Xu often represents ‘scholar rocks’, traditional subjects for Chinese painting for their natural perfect forms that echo Taoist philosophy. However Huang’s rocks are photographs of decaying plastic bags. They evoke the sublime, but also suggest the destruction inherent in China’s social and political transformation – the demolition of entire neighbourhoods, the emptying out of rural villages in the largest mass migration in history of workers to the factory towns of southern China, and the growing fears about air quality, pollution, food safety and environmental degradation. Floating plastic bags are ubiquitous in Chinese towns and cities. Luminous and beautiful, Huang’s works are dramatically lit like the billowing drapery of Baroque paintings, while they also recall the silk cloth of imperial China. Huang studied traditional painting from the age of twelve and he continues to emulate its ethereal qualities and its mastery of space and form in his photographic practice.

Huang Xu, Plastic Bag #1, C-print, image courtesy China Art Projects

Huang Xu, Plastic Bag #20, image courtesy China Art Projects

Huang’s most recent work is an installation in collaboration with his artist wife, Dai Dandan, who has recently turned to art practice following a career in television. In her own Duchampian act of transgression, she purchases rocks, probably intended for fish tanks, from the markets, decorating them with rhinestones and fake jewels in order, she says, ‘to perfect them’. A reference to the beauty of imperial gardens, and a nod to the rich traditions of Chinese art, but also, perhaps, a satire of the imposition of global branding onto Chinese culture, and the nouveau preference for ‘luxe’ consumer goods over the values and beliefs of the past. It is appropriate then, that her work with its ironic edgy glamour also featured in a curated show at Shanghai gallery Studio Rouge’s new branch in Hong Kong, on Hollywood Road, where art meets commerce and many of the Chinese antiquities in the shops are of dubious provenance.

Dai Dan Dan, Crystal Rock, image courtesy China Art Projects

The recent collaborative work between Dai Dandan and Huang Xu (the artist couple is an intriguing feature of the contemporary Chinese art scene) is titled ‘Mr and Mrs Huang in the Humble Administrator’s Garden’. It features Huang’s plastic bag scholar rock images together with his subtly erotic flower photographs and new button pavilion sculptures, juxtaposed with Dai’s ‘assisted ready-mades’. ‘Mr and Mrs Huang’ take traditional Chinese philosophy and aesthetics as their starting point and lay subversive landmines of the kitsch and the banal in the garden of the literati.

To read the whole article, click this link: artists-subverting-scholarly-traditions-in-contemporary-china-2#

'Mr and Mrs Huang' (Huang Xu and Dai Dandan) in thei Beijing studio,
photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artists

Chinese - Tai Nan Le! - 太难了!

Laurens Tan, 'Kuai Le Wan Ju', image courtesy the artist

I have been giving myself a number of self-imposed deadlines, writing in a fast and furious fashion about my interviews with Chinese artists; reviewing exhibitions; reading numerous books (often several at a time) in an attempt to make sense of my kaleidoscopic impressions of the fast-changing Chinese artworld on my last visits to Beijing and Shanghai. At times it seems like a form of insanity. But the topic continues to fascinate. I have been reading a new book of essays, 'My First Trip to China' in which scholars, diplomats and journalists reflect on their first encounters with China - it contains some wonderful insights and fabulous anecdotes from the 1950s to today. Jerome A. Cohen, who went on a US diplomatic and scientific delegation in 1972 and met Zhou Enlai, finished his account by observing that he agreed with the humourist Art Buchwald that, after a stomach-full of China watching, an hour later you're hungry for more. I can only concur!

I am  beginning to plan a trip for later this year, when I will be staying in Beijing for a couple of months to write, research and explore artists' studios, galleries and China in general. I am hoping to go beyond Beijing and Shanghai this time, and see more of China than the view visible from the windows of the high-speed train. Although this too was completely fascinating to me.

As I write this I should be at my Chinese class. But am not. Oh dear."Tai Nan Le! Too hard! - 太难了!" I am feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of trying to learn this difficult language and feel that I will never improve beyond the stumbling baby Chinese that I can manage right now. And as for character reading, forget it! My strategy today turns out to be one of avoidance. Probably not recommended. Next week, I WILL do the homework and go to class, I tell myself sternly. We'll see.... 

Laurens Tan, Beng Beng Prototype,Made in China.
 Fiberglass, Steel, Acrylic, Plastic, Wood, Baked Enamel, 62 x 30 x 11 cm, edition of 8, image courtesy of the artist.

Meanwhile, my interview with the wonderful Beijing/Las Vegas/Sydney based artist Laurens Tan has been published on The Artlife web site. I love the way that his work also deals with the traps and slippages of communication across language barriers. His is a practice that is absolutely unique. Tan went to China in 2006 speaking little Mandarin, and discovered a way to use Chinese characters as both the form and symbolic coding in his sculptural, digital and screen-based work. "There are different ways of operating as an artist but essentially I think art is always about embracing risk and letting go. And that’s the hardest part," he told me in a wide-ranging conversation in the (very noisy) cafe of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.  For my account of the interview, 'Laurens Tan, Art as a Vehicle for Thinking" - click HERE 

Laurens Tan, Babalogic II, Installation View. Computer-cut ABS, Light, Custom Sanlunche, Dual-Channel Projection, Variable Dimensions, image courtesy of the artist

Another article (previously published in a longer, slightly different form on Artspace China) about the continuing influence of traditions of calligraphy and ink painting on Chinese contemporary painters has been republished on The Culture Trip as 'Constancy and Change in Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting' - featuring the work of three very interesting young women artists - Li Tingting and Gao Ping from Beijing, and Shi Zhiying from Shanghai. Click HERE to see the article.

Li Tingting, Chandelier, Ink on Chinese paper, image courtesy the artist

Recently, too, my interview with Hong Kong based artist Lam Tung-pang appeared on 'Daily Serving'. Lam is currently in new York on an Asia Council fellowship and residency, continuing a discourse about ink painting traditions and making new work in a number of US cities. For the interview, click this link: Things Happened on the Island: Lam Tung-pang's Floating World

Lam Tung-pang in his Hong Kong studio, photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artist

And my conversations with two emerging women artists in Beijing, Dong Yuan and Gao Rong, were published by Randian Online - click 'In Grandmother's House' to see the article.

Dong Yuan, Daily Scenes, oil on 42 separate canvases, image courtesy of the artist and White Rabbit Gallery

Dong Yuan, Hui Hua Chi Fan, oil on separate canvases, installation view, image courtesy the artist

My problem is not being able to type fast enough, nor go without sleep for long enough, to read, write and research as much as I want to. I should at least thank my mother for making me learn touch-typing when I was 16. She said, "Anyone who wants to work in the arts had better have something to fall back on", imagining, no doubt, a life of secretarial drudgery in an office, rather than adventures hiking around Beijing with a laptop.

Upcoming - an article about performance artist and painter Monika Lin and Beijing-based Huang Xu and Dai Dan Dan - 'Landmines in the Garden of the Literati' - watch this space!

Huang Xu, Plastic Bag No. 28, C-print, reproduced courtesy the artist and China Art Projects

Zhe Shi Beijing: 4 artist studios and a private villa

4 Signs seen from a Beijing taxi:

• The Dongxinghua Bilingual Art Kindergarten (everything seems to have the word 'art' attached as a sales pitch, I have also seen an 'art' Polo Club)
• The Soluxe Winterless Hotel ( at a temperature of minus 3 degrees I was tempted)
• The Sparkle Glitter World Shopping Mall (build it and they will come)
• and, finally, the Beijing Stomatological Hospital (possibly what I needed after eating sea cucumber)

 3 Items from the China Daily:

• 14 dead in fire caused by gasleak in hotpot restaurant
• high speed trains forced to slow down as people insist on smoking in the carriages
• Men's groups welcome the election of an all-male Politbureau Standing Committee as a 'step in the right direction'

Beijing continues to fascinate, delight and appall in equal measures.

Intersection in what was until recently a small village

I spent this morning with the artist Lin Tianmiao, whose work I had seen recently in a big retrospective show at the Asia Society Museum in New York. We drove for over an hour through a post-apocalyptic wasteland of cleared farmland, fields of grey rubble, construction sites and brand spanking new apartment blocks in row upon row as far as the eye can see. Finally, down a private tree lined street in Songzhuang Artist Village, to a fortress-like villa, the home of Lin Tianmiao and her husband the video artist Wang Gongxin. Five huge dogs in the garden of the villa across the street leapt at the fence, snarling and barking in a most disconcerting manner.

Living space in studio of Lin Tianmiao and Wang Gongxin

Once inside, the private spaces and light filled studio are extraordinary and wonderful. As we sat and waited for Lin Tianmiao and her assistant, we listened to the finches in a huge birdcage and the splashing of goldfish in a pool. Two large dogs roamed the garden outside the windows, with trees covered for the winter. Finally I realised that the strange shuffling noise I was hearing was a large tortoise in the corner of the room, emerging briefly and moving towards us, then retreating into its shell. I had time to look at the contents of the floor to ceiling bookshelves. DVDs ranging from Dr Doolittle 3 to Zhang Yimou revealed a broad and eclectic taste. Books on the coffee table with beautiful tea cups and bowls included Susan Sontag, a Foto Folio collection of potraits of New York artists in the 1980s and 1990s, and a book on Georgia O' Keeffe's houses.

Living space in studio of Lin Tianmiao and Wang Gongxin

So strange to sit for half an hour in someone else's space, a space which revealed so much of the life lived therein. Artworks were everywhere, from Wang Gongxin's new digital animations to works by Lin Tianmiao herself and many other artists both Chinese and Western. A shelf of photographs includes recent snapshots and family photographs from the Cultural Revolution period.

The studio is a revelation - a white calm space filled with works in progress, and a staff of maybe 20 studio assistants working silently - winding colourful silk thread around synthetic bones or stitching the 'badges' similar to those currently showing at Galerie Lelong New York. Other workers  assemble the sculptures of bones connected to tools, bound with thread. Lin Tianmiao walks quietly through and makes adjustments. I asked her if, in the years she worked as a graphic designer in New York before her return to China and emergence as an artist to be reckoned with, she could have imagined all this. She shakes her head. The New York years, were hard, she says, although she loved the energy of that city she herself was not left with the energy to think about becoming an artist. Returning to China was also hard, but she thinks China now has the creative energy that New York may have lost.

Works in progress, Lin Tianmiao

Assistant working on 'badges', Lin Tianmiao studio

Studio View, Lin Tianmiao studio

Studio View, Lin Tianmiao's studio

We talk over tiny, delicate cups of tea about the use of thread, hair, felt and other textiles in her work. She tells me that in her childhood, her mother was 'sent to the countryside' (read into that what you will) for three years, and it was there that she remembers her mother learning how to spin and sew. The basic, physical nature of the materials which connect us to the natural world and to bodily realities are what interests her. I am fascinated but not surprised that she nominates Louise Bourgeois as an artist she admires.

Lin Tianmiao in her studio, December 6 2013,
photograph Luise Guest reproduced with the permission of the artist

She rejects the feminist label with which she is often identified, believing that feminism is a western thing and that China is not yet at that point. So many other pressing problems, she says: food safety, pollution, corruption, politics....She also rejects the idea that she may be a role model or inspiration for younger female artists, stating bluntly that every artist must forge their own path. Art is a personal and spontaneous thing, she tells me. However, she does acknowledge that when women have children they change, become stronger and yet also more vulnerable. It is this paradox that her work most beautifully explores.

I think of some of the other women I have met in the last few days:

• Gao Ping whose work ranges from tiny, delicate fragile ink drawings of lonely toys, furniture and household appliances to the most wonderful, strong paintings in a palette of subtle grisaille.

Gao Ping in her studio, December 5 2012,
photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artist

• Dai Dan Dan who I found applying sequins and sparkly beads to 'scholar rocks' sourced in the Beijing fish and bird market. With her husband, Huang Xu, she created an exhibition installation shown in Shanghai and Hong Kong with the enviably fabulous title of 'Mr and Mrs Huang in the Humble Administrator's Garden'.

Dai Dandan and Huang Xu (Mr and Mrs Huang) in their shared studio
December 5 2012,
Photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artists

• Li Tingting who works quietly to reinvent the traditions of ink painting and develop her own visual language of line, mark and drip, reflecting on her immediate domestic and feminine world.

Li Tingting with her work at 798, December 2 2012,
Photograph Luise Guest reproduced with the permission of the artist

• Chu Haina who takes her camera on lonely walks around the streets and parks of northern Beijing, seeking images that echo her feelings.

Chu Haina at Egg Gallery Beijing, December 4,
Photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artist

Chu Haina, Hidden Landscape No 1, Digital Print

All these women are both strong and vulnerable. The thing I have most loved about talking to them is their absolute lack of self conscious 'cool' or the adopting of personae. They talk with evident sincerity, seriousness and thoughtfulness about their work. There is no posturing. That is something very refreshing!


See my review of the Lin Tianmiao show at the Asia Society Museum in New York here: The Art Life: masculinity and femininity in new york

See my review of Gao Ping's Australian show at Stella Downer Fine Art here: http://theartlife.com.au/2012/still-life-girls/