Dive into the archives.
- Chinese Gvt: Don’t be a spastic - get drastic about plastic
I’m back in Beijing and the big piece of non-earthquake/non-Olympic news here is the new ban on free plastic bags. According to China Daily
From June 1 on, all Chinese retailers, including supermarkets, department stores and grocery stores, would no longer provide free plastic shopping bags.
The number of plastic bags consumed in China is literally unbelievable. It’s estimated that Beijing alone consumes nearly 10 billion plastic bags annually, which is equivalent to around 27 million bags per day. Really.
So this is great news for everybody I guess, but especially for China’s overworked, underappreciated environmental activists. Last year I got to know a bunch of them while I was doing research for the 桌志 | Eat Up project and I thought, to celebrate the new policy, I’d post up a conversation I had with Takeshi Ikeda, an organizer for Global Village Beijing, one of China’s earliest environmental NGOs. At the time he was spearheading an information campaign aimed at reducing the use of plastic bags. He talked a lot about the challenges of doing environmental activism in China, and he actually ended up saying the public advocacy doesn’t really work here. Anyway, I found it really interesting, check it out….
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- Emerarti
Today is the opening of Dubai Next - a new exhibition on the culture of Dubai curated by Rem Koolhaas & Jack Persekian as part of Art Basel.
I’ve been in Dubai for the past few weeks making a publication for it. That comes out today too - available at the Vitra Museum (Fire station campus) for those in the neighborhood and as a supplement to Gulf News for those in the UAE. Here’s a pic of the cover…
The show features the work of my girls Charlie & Reineke, two European photographers who over three weeks took something like 16000 photos of Dubai in all its multi-culti, shimmer and sand glory. Both of them have very nice display techniques for their exhibits so I’m going to wait til I get proper photos from the museum to show their stuff.
UPDATE: Here are some pics from the opening…
For now though, here is a group discussion with four of the Emerati artists featured in the exhibition about life and art in Dubai. I had to edit it pretty drastically in the print version, so here is the fuller, more interesting edit….
Here’s an example of each artist’s contribution to the exhibition:
Jalal Abuthina
Lamya Gargash
Mohammed Kazem
Reem Al Ghaith
What I noticed first about your pieces is the emphasis on solitude and isolation. All of the images have very quiet quality, which goes against the common perception of Dubai as a kind of free trade adventureland. What do think this shared perspective says about life here?
Jalal Abuthina: What a lot of the work has in common is some sort of conflict with the surroundings - a new environment that’s opposed to the old. A struggle between the new surrounding and what was before.
Lamya Gargash: There’s a sense of loss in all of them.
Reem Al Ghaith: They all relate to the surroundings. So that’s a question: why are we saying this about Dubai - why are we talking about the struggle of stepping into this new environment? Because all five of us are saying the same thing.
Mohammed Kazem: We are living in a very horizontal culture in the UAE. If you go through the streets, you can see people of different nationalities, different kinds of buildings, different foods, you can smell different things - none of these elements have been part of the UAE for a long time. So it’s affected the people here, including the artists… But not all artists use art to criticize politics or ideology, because art doesn’t solve problems of politics or economics. Art has its own policy. So I use many elements from the society, but sometimes I am not provoking anything. Many times artists here are criticizing themselves to find out new things. In this case, they’re not focusing on what’s happening in the society.
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- HOW TO NOT MAKE MONEY: good conversation with the head curator of Beijing’s first non-profit art center
One of the coolest things about being in Beijing at this point in history is watching the ways that the city processes the huge amounts of new cultural information that enter it each day. On its surface, Beijing’s cultural identity seems pretty fixed. It’s the PRC’s symbolic center, and it needs to look the part. But if you look below the surface, you see a city passionately seeking out and soaking in new forms of life and living. For the past few months, I’ve been interviewing some of the people who seem to be at the front of this process. I’ll post up some my favorites as time goes by.
For the second installment, here is a conversation I had last week with Colin Chinnery, the deputy director and head curator at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art , China’s first not-for-profit art center. As you’ll see, the project is blazing several trails at the same time….
Quotables:
“I think, without a doubt, there is not single person in this team who has had this amount of freedom, or could possibly expect to have anything like this amount of freedom in an institution in the West.”
“It’s a little bit like social engineering.”
“This money from the market and the speculators is a tidal wave, and a hell of a lot of artists are going to be washed out to sea.”
“The French called the Americans and the Americans called the Chinese, and both the French and Americans said, ‘This has to come down!’”
Popularity: 8% [?]
- Nice up the Republic: a conversation with Beijing’s ambassador to reggae
One of the coolest things about being in Beijing at this point in its history is watching the ways that the city processes the huge amounts of new cultural information that enter it each day. On its surface, Beijing’s cultural identity seems pretty fixed. It’s the PRC’s symbolic center, and it needs to look the part. But if you look below the surface, you see a city passionately seeking out and soaking in new forms of life and living. For the past few months, I’ve been interviewing some of the people who seem to be at the front of this process. I’ll post up some my favorites as time goes by.
To start, here’s a conversation I had a couple weeks ago with Robin Liao. Robin owns Together Bar, Beijing’s #1 (and only) reggae spot. I hope you enjoy….
Quotables:
“Reggae in China is like blind people touching an elephant.”
“If you put Bob-anything in the internet, you get Bob Dylan.”
“Sometimes an opportunity just falls down from the sky - like a pie in the sky. But sometimes it is really a pie.”
“I’m a Gemini so I always jump.”
Popularity: 10% [?]
- Artalk: Yang Shaobin
I haven’t had much time to write anything lately, but I don’t want to go too long without a post so I have to reach into the vaults a little bit. This is an interview with the Chinese artist Yang Shaobin. I originally met him while I was researching an article on Beijing for Art Review magazine. At the time I was trying to put together a kind of oral history of Beijing’s contemporary art scene, so most of the conversation points in that direction. When we met I wasn’t very familiar with his work, but since I’ve learned more and I have to say he’s become a personal favorite. The photos were taken at his house/studio by Charlie Koolhaas.
One thing I’m trying to understand about art in Beijing is the concept of collective action and groups that organized themselves into, for lack of a better term, movements. There’s of course a big difference between an art movement and a political one, mostly because art movements are often identified after the fact by people who may not have been involved in the first place. But before we talk about your new works, I’m curious if you consider yourself part of any artistic movement.
I took part in the protection of the “1989 Movement”. It was a collective activity. Many artists created similar works starting in the early 1990s. At that time, everyone felt somewhat lost after the 1989 Movement. They couldn’t find their ideal pursuit. I can’t help thinking of my friends and recalling my old thoughts.
How were these feelings channeled through art?
There were two influential artistic styles, Political Pop art and Cynical Realism. Both could be described as successful in the world. At that time, there was a feeling of being cheated after the June 4 Movement. It could only be felt by artists in Beijing. I was not in Beijing but in my hometown Tangshan. As Beijing is the center, it exerted its influence to every corner of the country. And the influence was considerable.
What was the atmosphere like among artists prior to ’89?
Before 1989, the whole cultural circle was filled with ideals. How to save the world… In fact, it was just a slogan, not practical. Those movements before 1989, including 1985 New Art Movement, were just slogans, making no impact on the art of China. It took less than a decade to repeat the history of western fine arts over a century. It was a crazy age, but it was very important. I think it enlightened us.
After moving to Beijing, you lived in an artists’ community in the old Summer Palace with several artists who would become the leaders of the Political Pop and Cynical Realism styles. What was that experience like?
When we lived in Yuanming Yuan, we were very poor, no money, not enough food, and sometimes we were arrested by the police. It could be said that we were under great pressure; there was no safety just violence, actually the whole society was flooded with violence. During that period, I made many red paintings, very large, like blood flowing. From then on, my pressure began to release. You know, it is a tough job to work in art. Art describes the artist’s psychology.
Popularity: 7% [?]
- Zhang Yimou convo
These days I’m working on a book for a Beijing-based architecture studio called MAD. Among other things, the book is a collection of conversations with people with people from across Chinese society (from hair dressers to government officials) and experts from outside, including Ian Buruma and Hans Ulrich Obrist.
Sooo…. today my colleague Shuyu and I talked with Zhang Yimou, director of Raise the Red Lantern and Hero, among many others.
He struck me cool, calm, and collected. The main thing that struck me was his voice and gentle, subtly dramatic way of speaking.
I can’t post the interview before the book drops, of course. But here’s a little taste of man’s speech.
In case you’re wondering, we were asking him how his success abroad has affected his ability to work in China. He said something like, “There’s an old saying in China: ‘The blossom inside the wall is usually appreciated from the outside.’…”
Anyway, I’ll hopefully post some more about the book as it develops. It’s got to be printed by the beginning of November, so….
Popularity: 6% [?]
- Trader Talk I: Dragan Ivanov
During the past couple of days at the Canton Fair, I’ve been running around interviewing visitors about doing business in China.
I’ve been amazed at how succinct and emotionally cool most of their analysis is. For instance Dragan Ivanov, a computer hardware agent from Macedonia, basically broke down the whole of China’s world beating competitiveness in a single sentence: “They have good facilities, low labor rate, they don’t have the same ecological limitations, the people work 18 hours a day.” Here’s the rest of what he had to say.
Quotables:
“They have one billion people; we have only two million - that’s the difference.”“If you buy one kilo of metal, they sell you a refrigerator for the same price.”
“Even the big companies like iPods have factories here.”
“The cheaper countries, like India or Africa, can only benefit. They can buy good quality stuff for low money. Like now, you can buy a DVD [player] for $18. You cannot buy a hamburger in United States for $18.”
“In China they’ll make the software in our own language. If you go to Panasonic and tell them to make a Macedonian menu, they’ll never make it. They make anything here.”
Popularity: 8% [?]
- Art in Beijing III: Huang Liaoyuan
This is the last interview I’ll post from the research I did for Art Review. (That article should be coming in the October issue…). It’s an e-mail interview which gives its that weird formality, but at least allows me to post it bilingual. Huang Liaoyuan is a part of a growing self-protectionist movement in Chinese contemporary art. Let me know what you think. Also you have an interpretation for his last answer, I’d love to hear. I’m kind of confused…
黄燎原先生您好，
感谢您用您宝贵的时间回答我的问题。
Mr. Huang Liaoyuan,
Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions.
北京现代画廊一直致力于”把中国现在艺术留在中国”。您能更详细地对这一努力以及其动机说明一下吗？
The Art Now Gallery has been attached to a larger effort to “Support Chinese art now in China”. Could you please explain a little about this effort and what the motivations behind it are?这是我针对中国现在艺术的现状提出的阶段性的口号。中国现在艺术的很多经典性作品大量地流到了海外，当中国的美术馆和收藏家意识到它们的价值时，我们要花非常巨大的价钱去买回这些我们其实可以唾手可得的作品，就向国家这两年花大价钱从海外回收古董一样。此其一。其二，我希望更多地培养中国本土的收藏家，我认为只有中国自己的收藏家队伍成长起来，中国的现在艺术才真的有希望。我们不能期望别人来做这个工作。
This is a temporary slogan I came up with based on the current situation in Chinese contemporary art. Massive numbers of classic Chinese contempary art pieces went abroad, and when Chinese art galleries and collectors realized their values, they had to spend much more to get these works back when we could have gotten them easily initially - just as the government is now spending massive amounts of money on buying the antiques back from abroad. Another reason is that I hope China can have its own art collectors. Only when national art collectors have matured, can there be real hope for Chinese contempary art. We can’t rely on others to do this work.Popularity: 6% [?]
- Art in Beijing II: Chaos Chen
Here is another interview I did while researching a piece of art in Beijing for Art Review. Chaos Chen is a curator working mostly with public institutions. This conversation did a lot to undo some of my assumptions about the relationship between China’s government and its contemporary artists…Chinese Art is Undervalued
A conversation with Chaos ChenBM: The Chinese government is generally portrayed in the foreign press as hostile toward contemporary art, but many of the people I’ve met in Beijing feel strongly that this isn’t a fair view. Having worked in the public sphere, I’m curious about your view on the government’s engagement with contemporary art.
CC: China is now undergoing a transformation in the sense that the government has started to consider the positive impact of cultural activities. They are willing to put large of amounts of money into cultivating cultural life here, by paying for international exhibitions to come over and sponsoring exhibitions of Chinese artists abroad - starting from the ["Living in Time"] exhibition at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof Museum in 2001. That was pretty much the beginning of the Cultural Ministry getting involved in [Chinese] contemporary art exhibitions overseas. Before they only sent Peking Opera and things like that. But after the exhibition in Berlin was such a success, not only in terms of the public’s response but also the collaborative governments from other countries, you started to see an immediate change in the approach to contemporary art, with the government involved in the [2003 Chinese contemporary art] exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, which was curated by [Fan Di'an] from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. And from there they started to really twist the scenario. Before that [the presentation of Chinese contemporary art] was dominated by non-Chinese born curators. So, when China started to get fully collaborative, it showed major progress.
Popularity: 4% [?]
- Art in Beijing I: Brian Wallace
At the moment I’m working on an article about Beijing’s art scene. It’s an intimidating topic, and I’m mostly just running around trying to speak with people who know the situation intimately. In the next week or so I’ll post up a few of the most interesting interviews. This first one is with Brian Wallace, the founder of Red Gate, Beijing’s oldest contemporary arts gallery…
BM: Hi Brian. While I’m in Beijing, I’m trying to assemble a kind of oral history of how the contemporary art scene has developed here. As the founder of Beijing’s oldest gallery, I’m curious about your experience. How did you first get involved?
BW: Well, when we opened Red Gate there was actually one other gallery, the Concert Hall, and that subsequently closed. At that time there were no other galleries, but even before that Beijing was already hosting exhibitions of contemporary art. That’s how I became involved, by organizing some of them, in 88 and 89.
Things were opening up at that time. Contemporary art was still misunderstood or frowned upon, and attracted a lot of negative attention - this was still really early days, in the 80s, after ‘the 70s’. There was no market, there was no interest, people didn’t know what it was. So all of that had to be developed.
But there were still groups of active artists. We - and when I say ‘we’ I mean the greater we - were using places like the Temple of Longevity, the Confucian Temple, the Temple of Wisdom Attained (智化寺), the Ancient Observatory, which were just empty spaces, and surprisingly they let people rent them. And so different artists were getting together, and people like me were organizing events, and then a few people like curators, but I don’t think they used that term back then.
Popularity: 4% [?]
