The Venice Biennial in 1999, curated by Harald Szeemann: China achieves the final breakthrough on the international scene with the participation of twenty of its artists. The cynicism and condescension of many Western critics, gallery owners, curators and collectors towards the art of this officially socialist (despite its economic openness) country are quickly forgotten. And the enthusiasm seems to be continuing, with ever more prestigious exhibitions and a rapidly increasing market value. But what is generally called »Chinese contemporary art« in the West only really refers to a fraction of China’s artistic production.
When the reformer Deng Xiaoping led the communist giant China from a planned economy to a market economy in 1978, he involuntarily also created greater intellectual and artistic freedoms. The cultural sphere was still dominated by propaganda-heavy works that toed the party line, but for the first time in the history of the People’s Republic, it became possible at all to take a different direction. Since then, Chinese art has grouped around two poles of production that are for the most part independent of one another: that of experimental art, which has been successfully launched on the international market by foreign collectors and curators; and traditional art, which continues to dominate the local market.

The polarization between these two sources of production already takes place at the training stage. Anyone who applies to study at the famous Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing has two alternatives: to study either traditional Chinese painting or Western media (sculpture, oil painting or print graphics). In the eighties and early nineties – in contrast with the present day, where experimental artists can expect money and international renown -, many artists still stuck with the classical Western art forms that were taught at the academies. In those days, the experimental path was taken only by those artists who wanted to express their artistic, political and socio-critical commitment. For they paid a high price: no permanent jobs, no state-provided accommodation or income, and, instead of recognition, the stigma of being an outsider.
These artists also rebelled against the institutional guardians of art, who, in the name of the repressive organ of the state, made sure that all works of art conveyed the »right morals«. In the late eighties and early nineties, this self-definition as regards the establishment became the raison d’être of China’s experimental scene. The Western techniques learnt during their training and the corresponding visual vocabulary provided and provides the experimental artists with expressive means, unburdened by their own tradition, for engaging with Chinese realities. The topics they address(ed) can be roughly divided up into two aspects: the historical – for example, the »Great Chinese Cultural Revolution«; and the social – for example, the rapid urbanization and individual formation of identity.

A well-known example of experimental art of the early nineties is Zhang Huan’s performance »12 Square Metres« (Beijing 1994). Zhang smeared his entire body with honey and fish sauce and sat down naked in a public toilet for an hour as a living fly catcher. The theme of this work - the ability of the individual to withstand self-inflicted and externally imposed suffering – can be variously analyzed. Even though certain components, such as the function of public toilets in China, require a degree of cultural knowledge, the basic message of this work is generally comprehensible owing to its use of a Western visual vocabulary. This is even more directly seen in Wang Guangyi’s »Great Criticism« series (nineties), which highlights the problems of China’s evolution towards a market economy since the Cultural Revolution in a style combining elements of both pop and propaganda.

These days, however, this self-definition has visibly lost some of its power. The governmental apparatus is becoming less and less restrictive with regard to art, and the new generation of experimental artists has grown up in the much less politicized post-Cultural-Revolution era. Social and personal issues now have priority. Social troubles, rapid economic growth, the individual wealth of one very small class, the »de-socialization« of the community and family, and breakneck urbanization are the main problems addressed. In »Room 807« (2002), for example, the artist Cao Fei, born in 1978, comments on the dark abyss of anonymity and displacement that exists in China’s urban centres.

Traditionalist art, on the other hand, for the most part steers clear of these thorny topics of everyday relevance, and is therefore mostly described as »colourless«, »uncritical« and »stagnant«. What is more, the untrained eye has trouble distinguishing between contemporary works and those from the Qing (1644-1912) or late Ming (1368-1644) dynasties. At the same time, the stigma of being a form of art that is supported by the state and popular in Party cadres cements the reputation of traditionalist art as a non-committal and esoteric creation. The more direct expressive possibilities of experimental art, its international public and the associated chances of fame, and, above all, the intrinsic connection of Western media with the contemporary (dangdaixing) encourage most young artists to choose the path of experimental art.

However, a few artists who have modernized and restructured the traditional medium in a striking fashion have succeeded in bridging this polarization. Zhu Wei’s works, for instance, have their technical roots in Chinese tradition, but go beyond its rigidly defined scope by using Western techniques and a visual vocabulary that is alien to this medium. The composition of Zhu’s »China! China!« (1997), for instance, is based on Piero della Francesca’s famous portrait of Federico da Montefeltro (1465-66), even though everything else – the brush technique, the pigments, the Xuan rice paper, the content – is deeply rooted in Chinese tradition. The work does not easily fit into the category of either traditionalist or experimental painting and can be read from both sides. If Wang Guangyi’s works are seen as »Western art with Chinese characteristics«, Zhu’s works are »Chinese art with Western characteristics«.

In the nineties, every exhibition of experimental art of any size was cancelled by the government. But last year, the Culture Ministry finally decided to give experimental art its first official blessing on the international stage with the exhibition »Alors la Chine?« (Centre Pompidou). However, this exhibition should be seen rather as a diplomatic ruse than a real change. The increasing integration of China into the global community and the 2008 Olympic Games, which are so important for the prestige of the Party, make it absolutely necessary for the government to show the outside world that this form of art, so acclaimed in the West, is not only tolerated, but also promoted. In China itself, however, traditionalist art continues to dominate. It is very well received by the public and, because it is seldom offensive, easier to control from the government’s point of view. Pragmatism of the sort shown by the Party in its attitude to art was always a strong point of China’s rulers, and so, until further notice, the motto »One present, two systems« still applies.

 

 

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