Contemporary Chinese Art:Tradition & Transformation

The Art of NowDesigning Case Studies Using Contemporary Chinese Art

Luise Guest ARARTE 2013

“We’re not in Kansas any more…..”

About me:• 30 years in art education in Sydney, Australia• NSW Premier’s ‘Kingold’ Chinese Creative Arts Scholarship for travel to

China – 2011• Independent research and writing projects Beijing December 2012• Redgate Gallery Writer’s Residency October – November 2013• Research for book – 12 contemporary women artists in China

In this most ancient of cultures…

Tradition… Transformation…

Song Wei, Hamburger, 2008, fibreglass sculpture, www.redgategallery.com

Why study contemporary art?

Students need to know about ‘the art of now’ because:• it is engaging, interesting and thought-provoking• it is ‘of their own time’ and relates to our world and all its

issues• it connects to the ‘artworld’, a real place with real people,

making real artworks• it connects directly with their own artmaking practice• it assists students to make connections in their art writing,

and to develop their ‘art literacy’• students WANT to engage with it, even when they are

challenged by its form or its content

Why study Chinese art?

• Because it is so exciting, so new, so constantly changing and so important!

• Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong are recognised as three of the key art centres on the planet right now and their importance in the art market and the field of contemporary art continues to grow.

• Taipei continues to develop as a newer art centre and some of the most interesting artists practising in a range of disciplines are working in Taiwan.

Rachel Cronin, Year 12 2012, ‘Babel’, documented form, photomedia, video, artist’s book

My artwork explores communication and miscommunication, through language and across cultures. My intent was to emphasise the importance of language in our contemporary society both in shaping our identity and in building networks globally through interaction with others. Through the representation of language in all of its forms, I hoped to envelop and confront my audience, inviting them to question the ability of language to enhance communication, or paradoxically initiate miscommunication. Using the extended metaphor of the biblical story 'The Tower of Babel’, I worked across the mediums of photography and film, resulting in a documented form.Influencing artists: Zhang Huan, Susan Hiller, Jenny Holzer, Laurens Tan, Wenda Gu, Xu Bing, Yang Zhenzhong

What paradigm am I coming from?

• In New South Wales art education curriculum gives equal weight to critical and historical studies of art in the middle and senior years

• Students are immersed in ‘practice’ – of the artist, the critic and the historian

• They model their own developing practice – as artists and as art writers – on those to whom they are introduced in their studies

Travels in the Middle Kingdom• USING CONTEMPORARY CHINESE

ART TO DEVELOP ENGAGING CASE STUDIES FOR THE MIDDLE AND SENIOR SCHOOL

• THINKING ABOUT PEDAGOGY – AND ABOUT THE PLACE OF VISUAL ARTS IN A RICH CURRICULUM

Hua Jiming in his studio in Songzhuang

ARTIST / WORLD / ARTWORK RELATIONSHIPS: TRADITION AND TRANSFORMATION

An introduction

Wan Liya, in Two Cities Gallery, M50, Shanghai ,photograph Luise Guest

Yao Lu, Early Spring on Lake Dong Ting, 2008, image Bruce Silverstein Gallery

Yao Lu, Mountain and Straw Houses in the Summer, 2008, Galerie du Monde Hong Kong

Zhou Hongbin, photograph, image courtesy the artist and China Art Projects

Bing Yi Huang, ink on Chinese paper, image courtesy the artist

Huang Xu, Plastic Bag #8Image courtesy China Art Projects and the artist

Huang Xu and Dai Dandan in their studio

Bing Yi Huang, Beijing, October 2013

Bing Yi’s assistants unroll the 30-meter ink painting she showed at Documenta

• What impact do traditions and contemporary tensions have on the work of artists in China now?

• How is this seen in their work?• How can this benefit our students?

• How can we design case studies for our students using this most exciting contemporary work?

• How can we structure learning to assist them in engaged, authentic understandings of contemporary practice?

• How will they move from engaging with contemporary practices to their artmaking?

Han Yajuan. ‘Travel Alone’ oil on canvas image courtesy the artist

Image reproduced fromhttp://blog.everythingwallart.com/wall-art-news-worldwide-protest-for-ai-weiwei-release/

Photograph shot in the Tsim Sha Tsui subway on the morning of April 16, before the stencilled images were covered by workmen under the direction of the police

Ai Weiwei, ‘Remembering’ at Haus der Kunst, Munich 2009, source http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ai_Weiwei-So_sorry.JPG

Bang (2013), an Ai Weiwei installation in the German pavilionSource: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/may/30/ai-weiwei-venice-biennale

For the Venice Biennale, Ai Weiwei has created an installation detailing his 81 days of incarceration by the Chinese government back in 2011. Entitled S.A.C.R.E.D(Supper, Accusers, Cleansing, Ritual, Entropy, and Doubt), the installation at the Sant’Antonin church features six iron boxes that display scenes of his captivity. Source: http://arrestedmotion.com/2013/05/showing-ai-weiwei-s-a-c-r-e-d-the-venice-biennale/

Jonathan Jones in the Guardian:

The Venice Biennale needs Ai Weiwei – a man who makes art matter:“Like Beuys in the 70s or Duchamp in 1917, with Ai Weiwei we have the privilege of seeing a modern master in his moment.”“This is the moment of Ai Weiwei, an artist who will be the stuff of legend.”

BUT contemporary Chinese art is about far more than Ai Weiwei!

Virgin Garden: Emersion. China Pavilion at 51st Venice Biennale, Venice Arsenale and Vergini Garden, Venice, 2005. Exhibition curated by Cai Guo-QiangLiu Wei (Born 1972, Beijing, China), Star, 2005, Flash lights and motion detectors, Dimensions variable Photo by Tatsumi Masatoshi, courtesy Cai Studio

Song Dong, Waste Not, at Carriageworks Sydney 2013

Yin Xiuzhen, currently showing at Pace Beijing, in 798

Huang Jing Yuan, oil on canvas, image courtesy the artist

Liu Zhuoquan, image courtesy the artist and China Art Projects

PAINTERS, INSTALLATION ARTISTS, CONCEPTUAL ARTISTS, SCULPTORS, DIGITAL MEDIA ARTISTS….UNLESS OTHERWISE IDENTIFIED WITH SOURCES, ALL PHOTOGRAPHS WERE TAKEN BY LUISE GUEST AND ARE REPRODUCED WITH THE PERMISSION OF THE ARTISTS AND THEIR GALLERIES

8 Case Studies of Artists’ Practice

Beijing

LIANG YUANWEIFocus Artist #1 - Beijing

“I think I will do something different than the Cynical Realists, although I am not always sure that others will understand, but as China becomes stronger and more confident, real Chinese thoughts will be recognised world-wide, and artists such as myself may be recognised”

From 2004, I used typewriter to type “umustbestrong” 44 times everyday on a roll of toilet paper, it so happened within one section of the toilet paper. Two whole rolls have been completed by the end of 2006. ——Liang Yuanwei

“Art mirrors changes in society, artworks are treated as a flagship and a symbol of the country. Sooner or later, alive or dead, as an artist you will be the flag.” Liang Yuanwei’s work at Venice Biennale 2011

“On the tenth of this month it has been held an important press conference in Beijing. Peng Feng, vice director of the aesthetic department at the Beijing University and curator of Chinese Pavillon at the Venice Biennale, officially presented the artists'works. The winner are: Pan Gongkai, Liang Yuanwei, Yang Maoyuan, Cai Zhisong and Yuan Gong.

The title chosen by Mr Peng this year is "Pervasion". Pervasion correspond to the 5 main taste of China that had an influence in the world. The subject is one of the most ordinary one. When a foreigner images China, he probably may thinks about the Chinese Tea, how weird and mysterious is their ancient medicine, the fashonable Lotus flower, the mystic smell of the incense in the temple, and if he is fortunate enough to have traveled once in China, how strong is the taste of their liquor, the Baijiu. All this five element will be presented as a odor that will flood all over the pavilion.”

http://yishuyishu.blogspot.com/2011/05/chienese-pavilion-at-venice-biennalei.html

This loses something in the translation from Chinese to English – but showing in Venice is an extraordinary achievement for this young artist!

Post-Venice she was bitter and disillusioned – why?

“Art practice is like building houses, where different people use many different materials and construction techniques. My paintings are my own little universe of materials, purposes and techniques.”

During the Southern Song some emperors and empresses inscribed poetic lines to go with small paintings, especially album leaves. In this work the court painter Ma Lin has painted the blossoming branches to go along with a poem inscribed by an imperial consort.

What references can be seen in Liang Yuanwei’s paintings to Chinese traditions such as ink painting, scroll painting and calligraphy?

http://depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/painting/tcourbf.htm

What is significant in these paintings is not the marvel of the successful execution of a unique and challenging technique, but Liang’s refusal to engage in shortcuts. She paints every inch of her canvases instead of delegating the time-consuming work to assistants, as is common in a place like Beijing where works can be fabricated with great ease. Collectively, the paintings raise a series of questions: What is the significance of a medium when works in oil mimic designs in fabric? Is the defining quality of each work its process or its concept, and where do we draw the line between daily manifestations of culture and those that are elevated—or debased—to the realm of art? These works offer no explicit answers, only delicate decorative pleasures and interpretive depth for those who seek it.

http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/60/LiangYuanwei

Postmodern? Or traditional oil painting conventions of representation?

http://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/between-fear-and-trust-the-art-of-liang-yuanwei/

Feminist Sculptor, Eva Hesse Repetition Nineteen 3, 1968Museum of Modern Art, New York

Art that wasn't "art" was her aim. "I wanted to get to nonart, nonconnotive, nonanthropomorphic, nongeometric, non, nothing, everything, but of another kind, vision, sort, from a total other reference point," she wrote in an exhibition statement in 1968http://newsgrist.typepad.com/underbelly/2006/06/eva_hesse_body_.html

Identify some connections between Hesse and Liang Yuanwei

Liang Yuanwei identifies influences including Joseph Beuys, Eva Hesse, Agnes Martin, Sigmar Polke and significantly, Mark Rothko, as well as writers, philosophers, political activists and musicians

Picture of Early Spring------Oil painting/installation------Taikang Space, Beijing------2010 “This series is produced for my solo show at Taikang Space. The work consists of two parts: ‘One Table and Four Stools’ and ‘Nine Tables and Nine Stools’. The form of the works comes from the folded stools and tables that are common furniture for families which are not better-off and cheap street stalls. The colour and form of these tables and stools and the way they are shown in the space presents my feeling about the early spring.”http://www.liangyuanwei.com/en_works_32.html

Making Art Historical Connections

Joseph Beuys, Fat Chair Liang Yuanwei, Picture of Early Spring

• Es

Establish some connections between influential ‘Fluxus’ conceptual artist Joseph Beuys and the conceptual basis of works by Liang Yuanwei

LIU ZHUOQUANFocus Artist #2 - Beijing

“My work is like a scientific laboratory”

Traditional ‘inside painted’ snuff bottles (“Nei Hua”), were painted with a fine curved bamboo brush, and with the details first, backgrounds second

All images of Liu Zhuoquan and his works courtesy the artist and China Art Projects

“On the surface life seems quiet and calm, but underneath danger lurks, represented by the idea of scientific specimens in bottles. Also we use bottles all the time in our daily life, so they are a symbol of the everyday. Traditionally painted snuff bottles emphasised the imaginary world contained inside the bottle, so in my everyday bottles I am also creating an imaginary world.”

“Bottles can be a place to conceal or save memories, the past and our history. Some of my bottles contain memories of the Cultural Revolution times, and other reflections of real events, but in a ‘veiled’ way. In the place where I was born the temple was used for the ashes of the dead, which were contained in bottles. My name is the name of this temple.”

“My time in Tibet was very important, and the influence of Tibetan culture is there in my work. The Tibetan attitude to death and their philosophy is quite different, and this can be seen in their ‘sky burial’ ceremony. It is necessary always to have a dream as life and death are so interconnected.”

Seven Sparrows (detail)

Chang’An Avenue (installation detail) shown at Sydney Contemporary,September 2013

Compare and contrast the practice of Liu Zhuoquan with Australian artist Fiona Hall. In particular, look at her works ‘Mourning Chorus’ and ‘Cell Culture’ and comment on the way that each artist has employed ‘found’ and discarded materials to make a comment about their world.

Images of Hall’s works from http://roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/17/Fiona_Hall/481/

Art Critical Connections

GAO RONGFocus Artist #3

“I am a sculptor who uses embroidery, not an embroiderer”

Gao Rong looks out her window at the changing face of Beijing….

All images of Gao Rong and her works courtesy the artist (and White Rabbit Gallery)

Gao Rong, ‘Station’ 2011Fabric Thread Sponge MetalImage courtesy the artist and White Rabbit Gallery

How might students 5 engage with Gao Rong’s works?

Themes of Daily Life, Femininity, Family, Journeying….

Links with Pop Art, and with the Feminist works of artists such as Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro

Gao Rong says she was inspired by Tracey Emin – another rebellious female!

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.

Gao RongThe Static Eternity, 2012Cloth, Wire, Steel, Cotton, Sponge, BoardImage courtesy the artist, White Rabbit Gallery and the Biennale of Sydney

See following three slides for details of this work.

http://www.randian-online.com/np_feature/in-grandmothers-house/

Shanghai

PU JIEFocus Artist #4 - Shanghai

“My left hand encloses the past, my right the present”

Pu Jie, Tiananmen, 2011, oil and acrylic on canvas, photograph Luise Guest reproduced courtesy the artist

Installation view, Redgate Gallery Beijing, March 2011All Pu Jie images reproduced with permission of the artist, ShanghArt Gallery and Ausin Tung Gallery

Pu Jie, Head and Her No 12, 2008, acrylic on canvas, Photograph Luise Guest reproduced with permission of the artist

A Pet No 2, 2007, photographed in Pu Jie’s studio, Shanghai, March 2011

“In my work the colour yellow represents the search for good fortune, and it is also an imperial colour. It represents the last 30 years of the ‘opening up’ of China. In contrast the Cultural Revolution is represented by the colour red.”

“I have been searching for a better way to express the combination of the past and the present – this is the conflict of all Chinese people of my generation. My images are politically charged and quite sensitive.”

A work in progress, photographed in Pu Jie’s studio, March 2011

“I want to preserve the past in my work, just like a scientific specimen”

Pu Jie ,’Feeding’, 2010, oil on canvas, 200 x 250cm, image reproduced courtesy of Ausin Tung Gallery.

“What I experienced are two different eras, my life feels like a paradox” (Pu Jie)

Explore ways in which Pu Jie represents aspects of his personal and cultural worlds – make connections with works by American Pop Artists such as James Rosenquist, using the MOMA website www.moma.orgWatch Robert Hughes ‘Empire of Signs’ from American Visionshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1arL-L7_O4

LU YANGFocus Artist #5 - Shanghai

Control is what Lu Yang’s work is about. Machine/animal control, machine/corpse control, machine/human control, human/human control…at the core of this control hierarchy is mind control.

What she works with is the fundamental method in cybernetic art. Her works are often sadistic/masochistic biological or bionic control systems.

Dajuin YaoOpen Media Lab, China Academy of Art

“A world of mad science and manga, all rooted in some kind of incontrovertible truth about what we are made of; DNA and chromosomal chains that sometimes get twisted out of shape and into something completely unexpected.”Martin Kemble, Art Labor Gallery Shanghai

“Showcasing her latest music video work Dictator, Lu Yang takes the audience onto a mind-boggling journey that aesthetically explores the biology of control systems in living frogs and amphibians. Progressing from her previous work Happy Tree, which shows living animals being treated with a centrally controlled pulse of electricity in a small tank, Lu Yang extracts some footage from the work and transforms them into highly aesthetical and technical forms that are presented with the accompaniment of sound composed by Wang Changcun” (Art Radar Asia, June 30 2010)

http://luyang.asia/

http://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/old-meets-new-in-chinese-art-five-young-chinese-artists-to-watch/

https://vimeo.com/29762925

Lu Yang, ‘Wrathful King Kong Core’ – Tibetan Buddhism / Sci Fi / Anime !

SHI ZHIYINGFocus Artist #6 - Shanghai

“My painting is like meditation; a slow and peaceful process that takes a long time to develop. Buddhist scripture suggests eliminating all that is inessential to distill the essence. Simplicity is reality”

SHI ZHIYING 石至莹Reliquary 金筐宝钿珍珠装碔玞石宝函 , 2013Oil on canvas20 1/8 x 16 3/16 in. (52 x 42 cm)Image courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery New York

Shi Zhiying, Blue and White Porcelain Bowl with Arabic Inscription, oil on canvas, 42 x 52 cm – image courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery

Shi Zhiying, Egg White Porcelain Bowl, oil on canvas, 40 x 50 cm – image courtesy the artist and James Cohan Gallery

Hong Kong

TUNG-PANG LAMFocus Artist #7: Hong Kong

“Western painting is like opening a window and looking out, Chinese art is more like opening a space to escape to within the self”

All images reproduced with the artist’s permission from www.tungpanglam.com

I plan to produce a series of works called ‘1 square foot’ about how to escape the noise and pressure of life in Hong Kong

Travel and Leisure 2010

Lam Tung-pang

Currently lives and works in Hong Kong

Lam Tung-pang uses both traditional (oil, acrylic, charcoal, pencil) and non-traditional (nails, sand, plywood, found objects) materials to produce thought-provoking pieces engaging with the ideas of memory, history or reflecting the specific situation of individuals or groups.

He is often making comment on his ‘hybrid’ Hong Kong Chinese identity as well as about issues in the world such as environmental destruction.

“My work is in a Chinese idiom converted to contemporary life”

Influences include:• The broad, loose monochromatic brush-strokes of traditional ink painting

• Hong Kong born New Ink Movement Master Lou Shoukun

• The deeply embedded history of line drawing and ink painting in Chinese art

• The tiny landscapes in the backgrounds of early Renaissance painters such as Giotto, Masaccio and Piero della Francesca

• The 20th c inheritance of found objects and the use of ‘non-art’ materials

• The ‘literati’ painters

• Sigmar Polke, Michael Borremans and Sanyu

http://dailyserving.com/2013/03/things-happened-on-the-island-lam-tung-pangs-floating-world/

Revenge of Nature

Remembrance 2005

Look left, look right 2005

Sanyu, a Chinese artist who went to Paris in the 1920s, is a significant influence on Lam Tung-Pang’s work, as is Sigmar Polke

“I don’t really think about anything too much”,Sigmar Polke 2002http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/polke/global.htm

Art Historical Connections

Folding 2005

Making critical connections

Jenny Watson, 2006 Cool WorldPart 1: acrylic on rabbit skin glue pinned Chinese organza over daisy printed cotton, 219 x 83 cm; Part 2: industrial paint and velvet ribbon on prepared oval stretcher 79 × 30cmRoslyn Oxley9

Lam Tung-pang, ‘Fishing’

Compare how each artist uses materials, techniques and visual codes to communicate ideas about their personal world and identity

HANISON (HOK-SHING) LAUFocus Artist #8: Hong Kong

My work invites a contemplative response in a throw-away society

Hanison (Hok-Shing) Lau

Tabletop Garden series

All images courtesy of the artist

Table top Gardenhttp://theculturetrip.com/asia/china/articles/old-meets-new-in-chinese-art-five-young-chinese-artists-to-watch/

Tabletop Garden, with documentation

Milky Way from the Ninth Heaven, 2008

References to tradition and cultural identity

• He references traditional Chinese culture and poetry from the Song Dynasty, as he believes that young Chinese need to reconnect with these traditions. He also wants people to take the time to really look at the world around them and the objects they are using - in a busy, busy city where people buy a new cell phone then throw it away and buy a new one in order to have 'the newest, the latest' consumer goods, Lau wants his audience to think more carefully about tradition and the meanings inherent in objects

Three Wishes

A Century-old shop2010Mixed Media Installationold cardboard. abandoned materials

Making art historical connections:

Review the Fluxus movement and its dada inheritance. Explore works by Nam June Paik and Joseph Beuys. What connections can you make with performance works by Hanison Hok Shing Lau?

• The performative artist

• The ephemeral artwork

• The artist as social critic

• The continuing influence of dada

www.teachingchineseart.blogspot.com

INSIDE THE BOX, OUTSIDE THE BOXArt Education

How does Chinese art education produce artists of such technical virtuosity and capacity to innovate?

One aspect to consider in current discourses relating to art curricula

“You cannot think outside the box unless you HAVE a box!”(Howard Gardner, speaking in Sydney, May 2011)

How do we retain our commitment to engaging students in authentic, exciting and contemporary modes of making and studying art, whilst ensuring they are part of a ‘community of practice’?

And beyond artmaking – what about art literacy and authentic, exciting, fully engaged student writing?

Huang Yong Ping, ‘Leviathanation’ at Tang Galleries Beijing 2011 (photo L. Guest)

Finding the “hook”!

Art Critical Interpretation

Ways to ensure that student writing is authentic and rich• Strategies for eliciting

genuine responses• Collaborative tasks• ‘Learning conversations’• Avoiding plagiarism• Applying art language• Developing research skills • Using ICT and social media

Huang Yong Ping, ‘Two Baits’, 2001, iron, fibreglass, metal sheets, 160 x 300 x 800 cm. Image reproduced courtesy of the artist and Rockbund Museum, Shanghai.

Rupture, Subvert, Transform!

Traditional papercutChen Hangfeng, Logomania series

And one extra artist (just because!)Chen Hangfeng in his Shanghai studio, photograph Luise Guest 2011

Transforming Traditions

Chen Hangfeng Tianli Zu

How have Chen, Zu and other artists employed the traditional form of the paper- cut to express ideas about their world?

https://vimeo.com/5713339

Some successful strategies

• Student websites / blogs• Student video productions• Using multi-media• Collaborations between schools – crossing

borders and breaking down those classroom walls

• Innovative uses of social media• The ‘Flipped Classroom’

Year 11 student web sites from Loreto Kirribilli, Sydney

• http://laralovesart.weebly.com/ • http://artwritingbylauren.blogspot.com.au/20

13/08/liu-zhuoquan-critique.html

• http://pastelsandpaint.weebly.com/liu-zhouquan.html

• How does this work?

Links to student artmaking – so many possibilities!

Child exploring ‘Source’ by by Ed Pien withTanya Tagaq at 18th Biennale of Sydney Cockatoo Island, photograph Luise Guest

Planning a learning experience for your students

• Select a contemporary artist from the Asia Pacific region

• Select a few works which you know will intrigue/confuse/surprise your students

• Ai Weiwei? Song Dong? Liu Zhuoquan? Cao Fei? Cai Guo-Qiang?

• Start to develop the introductory lesson:

“the hook!”

Using ‘the art of now’ forauthentic art learning

• Step 1: invite students to observe, think, speculate and wonder

• Step 2: require students to use rich language and their developing art vocabulary to describe, analyse and interpret a work without plagiarism or 2nd-hand ideas

• Step 3: Invite students to ask “What if”• Step 4: Invite students to consider the

relationship to their own artmaking

Case Studies provided today were produced by Luise Guest for the NSW Premier’s Kingold Creative Arts Scholarship in 2011…….The www.teachingchineseart.blogspot.com site has more case studies and more articles suitable for adaptation to IB and other curriculum structures

Wang Ningde

The End Luise Guest October2013

Thank you / Xie Xie! / 谢谢