Critique of circumstances
Even Chinese Neo-Pop, a kind of contemporary literati painting, reactivates the old formal patterns – hanging scrolls, hand scrolls, or album sheets. In their allusions to the literati style of the past, Wenda Gu, Ai Weiwei, Li Shuang, Liu Wei, Wang Guangyi, Wu Shan Zhuan, Huang Yong Ping or Lu Shengzhong hand out their slashing critique of the state of affairs. Out of thousands of digital images, Yang Yonglian composes vast panoramic landscapes of his home town Shanghai. On his website, he writes: “Under the cover of classical form I criticise our time and society.”
Chi Peng underlines the significance of compositional vigor in his photographs, which he then meticulously retouches digitally. His composition Now’ing (2011) follows the laws of central perspective. The scaling of figures steers the beholder’s gaze to the background, where the Forbidden City is towered by a menacingly monumental gorilla. One looks over the shoulder of the artist’s costumed alter ego as he confronts the monster shrouded in black billowing clouds. My attempt at framing his work in terms of Western monkey iconography is vehemently rebuffed by the artist: the gorilla embodies the imminent danger the government faces at the crossroads of a precarious political situation. Numerous artists expect nothing less than fractures in the transformation processes of China, in case the reactionary wing of the party is successful in its struggle for political power.
In the 20th century, freedom of Chinese art was curtailed by both revolution and totalitarianism, which still account for the tensions of a new nationalism in the 21st century. China’s particular struggle for remaining a multi-ethnic state, with its more than 200 spoken languages, is hampered by the extremely contradictory discourses of the various traditions. In its attempt to steer its way into the future, waves of politically-ordained concepts of modernisation swept time and again across the country, and they are themselves plagued by contradictions, imposed discontinuities, and revolutions.
Mao fanatically believed in the power of chaos, in accordance with his motto: “Everything under heaven is in utter choas; the situation is excellent.” And, indeed, the Cultural Revolution set up the perfect propaganda machinery complete with ancillary personality cults. Only after having studied the Western avant-garde did artists realise to what extent even Mao’s reforms of language had served the purpose of power and propaganda. Li Xian Ting, critic and curator of the ‘first hour’, by now addressed by fellow artists as their Godfather, declares that artists have imitated the past 100 years of Western art history and its variants of Pop, Expressionism, Dada and Conceptual Art as readily as they abandoned them for reviving their own traditions. As in politics, this was initially born from necessity or pragmatism, as summed up in Deng Xioupeng’s notorious dictum: “Whether a cat is black or white makes no difference. As long as it catches mice, it is a good cat.”
Recollecting the heritage
The appropriation of foreign and, therefore, incomprehensible languages of art has been abandoned only two generations after the Cultural Revolution on the basis of construed myths, social relationships, and practices of everyday life. Today, this is counterbalanced by reflecting upon China’s own heritage of figures, such as Zhuangzi (365–290) or Lao-tzu (6th century), who at times are put into service to promote a new nationalism. The texts of these ancient authors, so rich in metaphors, convince the younger generation of Chinese artists that modern art from the West is anything but universal, and that Chinese art tradition needs to be re-read in accord with its own sources. “Western equals modern” is no longer an exclusive option. Then, it is no surprise that, in the face of many diverging currents, Ding Ning, professor at Beijing University, speaks of a “renaissance of tradition”.
Luo Zhongli Luo of the Chinese Academy of Contemporary Art declares war against aggravating stereotypes, and sums it all up in the Chinese Global Times: “Now the time has come, after a long journey, to look back to our own artists with systematic research and to develop a Chinese history of art.” In a similar vein, President Hu Jintao called for contemplation of Chinese history. He warned against the pernicious influences of the West trying to impose its own views on the whole world.
From communism to consumerism
At the same time and under the label of “re-traditionalisation”, Chinese art beats all records on the market. Premium prices at art auctions, as in the case of Zhang Xiaogang’s triptych Forever lasting love (1998) are no longer exceptional. Major Western museums are now showing substantial interest in contemporary Chinese art. From January to April 2012, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York staged a landmark exhibition entitled Chinese Art in an Age of Revolution: Fu Baoshi (1904–1965). While selling for record prices, Fu Baoshi’s work is far from being undisputed at home. The trend towards re-traditionalisation was heated up further in the run-up to the Shanghai Contemporary 2012.
At least at 789 Space in Beijing, the commercialisation of this new re-traditionalisation is becoming increasingly part of a lifestyle; and, as at M 50 Art Centre in Shanghai, is catching up with the rest of the world in its radical economisation. It is with little surprise that we then hear that the owner of Château Mouton Rothschild, a wine that has reached cult status in China, has contracted painter Xu Lei to design the new ‘vintage label’ in a ‘traditional’ way. In China, long waiting lists for buying wine are as common as they are for the purchase of works of contemporary art. The question of whether this commercialisation will eventually be reflected in social discourse may only be answered with reservations.
The benchmarks for the canon of contemporary art are being set as much by the art centres of Shanghai and Beijing and international auction houses as by the annual plans of the communist party to industrialise culture. At the beginnning of the 21st century, it is not only China that has come to a critical point. Now, everywhere a disinterest in serious engagement with art is noticeable. Current economic forces undermine all democratic values and cast their leaden net over all things generating meaning.
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Translated by Axel Fussi