In Archaeologist (2004), a recent
photograph by Wang Qingsong, the artist hunches over a moonlit pit filled
with mud-covered corpses, inspecting them with a magnifying glass, searching
for clues that might explain the tragedy. The deaths, it turns out, are the
result of cultural conditions. Discussing the image, the artist writes, ‘As
economic development takes top priority in China’s national policies, the
country has changed, and its people have changed even more … I think
present-day humans are dead in mind and soul.’ It’s as if the radical
changes that China has been experiencing for the last decade have finally
proven fatal. Yet for artists living and working in Beijing, things could
not seem more vital.
One of the most significant events in Beijing over the last three years has
been the development of the 798 Art District, an enormous compound of
artists’ studios, art galleries, cafés and restaurants flourishing in an
outmoded factory complex in the Dashanzi area, northeast of the city centre.
Built in the 1950s by a team of East German architects in a style inspired
by the Bauhaus, the main exhibition halls in 798 evoke a revolutionary
vision of a future whose time has long since past. Old Party slogans, meant
to inspire the workers, still run across some of the curved walls in bold,
red characters. The buildings’ arching ceilings are fitted with long banks
of windows, originally designed to give workers maximum light. Today, these
industrial cathedrals display some of the most innovative and experimental
artworks being made in the city.
Because the market for contemporary Chinese art has largely been rooted
overseas, many of the art spaces at 798 are satellites linked to commercial
galleries throughout Asia and Europe. Beijing Tokyo Art Projects,
established in 2002 by Tabata Yukihito of Japan’s Tokyo Art Gallery, was the
first to arrive on the scene. Since its creation, BTAP has produced some
extraordinary exhibitions, including Lin Tianmiao’s recent solo show, ‘Non
Zero’, curated in late 2004 by local prodigy Pi Li.
Best known for laboriously wrapping thousands of household items in white
thread, Lin’s recent installations often combine this signature material
with stark, digitally modified self-portraits. While she is featured
regularly in exhibitions throughout the world, the artist is usually
represented by a single piece or body of work. ‘Non Zero’ is important
because it is the first time Lin has been able to realise such a large-scale
project: a five-part installation with undulating pink walls and several
groupings of life-sized, humanoid figures. ‘Non Zero’ not only marked a new
zenith in Lin’s oeuvre, it was also proof that the new galleries at 798 have
an immeasurable impact on the ways in which art is being made and displayed
in Beijing.
In November 2004, the inaugural show at 798’s Chinese Contemporary Gallery
(the sister space to the eponymous London gallery) brought together a group
of artists whose work spoke directly to the dynamic, vertiginous forces of
development and destruction that are palpable throughout Beijing. Zhang Dali
gained notoriety some years back for his ubiquitous graffiti self-portraits;
outlines of his profile are spray-painted all over 798. For this exhibition,
the artist created full body casts of members of Beijing’s ‘floating
population’, migrant workers who resettle in Beijing illegally, seeking work
in construction, demolition – whatever job they can find. According to
presumably low government estimates, their numbers now exceed three million.
In Beijing’s mad rush toward expansion and prosperity, someone has to do the
dirty work. Zhang’s installation featured several of these figures dangling
by their feet from the gallery ceiling. They appeared spatially dislocated
and tortured. Though Zhang’s work is characteristically literal, it is
noteworthy, given the lack of attention artists have devoted to this urgent
issue.
A subtler, more poetic gesture was Lu Hao’s installation of plastic lotus
flowers floating in a large, rectangular pool. In the centre of each bright
pink blossom was a tiny, hand-carved version of one of Beijing’s courtyard
houses. Over the last few years, the vast majority of these structures have
been demolished to make way for glittering office towers and high-rise
apartments; their inhabitants relocated, sometimes by force. Referencing
Chinese mourning rituals, Lu’s work elegantly commemorates the loss of the
city’s traditional dwellings and the more communal ways of living that they
encourage.
The 798 Art District, while still in its infancy, has also been threatened
by the real-estate developers and corporate interests that continually
steamroll the city. The Seven-Star Huadian Science and Technology Group,
which owns 798’s site and the surrounding property, has made it very clear
that they would like to see the area transformed into a high-tech
manufacturing facility – one which could create up to ten thousand jobs for
the laid-off factory workers who used to work at 798 plants. And as it
becomes an increasingly desirable destination for the city’s bourgeois
bohemians and busloads of international art tourists, 798 receives more
criticism from those within the Beijing art world, who see it as an art
amusement park, a simulated underground where opportunistic artists can
thrive.
In this ongoing battle between various interests, it appears that, for now,
798 will remain – though not for the reasons one might imagine. With the
2008 Olympics looming in the city’s future, government officials want to
make sure they create a cosmopolitan image for international visitors to the
city. Without its own SoHo, how can Beijing be taken seriously as a major
economic player on the world stage?
This is precisely the rhetoric that frames much governmental support of
contemporary art, a viewpoint evident in the promotional materials for the
first Beijing Biennale, held in late 2003:
‘An international art biennale is an influential cultural event of grand
scale. Its crucial position is not inferior to that of the Olympic Games,
Oscars, the Nobel Prize, World Fairs … Since the first Venice Biennale of
1895, more than a century has passed. The Biennale receives great attention
because of its outstanding cultural functions, rich economic repayment and
profound international influence.’
That’s right: a biennial is just another spectacle, a world (art) fair, but
Beijing needs one if it is going to compete in the global market. Never mind
that no one I spoke with in Beijing took the Biennale seriously, since its
conservative curatorial policies prohibited the exhibition of video and
installation works. ‘The sponsors believe that although new art forms, such
as new media, have extended the realm of contemporary art, painting and
sculpture, as the traditional art forms have not lost their potential for
development.’ Yet, generally speaking, the government’s laxity regarding
artistic experimentation persists, as if overt censorship would mar the
worldly image that Beijing is trying so hard to project.
China Art Archives & Warehouse, founded by maverick artist/curator/architect
Ai Weiwei in partnership with the Swiss Galerie Urs Meile, is another
important site for contemporary art. A series of neo-modernist brick boxes,
the space is instantly recognisable as one of Ai’s creations: his own home
and office (which house his architectural studio and other enterprises) are
nearly identical to the CAAW gallery, as are the houses he has created for
other artists, such as photographer Hai Bo. Ai is also part of the creative
team (with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron) that designed
the ‘bird’s nest’ Olympic Stadium.
Li Songsong’s survey of recent paintings, ‘Works: 2001–2004’, opened at CAAW
in December 2004. Like so many of the best artists in Beijing, Li is a
graduate of the city’s Central Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied oil
painting. All the works in the show are based on historical photographs;
many reference political events that took place during Mao’s rule, a time Li
is too young to recall. Dividing the source image into a series of
individually hued rectangles, Li renders the images in oil paint so freely
that his technique sometimes sits on the border between mark making and
figuration; but no matter how gorgeously messy they become, the images
remain recognisable. The works are a testament to how deeply the photographs
are embedded within the collective memory of Beijing, which is both the
creative and political capital of China. But why recreate these images now?
Beijing is undergoing an historic transformation at present, rushing at
breakneck speed to smash the ‘olds’ as it attempts to repurpose itself as a
cosmopolitan centre for global commerce. But the city is caught between two
worlds: a past that it is wilfully forgetting and a glorious, utopian future
that lies just beyond its reach. As the city’s inhabitants struggle to
adjust to new spatial and social conditions, the 2008 Olympic Games have
become Beijing’s appointment with the world. The pressure to impress hangs
in the air. Reinvention even lies in the city’s 2008 Olympic motto: ‘New
Beijing: Great Olympics!’ It’s a promise to the international community that
hinges on forging forward, leaving the familiar behind.
In Beijing, everything is brand new, but nothing is quite right. In a recent
artist’s statement, painter Zhang Xiaotao writes:
‘Beijing as I understand it today is certainly very chaotic; a massive
construction site mixed with a globalised economy that seems prosperous on
the surface, but is very absurd! But it has such tension and vitality!
People are all running as hard as they can, tearing at each other’s souls …
In a transitional period like this, people’s feelings are very confused,
very high. Perhaps it is because we are experiencing things we have never
known before.’
This ‘tension and vitality’ can also be found in the Beijing art world,
where the possibility of financial success has sometimes come at the expense
of a real critical dialogue. Zhang called his recent exhibition ‘Dream
Factory, Rubbish Heap’. It’s a title that perfectly captures the
contradictions at work in contemporary Beijing. But these contradictions are
precisely what make the city one of the great art centres of this moment.
David Spalding is a San Francisco-based critic, and teaches contemporary art and critical theory at the California College of the Arts and Mills College