Session III: Alternative Spaces, Independent Curating, Combining Resources

Lu Jie:
This afternoon's meeting will be chaired by Gu Zhenqing and me. I would first like to invite Ye Yongqing to speak about his space in Kunming.

Ye Yongqing:
Good afternoon everyone. I'm glad that I can participate in a real Zunyi meeting. I want to talk about my own space in Kunming, which I have tried to make into a public space. In this way, I am able to allow artists and artistic resources in Kunming to exchange with each other, on a platform that exists right there in Kunming. That's why I decided to turn an old house into a space. In an inland Chinese city like Kunming, it would be a bit crazy, and not realistic, to open a pure gallery or art space. My original notion was to make a space for consumption, which used art as something of a background. Art would be like a very low threshold, and ordinary folks would be able to come to this place. This space would float on the water like a boat, a self-sustaining space. After doing this, I ran into another set of problems. First, I myself am an artist, not a gallery owner or a curator. But I need to occupy all sorts of different roles in order to get things done-otherwise we would just be a space that supported itself by selling tea and alcohol. At the same time, I wanted to get the real estate people to invest a portion of their profits in art. This was a tough argument, and I couldn't offer the right kind of proof, so it all came down to personal interest and preferences, which makes it difficult to keep things going in the long-term.

I still remember what it was like during the first year. Lots of artists knew that I was running this space, and they supported me. Before, there was a group of contemporary artists in Kunming, somewhere in the neighborhood of ten people. This group has an exhibition every year, which feels kind of like a co-op. But the structure was very stable. They would have an exhibition one year, then have one again the next year. It was always the same faces, and their interaction with the world beyond was basically though books and indirect contact. Once we had the Upriver Club, they had some opportunities to communicate with people from outside their circle, and these local artists began to have some opportunities to display their works outside of Kunming. At the same time, there were some artists from Beijing, Japan, New York, and Taiwan who slowly began to move to Dali to establish a second studio-for example Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun. This all happened in 1998 and 1999. At that time the Upriver Club had some fundamental problems which I thought there was no way to solve. We were constantly trying to build a system for contemporary art, but this kind of a system is fundamentally a copy of Europe. And Kunming couldn't support this sort of a system. The first space I worked on was actually a gallery. This gallery had some of the best art in China at the time, lots of famous artists sent their early works to this space to be sold. And because I wasn't depending on sales of these works for my living, I did everything with the attitude that I was just helping them out. Business that first year was very good. It was all by chance, people would come to Kunming and discover that in this far-off city they could by artwork that wasn't available in other cities. At the end of the year we did the calculations, and realized that not a single work had been purchased by a collector based in Kunming. This made us quite frustrated. I felt like I had only done things that I had imagined, and that I lacked a concrete connection with Kunming itself. The second year I spent a lot of time making contact with real estate brokers, bankers, and all sorts of potential art buyers and people who were interested in art. I would go talk to them, tell them my reasons, convince them to believe in my insight. And there were some people who really got interested. I would tell them that it was very important to me that they bought the works in my gallery, because these works were valuable. In a year, I would do seven or eight exhibitions, including some pretty decent exhibitions. It got to the point where these bankers and local collectors believed me, and said "Ye Yongqing, we'll go with you. Every time you hold an exhibition, we'll buy a work. And in a year, our offices will look different." After a year of this, I was even less happy than after the first year. I'm an artist, and things like this I can't go hire a person to do. Throughout this whole process, I also began to have some opportunities to travel abroad and participate in some art happenings in Europe and America. I was curious how these countries developed their avant-garde, in the absence of museums, foundations, galleries, and collectors. I wondered what art means in these countries, where art fits into these societies, what kind of connection it has with the public. These questions stimulated me, and my impression was that in addition to the Western system we are familiar with took more than one hundred years to develop and mature, there is another way to work, which though not as stable as the system we know, may be more viable. This system doesn't have limits, it is more creative. It does not exist amidst a dichotomy of professional and unprofessional, contemporary and modern; sometimes it is very confused. Looking back on the last few years in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, lots of artists have come out with their own spaces, but these spaces are all just for the use of the artists. Like Shanghai's "Suzhou Creek" or the huge artists' village at Tongxian in Beijing-these places are fundamentally aimed at resolving the artists' own working situations. At the end of 2000, we looked at a big abandoned factory in Kunming. I convinced a few Yunnan artists who didn't have long-term studio arrangements. These artists needed a place to do their most basic work. I thought about this kind of space in an inland Chinese city, and I thought there must be another way to do things. I felt that it should be a space that was open to the public. I imagined this site as a workshop area for handiwork, and the fundamental characteristic of the area would be individuality. This includes some design companies, video studios, bars, restaurants, and places for leisure, but at the same time it has a gallery structure, it's a multi-purpose alternative space. If you build this sort of a place inside a city, it will definitely become a cultural center for the city. These artists occupied this space, but to tell the truth, this space hadn't been designed from scratch. Now it's called The Loft, and it already has three or four galleries, two restaurants, four bars, and a big badminton area. One part belongs to the Swedish Cultural Foundation; they believe that the climate in Kunming and the layout of this space suits them well, so they set up shop here to publicize their native culture. There are now around thirty artists living here. My own situation is like this: I have a display room of my own, about 200 square meters. I also have a studio which I share with a few other artists, about 100 square meters. I'm always very excited to let artists who come from around the world use this studio. In the back, I also have a bar which doubles as an office. The idea to have a bar comes from my experience at the Upriver Club. I want the threshold to be as low as possible, and so everyone can see-as they drink a cup of coffee or tea-the works that we think are important for them to see. When we first started, we were able to control the rents very well, and to set the lengths of leases very long. We had low-rent eight-year leases, and so costs were very low. I run this place together with Zhang Xiaogang, and we have a deal that as long as this place doesn't lose money, we'll keep it open to the public. But if it loses a cent, then we'll close it and make it our private studio, because we don't have the need or the resources to run a place that loses money. But because the rents are so low, we have also put our own studios there, which has been quite inexpensive. From an operational point of view it's going very well, but I'm constantly using money from the bar to pay rent. Finally I'd like to say that no matter whether it's artists or Chinese society in general, I think we need to look at cultural problems as a process of opening up, and to use this opening up process to understand our culture, our ideology, to absorb all different kinds of experiences, and to look back on our own traditions, and come to know these traditions anew. So these are our goals, and our goal is still to build something new that can return to contemporary life, something that can return to having a connection with our personal experiences. How will what we do have any meaning if it can't become part of real life; how will it create new power? Thank you.

Lu Jie:
Although though what we were doing in Yunnan was a collaborative effort, and we accomplished a lot, it was Ye Yongqing who gave us a great deal of help. Before this we had also gone to investigate, but many of the things he just spoke about I had never heard of before. My own feeling is that he has been able to combine personal ideals and abilities, and that these have both very useful in this context. Because of this the cultural landscape in Kunming has gone from its earlier uneventful state to having a complete set of structures. Where artists in Kunming once had only their own studios in which to work, they now have a site of international and domestic cooperation, a place for interaction, a place to work together. At the same time it also has the environment of a place where art takes places, with galleries, good design, etc. And so this space has become special place in Kunming, a multi-purpose space. It is something of an emblem for Kunming, and it has a kind of charm. I'd like to point out where this significance lies. It's that this is an alternative space, but not the kind of alternative space we're accustomed to seeing in Beijing or Shanghai, spaces where artists can do work or hold exhibitions that may be otherwise impossible in more public venues. These folks in Kunming are heroes, and they are heroes because their space is about opening art up to the public, about stimulating interest in issues. So I think this reflects a very distinctly Chinese experience; I daresay no space like this exists elsewhere in the world.

Now I'd like to invite Chairman Wong Shun-Kit of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council to speak. In this capacity, he serves as a bridge between artists and government resources.

Wong Shun-Kit:
I want to introduce briefly the problems inherent in the sort of alternative spaces we were just talking about, because I also used to run this kind of a space. Right now in Hong Kong, most of the independent spaces receive support from the Arts Development Council, which started supporting such spaces back in 1997. At that time, the council would mainly support particular activities. In 1999, this changed to the practice of giving annual grants to support these spaces, with the hope that they would strengthen their own administrative capacities. The main support we provide is administrative, including their rent, and money to hire full-time administrative professionals, as well as support for an event here and there. In 2000 we supported seven of these spaces, but in 2001 three of these spaces disappeared, leaving four. This year, another one came about, bringing the total to five. In addition to these, the Council also keeps its eye out for new spaces, and provides Hong Kong artists with six studios and one exhibition space that are virtually rent-free. Supporting independent spaces is a significant portion of our overall program. Even in these financially difficult times, they still receive a significant portion of our funding, about one-fourth of our total visual arts allotment. Other funding programs are seriously decreasing, but we are committed to keeping this one as it was before. We assemble a committee of local arts professionals and critics to serve as our evaluation committee and read applications; it's not a committee of government officials. We require that these independent spaces are listed as non-profit, limited liability corporations; this way we can bring them into the financial oversight framework of the Hong Kong government. Often, in addition to evaluating applications, the committee will evaluate what these spaces actually do. Our standard for giving new grants is based on the past performance of these spaces as well as their future plans. At the very least, an application must include plans for six public activities. In addition to that, we look at the space's administrative competence, and the overall direction in which it is developing, as well as its strategy for future development. This strategy must fit into the needs of the overall arts environment and structure in Hong Kong. Looking at our past development, we hope that these independent spaces have plans not just for one year, but that we can review their plans once every three years, and that they have plans even longer ranging than that. This is even better for the development of the arts.

Now I'd like to speak about what I see as some problems now existing for these alternative spaces, and some problems which might become apparent in the future. The biggest problem facing these spaces is precisely the homogenization of their sources of funding. Most are dependent on us, some one-hundred per cent. Even after a number of years, they are still unable to create a multivalent funding framework for themselves, so their existence is fundamentally weak. The moment the current situation changes, these spaces will be done with. Some spaces have disappeared as soon as we have revoked our funding. The first variable is the changes in the political structure of Hong Kong, including the future position of the Council over the next few years. Another is the worsening of the Hong Kong economy. The third is increased competition for funding; our money is after all limited and we have lots of applicants. Fourth, our council changes every three years. Many of our members are democratically elected, and each new council will have different tendencies in terms of policy and funding. Another problem is that of real estate in Hong Kong. Finding a place that is conveniently accessible in terms of transportation, that has a lot of passers-by, and that has rent that artists can afford is very, very difficult. I have organized this kind of space myself, first on an island, then in a factory, then finally in an amazing spot in the city with very good rent. It was a morgue, and we were quite happy to have found it. But because there are still a lot of very suspicious people in Hong Kong, many of our viewers weren't so happy. For this reason we found some Daoist priests to perform some rites, a gesture we made in name in order to appease everyone, to make them feel safer. We also have a logo, which looks something like the logo of the People's Republic. This logo has given rise to some murderous looks. The viewers were able to let go of their misgivings, and come in to partake of some of our activities. But after a year, this place was revoked by the government, who gave it to Li Ka-hsing, the richest man in Hong Kong, to build a mall, so of course they wanted us to move. In a year, this area had turned itself into a makeshift arts village, so we decided to try and fight, to negotiate with the government, saying that we wouldn't move unless they gave us space elsewhere. Through many negotiations, through the noise the media helped us to make, the government finally agreed to give us space long-term to make into an artists' village, to make up for the place they were going to tear down. And so we were forced to move into a former pig slaughterhouse, where-after a year of renovation by the government-we were able to establish a so-called arts village. Immediately a new problem arose: the government had spent millions of dollars renovating this place, so they wanted to manage the physical plant. As soon as we allowed them a chance to inspect, there were problems. First, they wouldn't let us hang a signboard. They wouldn't let us post any sort of posters or announcements on the exterior of the building. Every guest had to register upon arrival. Many of the large squares inside we weren't allowed to use; we could only use our own rooms. People started saying that it was more like an "arts prison" than an "arts village." And so some of the spaces which we have now began to arise; people weren't satisfied with this arrangement. But the problem was that management was the responsibility of the Department of Industry, according to the management statutes of Hong Kong. We realized that the only way to solve the problem was to change the supervisory organ, and since the space has been under the management of the Department of Culture, many of the problems have been solved.

Lu Jie:
There is a very subtle point here. They are dependent upon government money and support, and because of this dependence and support, he is an agent for change. I think this has led to some questions we need to consider about whether independent spaces and alternative spaces need to have a kind of consistency. This is a topic that has been under debate internationally.

Wong Shun-Kit:
I feel that governmental support can only be an impulse, a catalyst, and after this catalysis, independent spaces should have an overall adjustment of their funding sources. Only in this way can we assure that these spaces continue in the long term.

Gu Zhenqing:
Moving along, I'd like to ask Mr. Fram Kitagawa of Japan to speak about his space and the operational style behind his triennial.

Lu Jie:
Mr. Kitagawa is the founder and chairman of the Echigo-Tsumari Triennial in Japan. This is a very special exhibition, a public triennial that takes place in a remote location, far from a metropolitan locale. The first triennial included artists who are relatively distinguished worldwide and everything from creating the exhibition, to choosing the artists, to curating the exhibition, to managing it- all are the work of this man. This is very significant.

Fram Kitagawa:

When I was a high school student, I read Red Star over China by Edgar Snow with great excitement. Those memories came back to me as I heard the presentation on the Long March project two nights ago, hearing names of places like Ruijin and Jingganshan. What moved me most about the Long March was the story of Zhu De. He, who starts out as an opium addict, manages to quit in order to join the march. He was someone I could relate to the most as I was quite a hooligan myself. I would first like to talk briefly about Echigo-Tsumari Triennial. Six towns comprise the area of Echigo-Tsumari with a combined population of 60,000. Those towns were clearly going downhill when we first came in contact. There were two reasons for this. First, more and more people in the countryside, especially the young ones, had moved to big cities in the process of modernization. Secondly, agriculture had been abandoned in Japan as reflected in its low agricultural self-sufficiency rate of 40%. The situation of in Echigo-Tsumari was a result of political
policies implemented by the Japanese government, which were simultaneously a consequence of the relationship Japan established with the United States after WWII. In the Triennial we invite more than 140 artists from both within Japan and abroad to come and to make a discovery on a site. Its significance lies in discovering the innate power hidden in the site and then working together with the locals to create art on that very site. The reason why we invite many artists from abroad is because these artists can see the site in relation to their own hometown and also put it in perspective with the rest of the world. Artists have the power to discover memories from the past and to retrieve the unheard voices of the minority, and that is what we ask the artists to do. Echigo-Tsumari being one of the most deserted and conservative areas in Japan, nobody supported the proposal of making art on their own property in the beginning. Thus, the artists had to convince the locals of what they had discovered about the site. It was a constant process of confrontation, conflict, and negotiation, which ultimately led to mutual understanding. Out of the 100 local congressmen representing these six
villages, not a single one supported the Triennial in the year 2000 when we first started. But today, close to half of the 200 villages comprising those six towns have offered to work together in the next Triennial. This reflects how much the locals enjoyed the process of clash and collaboration last time.

I would now like to discuss the situation of art in Japan. Out of Japan's population of 120 million, the number of people who read a contemporary art magazine only numbers 5,000. It is also said that the number of people who are involved in contemporary art only comprises 1% of the whole population. Music, physical education and art are all part of the public school curriculum in Japan. While music and sports continue to be practiced even after graduation, art falls off from such a group. And while people respond to music and sports with "I like or dislike," when art is under discussion, the question is always whether "I get it" or "I do not get it." Art remains in a weak position, and a wide distance lies between it and the public. Under such circumstances, the only formidable approach to promoting art seemed to be through engagement with the local and the site. The 20th century was the age of the city. The ideal was to create a universal space connecting all cities of the world from New York, to Johannesburg, to Tokyo. Telecommunication has taken part in this process as well, creating a universal space on the realm of information. This move towards global unification has now reached not only information, but also world's financial market and into the everyday life of a citizen. However, as we hit the new century, various voices have begun to be raised against it. In another words, people have started acting against American standard becoming the international standard. There emerged a move towards re-evaluating the importance of local and its historical space. We can trace this back to the artists-initiated projects which placed emphasis on sites, such as the one involving local public in Munster from 1977 and the city renewal projects in England. What lied at the core of modernization was its faith in the city. However, cities have become aged and disoriented, as seen in the growing number of environmental issues. Thus, people have begun to rethink the importance of a particular site and locality. I would now like to introduce an interesting project in France which touches upon the theme of today's discussion on curators. The French Foundation has been carrying out a program called the mediator program in which they send out a mediator to a community who has submitted a request for help in rejuvenating their town. The mediator does not simply take in the requests of the locals and keep a certain degree of independence in making decisions. After the mediator invites artists from abroad, the mediator works together with the artists and the locals, as a link between the artists and the local public. The people who get appointed as mediators are museum workers, independent curators, and architects in some cases. While the pressure of global capitalist market and the wave of globalization continue to grow, there still exists a universal artistic expression, and how we link this with the local and the regional will continue to be an important issue for us. I perceive the Long March project as an extremely important undertaking in light of all this.

Lu Jie:
Next we'd like to hear from Li Taihuan.

Li Taihuan:
First I'd like to say a brief word about the situation at the China International Exhibition Agency; perhaps some artists aren't too clear. CIEA is the highest government organ with jurisdiction over Chinese art. In the past, its exhibitions have all centered around our nation's so-called mainstream art, and contemporary art has been a total blank. In the past, CIEA has also participated in things like the Venice Biennale, but because they don't understand this concept, the exhibitions they prepare have been laughable. I don't think this is solely the responsibility of the leaders of CIEA, who are very high-ranking. It's also the people my age, forty- and fifty-some years old, their life experiences, educational backgrounds, and the changes in their thought are not so different from those of society at large. So they know that if they want to continue planning exhibitions for CIEA, they need to adapt to the preconditions of the international circle. But CIEA has discovered that it has no way to connect to the international sphere; that if you take Chinese "mainstream" art abroad, there is no way to create a dialogue. So they came upon a new consciousness, and the current situation has currently come about. I think the reasons for this current consciousness, as well as the reasons for its earlier absence are just as we talked about in yesterday's meeting. The changes of thought in China are gradual and subtle as the structure loosens. I am originally a painter, I have a feeling of space, I try my hardest to find some peripheral things, and so now I'm making very few works. CIEA is very interesting. In that job, my role is to introduce the concept of avant-garde art to people there, but I still don't think it's possible to make people there truly understand or appreciate this art. I hope that as a consultant for CIEA, I can help to re-define what art means to that organization, because I think that would be very meaningful to artists in China. Right now the goal is to gradually expand this field, so that in the future CIEA will actively seek out large exhibitions like the Sao Paolo and Venice Biennials, will take a more active and less passive role. Every time Chinese contemporary art meets with an international audience, CIEA will have a different impression. Even if CIEA doesn't have the ability to put together this sort of exhibition, they need to have someone like me, to act as an inside line, and with the participation of many CIEA personnel, it can find the most able curators, people like Pi Li and Fan Di'an. To speak from the heart, I believe that every curator has their own prejudices, but the CIEA shouldn't have any prejudices. If you require that every curator have no prejudices toward art, this could become rather troubling. Every time China participates in an international exhibition, it goes through the Foreign Connection Department of the Ministry of Culture. When the Foreign Connection Department is arranging an exhibition, it goes through the Department of Art of the Ministry of Culture to take care of the required tasks, and so another layer of questions may present itself. CIEA may have good intentions, but going through such an intricate series of approval proceedings, problems are bound to arise. I should say, when it comes to avant-garde art, the struggles at the upper levels are comparatively many; there will inevitably be a great deal of troublesome tasks. But there is still participation; the door is already open. My feeling is that in terms of the works themselves, there are still a great number of requirements. I want to tell young artists, structure is this sort of a thing. After my time at CIEA, I still have a number of plans, so I hope that before we go our separate ways, I can get in touch with a number of artists. To put it simply, I have many different feelings about this meeting, and I'm sure that I will continue to discuss what we've talked about with my own friends. I imagine that many other people also feel this need to continue the discussion.

Lu Jie:
My feeling is that if CIEA is unable to take care of the Venice Biennial, this isn't the fault of CIEA, but rather the nature of the times. My personal feeling is that the things it exhibits are not problematic, but the proper way to exhibit them has changed; at that time China was completely isolated from the rest of the world. I believe that if the curators seated here today went to exhibit these things, they could create an interesting dialogue. I believe this topic has a particular meaning. Yesterday we talked about the power of the curator, today we're talking about sharing resources. Actually there is not a single thing with absolute value; value is inseparable from use in a particular context. Next I'd like to ask Wang Gongxin to speak. There is now a new brand on the market: "Long March Lecture Series." I'd like to thank Wang Gongxin, who has already hosted two of these lectures at The Loft in Beijing. The first was German artist living in New York Ingo Gunther, the second was American feminist art Judy Chicago. Thanks to him!

Wang Gongxin:
Speaking of The Loft, I think my personal experience shares something with Ye Yongqing's. I am first of all an artist, running this space at the same time. Perhaps most people are familiar with The Loft, perhaps they go there often. I just want to speak for a moment, first about the reasons for building this space. It may look like a very chance meeting, or perhaps like something that has to do with my personal experiences and those of my wife Lin Tianmiao. We spent seven years abroad and decided that there was room to develop this kind of space in China. Beijing is the capital, a political and cultural center. But in 1994 and 1995, spaces where one could exhibit contemporary art barely existed. At that time, when I held my Open Studio exhibition, I had no idea that so many artists would come to see, and I discovered that these artists had no place to call their own. Many works were realized abroad and never exhibited in China. This looked like a good thing in the beginning; it gave us that opportunity to go abroad. But little by little I realized it was becoming a serious problem, especially where young artists who had just started working were concerned. There was a sort of illusion, an understanding. They thought the point of doing works let foreigners see, to get their big break, to be selected for an international exhibition. Many of their works seemed to "choose the easy way out." I had a hope that I could exert energy and put together a place like The Loft, because I especially wanted to create a place in China where artists could exchange ideas, and maybe in this way make people begin to accept contemporary art. If artists could have an opportunity to realize works, then everybody would have an opportunity to exchange ideas. So I think that if there were not this sort of physical place, that would be very bad. At that time, many artists were doubling as curators; this is a very abnormal state of affairs. When I was imagining the space, my thoughts were very innocent. Looking back on it, in certain places I may have been too idealistic or romantic. In New York, I discovered that alternative spaces were the most happening places to develop and discover rising artistic stars. I didn't want artists to have to think commercially, but just to give young artists a place to exchange, a place to have exhibitions. My wife's younger brother was able to find us a piece of land, and the location is fantastic-right in the center of town. My wife and I designed and decorated the place, spending a lot of energy. We said to her brother, we don't want to be remunerated, we just want to have a trade: you give us a piece of land, we create an art space. So a chance opportunity turned into reality. Luckily, the place is still able to continue in relative stability. We don't pay a cent of rent, and my wife's brother even insisted on helping us to buy some of the equipment, which allows us to operate normally. He also helped us hire a secretary, which could be another reason for our relative stability. Although this place is quite different from what I had originally imagined, I can't complain. Lin Tianmiao's younger sister has more than ten years of gallery experience in Beijing, she has connections in the art world, and now it is basically she who runs the operations of the gallery there. I am just an "artistic director," I help her find the right general direction. When the space just opened, I would invite people to hold very serious meetings there, on topics like "how do we continue to operate." I see now that this was all very idealistic. But through this experience, I've discovered that there are some problems which arise in the course of planning an exhibition. The first of these is money. If you want to do a high-quality exhibition, there is always the question of budget. Another question is that of venue. Our space is not ideal for long-term display. But we can nonetheless make it very active, displaying many different works for relatively short periods of time, and holding meetings or conferences. This place has been around for nearly two years, and it has already hosted over 80 events. What I was just saying about being able to "go on in stability," I was talking not only about the economy-which hopefully won't have many bigger pressures-but about the fact that Beijing is a very sensitive place. There have been spaces similar to The Loft before, but they've all encountered problems. We discovered that to put an art space under the rubric of a restaurant/bar is rather safe; the government's attitude toward this is relatively relaxed, they think it's a sort of entertainment. That is one factor. The other is that the activities are somewhat concealed. Also, when we were picking a name for the place, we were not incredibly idealistic or ambitious, and decided to call it a "new media art space." I don't like to imagine what might have happened by now if we had decided to call it an "experimental art space," because that may well have been too sensitive. So when the space opened, the first thing we did was hold a meeting and discuss very seriously the meaning of "new media." One could define it narrowly or broadly, and I prefer to define it broadly.

Lu Jie:
Between the lines, everyone seems to be talking about idealism and romanticism, and when we bring up these words, we always laugh to ourselves. But actually this isn't a simple thing. Any independent space grows out of a kind of idealistic and romantic sentiment; I think it must be that way in any society. Wang Gongxin's speech leaves me with the impression that there is a lot of meaning in both the place from which he started and in the existence of the space today. It seems that he wanted to get away from what Guan Yuda was saying yesterday about "assigning topics" for art. Every time someone goes to Wang Gongxin looking to use The Loft, he'll say, "do whatever you want to do." He's just like Ye Yongqing. But to get to the point where he can say this, he's already done a massive amount of work in your favor. So the advantage of a space like this is that everyone is creating for themselves, not creating because they were assigned a topic. Another point: he still has a very obvious tendency. Even though Wang Gongxin has held debates trying to deconstruct the meaning of "new media," the fact remains that this phrase is one of the coolest theories of art right now in China, and I wouldn't have thought he would need to find an explanation. Still, "new media" still has special characteristics. The lectures he hosts become a platform for exchange between artists in China and abroad, artists working in different styles and media. This is one very meaningful thing about The Loft. Speaking of our topic for this afternoon, our thought was that in the process of talking about independent spaces and alternative spaces, we would also talk repeatedly about independent curating and the sharing of resources. But in actuality, all of the speeches this afternoon have been from the perspective of the independent spaces. I actually don't think that there is a specific definition of what is a "space," but rather that it is whatever we're accustomed to. The way I see it, from the artistic perspective, space can't be replaced, but it can be chosen. If we say "spaces that can be chosen," that's a bit long, and "alternative spaces" sounds too self-consciously hip, so we say "substitute spaces." As we continue to discuss, I hope everyone can return to the idea of "spaces that can be chosen." Next I'd like to invite Jiang Yue of the Guangdong Museum of Art to introduce the significant work of that museum over the last several years.

Jiang Yue:
I'll briefly introduce the situation at our museum as it pertains to the topics of this conference. I think exhibition spaces for artists are very important. For many different reasons, these spaces have been limited in recent years; they have all been spaces that do not attract the attention of officials. In the last few years, owing to the loosening of some policies and adjustments within some of the government agencies, official museums have also begun to take notice of contemporary art. Guangdong Museum of Art was established very recently; it has been around for only five years, since 1997. Yesterday we talked about this, about how if the director of a museum has an interest in contemporary art, he might be able to support it. There are many state-run art museums in China, but only two of them do contemporary art: Shanghai Museum of Art and Guangdong Museum of Art. Our museum was founded in 1997, and before we got into contemporary art in 2000, the exhibitions we had held were Entering the Metropolis, Twenty Years of Experimental Chinese Ink and Wash Painting, New Metropolitanism, and Fake Future. These few exhibitions had a definite impact on society. And in November of this year, we will hold the first Guangzhou Triennial. This exhibition began preparations in 2000. The curator is Wu Hung from the University of Chicago, and the associate curators are Wang Huasheng, Huang Zhuan, and Feng Boyi. The goal of the Triennial is to do a re-reading of the developments of Chinese art during the past decade, to look back on what happened between the years of 1990 and 2000. There are three main themes, which I'd like to introduce with very little detail. The first is Memory and Reality, the second is Individual and Environment, and the third is Local and Global. We've also added a fourth theme, Continuing the Experiment. The first three themes are a summary, filtration, and retrospection on the past decade; the fourth involves several artists we have chosen to create some new works. The exhibition will fill all 13 exhibition rooms in our museum, as well as the outdoor courtyard, which will play home to some installations in the Continuing the Experiment section. In addition to this exhibition, we are also arranging an international curatorial conference, which has gained the support of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council, and which will be held partially in Hong Kong. The theme for the conference is Place and Pattern: Thinking and Creation in Contemporary Art Exhibitions. In this forum we have invited famous curators from China and abroad, as well as directors of top museums in China and abroad. In this way Guangzhou is going to become a very happening and ceremonious place come November. For this exhibition we are going to publish two catalogues, one in Chinese, the other in English. Feng Boyi is the man in charge of editing and producing these books. Contemporary art in China has just gotten very hot. Our museum director just went to Kassell a few days ago, where he met with some very important curators and shared some experiences with them, and introduced the situation of our Triennial to them. Our director is planning to hold a major exhbition of contemporary art every year. The Triennial is seasonal, but we also hope that the curators and artists gathered here will continue to be in contact with us. Our hardware and facilities are very good. In terms of capital, we may not be as strong as Shanghai, our government-allotted budget is around $1 million annually, which is barely enough to keep the water and electricity on and pay our employees. If we want to hold an exhibition, we need external support. But in terms of our work preferences, we tend toward contemporary art, because it is our strength. In this respect we have a great deal of contact with the Shanghai museum. In short, the Guangdong Museum of Art is willing to become a display space for contemporary artists, is willing to become a place for the curators gathered here to work, is willing to join hands and work with everyone today and afterwards, in order to help Chinese contemporary art move forward.

Gu Zhenqing:
The Guangdong Museum of Art has also made its main exhibition space into a training ground for China's youngest curators. Next, I think we can see, regardless of whether it's a mainstream space or an alternative space, there is always the question of how to expand resources, for example the Guangdong Museum of Art working with the Hong Kong Arts Development Council is actually a way of expanding and integrating resources. At today's meeting, we not only want to debate the meaning of integrating resources, but also to suggest a direction for that sort of integration. For example, today Jiang Yue has made a call to us, and perhaps in 2003 there will be an exhibition of contemporary art at the Guangdong Museum of Art that is curated by one of the people sitting in this room.

Lu Jie:
Last night I was talking with Johnson Chang, and I heard some very exciting news. At the Asia Art Archive, the resources which have been gathered are there for everyone to share. I think that this is a very good example. If anyone still has opinions or points to make, please contribute.

Chen Mo:
I hear everyone giving all these examples of alternative spaces, and I think, we can look at today's topic of alternative spaces from another perspective, which is the openness or public nature of contemporary art. If we think of space solely as a place where an artist can hold an exhibition, perhaps our definition is too narrow. The expansion of spaces has two sides, one is that the roles of artists, curators, and critics have already undergone significant changes. The second is that before 1989, the boundaries between these fields were rigidly drawn, and today it seems that have nearly disappeared. I am aware of several very important exhibition formats to come about in the years since 1989, which should also be in the scope of our discussion. In the event that exhibition space is hard to come by, you have exhibitions like the small ones that Chen Tong talked about holding at his bookstore, whose real value is textual and documentary. There are many artists who independently hold exhibitions in their own studios. And then there are exhibitions like Gu Zhenqing's Man and Animal exhibition, which also used a fluid style. There are exhibitions like the ones curated by Guangxi artist Huang Shaopeng. So I want to explain that in utilizing space resources, we can't just understand them as an environment for an exhibition. I think that the idea of "alternative space" is a mixed-up, chaotic notion. If we want to talk about questions of art and accessibility to the public, I think we should use the term "public space" instead of "alternative space," because just as Lu Jie said, space is something to which there is no alternative. I understand that this Long March is mainly happening through a network, not through one or another particular spaces or exhibitions.

Lu Jie:
I agree totally with you. Actually we could say that Wu Hong and Jiang Yuanlun, along with several other media people who have come here today, are a kind of "space."

Feng Boyi:
I just heard Ye Yongqing speak, and it made me think of many years ago when Xu Bing came to visit, and he spoke of his so-called experimental art. He thought his own works were not as influential as those of Chen Yifei and others. I haven't been to Ye Yongqing's space, but hearing his introduction and description, I have an urge to go and see it for myself. I think it is not simply an exhibition space, but an integrated multi-purpose space. It provides a new lifestyle, a new kind of taste, and this is very useful. Perhaps many intellectuals in Kunming know about this place, and regular people might think it is a place to see some new and interesting stuff. Ye Yongqing, I think this is even more useful than when you do experimental painting. This approach is not limited only to an exhibition, but also includes things like The Long March, which came through your space just a few days ago. I was terribly moved by Xiao Xiong's work which we just saw. He quietly kept on going (traveling the route of the Long March in reverse), without making a scene. It makes me think of the early 1990s, when there was a group of artists assembled in Beijing, working painstakingly, not at all sure in which direction their art was going to develop. Their attitude then was quite similar to the feeling I had just a moment ago, a sort of piety and passion about art. I think the most special thing about the Long March is that its spirit has attracted a great many people, and particularly many young people. So I think that in this exhibition, the works themselves are already not the most important thing, but rather that the kind of wake-up call the Long March brings to people's hearts, perhaps that is the most important.

Qiu Zhijie:
This has to do with the spirit of the artists. That day I was talking with Pan Dehai at The Loft about whether if we say that the Yuanmingyuan artists' community was "undergraduate," if today's Tongzhou community is "graduate student level." These attitudes have a huge difference. The goal of the artists who went to Yuanmingyuan was precisely to leave Yuanmingyuan as soon as they became famous. But the artists who came to The Loft that day, some of them are prepared to stay here for a lifetime. The Loft is a successful space, because it is not just an exhibition hall, not just a place to consume art, but a place to produce art. I think that something like Yuanmingyuan didn't have a way to go on, that as soon as something like The Loft came about, it immediately began to play a larger and more important role. The majority of official museums and commercial galleries are dismissive of contemporary art. And so artists adjust themselves, first gaining a strong consciousness of how things work, and then hoping to enter the mainstream. One change that happened in the 90s is that artists began to think more about the meaning of art in their everyday lives. As Wang Gongxin just said, he held an open studio exhibition in his own home. Then there is the phenomenon that the ranks of those who work in contemporary art are swelling, creating a half-underground, half-public circle. Actually, I believe that the mass appeal of a place like The Loft is still very limited, it is still a place for self-consumption by the art circle, and it is very obvious that those who come to The Loft are already part of the art scene. For this reason I think that the "alternative space" we have been talking about can already be divided into many different levels. There are places like The Loft, stable places which are often used by independent curators. But there are also temporary venues, and actually, the most important exhibitions of the late 90s took place in these sorts of spaces. Now we are using these temporary venues less and less, and we are more prone to gather in stable places like The Loft. I think this bespeaks a change in our attitudes, and that this diligent drive to build a connection with the society in which we exist is something that should happen.

Ye Yongqing:
Actually the space in Kunming is separated into many units for purposes of operation, and each person's ideas and understanding of the value of different things is not quite the same. Generally speaking, it should be richer and more complex. I feel that the place is rather appropriate for an inland city like Kunming. If we did something very specialized in Kunming, it would definitely have problems supporting itself, so this is also decided by the concrete situation. Because of these interactions among many different kinds of people, the space is constantly giving rise to conflicts with its locality. However, it certainly is able to attract a number of people. I have always thought of it as a scene, a place where things can happen.

Lu Jie:
No matter what country, society, or culture, these so-called alternative spaces are constantly changing.

Wu Hong:
I believe that art and commerce can influence each other, and that in this process, if the influence is good, it may help both parties. But we need to be careful in this process that art doesn't become merely a fashionable product, that it doesn't lose its experimental quality. There is another question, and that is the entry of government into contemporary art. I think that in any country, when the government gets involved in contemporary art, it will bring with it very strict limits. As soon as conflicts arise between a work and these limits, art may begin to go in a different direction. I think the example of the incident with Huang Yongping's sculpture last year is a very good example. So we need to be careful that when the government gets involved in contemporary art, it may turn art into something that looks experimental only in form, but in actuality raises no questions.

Wang Gongxin:
I think that regardless of the situation, artists have a yardstick of their own, a yardstick that allows them to determine who is a good artist.

Gu Zhenqing:
On this topic, we still have someone yet to speak who can share valuable experience. Chen Tong runs a bookstore in Guangzhou. The Borges Bookstore has become a meeting place for people involved in art and literature, as well as a venue for exhibitions. On the question of "integrating resources," Chen Tong has relatively rich experience.

Chen Tong:
When we started the bookstore we didn't have any money. We didn't have many books, and we certainly didn't sell paintings. My real interest then was in publishing, and in understanding literature and movies. I thought that running a bookstore would be conducive to these goals, so in 1993 I began to cooperate with some other people to open a bookstore, first on a temporary basis. Some conflicts arose a few months later, and the cooperation ended. Borges opened formally in 1994, and has been running now for over eight years. Through 1997 business was very good, and at this time we began to organize activities, exhibitions, and lectures. I am after all an artist and a teacher of art at an art academy, not an ideal store manager. In these circumstances, planning activities was the only outlet for my creativity. Speaking globally, there are a number of bookstores that also organize activities. In the very beginning, my store was on the campus of the art academy, the rent was quite cheap, and there was not even a contract. The situation grew sensitive, perhaps because of some of the paintings we were selling, but perhaps also because of the sources of our books. Many of our goods were Taiwanese, purchased in Hong Kong, for example books by Foucault and Derrida which at that time, Sanlian had yet to publish on the mainland. This attracted a great deal of attention, especially from the media, and even from abroad. I was then most interested in promoting french literature and theory, so there were often people from the French consulate and other diplomatic operations coming through. In this way the store became a base, and many people came to believe that we had lots of things going on. Around the time of the Hong Kong reversion, people from the News and Publishing Bureau came and told me that I could no longer sell books without ISBNs, but this did not scare me. Then about a month before the reversion, I ran into the assistant director of our college, and he said that if he saw my bookstore open the following day, he would be very upset. I thought he was quite rude, that he didn't know how to deal with people, so my response was to immediately move the store. Once we moved, the situation immediately changed because our costs went up. We moved to the eighteenth floor of a building, becoming what must have been the world's highest bookstore. Immediately the safety department, the college, and the publishing department all came to make trouble, taking away RMB 30,000 worth of books for inspection. They inspected for four months, finding out that I was indeed just someone interested in art. Then they stopped searching me. We realized that having moved the space to the 18th floor, it was not going to be possible to attract people's attention, so we quickly moved down again, to a relatively expensive building. In this location we did seven or eight exhibitions. You could say we successfully promoted the work of Yang Yong and Cao Fei-Cao Fei's first work was displayed in our store. We also held some documentary exhibitions, including one of the diary of Hu Yichuan. I thought this was a relatively "red" exhibition, so I gave announcements to the leaders of our college. Not one of them showed. Perhaps they thought they couldn't come to a place like that. Even though they pay my salary and arrange my course roster, they still couldn't come. Maybe this is because I have never been willing to play the guanxi game with them. If I did, maybe the situation would be better. After operating there for a nine months, the costs rose once again. I lost tens of thousands of RMB, so I had no choice but to move on. Altogether we have moved seven times, but never more than a few hundred meters away from the gate of the college. Why do we have this concern? In this space we find an echelon of artists not far from professional success. This is a population with potential to develop, quite unlike the broad masses. It is like I said yesterday, my degree of dissatisfaction with the leaders of China's arts education system varies. Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts is a very old school, and indeed a very powerful school, especially in terms of fundamental pedagogy. But it has nothing to contribute to contemporary art; it never gets more radical than the pretty paintings of some modernist masters. They are absolutely opposed to avant-garde art. But art academy students still have this potential. Throughout its history, my bookstore has encouraged students' desires to work in contemporary art; this includes writing and filmmaking. They need something like my store. If I didn't do this, they would be drawn into the commercial society or confined by the education of the academy. I am driven by this responsibility; I feel I should be doing what I am doing. This touches back on what we have been saying about problems of exhibition space. And that in turn stems from the fact that there are not enough resources in Guangzhou. Contemporary artists in Guangzhou are poor; the rich artists are the ones who do Chinese painting. I know these people, but only as acquaintances. I'm not interested in sitting down to eat and drink with them. When I meet with friends we always go Dutch, we always go to the cheapest restaurants. I have discovered a problem in all the exhibitions I have held. (Because the venue is small, these exhibitions generally last for just two weeks at a time). When one holds an exhibition in a bookstore, people think it is an appendix to the bookstore, a way to get people to buy books. I don't mean it to be this way. The first time I let someone know about an exhibition, they are very happy. But the second time, it is like a kind of punishment. I am not able to use "modern" methods to spread the word; I can only call people on the phone and mail invitations. When I call people, I feel like I am burdening them, like they think I am calling them to come and buy books, and they think this is annoying. This is a problem of resources. In the same way, if I want to invite artists from beyond Guangzhou, there is the problem of expenses. Another problem is that people seem to think that Guangzhou's economy is fully developed. In fact, it did develop relatively early, and there are a great number of people there with money, but getting support for the arts in Guangzhou is nonetheless impossibly difficult. The entire budget for the Guangzhou Triennial is RMB 7 million. A friend of mine got Philips to invest 20 million French Francs in a less-than-ambitious film of his. These are not comparable. In addition to my role as an artist, I am also active in literary circles. Literature is a very low-cost activity, but the returns it can reap are correspondingly very low. No one would invest in literature. Accordingly, running this sort of alternative space in Guangzhou one faces several serious problems. But we are confident nonetheless. Recently I rearranged the space. I want the bookstore to keep on going, but how that will happen, I can't say at the moment. I need to discuss things with more friends. Listening to Ye Yongqing and Wang Gongxin at this meeting, I feel quite excited already. I know their conditions are not like mine-that didn't sound so great-Wang Gongxin is a rich man, Ye Yongqing is a hero. But my operating conditions are not fixed, and my power to support things is quite lacking. And needless to say, none of my friends has any money. But the situation in the arts in Guangzhou is quite interesting, and sometimes we are able to do some quite unconventional things. Still I remain skeptical of how many more things we can do in such a limited atmosphere. Every time I go out, friends in the arts and literary circles ask me if I will keep running that bookstore. This is tough to answer. Judging from the looks in everyone's eyes, of course I want to keep going. But the risk belongs to me, and not to everyone.

Lu Jie:
Thank you so much, Chen Tong. Speaking of costs, Ye Yongqing and Wang Gongxin's experiences are very precious. Only in a world without the pressures of costs can the sort of romanticism and idealism of which they spoke continue to exist. But I want to point out that there is actually something everyone in this room has that is very valuable-knowledge capital. If we could integrate resources well, then this knowledge could become a sort of infinite capital. Now we'd like to invite Wu Meichun to speak from her personal experience, first of being an independent curator and now of where she fits into this consolidation of resources. I believe that the New Media Arts Center which she runs at my alma mater, the China Academy of Fine Arts, is a new kind of possible space within the very conservative framework of that school. So I would like to ask her to speak from these two perspectives.

Wu Meichun:
Every exhibition I have been involved with is unique; it is quite hard to use one experience to sum up my entire experience as a curator. The school chose to do new media because in the process of expanding, it wants to use this pedagogy to interact with countries abroad, and they chose me because I had some knowledge of new media from its earliest beginnings in China. As far as I am concerned, "new media" is just a way into the academy; it allows me to maintain a new media space within the academy. How this space will be operated, this is going to be a process of compromise and struggle. Listening just now to Wu Hong's concerns about selling out, I believe that selling out is not a question of form. If one's heart has sold out, that is of course a treacherous thing. In the academy, you have very clear-cut ideas about how to do a particular thing, and once you do it, it is visible for all, and at that point no one will care whether you are in the academy or an independent curator. So I have nothing else to say, save that I hope everyone will pay attention to what I do in the future.

Lu Jie:
We were talking after last night's meeting, first about curating exhibitions, and then we returned to everyone's experience of the market. We said that in curating and operating spaces, it doesn't matter whether one's contribution is to the theoretical discourse or to the progress of art itself. In the end, we kept returning to the question of our artistic educations. I think what Wu Meichun is doing, to enter the academy, to use it as a starting point, to bring in many of the things which have been outside the system until now, to build a base of support, to consolidate resources there, to plan some novel activities and expand the scope of scholarship-I think this is extraordinarily meaningful. Because of time concerns, today's meeting must end here. Thanks to every participant. We can say with confidence that this is China's first international curatorial conference. It has been very successful and I am quite satisfied. It has led to some very interesting topics, and to discourse based on these topics. I want to thank everyone for coming from so far away, and to those of you who came at your own expense. I especially want to thank Gu Zhenqing. He is an exceptionally busy curator in his own right, but he was able to find time to direct our conference, to make this conference happen. I would also like to say that the space we chose for today is itself particularly meaningful. Across the street is a Catholic church, but it has been Disneyfied-this is a special kind of space in China. Near the entrance there is an infant haircut studio, full of advertisements bearing pictures of foreign babies. This is the kind of space we as curators are particularly sensitive to. Next door is an old Red Army bank, a fundamental protector of resources during the historical Long March. Surely everyone understands our motives for choosing to hold this roundtable meeting across from these two landmarks in Zunyi. I'd like to thank the person who lent this space to us, the director of this school. She has allowed us to use this space without restrictions, and we have in turn filled it with our discourse. We are extremely grateful!

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