2002
Zunyi International Symposium: Curating in the Chinese Context
Session
I: Curating in the Chinese Context
Gu
Zhenqing: The theme for our conference is "Curating
in the Chinese Context." I'd like to introduce the
format for today's meeting. Each of our three meetings
will have a separate theme, and the theme of this morning's
meeting, like the theme of the conference, is "Curating
in the Chinese Context." The chair is Mr. Zheng Shengtian,
and the discussants are Zhang Qing and Johnson Chang.
Zheng
Shengtian: I've just heard my introduction by Gu Zhenqing.
I would like to add that I am also a trustee of the Long
March Foundation, the organizer of the Long March project
and this symposium. In this capacity, I'd like to warmly
welcome everyone to today's symposium. The work I've been
involved in recently is not about the Long March, but
about something that happened simultaneously with the
Long March: modernism in Shanghai in the 1930s. The reason
why I mention this is because one of the things we've
discovered is the importance of communications and exchange
between China and the West. At the same time that all
of the things were happening in Shanghai in the 1930s,
the Long March were taking place here, in the southwest
of China. And the Long March was another kind of interaction,
another kind of exchange. Over the last few years there
have been many, many important events and exhibitions
in Chinese art. The two gentlemen sitting to my right
have been instrumentally involved in curating some of
the most important events, so I'd like to begin today's
dialogue by asking Mr. Johnson Chang to say a few words.
Johnson Chang: Thank you, Professor Zheng. I originally
wanted to speak on curating in the international arena
and its connection to the Long March, but there is some
distance between the "international context"
and the actual history of the Long March, so I will address
these topics separately. As far as our generation is concerned,
the historical Long March is both the establishment of
a new sovereignty and a creation myth for the current
system. The Long March was about how to promote a new
way of thinking, how find a new and appropriate response
to modernization, and about how to apply that response
to China. In terms of establishing a new order, the Long
March was extremely successful. Looking at Chinese contemporary
art from this perspective, this Long March is about taking
the readings which art has developed of contemporary society,
its integration of fantasies and dreams about this society,
and making some adjustments. What I find interesting about
this Long March is that it has abandoned the notion of
a fixed exhibition space in favor of building a formless
exhibition space that dwells in thought. When we curate
Chinese art in the international context today, one could
say we are taking some Chinese experiences, some Chinese
interpretations, and introducing them anew. Perhaps this
is not a simple process of introducing these things abroad,
since modernism in China is fundamentally a Western import.
And as China in the 1960s and 1970s was shut off from
the rest of the world, the situation today is in many
ways a return, a coming full circle. If there is any meaning
in this, it is that at last, China is returning to available
resources, and returning to the land. You could also say
that this exhibition is the beginning of a new Long March,
a Long March that is necessary not only to contemporary
China, but also to the West.
Zheng
Shengtian: Now we invite Mr. Zhang Qing from the Shanghai
Museum, the curator of the Shanghai Biennial, to speak.
Zhang
Qing: I'd like to begin my talk based on a specific experience,my
experience of curating the Shanghai Biennial on behalf
of the Shanghai Art Museum. As a public servant, I'd like
to say first and foremost that curating is about being
a servant. Whether you are someone from the Long March
in the early days, or you're an old survivor of the Long
March, or you're someone involved in today's art, we're
all servants of the revolution. For those of us participating
in today's Zunyi conference, I think in addition to this
being an opportunity for us to talk about the Chinese
revolutionary experience, it is also a time to stop, to
put an end to the importation of the Western philosophical
thought that is imported in the form of dogmatic tenets.
In the ideal world, we would be able to take Western philosophy
and tenets of international modernism, and combine them
with the unique local idioms of China. For me as a curator,
that's my goal. And in our practice, we can attain new
ways of explaining and creating understanding, and can
we develop a model for Chinese art. To borrow a phrase
from one of the world's greatest curators, Mao Zedong,
we should first "cast our eyes downward and not look
up to the sky." If you are unwilling to cast your
eyes downward and have not the strength, then you will
never understand the affairs of China. One thing that
I've learned is that I should understand the mechanics
of an independent area or fieldĄChina forces you to basically
put aside your experience, the experience of past curatorial
projects. It's important as servants, number one, that
we understand China's cultural policies, China's laws,
and that we curate in a way that is in line with the thought
and the special characteristics of China. One of the things
that I learned in curating the Shanghai Biennial was the
relationship between shipping companies, insurance, and
customs. In addition there was the issue of finance, and
as many of the cultural institutions in China do not have
foreign exchange accounts. To realize an international
exhibition in China, you must have some financial skills.
Perhaps, this is something that is taken for granted in
the West. For example, one of the sponsors was from Holland,
and they provided their funds in the form of a wire transfer
in Dutch currency. The Bank of China immediately changed
it into RMB, and we could do nothing because the French
shipping company wanted to be paid in Francs. So we learn
as we go. Another aspect of course is dealing with the
local government. In the Cai Guoqiang exhibition I participated
in earlier this year, the artist wanted to do a pyrotechnical
work in Pudong, but the municipal government will not
permit this kind of activity. So the problem was how to
resolve this issue, and the Shanghai TV station had an
opportunity to get Cai Guoqiang involved in the fireworks
display that was being planned for the APEC conference
in September 2001, and in this way we were able to resolve
that particular problem. It's also important to remember
that the artists are the true heroes, and we are mere
servants. If we don't remember this, we won't ever make
the grade as servants.
Johnson
Chang: We can't continue the dialogue in this way; it's
not the revolutionary manner! Zhang Qing and I have both
written short papers, but we shouldn't just sit here and
read them; we should talk about the issues. Actually the
question we care most about is what are the curator's
motives in organizing an activity. In other words, when
a curator plans something like this, who does he hope
will attend? What result is he looking for? Everyone says,
"curating is a kind of power." But what kind
of power, a power to do what? I'd like Zhang Qing to speak
for a minute about the Shanghai Biennial, about the differences
between the last one in 2000 and the upcoming one in November.
Who is the intended viewer of the Biennial? What kind
of results are we looking for from this exhibition?
Zhang
Qing: This is a very good question. Let me give you a
little background to the Biennial. The 1st Shanghai Biennial
was very much a China Biennial. The artists and the participants
were working in international forms, but it was very much
a Chinese Biennial. The 2nd Biennial was centered on ink,
and the 3rd Biennial was an actual biennial in that it
involved people from the international arena. At the time
when we began planning the third biennial, there were
a number of Chinese artists, curators, people involved
in the international art world, and working with them,
we had the means to undertake a truly international biennial.
I think one of the target audiences for this year's biennial
is going to be the students. The university students,
but also the Shanghai citizen. The theme of this year's
biennial is "Constructing a Metropolis" and
there will be an architectural design competition involving
university students of architecture. The third aspect
of Shanghai, something that is very much a part of life
for every Shanghainese, is the architecture of Shanghai,
so we plan to do an exhibition, "one hundred years
of architecture in Shanghai."
Johnson
Chang: I'm an outsider looking at the Shanghai Biennial.
Looking at the Long March project, it seems as if it's
aimed at expanding the space for exhibiting contemporary
art in China. And looking at the 3rd Shanghai Biennial,
it seems that the questions you asked were of a strategic
nature, i.e., how, in the scope allowed by politics, could
we gradually expand the space for contemporary art. This
brings us back to what Lu Jie and Qiu Zhijie are doing
now, which is very much an attempt to expand the space
in which we can view and understand and engage with Chinese
art. What are you doing in this regard?
Zhang
Qing: I think our purposes are the same. Based on what
I saw last night at the slide presentation, I have a great
respect for Lu Jie and Qiu Zhijie and what they have accomplished,
to engage people otherwise outside the international art
world. I think in that regard I share their purpose.Whether
one is working on a biennial in Shanghai, in Chengdu,
in Guangzhou, or like Lu Jie and Qiu Zhijie a biennial
in the villages, it all has meaning.
Johnson Chang: One of the characteristics of the 1990s
was a Chinese artist viewing the Western inner circle
as a Shangri-la, an ideal. A lot of Chinese felt like
the circle of intellectuals with cultural authority had
been off-limits to them before, and so the most pressing
question was how to break into that circle. It's not unlike
Western tourists going to Lijiang looking for Shangri-la.
The fact is when you go to Lijiang, you find a lot of
tourist trinkets and curios that are otherwise available
in Shanghai and are unremarkable. So another challenge
that obviously we face is to bring art inward into China.
What I find most interesting about exhibitions that have
recently taken place in China is that they're more organic;
they're less like the Guangzhou trade fair, where they
lay out goods for the rest of the world to come and see,
and say that this is China. They're more about asking
stimulating questions and interacting with the local public.
Many of the exhibitions were essentially designed to initiate
a dialogue in artistic circles, and many of the exhibitions
were made for people in the art world. I think the obvious
next step for exhibitions in China is to be able to engage
with people outside the art world. So my question to Zhang
Qing is, as a next step, is it conceivable that we go
as far as to abandon the exhibition itself, so that artists
may have events and do works and have activities for one
another that are not exclusive and that are accessible
to the public? Or to go out and actively engage with the
non-art public, and among them find things that are artistic,
things that can further the dialogue?
Zhang
Qing: I'd like to ask Johnson a question now. You have
curated the Hong Kong pavilion at the Venice Biennial;
given the form that you've just suggested, how would you
realize that in a place like Venice?
Johnson
Chang: Of course we have to continue the revolution. I
have to admit that I can be somewhat utilitarian in curating
exhibitions. In doing exhibitions I'm somewhat self-serving.
I look to myself, try to understand myself and what it
is I'm trying to accomplish. So again the
revolution must continue on that front. Getting back to
China and what we're trying to accomplish here, one of
the issues is the relationship with officialdom. And what's
really interesting to me about this project is that most
of the participants were actually graduated from China's
official art academies and institutes, and that they are
now engaging with a different face, as someone who is
outside officialdom, and there seems to be an interesting
dynamic that is coming out of this. What I mean to say
is that artists from the official academies have basically
created the expanding art circle in the last twenty years.
So if you step back and look at it, it is clear that in
alternative official art, as they say in Chinese opera,
you'll have those who sing the role of the white face,
who are the good guys, and those who sing the role of
the black face, the bad guys. As things evolve, the stages
for the black face and the white face are coming together,
and it's quite obvious that the government is taking a
far more active role in promoting Chinese contemporary
art abroad. So in a way, experimental art is converging
with official culture.
Zhang
Qing: My question to Johnson is if there is indeed a black
face and a white face, and if we are to wait for officials
to move forward in contemporary art, do we need to have
another Long March?
Johnson
Chang: Indeed I think that therein lays the true meaning
of this exhibition. Of course we need a new Long March!
The question of this new Long March is not only how do
we make ourselves rich, but after we get rich, what do
we do? The Long March is the process of China's modernization,
but after we've reached modernization, what next?
Zheng Shengtian: I would like to open the dialogue up
to everyone, but in particular to the many curators who
have come to be with us today. I think we should start
with the curators of the Long March, and ask them to respond
what these two men have just said.
Lu
Jie: My earlier hope was that everyone would have a chance
to talk, so I'll just answer quickly. I think the purpose
of the Long March project is really to understand, to
re-read, to re-interpret the relationship between modernity
and China. Only when we understand will we know in which
direction we need to go once the modernization process
is achieved.
Johnson
Chang: Modernity to me is really a change in one's view
of history. And so what I just said about getting rich
might sound a bit misleading. I don't understand modernization
as economic development; it's more holistic than that.
We cannot afford to not address modernity, but the question
remains, how should we do this?
Lu
Jie: The focus of this Long March project is to reconnect
the current practice with our collective consciousness,
and to contextualize the relationship between modernity
and China, and is there an alternative.
Qiu
Zhijie: I agree with what Lu Jie said, and of course bringing
the historical Long March into international art discourse
is one of the objectives of this particular project. It's
not an issue of political history, but about how modernity
fits into Chinese society. So the purpose of this whole
project is to examine whether, within this Chinese history
of modernization - which is the history of the Long March
- there might be any experience that is indigenous to
China which we can actually uncover, characteristics which
can be called Chinese. In fact the globalization process
for China began passively. And because it was passive,
it always ends up being examined by others as something
from outside. So that's why in the process of making exhibitions
during the last ten or fifteen years, it's always been
about how others look at us, how we are examined by foreign
institutions. This is also the source of a great deal
of conflict and complexity. This whole sense of not being
fairly treated is actually a huge influence on curating.
It is also mutual, because from the other side, the overseas
experts who pick the artists for display in international
shows also feel that they're doing their best to promote
the artists, and that we must feel a corresponding sense
of gratitude. Lu Jie and I both believe that in order
to change the situation, the problem is not with other
people but with us; not in trying to be understood by
other people but trying first to understand ourselves.
So the new Long March for us is actually an active search
on our own initiative to seek a modernity, which belongs
to us, to seek a modernity that we want. Our main concern
is what sort of new experiences we can provide for other
people, not what we can get from others. That's why we
have taken a very humble attitude by seeking out native,
indigenous artists and resources from the countryside
where one would not expect to find artists. This is a
response to Zhang Qing's question just now, after Chinese
contemporary art has been officially recognized, has been
taken within the official arm, whether we still need a
new Long March. This type of positive initiative in terms
of presenting our own culture, this not being passively
selected, was always a Chinese cultural attitude before
the Opium War. So for us it's about this dialectic between
the positive initiative and passive receptive attitude
toward modernity. I think this is a much deeper question
than the tension between the official and the unofficial,
the government and the underground. We see Zhang Qing's
work inside the system as another kind of Long March.
Zheng
Shengtian: I'd like to ask some of the Chinese curators
in the audience - people like Feng Boyi, Gu Zhenqing -
to respond to what the two discussants, and now the two
curators of the Long March, have said.
Feng
Boyi: As a curator, we do encounter a variety of problems
and issues with this official dialectic. But to me, this
is a technical, not a substantive, question. I agree very
much with what Johnson Chang just asked about who is our
audience. And I also agree with Zhang Qing's statement
that a curator is a servant. But it is also very important
that we take a peer relationship with the artists, in
line with what we're trying to achieve. Curators are after
all somewhat like artists in their own right: through
their understanding of artists' works, they seek to raise
a cultural critique, or stimulate artistic production,
in line with the particular aims and goals of their curatorial
concept. But more than that, curators are intermediaries.
I participated also in the satellite exhibition called
Fuck Off, which took place simultaneously with the Shanghai
Biennial in 2000. The Chinese translation of that title
was basically "to not cooperate," and as far
as I understand, the position of Chinese art from the
very beginning has been to not cooperate with officialdom.
That's how it was interpreted, but in fact what we were
trying to achieve was an uncooperative attitude with the
Western institutions of power, the Western sources of
art authority. Many of the exhibitions that had taken
place up until that time were underground exhibitions.
In the end it created a force where artists felt like
they had to respond to the needs of the Western curators
who came to pick artists for exhibitions abroad. In curating,
I think we're moving from being "uncooperative,"
to being more cooperative. I am working with University
of Chicago professor Wu Hung right now to curate the first
Guangzhou Triennial at the Guangdong Museum of Art in
November. I think the situation in Guangzhou is unique.
Here we have the opportunity to present a massive retrospective
of Chinese art in the 1990s, and to do it in a public
venue. It's an example of the kind of thing we might be
able to achieve in the future. There are possibilities;
it's not just black or white. There are many different
possibilities, many different things that can happen.
I personally work very much within the system, I work
for the Chinese Artists' Association, and over time I've
seen progress. Installation works are now an acceptable
approach to art in China. Performance art still hasn't
gotten to the level of acceptance yet. There are a lot
of works that involve violence that are still very much
unacceptable to officialdom. A piece of news: In Beijing,
next year, the Artists' Association is going to do an
international biennial, and the ministry of culture will
be involved. They approached me and said I have experience
in this regard, and would I participate. I said, when
the time comes I will certainly participate, because I
believe in the old Mao aphorism, "a spark can set
the whole prairie on fire."
Zheng
Shengtian: I'd like to hear from some of our international
curators. Your understanding of this "Chinese context"
may be quite different from our own. The situation of
Chinese art is changing; many artists are no longer intent
on going abroad to find support for their work, but emphasize
rather the domestic audience, be it official or non-official.
Wu Meichun: I had some feelings when I saw the presentation
last night of the pictures from the Long March up to this
point. It has only been since the Shanghai Biennial in
2000 that experimental art has truly started to develop
inside of China, and it has already reached a crucial
moment. What is crucial is that in the past, the intended
viewer of our experimental art was a foreigner, and only
rarely did these works have any influence on people in
China. I think more important than issues of official
versus unofficial discourse are the organic relationships
between the curator and artists, art institutions, galleries.
All are facing the question of how to bring art to viewers.
So after watching the presentation about the Long March
so far, I was very moved. I have curated a lot of exhibits
myself, and I think that this exhibition depends entirely
on the diligence of the curators. It is like a field experiment
to see how long they can continue. Most important about
the Long March is the behavior of its curators, which
will influence a great number of artists and others. But
after hearing Lu Jie and Qiu Zhijie speak, I am skeptical
of the influence that this exhibition will have on the
artists and their works. The works introduced in their
events still cling to the previous art system and exhibition
protocol. Perhaps these works were previously displayed
in museums; now they have been dragged somewhere else
and displayed. How to create a chemical reaction with
the viewers or artists along their route, and not merely
to display works in an environment that they do not understand,
that is the challenge. I think this is what they are striving
for, as evidenced by the way they constantly amend their
curatorial plan in line with actual experience, and this
is extremely moving.
Guan
Yuda: Listening to the curators speak, including Lu Jie
and Qiu Zhijie, I feel like we haven't been able to get
out of a certain conceptual framework. If we speak about
the current curatorial system, the situation of the entire
art world is leaning more and more toward relatively stable
exhibition methods. This is also to say that the power
of the system and the flexibility of the system are expanding.
We need only look back for a moment on the situation in
the art world between the 1960s and today, and we will
discover, the 1960s were a time when the entire system
adjusted itself, and the situation in artistic and cultural
circles changed accordingly. I think one of the issues
is that in this particular culture, exploring local issues
is important. So I think the approach that Qiu Zhijie
and Lu Jie have taken in this Long March is very similar
to an official approach, for example in the way they collaborate
with CCTV, or with certain local cultural institutions.
They use emblems, signs, elements that can be instantly
recognized internationally, and will carry some force.
And I think that's been done by some of the curators here
today. It's an obvious example of something someone might
leverage for his or her artistic purposes. But in leveraging
this, what impact do we have on artistic discourse. To
me, the Long March seems like assigning essays to a classroom
full of students based on a theme. Artists can participate,
be on-site, not on site, can interact, not interact, or
even just can completely avoid interaction. That said,
and I think that the subject of curating is a very complex
issue, and something that we probably won't be able to
resolve in this discussion. I do think that the experience
of travel, movement through China, that in itself is a
very valuable experience. So by moving from place to place,
there is this theme of the changes involved, it's different
and separate from place to place. And that's the real
interesting and important thing that's going on here.
I do like the aspect, the fact that we have moved from
the city. Often exhibitions in China are done against
the background of the city and centered on issues in the
city, so there is something good about this move. From
a cultural standpoint, this is a step forward, and an
important one.
Zheng
Shengtian: We're well beyond our time. We only have about
ten more minutes and I'd like to get some input from some
of our overseas guests.
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