Enhancing Variety Versus Diluting Diversity

The notion of "China" as a homogeneous totality is restrictive when one considers the enormous diversity in contemporary Chinese art production that exists in spite of the fact that Mainland Chinese artists share a common socio-political background and experience. To me,Mainland China is an intense and fascinating place where homologation and extreme difference co-exist in the most incredible and spontaneous way.1 I am thinking of a number of things. I am thinking of how many minorities (shaosu minzu) are ruled by the same government, how cities such as Kashgar in Xinjiang stick to the Beijing time, how there is a disparate economic gap between the coastal areas and the countryside, and how the "peaks" of cultural refinement reached by some "intellectuals" are counterbalanced by the low level of education of the majority of the people. China is a contradictory country where one might be persecuted for saying a word or where one can do things considered elsewhere to be the most sacred taboo - like using dead bodies in artworks.

I find it almost impossible to communicate with Western scholars, artists, and curators who do not have a specific knowledge and understanding of China. The level of generalization is far too great. There is an expression that those who have been to China for a week feel the urge to write a book. After a month, they can only think of an article. After a year, they no longer feel the ability to write anything on the subject. I myself have experienced a similar feeling. It is very difficult to talk about Chinese contemporary art in general. I am always surprised when I read articles by people who visit China for their very first time and think they understand what they have "seen." I do not mean to suggest that people should not have their own opinions and be able to express them. Rather, I simply want to point out an attitude which seems to characterize the "Western" approach to China. This attitude consists of projecting a whole world of pre-constituted ideas and beliefs that dissimulate a deep fear of difference. Cata is a word no longer used but which refers to an imaginary China that retains a representation of China (even though the country has dramatically changed in recent years from a Communist identity to an identity associated with the economic boom) that is approximate and far too subjective.

What lies beneath all this is a Western lack of interest in getting to know its Eastern counterpart. It seems to me that we are in a world where economic prosperity enables those who are wealthy to make the rules as well as deem what is and is not correct. Art and culture are no exceptions. In the United States and Europe, a few determine what constitutes both "contemporary art" and a successful artist. A consequence of this is that an artist has to align him or herself with the West in order to become internationally successful.

In an era where one can quickly travel in the "global village," we should be open to the multiplicity of artistic expressions. The reality, however, seems to be that we simply meet the same people and look at the same work wherever we go. The Venice, Shanghai, and Whitney biennials share a common background and yet none of them represent a particularly unique viewpoint. Implicit in this creeping homologation is the impact of the media in the form of television and computers. The effect has been the transformation of the world as an extended periphery. I would argue that China is facing a set of circumstances similar to those that took place at the beginning of the last century. Reacting to the widespread foreign influence in the art, one of the strategies was to promote local heritage and impose an autochthonous taste (zhongguohua). What remains of a Chinese tradition now is a generic Confucian/Socialist attitude that dictates how people should interact. There is not much understanding or respect for the great Daoist and Buddhist traditions which, in the past, made Chinese thought so unique and unparalleled.

In one of my recent lectures in a Chinese University, a student asked me whether the great tradition of the past was going to disappear in China since many Chinese artists are devoting themselves to oil painting and newer art forms such as video and performance. I responded with a question. I asked the students how many of them devote more time to calligraphy than studying English and spending time in front of the computer. It is easy to figure out the reply.

I feel that the Chinese have not been able to re-appropriate their tradition because they are choosing to conform to Western expectations in order to gain international recognition. While there is a great pride in being Chinese and having an impressive heritage, there is also the awareness of having been surpassed in the economic and technological fields. Instead of opposing the West and formulating an alternative game, China is learning the Western rules fast.

I recently came across the following statement:

The future world's aesthetics should not be restrained to the artistic expression of one country or of one particular period, but it should unite the entire world's artistic ideals, of the past and of the present, it shall synthesise them and then look for the aesthetics' fundamental principles being careful to keep the individuality and peculiarity of each style.

This statement was made in 1934 by Zong Baihua, a professor of philosophy and aesthetics and founder of Chinese comparative aesthetics. He was one of the first to make a link between Chinese aesthetics to the world aesthetics.

The idea of "making use of the West to develop the East" was embraced at the beginning of the republican era (1911) by many Chinese thinkers. It was adopted in order to fill the gap caused by the "material superiority" of the West. Perhaps it was a mistake to think that China would be able to catch up merely through technical know-how. I wonder whether Zong Baihua ever thought that the world's "artistic ideals" would be (seventy years later) so far from respecting national specificities. I am referring to the overwhelming power of materialistic considerations when evaluating an artwork and to the fact that this "value" is determined in a few "centres."

Reading the writings of Zong Baihua's and others, I have the feeling that those years at the beginning of the twentieth-century were much more prosperous and open in terms of freedom and depth of thought.What does all this mean in the present? It means that the Mainland China art market is mostly determined (at least in terms of contemporary art) by foreign buyers who are controlled by foreign galleries, with prices being established according to Western standards. It means that the works by those Chinese artists most recognized in the West are hardly known in China. (An exception to this would be the exhibition Towards a New Image which toured China
last year and was curated by Weng Ling.) It also means that the most well-known artists (institutionally recognized) in Mainland China are ignored abroad since they do not fit into the international trend.
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The situation is contradictory and schizophrenic for Chinese artists who find themselves suspended between the need for recognition and that of self-expression. I would say that the conditions for contemporary artists in China are similar to that of the gongting huajia (professional painters hired by the emperor for the court's needs) than to that of the wenren (literati).More effort is put into anticipating the direction of international trends than into the investigation and comprehension of one's own needs. It is not a phenomenon which affects only Chinese artists nor is it only a problem that exists today.

There have been a few reactions by the Chinese. There is Li Xianting's theory about being treated as "spring rolls."2 There are attempts to reject foreign co-operation - as was the case with the Chengdu Biennial. The tendency to close the doors to any foreign influence results in the formation of a sterile nationalism. Nevertheless, many Chinese curators can admit that they are at a loss for really independent theories and alternative viewpoints. Chinese curators and artists are deeply hybrid. There is no point in recalling a "golden age" in the distant past. It is far more productive to gain a full awareness of the present. I would suggest that these curators and artists avoid being too influenced by "market" considerations and the "global" trends governed exclusively by economic concerns.

How long will it take for the Chinese to figure out an alternative way? Will it only happen when China has achieved a stable economic power and after it has fully accepted an economic strategy imposed by those so-called wealthy countries? Will China rule in the same way as these countries - by monetary influence rather than by cultural or moral pre-eminence? This is the real challenge. This is the aim Chinese government and intellectuals should consider as the ultimate one.

Notes
1 The Italian term omologazione can be translated in English as "approval," "approbation," and even "confirmation."
2 Li Xianting's "spring roll theory" is from the outline of his speech at the "Conference of the International Association of Art Critics" in Japan,
published in Jiangsu Pictorial 1 (1999): 21.