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China
Presentation for the 2005 Yokohama Triennale
(2005.09.28 - 12.18)
About the China Presentation at the 2005 Yokohama
Triennale
About the Second Yokohama Triennale (for more details please see
attachment below)
The Yokohama Triennale is the most important contemporary art event
in the East Asia-Pacific Region. The theme of this year's triennale
is "Art Circus - Jumping from the Ordinary", and is directed
by renowned Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata, and curated by Taro
Amano,Takashi Serizawa, and Shingo Yamano. This year's exhibition
has invited of 80 artists and art groups from Japan and internationally
to participate. The exhibition will run from September 28 - December
18, 2005.
Long March director Lu Jie has been invited to bring the Long March
project to participate in this year's exhibition. For this event,
the Long March will launch the "Long March - Chinatown"
project, which will include five independent artists and an anonymous
project, as well as the Long March collective. At the same time,
Lu Jie has also been asked to select two artists from mainland China
and one Taiwanese artist to create independent projects.
The Long March would like to thank you for your continuous support
of the project. If you require additional information or images,
please contact the Long March offices at +86 10 6438 7107, lm@longmarchspace.com
Regarding the China Presentation
Curator Lu Jie
Participating Artists
A. "Long March - Chinatown" Hu Xiangcheng Guo Fengyi Qiu
Zhijie Xu Zhen
Zhao Gang Anonymous Project The Long March
B. Independent Artists Chen Xiaoyun Jiang Jie Yao Jiu-Chung (Taiwan)
The Long March - Chinatown
5 Independent Artists + The Long March Collective + 1 Anonymous
Project
1 Long March Workstation + 1 Long March Installation
About The Long March Project - Chinatown
"The Long March - A Walking Visual Display" is a continuously
ongoing and developing art project. Since being initiated in 2002,
it has continuously developed along the route of China's historic
Long March, as well as in international art spaces. It is an enormous
project which displays, engages, and discusses Chinese and international
contemporary art and visual culture. Its second stage "Long
March - Chinatown" will be similar to the first part in that
it is a process of ongoing development that will move across boundaries
of different nations, regions, histories, geographies and cultures
around the world.
Similar to when the Long March first started out, Chinatown must
first respond to misreadings, those of stagnated and narrow recognitions
of regions and borders. We want to widen and expand the methodological
understanding of the history and geography of visual culture initiated
by the first segment of the Long March to include specific works
within specific contexts. What the "globalization of Chinatown"
narrates is regarding the metaphor of repetition - its key terms
are: Globalization / Migration / Chineseness / Post-Nationalism
/ Self Colonization / Locales / New Social Movements / Historicization
/ History in action / Site / Cross border / Movement / Translation
/ Transplantation / Mobile Contexts / un-regionalism / Repetition
and derivation / Imagination of Asia / Consumption of Identity /
Relationships of Cultural Production
The Yokohama Chinatown as first established during the Chinese
Ming Dynasty (1871). Over 100 years of history, the Chinese have
developed from first relying on three knives (hair-clippers, chef's
knife, and tailor's scissors) to today where there exists a well
developed and independent economic culture and social system.
In this context, "nostalgia" has been converted into
a reciprocal experience and strategy. Within this self-recognized
world, how do we use the vision and method of culture to deconstruct
and distinguish between those spiritual/psychological spaces that
either exist, have been extinguished, or completely altered, and
the space left between the individual cultural discrepancies and
the collective subconscious memory? How is all of this being covered
and symbolized in the "ordinary"?
Because of the relationship the history of Yokohama has with today's
social and political-economic conditions and Chinatown, the Yokohama
Triennale presents an ideal context to realize "Long March
- Chinatown." Within the Chinatown proposal, there are works
by 5 Chinese artists, as well as 1 anonymous work, 1 Long March
workstation, and 1 Long March installation. The carrying out of
the works will create a connection between the exhibition space
and the Chinatown. At the same time, a portion of the works will
be carried out in Chinatown spaces, creating a relationship with
the art audience and the people on the streets of Chinatown that
lies somewhere between art and the ordinary life.
求 Hu Xiangcheng, Building Code Violations, architectural and video
installation
Hu Xiangcheng is an important artist from the older generation,
who resided in Japan for 20 years and has a firm and thorough understanding
of the Japan's Chinatown. Since returning to China 10 years prior,
he has been examining the condition of contemporary Chinese art,
holding a critical attitude of the increasing trend of narrow essentialism.
Turning away from this, he has entered into the public spaces of
the Chinese town, conducting experimental work in the field of construction
and architecture.
The concept of "Code Violations" connotes the concepts
of "temporary", "mobile", "alterable",
and "passive". It is a resistance and dissolution of ordinary
life to the "ordinary" regulations of the system. This
type of "limited creativity" hides a double meaning between
passivity and subjectivity. "Building Code Violations"
is also a universal concept. Within the passageway between "reason"
and "law" there lies a process of expansion of humankind's
organic needs and psychological needs. Well beneath the surface
of a well established area lies the traces of a never ending battle
of humankind with nature, society, politics, and community. The
artist uses the issue of "Building Code Violations" as
a point to begin peeling back the layers to uncover the veins of
the experiences of battle underneath the surface. To artists, an
opportunity to explore the "Long March" of this particular
group of migrants in the Chinatown area is full of meaning.
"Life - Models of Building Code Violations"
For the exhibition the artist will construct illegal buildings made
of a motley assemblage of cheap materials on a long tree branch
covered with mushrooms and fungus. If one were to speak of art as
a greater project aimed at providing a metaphor for the "reality"
of this world, then this piece provides a focused cross-sectional
view of the "realm of existence". From this cross-section
it directly enters Chinatown - the physiological struggles of this
communities "Building Code Violations." The work reveals
Chinatown, its surfacization and weakness of the parasitic, and
visually appealing nationalist symbolism.
Evoking the entire Long March curatorial discourse for the Yokohama
Triennale, the work creates wtihin the exhibition space a Chinatown,
an "illegal building" of mistakenly entered the area of
the Other. It is a subjective idea, a guess, a mis-reading, all
is overly correct, the mutual imagination between the totally different
sides has led to everything being exaggeratedly revealed. But this
mutual relationship has also been languished within the cultural
symbols of historic memory. What is revealed is not a "real
image", only the meaningless original code.
What is the corresponding "code" to a "code violation"?
Who is the "standard"? The problem is that, if you say
Chinatown is a foreign imagination of a local ethnicity, then the
surface layer worship of Western style's that fully infiltrate on
a large level within China's building construction, is it not also
a Chinatown? The artist's intent is to use "building code violations",
something that on the surface appears clear, to point to a completely
different historical paradox.
求 anonymous project, Twenty One Go, installation and performanceㄛ
2005
The artist is a well known artist from the 1980's. Since then,
the artist has been living a low-key life in seclusion in southern
China researching the game of Go.
The game of Go was transmitted to Japan from China during the Northern
and Southern Dynasties. Today, it's primary players are scattered
among China, Japan, and Taiwan. Additionally, several masters are
from Taiwan and either received training or grew up in Japan. As
such, the game of Go is a shared cultural symbol and resource among
the three areas that links together the mutual economic and cultural
exchange and impact of the three areas. "21 Go" is a cultural
proposal that looks to resolve the current geo-political conflict.
The creativity of the work comes from taking "another road."
(the actual game of Go is composed of 19 lines). From the inherent
strategizing of the game of chess, the proposal has a strong sense
of politics. The artist uses what appears to be a whimsical method
of a game to give form to an extremely sensitive and also seemingly
helpless political and economically existent conflict, as well as
possibly existent benefits and cooperation. This is without a doubt
a work that breaks through both tradition and common understandings
of "playing chess." The change in rules established by
adding one line has a large relationship both to the triennale theme
of "jumping from the ordinary", but also as a political
work, it is extremely positive and optimistic and not a surface
level cynicism.
This work will have 3 children play chess matches onsite. The match
will be recorded and broadcast in the exhibition space.
The game of Go touches upon the collective cultural recognition
and resources of China, Japan, and Taiwan. The game of Go was transmitted
to Japan by China. From the 1970's when "Tianshouxiang"
established friendly relations with China, until today, all of the
political and economic changes are all greatly brought about through
"Go Diplomacy." To this day, the Go matches are the most
effective and peaceful method of cultural exchange between the Chinese
and Japanese people. What is most interesting is that several of
the top level Go players in Japan often have linkages between China
and Taiwan.
One part of the project (match play or broadcast) will occur in
the exhibition space, the other (match play or broadcast) will be
carried out in Chinatown. The matches will be played between 3 youths,
one from mainland China, Japan, and Taiwan. The match will be broadcast
live from the site of the match to another place.
Additionally, audience members will be invited to take part and
participate in the games as well.
The artist has chosen to remain anonymous for this work.
求Qiu Zhijie, Slowly Approaching, painting, video installation and
performance, 2005
For the Yokohama Triennale, the artist will produce a new work that
encompasses installation, performance, and video to socially engage
with triennale audiences as well as the Yokohama residents. Within
the exhibition space a ceremonial lion dance costume, made with
military camouflage, will be hung onto a camouflage colored call.
Throughout the course of the exhibition a 5 member lion dance team
will be perform the lion dance by removing the costume on the wall,
and marching from the exhibition space to Chinatown, and back. After
the performance is completed in Chinatown, the costume will be returned
back to its original position on the wall in the exhibition space.
The artist will video record the entire process, editing and broadcasting
on the triennale site to audiences so that a continuously evolving
process is shown. Another video installation will show the lion
dance teams training in the city of Nanjing.
Lion Dance is an ancient Chinese folk traditional game which developed
into a myth during the Tang Dynasty. Today, the lion dance is used
to drive off evil spirits during festivals. In Southern China, the
Lion Dance often has been extended into a competition taking place
in front of the door steps of different families. While lion dances
traditionally occur on a set date, the artist uses another concept
of time in this work (slowly approaching) to secretly change the
customary concept of time of the people of Chinatown. Additionally,
the artist's "Slowly Approaching" seems to hid a method
and procedure composed of the history of Chinatown.
The work uses "disguise" (camouflage), "game"
(Lion Dance) - "performance" (Chinatown) - "exhibition"
(exhibition space) methods to directly the conflict between national
cultures and periphery cultures, immediately dispelling the theme
of reality. The "walking" nature of this work, connotes
at type of "cultural Long March" metaphor.
The artist hopes to use the reappearance of this type of symbolic
nationalist action to reveal the gap between periphery culture and
nomadic nationalist culture, as well as to the inherent contradictory
nature between similar nationalist community groups. The work uses
the forms of "dance together" and "get together"
to travel between the exhibition space and Chinatown, raising a
festive atmosphere enjoyed by the people. It uses a happy and optimistic
action familiar to all Chinese people to turn the triennale into
a "carnival".
Xu Zhen ㄛ8848 - 1.86ㄛinstallation, video, 2005
8848 is the publicly recognized height of the world's tallest mountain,
Mt. Everest. Artist Xu Zhen has sawed off 1.86 meters (his height)
from the peak of Mt. Everest, and transported the piece to participate
in this exhibition. Audiences may not believe that this is real,
which is similar to how people rarely question whether the height
of Everest truly is 8848 meters. This relationship between belief
and doubt has to deal with questions of standard, height, reality,
and borders, that the Long March - Chinatown is interested in examining.
The work points to the ridiculousness of people's belief in "facts"
and "universal truths". The work "ridicules"
humankind's quest for "height" to overturn and disrupt
the preconceived social and historical values.
We are unable to determine the relationship between Xu Zhen and
his team's arduous expedition to climb Everest, to cut off 1.86
meters for the sake of art, and the recent team who used the newest
technical equipment to re-measure the altitude of Everest. Xu Zhen
believes that it may be because news of his work leaked out to the
media.
The artist produces a "mobile public fact" fiction to
correspond to Chinatown's mobile "fact of space". From
the cultural perspective, questioning of "Chinatown" has
been revealed through the real face of "fact" that arises
from various discourses. Also questioned is the "Chinatown"
this effective public essence that uses different symbols to conduct
nationalist egoistic symbolism and egoistic understanding. This
work is a "spoiler of others", it satirizes the blind
and imaginary pursuits of humankind towards some type of common
"height", including the current mess and chaos in world
politics, economy, culture, and historical discourse that arises
from people's ambitions, power, and personal desires.
Aside from a 1.86 meter tall peak from Mt. Everest, the video documentary
of his team sawing off the peak, will be shown, along with photographic
works, textual and archival materials, as well as the mountain climbing
tools and the tools for sawing mountains.
求Zhao Gang, Long March in Harlem, New York, painting and video,
2002-2005
This is a work that reveals the Long March's contradictions and
problems. Idealism and reality, knowledge and society, self and
public are the problems encountered by the historical Long March,
and it is also the challenge that today's Long March is faced with.
The work is regarding a discussion between a group of black and
Asian artists and thinkers in America that ultimately ends without
conclusion in a discussion regarding black artist from America joining
the Long March. The process of the meeting and its final result
is a performance of a failed idealism.
The topics discussed touch upon periphery, colonization, revolution,
globalization, cultural characteristics and differences, etc, topics
contemporary art is particularly focused upon. This work takes place
in another country (America), and displayed in another country (Japan).
Both of which are place in another space of the "Long March"
- "Long March - Chinatown" and displayed. Within it is
inherently contained a utopian ideal. The idea behind selecting
this work was to show the behind a broad and sweeping globalization,
there are ethnic differences and contradictions that cannot be overcome.
The work is composed of a video and 2 oil paintings of frame of
the video work.
求Guo Fengyi, Chinatown, drawing and performanceㄛ 2005
The drawings of this 63 year old female artist uses spiritual energy
to give form to imaginings of what she wishes to describe, as well
as using her own deciphering powers to translate this ultimately
into a type of mystical and mysterious symbolic picture. Within
the exhibition space, she will build a drawing studio, and onsite
draw the unfamiliar site of Chinatown which she has not been to
(the artist will not visit Chinatown at any point of the exhibition).
Everyday, she will continue on with her work, based upon the different
"energies" of Chinatown that she receives from within
the exhibition space.
Daoism is a deeply embedded world view of Chinese people. And the
existent philosophical Daoist concepts that has been widely transplanted
and disseminated throughout Chinese communities around the world
have also been made into a symbol for discriminating between ethnic
communities. Then, would the mysticism based upon Daoist philosophy
have a type of palpable nature? Selecting this work is not a type
of onsite experiment, but rather to find the discrepancies within
the same philosophical outlook.
Long March Collective
Aside from the works listed above, the Long March collective will
carryout the following proposals within the Yokohama Triennale space
and the Yokohama Chinatown.
1 Long March Workstation / Long March Documentary Video
A Long March workstation is composed of the Long March team, artists,
and volunteers. Their daily job here is to continue managing and
carrying-out Long March works, turning the condition of the exhibition
behind the scenes into a part of the exhibition. The Long March
documentary of the projects journey on the road in 2002 will also
be on display.
2. Long March Installation Yokohama Chinatown Area Art Survey
10 response boxes will be installed throughout the Yokohama Chinatown.
The views, thoughts, and questions of the Chinatown public and their
understandings of contemporary art will be solicited through a response
form.
3. Long March Bi-weekly Newspaper
The primary work of the workstation is to collect the results of
the response boxes, and using these results to edit a bi-weekly
newspaper. The contents will include:
A. Responses on the art survey response forms
B. The results, changes, and developments of 21 Go matches
C. Invite international artists to join the Long March newspaper
- A special section will invite participating artists from around
the world to develop a new view on the issues of China/Long March/Chinatown.
The newspaper will be distributed for free throughout the exhibition
site as well as Chinatown.
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