The China Phenomenon

Issue 23:4 | December 2003

The artworld has acquired a new set of players - Chinese artists who have adopted western modes without relinquishing their traditional Chinese training and discipline. The success of these practitioners has been astounding. In a few years they have risen to prominence in many countries. We compare and contrast the work of the diasporic artists with those still living in Mainland China who are also participating in the international arena. Exhibitions, biennials, installation art and residencies are all part of the mix from Sydney to New York via Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris, Tokyo and Berlin. co-edited by Binghui Huangfu & Stephanie Britton

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In this issue

The China Phenomenon

Binghui Huangfu and Stephanie Britton

Two Faces of Contemporary Art in China

In these days of 'Theory', innovative curatorial practice calls for a certain empirical discipline; by revealing the arts subtle and yet detectable connections with the social world. Having established this position, Souchou looks at the controversial performance work of Chinese artist Zhang Huan; a practice which displays a confronting yet contemplative look at the relationship between people and society in a post-Mao and contemporary China. An ongoing process of losing oneself in order to understand the effects of cultural and material life, and to animate the desire for release.

Yao Souchou

The Cost of Creativity?

The fabric of the contemporary art scene in China comprises the densely woven strands of politics, economics and aesthetics specific to the immediate socio-cultural framework: a cloth that is today increasingly more sophisticated that the coarse serge of the past. A vibrant contemporary art scene which emerged in the early 1980's following years of rampant cultural destruction and rigid doctrinal control over its form and content. This article focuses on the economic viability of contemporary Chinese art, a movement that found its key members a part of the lower socio-economic class.

Karen Smith

Backflow: Returned Chinese Artists

The decades since China's Great Proletarian Cultural revolution (1966-1976) have witnessed a tide of artists leaving China, and now returning, propelled in part by the desire to locate a healthy climate for art production. There was a time when western society provided a climate more conducive to creativity and these artists sought better living conditions and freedom of thought and expression. Now many of these artists fight a battle over the encroaching forces of materialism and globalisation and there is an increasing backflow of these artists returning to China in the light of new policies valuing creative output and generally higher living standards.

Britta Erickson

Chinese Art Sydney Style

After more than a decade since many of the Chinese artists who have the highest profiles here migrated to Australia, several of them are currently at a crossroads with respect to their careers and what their next steps will be. As is the case with Guan Wei and Ah Xian, two of the best-known mainland Chinese artists working in Sydney, there has been an invested interest in exposing their work to local and international audiences. Teo looks at some of the initiatives which have propelled these artists work both locally and internationally and the various approaches in bringing together aspects of Australian and Chinese life and culture.

Louisa Teo

Xiandai Shufa: Brushes With Modernism

As similar to the changes that came to be called 'modernism' in the West in the nineteenth century, the nature of changing artistic traditions in the East are as far-reaching and as significant in that they also prefigure a contestation of the tradition/modernity duality. This article looks specifically at the tradition of Chinese ink painting and calligraphy and the insistence by Chinese critics that evolution - if not revolution - in these forms is occurring. Moreso the concentration here lies with modern calligraphy (xiandai shufu) and the distinguishing of calligraphy from the generalised use of Chinese characters in contemporary art.

Helen Grace

Broadening the Scope

The First Beijing Biennale, held in September of 2003 somewhat echoed the Venice Biennale in it's approach to expansive venues and activities. Although Chinese Officials are realising the importance of contemporary art and its role in promoting international activities in Beijing, it is the artists themselves who have managed to expand the scope of contemporary art events in the city. Furthermore the event hosted a series of forums and international conferences to promote dialogue between Chinese experts and their international counterparts.

Thomas J. Berghuis

Thinking About Guan Wei

With Traditional Chinese art education requiring students to master the painting styles of each historic period, it is not surpirising that Guan Wei's own style (having painted systematically from Impressionism to Postmodernism over ten years) has rendered his work appealing to Australian audiences. His works are cool in colour, surreal in style, quirky in wit. Wei's work displays a graphic sensibility and visual language similar to that of Leunig's cartoons and is successful for these exact reasons.

Philippa Kelly

A Lens on Diversity

'To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life' - Ludwig Wittgenstein. So to it is that to read the works of contemporary Chinese photography is to read Chinese social life. During the middle of the 1990's photography was admitted to the canon of contemporary Chinese art and the Chinese economy started to reflect a 'glocal' trend through the merging with the global economy. As a result Chinese artists began experimenting with new media and dialogue between Chinese and international artists became more frequent. This article looks at the diversity and proliferation of contemporary Chinese photography and the shifting perceptions of Chinese society from an international perspective.

Huang Du

Wang Jianwei: Working on the Boundaries

New media in China is probably the most rapidly developing medium used by contemporary artists in that country. As an art form new media characterises a form of communication with an almost endless capacity to be manipulated, making it the perfect tool to express a new artistic confidence. The intent of this article is the concentration on the work of one artist Wang Jianwei, whose work typifies many of the issues being expressed nationally through contemporary art. His is a practice differentiated by the way he slides from media to media allowing the intent of the art to govern the form of expression.

Binghui Huangfu

The Decade of the Rise of Chinese Women Artists

Socio-economic conditions and traditional ethics encourage Chinese women to maintain the ideal of harmony between genders, whilst certainly pursuing and endorsing independence. The state of women's art in China is an increasingly pluralistic art establishment within which international feminist thought has been a great source of energy but where there exists a clear opposition to the 'we don't bite' attitude. This article examines the impact of western feminist thought on a group of Chinese women artists who studied in Europe and America and the new awareness of their own feminist identities that came as a result.

Gu / Yang Zhenqing / Li

Alors, La Chine?

Alors, La Chine? was a major exhibition of contemporary Chinese art at the centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, from 25 June to 13 October 2003. An exhibition of this kind had been planned for several years and included several research visit to China by Pompidou curators. Eventually the French government intervened when it decided that such an exhibition should be part of a planned two-year series of Franco-Chinese exchanges. Clark examines some of the political and ethical issues which surfaced as a result of this major event being held.

John Clark

Changchun, China: to Confront or Confirm

Scarlett pays homage to the opening of an International Sculpture Park at Changchun, northern China, which bosts 315 works by numerous international and local provincial Chinese artists. Scarlett looks at this event and examines how audiences react to both controversial and more accepted and confirmed art within a society.

Ken Scarlett

Economic Downturn in Hong Kong Breathes New Life Into Culture

The situation today for creative, especially cultural, industries in Hong Kong is perhaps better than it has been for many years. Tsong-Zung looks at the effects of a dramatic economic downturn in Hong Kong as it is providing artists with two of the most defining conditions for creative work, leisure and space.

Chang Tsong-Zung