My friend Zeng Xuewu, who directs the China Dapu International Artists Residency in Daqing, has posted more pictures from the Daqing residency. Here are a few…
There are many more on his blog: http://blog.artintern.net/blogs/index/zhengxuewu
Tag Archives: Daqing
What is Contemporary Art in China?: Show and Discussion at the Contemporary Art Research Institution at the Art College of Daqing Normal University
During our first week at the Dapu International Art Center we were invited to show our work in the Art College of Daqing Normal University alongside Daqing artists and to participate in a discussion about the meaning of contemporary art in China as part of the opening of their Contemporary Art Research Institution.
Daqing artists works were primarily oil paintings, though there were also a couple of ink paintings and sculptures. The work ranged widely in style and I would say in general experimented more with technique and medium than with concept. Denise submitted a series of photographs printed on silk of site-specific installations in Ireland. Peter submitted a series of small highly detailed etchings. Namo submitted one of his box installations, and I submitted three lithographs.The director of the residency program, Zheng Xuewu, submitted one of his installations that consisted of famous books whose pages have been turned into knots. During the opening the new research institution was inaugurated and certificates were given to all of the participating artists (both local and international).
Afterwards all of the artists gathered together around a table and discussed what was “contemporary art in China.” The international artists had not realized that we would be participating in a discussion and needed to prepare something to say, but we all managed to give a short talk in Chinese. This was probably the first time I had been asked to present my views about contemporary art in China in Chinese to a group of fellow artists, and I admit I was quite nervous. I talked about the varying approaches to art both in the US and China, emphasizing that art is constantly changing and is multifaceted rather than a united movement. Americans are no more certain of what contemporary art is than are Chinese, and we are often debating about its nature and reshaping both visual and critical discourse as we go. I said that we can know what modern art is, or the new wave movement in china or anything in the past, but contemporary art, by its definition is what we are inventing together at this very moment and is in the process of formation. I am not sure how articulate I was on the spot, or even how grammatically correct, but the other artists on the panel seemed to follow what I said and were very supportive of our efforts to speak Chinese, for which I am deeply grateful.
I was completely fascinated by what each artist said at the table and the variety of their points of view. However, I am afraid to quote them here since I am sure I missed a fair amount. I know several artists addressed issues of the market defining art and the need to have some other measure of what is contemporary besides what sells. Several artists raised the issue of Chinese art’s ambivalent relationship to western art, and the conflicting desire to bring in western art as a way of advancing or entering the global art market and the need for China to define for itself what contemporary art is. There was a suggestion that while western art makes progress through continually coming up with something new in opposition and reaction to what comes before, Chinese art draws together a whole world of styles and then sees what happens out of the mix. Another artist suggested that Chinese contemporary art might develop out of a model of struggle, bringing in foreign art and then struggling with or against it. The foreign artists complicated the dichotomy of east and west by our geographic locations (Australia, Korea, Slovakia and America), the diversity of our own education, and the sense that while all of us were foreign born we were to varying degrees deeply influenced by Chinese culture (Namo having lived in China for 20 years and Denise for six). I hardly do justice to the conversation, but took away from it a sense of the diversity and depth of the discussion and also the dedication of local artists to dealing not only with the general question of “what is contemporary art?” but the related question of cultural influence.
Meili Paper 