The Sketchbook #1: drawing experimentation

I have been trying to loosen up, take more risks and work on processing some of what I have learned while in China. While I have been continuing my normal style of drawing I am also spending part of each day “playing”: doing things that are spontaneous, reacting to my current situation, saying things I would normally consider private, drawing more hastily than usual.

In the States I often made art by finding a point at which I run into a wall, either a physical barrier or some form of psychological resistance. At the point where there is tension something is happening worth talking about. Why is the wall there? How far does the wall go? I am not so much interested in reacting to the wall as exploring the interface, the place where the tension is created, the stone against my hand. This connects to my interest in urban space.  I am fascinated by the space between people in a crowd and how pedestrians use space to their best advantage but are also sometimes frustrated by that space’s limitations. In my previous work I thought about how the infrastructure of Detroit ended up exacerbating inequalities and urban to sub-urban movement as the highways intentionally were built to bypass or bisect large areas of the city.

In moving to China, studying intensive language and starting lithography there were such a plethora of experiences (starting with the language barrier) that this sense of tension or focus was quickly drowned out in the every day tasks. If before I could say I metaphorically drew on walls, now I found myself in a construction zone where the walls are hidden behind piles of bricks.

These new drawings are not finished products but rather ways of processing my time in a visual form. One drawing is a rough calendar of my grant with conversations I have had plotted against it. In the process of making these drawings the events I am recording become illegible, covered over by other events. As I work the pieces destroy themselves while at the same time I start to pull patterns and meaning out of them. I don’t yet know how this will feed into the finished work I make, but I feel that it is worth recording here as a beginning of something…

Sketchbook #1: Process Sketches (incomplete/ early versions)

 

 

 

 

 

Shadow Puppets in Beijing Streets

My friend, Annie Rollins is putting on a shadow puppet show tonight in downtown Beijing. The screen is mounted to the back of her bicycle.

Throughout my time in Beijing I have been struggling to make connections between the rigid structure of the academy, the place of my own art and medium within the gallery tradition and the complex bustling city outside the gates of these institutions. Taking the shadow puppet show onto the streets beautifully resolves some of the huge gaps between the ways in which we study and the life going on in the wider community.

I love how Annie describes her decision to do a shadow preformance on the street:

“Countryside performances are traditionally performed outside in the local community, for free to everyone but the host, watchable from all angles and interactive to the Nth.  The shadow puppetry I’ve seen in Beijing is presented in western format: a proscenium stage with seating on one side, curtains and a ticketing system.  I want to present another option; I find my audience.  I find them with my bike, for free and at night on the streets of Beijing.”

To read more about it you can visit her blog at www.annierollins.wordpress.com.

 

Before and After the Rain in Beijing…Beijing air pollution

before and after the rain in Beijing…  5:00pm August 9th and 11:00am August 10th

air pollution is measured at the US Embassy in Beijing, about 20 minutes from my apartment in traffic:

8-12-2011    4:00pm pm 2.5, 161.0; 211, Very Unhealthy// Ozone 58.2;49 Good

These measurements are “calculated according to US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) guidelines,” where “anything above 100 is a cause for concern.” So the index of 211 is rated as “very unhealthy” (see information below). For more information you can view the US Embassy’s twitter feed or http://www.toranacleanair.com/BeijingAirQualityFeed.html

0-50 Good

51-100 Moderate (Unusually sensitive people should consider reducing prolonged or heavy exertion)

101-150 Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups (People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion)

151-200 Unhealthy (People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion. Everyone else should reduce prolonged or heavy exertion)

201-300 Very Unhealthy (People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid all physical activity outdoors. Everyone else should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion)

Lithographs with tusche wash

——Proofs (test prints) of two stones using tusche wash (ink like oily wash that is painted on the stone). The final version of these prints has higher contrast. Each is about 8×11″. I am thinking about working with this wash in multiple layers so I can print a background color and then some different colors or tones of gray on top, resulting in a denser print. Right now I am limited to small stones because of my skill level and availability. I am also experimenting with printing on eastern paper which is thinner and allows me to fold it, so that i could possibly make a larger image out of printing on several smaller stones. Not sure this will give me the quality I want though. If anyone has suggestions or techniques let me know.

From Yonghegong to Wangjing city snapshots

Problems using new wash on litho stone

I tired using a new wash on the litho stone. When I first painted on the stone I was much happier with the fluidity and unpredictability of the wash (top image) as opposed to the litho crayon that I had been using. However, my first attempt at developing the stone failed.

I learned from my teacher that I needed to use a fairly strong solution of acid and gum on the darker areas of wash so that the reticulation would show up. Otherwise the area fills in and prints as a hazy black- which you can see in the bottom image of the stone after it has been processed and inked. I also hadn’t realized that the darker areas have much more contrast once they are inked while the lighter areas often completely wash away (I also learned I need to be more gentle when I rinse the stone off with water or gum).

My teacher suggested I grind the image off this stone and start over. I lost an entire week, but at least I know how to develop the washes properly.

In my next print I managed to keep most of the detail in the wash. I also learned that while one layer of wash obscures another when I paint onto the stone, once I develop the stone the underlying layers become visible. I want to play more with the traces that are left from washes that are put onto the stone and then covered up or washed away. I also learned I could combine litho crayon and wash on the same stone.

Pangbianr/ Jue Festival Film Screenings

On Saturday and Sunday I went to the film screenings held at homeshop and saw Living Without Men by Luo Yi, Jalainur by Zhao Ye, Reframing the Artist” by Sascha Pohle, and Tape by Li Ning. The poster above is fro Jalainur, a film about two men working in a coal mining region of far Northern China. It was one of the most visually stunning films I have seen. The screenings are advertised on pangbianr’s website: http://pangbianr.com/jue-independent-film-series/

More on Alternative Art Spaces in Beijing

There have been some interesting projects, openings and film screenings I have been going to over the last couple of weeks:

Homeshop is an alternative art space in Beijing located in a Hutong near the Lama temple. It is described on their website: “HomeShop began as a storefront residence and artist initiative in Beijing, 2008. .. Combining a storefront activity space, work studios and service desk, HomeShop questions existing models of economic and artistic production as an exploration of the micropolitical possibilities of the everyday.”  Homeshop has a blog that covers a range of topics about art, china and urban space which can be visited at: http://www.homeshopbeijing.org/blog/.  Homeshop has a reading group that meats to discuss art theory, as well as being a place that hosts a number of artistic events such as film screenings and the re-farm project.

One of the projects going on at homeshop is connected to the re-farm project. A description of the general project can be found at http://www.refarmthecity.org/blog/about-refarm-the-city. Re:farm uses digital technology in conjunction with urban gardening practices to reintegrate urban living with agriculture. I haven’t been involved in the technological part of the project, which I believe involves designing “smart” watering systems. Last week we started gathering planters (discarded mango baskets) and repairing them to use for a roof top garden at homeshop. We also discussed the problem of finding dirt and appropriate seeds (in order for the garden to be sustainable seeds from the plants grown this year need to be usable for re-seeding- some modified seeds can’t be replanted the following year). There was also discussion about rain gathering techniques and the problem of Beijing drought. Would there be enough water to make growing a garden here really feasible? re-farm also helps with/ participates in the country fair, a monthly organic farmers market.

Art Spaces in the City

I am interested in how artists are finding ways to make and show their work in Beijing despite the continuing increases in the cost of renting space and pressures of the art market. I came across this article in e-flux that talks about alternative art spaces in China. I have been surprised by the number of interesting and often spontaneous conversations that go on around the city which in the past I only experienced within institutions (such as graduate seminars in the US). I may be learning from a group of people gathered to discuss a reading or from a random conversation with one of the many art students I pass on the street. My one frustration at the moment is there seems to be a disconnect between the depth of the conversations I have on a daily basis with the actual making of physical work. Perhaps this is because school has been closed for the new year holiday or maybe it is in part because of the difficulty of finding actual space to make work outside of the school studios or maybe it is that there is some sort of divide between the intellectual and physical work people are doing. I think I will need to be here longer to begin to understand.

Beijing Skyline New Apartment Complexes

view from an apartment window in the upper
east side (lido or lidu) near my neighborhood, Wangjing.