| |
|
Art News:
Collateral Event, 55th Art Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia
|
|
|
|
The Grand Canal
Collateral Event, 55th Art Exhibition,
la Biennale di Venezia
Curated by Xiao Ge
Artists: Bai Chongmin, Gao Jie, He Haoyuan, Huang Rui, Peng Xiaojia, Qiu Zhijie, Shi Qing, The Irrelevent Group, Wang Du, Xiao Lu, Xu Bing, Zhang Yanzi
June 1st â November 24th, 2013
Museo Diocesano, Sale espositive,
Castello 4312, 30122 Venezia
The Grand Canal and âChinese New Sociology Artâ
by Archibald McKenzie
In the 35 years since China embraced economic reform, Chinese intellectuals and artists have absorbed and internalized much of what the Western tradition had to offer as an alternative to the subservience of ideas and art to political needs and purposes outlined in 1942 by Mao Zedong in his Yanâan Talks and fully in force until the late 1970s. Key Western tradition elements of interest in the late 1970s and early 1980s were individualism and the Romantic-era notion of âart for the sake of artâ. These ideas indeed played their part in liberating new Chinese art, but they ultimately run counter to the millennial mainstream tradition of Chinese intellectuals and artists, the wenren (æ人, âscholarsâ), whose social conscience has been an aspect of the ruling orthodoxy in China since the Western Han Dynasty. Leading Chinese thinkers and artists have now processed the lessons of the West. Chinese art theory - and Chinese art - has absorbed the Western ideas that it has found to be of value and use, and is confidently moving on.
The artists in the âGrand Canalâ exhibition do not form a homogenous group with collective ideas. Apart from their intrinsic quality and interest, they are linked only by direct and indirect connections to do with the great art academies in Beijing and Hangzhou. There are great differences of ideology and style among the artists. Nevertheless, the âGrand Canalâ exhibition is representative of the paradigm shift away from Western values towards a fresh use of Chinese material, media and styles.
We have called this new direction âChinese New Sociology Artâ because there is a renewed engagement with real-world sociological, anthropological and environmental issues. It is ânewâ because the Western ideas on the standing of the individual have not previously been organically internalized within the Chinese tradition, and because it makes use of ânewâ media formats, but the development is not quite new, and may be traced back at least to 2003, when Qiu Zhijie began to teach at the Chinese Academy of Art and wanted âto introduce the methods of sociology and anthropology into the Art Academyâ (Qiu, 2013). Indeed, as Shu Yang (Art Channel, 2009) points out, Chinese performance art has addressed social issues since the Reform and Opening Period (from 1978-9), although the focus of many of the early performance works was squarely on the individual human body, as a locus for social issues and perhaps to affirm the primary standing of the human body. The first Chinese formal exposition of contemporary art theory that seeks to harmonize Western and Chinese ideas is that of Gao Minglu (2009), but Professor Gaoâs focus is not on phenomena of sociology and anthropology. The 2012 Shanghai Biennale, which was curated by Qiu Zhijie, may be the first large-scale official activity to embody this new sociological and anthropological direction.
The Grand Canal of China connects Beijing with Hangzhou. Beijing and Hangzhou are of course old Chinese cities, but have also been the cradles of new Chinese art in the twentieth century. This art was first inspired by styles including French Symbolism and nineteenth-century Russian Realism (more profoundly perhaps even than by Soviet Socialist Realism (Gao 2013), and then by European and American twentieth-century art movements from Abstraction to Postmodernism. The Grand Canal also connects the distant Chinese past with the future. The exact age of the oldest section of the Canal is forgotten (it is not less than 2500 years old), and the vast South-North Water Transfer project, which is not expected to be complete until about 2050, will largely be mapped onto the trajectory of the Grand Canal. At the same time, the Grand Canal connects crucial aspects of Chinese history, civilization and everyday life through its strategic, military, economic, commercial, agricultural and cultural use and importance. It thus offers rich sociological and anthropological material and themes, in keeping with the âEncyclopedic Palaceâ motto of the 55th Art Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia. The Grand Canal theme also provides a number of symbolic dichotomies (in part by juxtaposition with the Great Wall and with the natural rivers of China, which almost all flow from west to east): natural /man-made, male/female, strategic/commercial, ideological/practical, vertical/horizontal⦠Yet it is not a âcrazy dreamâ (Gioni), but a living compendium of economics, culture, and 2500 years of sociological, anthropological, military and political history. As such, it can also serve as a mirror for the world outside China.
Xiao Ge, the Curator of the Grand Canal exhibition is to be congratulated on her artistic judgment, international network and ability to bring together established personages of the Chinese art world as well as very worthwhile younger emerging artists. For this exhibition, she has indeed not only travelled the Grand Canal from Beijing to Yangzhou and Hangzhou, but also brought together Chinese artists working in Europe and America. The artworks in the Grand Canal exhibition bring together the best elements of the Chinese tradition with new sociological and anthropological directions in Chinese art and point to an international future where Chinese art and theory will not only stand confidently on their own distinctive foundations, but will also help inspire and stimulate new thinking on the relevance of art in the West.
More information: www.grandcanalart.org
Organizations: National Youth Center of the Chinese Central Government Organs; Chinese Academy of Cultural Heritage; China Grand Canal Application for Word Heritage List Office in Yangzhou; The West Lake Artists Association
Co-organization: Peopleâs Government of Jiangdu District, Yangzhou City
In collaboration with: PDG Art Communication
Assistant Curator: Archibald Mckenzie
Commissioner: Paolo De Grandis
Coordinator in Venice: Carlotta Scarpa, PDG Art communications, Francesca Romane, Reberto Rosolen
Exhibition planner: Sun Yue, Wei Xingyi, Feng Jiao
Design: Wu Weihe, Zhu Sha
Translate: Archibald Mckenzie/Wen Zai, Sun Yue, Luca Zordan, Lv Meng
Press Contact: Zhu Xiaorui
T. +39.041.522 9166 T. +39.041.526 4546 F. +39.041.276 9056
thegrandcanalart@gmail.com
477653073@gmail.com
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
#
|
| YOUR FIRST STOP FOR ART ONLINE! |
|
Discover over 150,000 works of contemporary art. Search by medium, subject matter, price and theme... research over 200,000 works by over 22,000 masters in the indepth art history section. Browse through new Art Blogs. Use our advanced artwork search interface.
Call for Artists, Premiere Portfolio sign-up for your Free Portfolio or create an Artist Portfolio today and sell your art at the marketplace for contemporary Art! Start a Gallery Site to exclusively showcase your gallery. Keep track of contemporary art with your free MYabsolutearts account.
|
|
Copyright 1995-2013. World Wide Arts Resources Corporation. All rights reserved
|
|
|
