Vik Muniz in China

So, I'm at the party for the show, Untitled (Vicarious): Photographing the Constructed Image, on view at Gagosian Gallery and who do I meet but Vik Muniz who currently has a great show up at Sikkema Jenkins. This conceptual artist always gives you a lot to see and think about--this time he has meticulously reconstructed the underside of masterpieces, so all you seen is the back of the frames and the provenance labels--and I would never doubt his tastes which are impeccable. So, he tells me he's working on a project in Beijing. He will garb 600 students at the Central Academy in grey, black and white sweatsuits, then arrange them into a tableaux vivant of a pixalated photographic image. He's doing this as a project with Coca Cola and China is the perfect place to do to get together a choreographed mass of people.

But Muniz made it quite clear that he was less than impressed with the Chinese art scene. "There's certainly alot of it, but I only like maybe two artists, Ai Weiwei and the guy with the silver boulders", he told me, referring to Zhang Wan, who I think is terribly superficial. As much as I was tempted to argue with Muniz--after all, he made me feel like a fool to have devoted so much of my time to a bad art scene--I felt he was on to something important. Japan impresses someone like Muniz, an avid traveler, but China, especially Beijing, is downright declasse and cheap in comparison. The way the art seems mass-produced only adds to the impression of a city with a scintilla of grace or design, despite the latest architectural Olympic additions. I can't argue with that. I just said, China is difficult. But, it wasn't the difficulties that rubbed this artist the wrong way, it was the lack of taste. The thing that confounded him is how this art scene had grown so large and so successful without the elements that he views as essential to culture--style, grace, thoughtfulness, ideas. But, for me, that's the fascinating thing about the Beijing art scene: it is a total extravaganza of bad-ness (bad ideas and bad art) that represents the epitome of art at this moment in the 21st century. After all, if Damien Hirst can raise $170 million in two days for highly commercial Hirst knock-offs, whose to say that China isn't entitled to produce an entire art market doing the same thing. In fact, one can argue, Hirst learned from China. In that light, even artists as talented as Vik Muniz come off as second-tier wannabes, who can't quite understand how their good intentions and self-discipline is getting in their way.

Cultural Revolution

Creative Time's Democracy in America extravaganza at the Armory got me thinking about political art again. And what better follow-up than the Art of the Cultural Revolution show at Asia. Now, that's when art was political, leading to arrests and executions for those who did not follow the party line. It's a fascinating show--like every Cold War-age American, I am a sucker for this kitsch--though I am not sure it makes clear the dark side of state-run art production. Instead, it emphasizes how much this period has influenced contemporary Chinese art by introducing western painting to the Chinese academy. That's one way of looking at it, though sometimes these days, I wish it had more lasting influences. At least these pictures of peasants, soldiers and workers depicted peasants, soldiers and workers as opposed to alot of today's Chinese art which only reflects the blatant consumerism of the society. Two shows up now in New York demonstrate exactly what I mean: He Sen at Jack Tilton, near pornography of China dolls, and Xu Zhen at James Cohan, a replica of a Shanghai minimart. Though I found the supermarket charming--it made me miss China a bit--it really wasn't much of a concept. (It did appeal to the tourist in most art lovers, who clammered to buy a stick of gum or a bottle of water with Chinese on the label.) He Sen, I'm sure appeals to another brand of tourism, the white guy shopping for an Asian girlfriend, which is also prevalent in China. In contrast, the women in the cultural revolution material looked far more forward-thinking and active. And the tschtokes on view at the Asia Society--Mao plates, mugs, match books, statues--were more satisfying souveniers than the items on sale at Xu Zhen's shop. Though my skin crawls whenever I hear a Chinese culture official talk about art "uplifting the people," some of these shows now up in New York make me long for an art that is about something more than cashing in on stereotypes.

Creative Time's Democracy in America

This Sunday, Creative Time opened its one week convention titled Democracy in America: The National Campaign, more than 40 projects filling the Park Avenue Armory. Like a mini-biennial, though actually the same size as the one I saw in Taipei, it was a real antidote to all the somber political art videos that I saw in Asia. Here, instead of routinely recycling well-intentioned issue-oriented text-based tropes, anarchy ruled with political icecream, political soup, political karaoke, political reenactments, political queer, political t-shirts and bumperstickers, most of which made fun of the notion that democracy was still up and running in America.

The entire afternoon was an exercise in some kind of public art celebration---the art world with lots of kids on hand. So you found Carlo McCormick, Jeffrey Deitch, Kirby Gookin and Robin Kahn, my favorite editor Barbara Macadam, Nancy Princenthal, and even, the usually shy Holland Cotter, spending their day wandering around the Wade Thompson Drill Hall, while Creative Time director Anne Pasternack and curator Nato Thompson gave face time like professional politicians. My favorite moment--Nato taking the stage at the karaoke station to belt out some tunes--not Bob Dylan, surprisingly. And lots of people licking creamsicles from the icecream truck that also dispensed advice on first amendment rights. Yes, political art can be fun, especially when it both participates and pokes fun at the state of the activism today. The show sure beats the endless emails I get from Artists Against the War and other activist groups that think that waste our time urging us to sign web petitions against Sarah Palin. (Yes, I hate to say it but its true, these group serves are less interesting than art that makes fun of list serves.)

Democracy at the Armory

Here are some of the artworks at the Armory, or at least some of the more visual projects on view there. Mark Tribe's reenactment of political speeches--here's Angela Davis--was truly moving, reminding me of what it's like to hear a speech in public forum, rather than on You tube. At the same time, I really loved Kenneth Tip-Kin Hung's anarchic animation.

Taipei vs. Shanghai

Liu Wei's video, June 4th, 2005, is the final work in the Taipei biennial. In it, the artist goes around Tiananmen Square on the anniversary of the 1989 massacre and challenges people to mention the event. No one will. The work underscores the vast difference between art exhibitions in Taiwan and mainland China since this piece and most of the other works in this biennial would never be included in the Shanghai biennial. Shanghai has become a weak bland affair, in part due to the interference of ministry of culture officials in the curation of the show. It never takes on tough political issues--though this year's did include a video on coal miners by Yang Shaobin--and it never ever critiques the market. Taiwan, whether intentionally or not, embodied the virtues of democracy, in comparison. Here, the curators were free to take on a challenging theme and choose works that clearly followed their vision. When asked if he intentionally put together the show as a critique of mainland China, Vasif Kortun said, no. But, he also added, "We all know the problem with China but we dare not speak about it because the market is so big."

Taipei Biennial Blues

Here are the curators Vasif Kortun and Manray Hsu at the press conference for the Taipei biennial, a knee-jerk exercise in political art.

With only 40 artists, but almost all video installations, it is amazing how much boredom can be achieved by taking a singularly uniform approach to political art with an emphasis on documentary film and photography. Almost all of the artists approach their subject--anti-globalization--head on with little humor or irony. To top things off, there is a central section on the protests at various G8 conferences that provides little information on the issues at hand, but lots of footage of well meaning agitators, almost all white and American or European.

By now, this style of biennial has become a cliche: take a locale, apply some theory of global engagement, and come up with something closer to a political science seminar than an art exhibition. I asked Kortun if this is the "antiglobalization biennial" and to my surprise he answered, "Absolutely." So at least we know his agenda, in case we missed the point at the show. I was surprised only because usually the politics are usually a subtext to an aesthetic issue. Here, all aesthetics have been eliminated, so as not to get in the way of the message.

The interesting thing about taking on globalization as an issue here in Taipei is that the superpower most on everyone's minds is China, not the U.S. So though many of the installations here challenged the "hegemony" of multinational corporations, the biggest issue in Taipei is the loss of manufacturing to mainland China. This was not an issue raised in any of the art works here, even though it is on everyone's mind.

Pearl Lam's Soiree

My great friend Pearl Lam threw one of her best dinner parties ever on Tuesday night, coinciding with the opening of the ShContemporary fair. Her guest list included fair founder Lorenzo Rudolph, Ullens Center director Jerome Sans, collectors Don and Mera Rubell, LA MoCA's Jeremy Strick, New York dealer Jack Tilton, Frieze director Mathew Slotover, Art Basel director Marc Spiegler and Melissa Chiu of Asia Society. I had a wonderful time talking to them all and got a census on what people thought about the shows in Shanghai this week.

Don Rubell said, "it certainly shows that it's a big world out there," but was really unimpressed with the quality of material at the fair. "When I go to a fair in New York or London, I know 90% of the artists. But here I had to judge it just on the quality of what I saw." His first impressions were fairly negative. He and Melissa Chiu roundly dissed the biennial, though I was impressed with the installation which was miraculous given the staff at the Shanghai Art Museum. Jeremy Strick found artists to like, especially Pearl's discovery Qiu Anxiong.

It's a miracle that Pearl has time to organize these parties--she's throwing one every night this week--given that her gallery, Contrasts, also has a booth at the fair. She was there all day, drinking diet Coke and promoting her latest finds, especially Iranian artists. Meanwhile, at night, her energy went on and on, overseeing dinner for 50 as if this was nothing.

Shanghai MoCA Envisage II - Butterfly Dream

Here's curator Victoria Lu at the opening of her show at Shanghai MoCA. I love Victoria, especially since she's hosted my stay in Shanghai at the very luxe hotel, Le Royal Meridien. But, I have to say, I can't really figure out why she likes the art she likes. The show was packed with young Chinese and Taiwanese artist, many devoted to a cartoon-style that she calls "animamix" but looks like knock-off Murakamis. I wish I could be more enthusiastic.
This is Huang Zhiyang, one of Meg Maggio's Taiwan artists included in the show with his golden dragon, made of bronze and gold gilt.
I ran into world class curator Hou Hanru at the opening. He's now in San Francisco, but was the guy who single-handedly invented the Shanghai Biennial back in 2000. I asked him what he thought of the show and he said, "No comment." Then I asked him what he thought of the biennial and he said, "What can I say? No comment, no comment."

ShContemporary

ShContemporary is an enormous event with over 150 galleries spread out over two floors of the Shanghai Exhibition Center, a really wacked out Soviet-era building. It had works inside and outside including this Zhang Wan stainless steel boulder in the fountain in front. New York dealers really came in force this year, including Jack Tilton, Max Protetch, Lehmann Maupin, Pace, and James Cohan. Balancing their western stables against Chinese tastes, they brought more Asian art this year, since the sales were flat last year when they stuck to their usual artists.

The fair was also packed with dealers from Southeast Asia, Korea, Taiwan, and other places that I didn't even know had galleries. One dealer, J. Ariadbitya Pramichadra from Indonesia was doing great with an artist Agus Suwage who was showing 50 watercolors all based on images by New York art stars--ironically the most US looking booth at the fair. I saw a couple approach him, offering $60,000 for the entire set "for a small museum," to which the dealer demurred, "I have several museums already interested in the work.
This fair was difficult to negotiate, especially in the four hours I had to cover the whole thing. I wish I could say it was impressive, but it still seems that dealers in Asia and dealers coming to Asia don't bring their best material. They haven't caught on to the Basel strategy of offering only the top stuff at fairs, instead bringing out inventory that might not be worthy of a gallery show.

Gossip from the Fair

Jack Tilton was showing this monstrosity by Xiang Jing, rapidly becoming the hottest female artist in China. Her work is owned by Saatchi who will be including it in his opening show of his new gallery in London in October. People kept coming over to take photos in front of this work, titled Virgin. But I am not sure if Jack is going to find takers, especially with a price tag of $750,000. "We're banking on it," he told me.

Meanwhile, dealer Urs Meile encountered censors just prior to the opening, taking away a work by Li Zhanguang which the patrol found too explicit. It wasn't but the booth left the empty pedestal exposed, in lieu of the sculpture valued at 30,000 euros. "We will get it back, of course," says Meile, who was less than amused.

Pictures from an Art Fair

VIP Lounge
Yin Xiuchen's Heart at Pace Beijing
Shanghai Gallery of Art
Lin Tianmiao and Wang Gongxin
Main Lobby of Fair

James Cohan in Shanghai

James Cohan Gallery from Chelsea has opened in Shanghai, the brainchild of its gallery director Arthur Solway who is in love with everything Chinese. I wandered over to the new space in the French Concession, far from Moganshan Lu, the official gallery district in Shanghai. The place had its colonalist charms with lots of fireplaces, moldings and modernist design touches throughout. Its current show, Yinka Shonibare, was kind of perfect for the setting, given this artist's own obsession with colonialist history, but I kept wondering who in Shanghai would really care about the London-based Nigerian born artist or would make heads or tails of his African textiles. China, after all, has a very different relationship to Africa.

Arthur wasn't in, though I ran into him getting out of a cab, which I immediately jumped into on my way to the ShContemporary art fair. At the fair, James Cohan's booth had Shonibare, plus all western artists, probably the most western packed booth at the fair. I wonder how they will do with this stuff in China where the collectors still seemed most interested in Chinese artists.

Party after Opening of Shanghai Biennial

After the opening of the Shanghai Biennial, we all got on buses and went to the river for a boat cruise to celebrate. Actually, I nearly didn't get on because I didn't have the paper invitation and the young girl checking passes wanted me to get off the bus. As I've learned in China, I simply refused and she quickly backed down.

All the artists from the biennial were there. I had dinner with Liu Ye, who specializes in Lolita-esque paintings of Jenny, who is like my Chinese daughter in Beijing. We were joined by France Pepper of China Institute in New York, her new beau David, and Yiu Ling Mei who runs 140 sq. meters, an excellent gallery in Shanghai. I should have been taking more pictures of people--curator Wu Hung from Chicago, Shengtian Zheng, editor of Yishu, Richard Vine from Art in America, photographer Klaus Mettig and artist Inci Ivener who both had terrific contributions in the show--but I was obviously more fascinated by the Shanghai waterfront which is spectacular at night. Anyway, this travelogue needed a bit more scenery, especially in Shanghai, where a biennial cannot be separated from the showcase of a city surrounding it.

shanghai biennial

Last night was the opening of the Shanghai Biennial. This year's theme is Translocomotion, which might mean anything so I didn't have too high expectations of the show. Instead, this was a really good biennial, installed well--a miracle at the Shanghai Art Museum, a state-run institution--and well organized. The opening read like a Who's Who of the Asian art scene. Here I have Wang Qingsong, who I think is the best artist in China, despite his crazy hairdo. There's also Melissa Chiu, director of Asia Society Museum standing for some reason with Ethan Cohen, a dealer in New York who has been around forever and is organizing Art Asia, a fair to take place during Art Basel Miami Beach this year. They are standing in front of an airplane by Yin Xiuchen, a wonderful female installation artist, whose work I really admire.

Chi Peng's Opening

Before leaving Beijing, I was really thrilled to attend the opening of a young artist Chi Peng. I had written the catalogue essay for his latest show so it was great to be able to be there in person. Chi Peng, the only openly gay artist in China as far as I can tell, has been a star since graduating from Central Academy five years ago.

Here he is in front of one of his latest photos.

Art Beijing

Art Beijing is hosting my trip so I should be appreciative. But I never saw so much hotel art in one location. Well, that's China. They have to do everything bigger and bigger than anywhere else. Note: I didn't say bigger and better. It was a great place to catch up with friends including James Elaine, curator from the Hammer who is living here now and Beijing dealer Meg Maggio with Colin Chinnery, ex-curator from the Ullens Center who has become a buddy. Meg was raving about a new artist from India in the next booth, which wasn't really what a dealer should be doing at her own spot at a fair. Colin and I got out of there fairly quick and went off to Ai Weiwei's restaurant nearby. Big mistake: though it was clearly a post-fair hang-out, where I saw lots more familiar faces, the food was inedible. Someone should tell him.

Pace Beijing

Boy, was I bereft that I couldn't get to the opening of Pace Beijing in August. More than 3,000 people attended from all over the world. But, I couldn't believe what I saw when I got there yesterday. "It's the biggest gallery in the world," said Leng Lin, the director, who I've known since 2004. Leng Lin seems like a soft spoken cutey but actually has been one of the key developers of the market here, since holding the first auction for contemporary art in mainland China in 2004. Now, he's probably the most powerful dealer here, having a mutual admiration society with Arne Glimcher. I couldn't believe that they got the space open in less than four months and the show looked great. Lots of pairings of western big names--Chuck Close, Alex Katz, Jeff Koons--with the top guys in Chinese art, like Yue Minjun and Fang Lijun. Now they'll close for four months this fall to complete their $20 million renovation of this space, the last great hall in 798.

A Clean Beijing

From the moment I left the airport, I was shocked by the clean green Beijing that had replaced the old drive to city central which was dusty and brown, made worse by the construction along the road ways. Now, I saw what all the dirt was about--planting millions of flowers, shrubs and trees to give the impression of a well-tended modern city.

At 798 Art District, the mud was gone. In the spring, every street there was being replaced and after rain storms you needed knee high boots to trudge around to see paintings. Last night, at the opening of Kim Sooja's show at Continua Gallery, everyone was in bare-toed sandals. Kim Sooja's photographs of the streets of Mumbai made a certain sense in Beijing. She has always used fabric--bundles, clothing, homeless tents--as a metaphor for the world converging in a single spot. Here, the pictures of alley ways filled with laundry hanging on every wall and sleeping beggars bundled in bright colored wraps echoed the old Beijing which existed no that long ago with let-it-all hangout hutongs dominating the city. I remember when I first came to 798 in 2004 and there were still laundries packing the streets right next to small scale production plants.