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.