Chinese Dreamers

Chinese Dreamers

This is just a little photography assignment on dreamers in China with about 10 pieces, shot by Liao Weitang, a photographer and poet born in Guangdong province in 1975. Liao spent his childhood in Zhuhai, a southeastern coastal city famous for its seafood and Lychee, followed by his residence in Hong Kong and Beijing in his 20s. Liao also flies between Chinese provinces including Haerbin, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Yunnan… Liao has never taken any of these abovementioned places as his home. This insider- outsider identity makes him the best person to observe China, just like Edward Said to Middle East.

In these pictures there show the scenes of China we are not familiar– no Tiananmen Square, no Mao’s rosy cheeks, no fog- barraged willows, no bright red lanterns, these are not the images of “China”, which is a hyperreality piled up by unilateral, selected impressions fed to us through media. At the same time, this is the China that we are familiar, swimmers at Houhai, kids standing behind the rusty brick walls, elderly under a tree in a park, these are actually all the things that we encounter in China everyday.

The photographer follows his personal preference by utilizing monotone in this series. On realism people and scenes he adds an effect of pinhole camera, which is characterized by dark from the side of the photo that fades when it comes towards the center. On the background’s visual rough texture characterized by graininess, human figures are thrown by a slab of whiteness. Human figures’ fade away like they are being scotched by a poisonous white sun. The aura of human figures that was already eliminated by the possibility of photography multiplication is further weakened by the wiping off part of their face outlines. The huaman figures in the pictures are devastated to be the backgrounds of the backgrounds behind them.

The title “Chinese Dreamers” reveals that the grassroots in the pictures are actually in dreams, they are in dreams not because they are dreaming, but for the fact that they are, placed, or misplaced, into somebody’s dreams, or the whole country’ s dreams of good future. In these dreams some people found their bliss and some are scalded by the overheated reality: Like Yang Yi, the balladmonger who wandered around museums and universities, was still swooped by the cops when he gave his engrossing tunes that he leant from the north of Shannxi in the era of the rising of the economy. This set of pictures unveils how these grassroots are trapped in some other people’s dream through one of photography’ nature, immobility.

The power of photography, is “measured’ by the extent of how it nullifies the reality and creates its own, it is a process from making replica to creation. The strength of Chinese Dreamers comes from eliminating all others’ Weltanschauung and creating its own China by photographic skills and dissecting the reality.

c-ART-sh

We all said China’s art scene is market- oriented, just see how people describe 798 factory, (the former Bauhaus industrial area, now an art district) has become an art supermarket and look at how painter Liu Xiaodong’ s 3m x 10m “Three Gorges New Immigrants” ended up being sold at RMB 22 million at Poly art auction (although the artist claimed that his hyper- expensive painting has been made to a tool for making hot money and should cost less that RMB 10 million) We know that it’s all linked with money, and most people agree with this, this is a linear conclusion from the art trends (if you believe that art scene is a market) in the Middle Kingdom. Instead of creating art that makes money, some people do it in a reverse way, which is, making art with money.

Chinese artist Liang Kegang uses one million yuan genuine banknotes to create his work “One Million”. The 10, 000 hundred kuai banknotes are divided into 100 wads, and then placed on a wall as a collage, with ten wads on each side. The physical heaviness of the notes creates problems for the gallery staffs in setting up, they kept falling off from the wall. The artist said he would sell the work at the price of RMB 1.2 to 1.3 million.

Before pushing you into a debate of the relations between art and capitalism, this 1.14m x 1,8m piece raises the abstractness of the concept of money, numbers on the tags of your H & M shirt, shining digitals on ATM screen, or, “material of a general material of contracts”. The tangibility of banknotes sparks off a rethinking process on people’s superstition and dependence on monetary numbers in the e- banking era. Also the hot argument on this work reveals the widely- shared established concept of the contrariety between art/ intellectually and business/ money in China’s (or actually other country) tradition that can be dated back to the Shi (Chinese intellectuals)’s despise on money in ancient times. This thought can be shown on some viewers’ comment: “it’s a shame”. Well, what kind of shame it is? The shame of being absorbed or affected by a establishment? So how about the art-pieces being absorbed by some “spiritual” establishment like politics, philosophy or psychology, which all result in weakening the intuitive/ phenomenological power, which make art to be art but not something else, released from a piece?

This work, which is monetarily expensive before any artistic value is added to the piece, can be compared with British artist Damien Hirst (you know, the shark pickler) ‘s work “For the Love of God”, a platinum life- size human skull encrusted with 8, 601 fine diamonds. Both of them cast materialistic heaviness, on, something like death, or, your and my hands.

DIAF 2007

In the past four years, DIAF (Dashanzi International Art Festival) has made the Danshanzi District / 798 factory, a former Bauhaus industrial area outside the east fourth ring road, has become part of the world art map. This art fair organized by artists themselves does a good job in raising public’s attention on Chinese contemporary art, the numbers of the DIAF visitors doubled from 80000 to 160000. The disputes between 798’s Seven Stars Management Group and the DIAF’s chief curator Huang Rui procrastinated the festival which is formerly scheduled in May to September 22 to October 14.

In spite of all the disputes, the 2007 DIAF is still worth expecting. Instead of being restricted to the Dashanzi area, the show extents geographically from the German style industrial complex to East Pioneer Theatre, Chaoyang Cultural House, East End Art Zone, Gao Bei Dian Art District, Huanyie Art District, Liquor Art Factory (Jiu Chang) And Yonghe Museum. This act maybe a response to the over-concentration and art super- market tendency of 798.

The motif for 2007 DIAF is yi (1)/ yi(2) (game/ process), the first Yi is from I- ching literally means easy, or change, on one hand it implies the organizer’s emphasis on the randomness, and playfulness of art. On the other hand, Yi (1) is a concept that concentrates the persistency of variability in the existing world to one single character, suggests the possibility of unlimited interpretation and misinterpretations of art. Yi (2) means move, especially the ones undergo under time and space changes, empirical side of art and human under external factors.

Organized by Thinking Hands and its partners including Art Beijing, the art feast canopies various genres including visual arts, lectures, music, films and video, dance and theater, performance arts and children’s programs. Apart from numerous individual exhibitions in a bunch of galleries, one of the features in this year’s DIAF opening is Game in Progress, a Adidas-China sponsored 24- hour continuous creation of Graffiti by Japanese street art/ graffiti artist group Rinpa Eshidan, a Japanese live painting group led by Noiz-Davi and Daisuke Yamamoto. Under the stimulation of music, artists will keep drawing, the first paintings will become the room for the next ones over it. The concept of this is also similar with automatic writing and medical Brut Art which keeps digging out mind flow. Also, the works explore an existence form of art which is parallel to the linear time flow. The happening- disappearing process redefines paintings by the visual process other than outcome

Another highlight is an exhibition of Tendance Floue, a French photography group comprised by 12 photographers who swing their photography stance between news and art with an influence of existentialism. The avoiding of collective metaphysical theories emphasizes on the topic of living experience and allows each artist to preserve their individuality though being in a group. Short films and 50 photos of 12 including artists will be shown.

If one is shocked by the line of Torii-like bright orange gateways in Central Park in New York and eleven pink- polypropylene surrounded islands Miami's Biscayne Bay, missing the talk by the creators of these artworks, environmental installation artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude will be his lifelong regret. Since the late 50s the duo started their “Wrapping Up” projects and gigantic Land Art pieces. All arouse phenomenological, intuitive shock and aesthetics by their huge scale (just imagine the wrapping of the Reichstag ) and almost formidable modification of landscapes. Expectedly, the worldly renowned duet will give seminars on environmental installation art, which is rarely practiced in China due to political and capital and other factors.

Performance art is paid great concern in China. People still take delight in talking about by artist Ma liuming ‘s art happening in front of British artists Gilbert and George during the avant garde duo ‘s visit in China, and debates on the ubiquity of Peter-Stembera-style self- mutilation acts are still on . Apart from performance by more than 20 local performance artists Cologne-born artist, Boris Nieslony who founded performance art collective Black Market International will host discussion, workshops and performance in DIAF 2007. The artist undergoes his ah-hoc performance art according to the resonance between him, people and the surroundings, which are coerced to be part of the process of Nieslony ‘s works.