| An Interview with Melissa Chiu |
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| Features | |
| Thursday, 03 September 2009 | |
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An Interview with Melissa Chiu By Ann Batchelder
Author, curator and Museum Director for the Asia Society, Dr. Melissa Chiu is a leading authority on contemporary Chinese art. Her books include:
Breakout: Chinese Art Outside China by Melissa Chiu (Edizioni Charta, Milan, 2006), focuses on the work of 14 leading international artists who emigrated from China prior to the 1989 protest at Tiananmen Square and later settled in New York, Paris and Sydney. Art and China’s Revolution, edited by Melissa Chiu and Zheng Shengtian (Asia Society, New York, and Yale University Press, New Haven, 2008), accompanied an exhibition by the same title. Examining the profound shift in aesthetic values that occurred in China after the communists took power (1950s to 1970s), this fascinating and beautifully produced book argues that important and sophisticated contributions were made during this period that require closer consideration in Chinese art history. Chinese Contemporary Art: 7 Things You Should Know, by Melissa Chiu (AW Asia) is a concise, insightful and well organized look at various aspects of contemporary Chinese art. Following is an interview conducted in the summer of 2009. AB: In your book Breakout you talk about artists who are part of the Chinese Diaspora leading up to 1989, that they do not have duel identities as much as a “transexperience” of what is means to be Chinese. Can you talk more about that? MS: It refers to where artists moved after they left China. What I found in my research is that artists who came to the United States, for example, have a strong sense of being international artists - they wanted to be thought of as part of the international stage. And I would contrast that with Chinese artists who went to, say, Australia who very quickly were taken up with being part of Australia’s identification with the Asia-Pacific region – they had more of a regional focus. If anything, my comment about artists who left China at the end of the 1980s being transnational was that they represented the beginnings of a very broad shift, one that we are now seeing in the art world in general. Artists today think beyond nationalism, and that seemed to start in the 1990s with some of the larger biennales and triennial shows. While many of the works that we see by the Chinese Diaspora artists do lend themselves to readings of transexperience or transnationalism, their works are also often a visual expression of some of their experiences living in a new culture. For example, when he first came to the United States, the artist Zhang Hongtu merged the images of Mao with the iconic images of the West in his work. In his version of da Vinci’s Last Supper, instead of Jesus and the 12 disciples, he used all Mao images – so his work talks about coming to terms with leaving China as well as his generation’s approach toward Mao, many of whom had first-hand exposure to the Cultural Revolution. I think that this generation worked through their experiences and emotions through their artwork and some of the best examples show that in very clear ways. AB: You’ve said that the contemporary American art movement belongs to the 20th century, while Chinese art may be the first major movement in the 21st century. What is it about contemporary Chinese art, both in and outside China, or how is art being interpreted from a Chinese perspective that represents this particular time in history? MC: The [current contemporary Chinese art movement] is a movement that, if anything, showed people that there were art centres outside the usual Paris-London-New York trajectory. I think this has been building for a number of years, especially since the last 1990s when issues of internationalism or globalization first came to the forefront of contemporary art practice. The Chinese art scene saw a lot of attention in the five years, even though there is a much longer history of contemporary Chinese art that was really forged in the late 1970s and ‘80s. What happened was that a market was established fairly quickly and with that came added attention. Museums and collectors became interested, and with that came galleries. This created a more sophisticated ecology, if you like, in the Chinese art world and, most importantly, new art centres were being established alongside Western art centres. AB: Is there a particular characteristic from British culture that can be seen in works by contemporary Chinese Diaspora artists who located there? MC: Yes, but places like Paris or Sydney or New York had substantial Chinese art communities that had coalesced; I didn’t have that same sense in London early on. In Paris, Sydney and New York there were writers, curators and artists who came together to forge a very supportive community. So, that is why I focused on those three cities in my book. AB: Is there a difference between artists in China versus outside China in terms of how they see the role of the artist in society? MC: The artists I have contact with sometimes reflect what goes on in society and other times it is a very individualistic approach. I think one could read or interpret the issues that some artists are making in China as reflecting their immediate environment. Wang Qingsong’s Past, Present and Future is a very good example. He clearly identifies the past as soldiers, then the present as industrial workers leading China’s growing industrial presence in the world. Finally, he represents the future with a series of all-gold figures giving the sense that China has come of age and is playing a major international role. So, there are Chinese artists thinking about those broader issues related to community, but for those artists outside of China, they are more likely to be thinking of larger, international concerns, trends or identifications – especially those artists in New York – even if they tend to use materials that could be identified as particularly linked to China or Chinese traditions. An example of this is Xu Bing’s application of “New English calligraphy” where he has invented a new script that resembles Chinese characters but is read by English-speaking people. Here is a Chinese artist who is thinking about himself and his experience as well as thinking about his audience as being very much international. AB: Do you see a difference between how artists inside or outside China approach their work? For example, in the United States there is a huge emphasis on the individual. MC: I think there was a time in China in the early 1990s when artists were collaborating with others and sometimes with the migrant workers who moved to the cities. It was a time of more collaboration in general. Now you see less of that. There is much more emphasis on individual qualities, whether it’s painting or photography or even installation art. This is also true in the larger art world. AB: Is this due in part to the number of Chinese artists who left in the 1980s and are now returning to work or live in China – are they having an influence on new generations? MC: In some measure, yes, but I think a more important point is the establishment of a system within China for the showing or exhibition of works. When artists have a gallery to show their work or a museum, the whole dynamic of artwork changes. For a long time contemporary artists in China were excluded from those venues after 1989. Around 2000 or 2001 everything changed and so you had a very different environment for artists who were living and working in China. I think that is really what changed things. AB: Do you have suggestions for curators or museums in terms of how they present this work or how to think about it now? So often it seems artists still get lumped into one big exhibition called “New Chinese Art.” MC: I think those introductory surveys are a first step toward broader recognition and if anything we’re seeing that recognition take place. The next step is for museums and curators to acknowledge individual artists within international art practices, and that is starting to happen. Cai Guo-Qiang, for example, was the subject of a major retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum last year. There have also been individual Chinese artists at the Venice Biennale recently. So, Chinese artists are definitely considered when curators are developing international shows.
AB: Has your research yielded any new insights or thoughts since you wrote the book Chinese Contemporary Art: 7 Things You Should Know? MC: Yes, I think now there is a very different economic environment than when I wrote that book. What’s happening now and what will happen next year is a kind of leveling out. Those key artists will go back to their studios and experiment. Now that the market has slowed down they will not be producing for the market. Hopefully, we will see more experimentation and a sense of optimism. AB: What is your next project or area of interest? MC: I am just finishing a book that looks at all of Asia – a Pan-Asian exploration of contemporary art. It should be out sometime next year and will be published by Thames and Hudson. AB: That sounds quite fascinating. Thank you again for your time. Ann Batchelder is an independent writer, editor and curator living in Asheville, North Carolina.
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