China: Dynamics of the Public Space
By Meike Behm
Chen Wenbo, Passage, 2003, Oil on canvas , 178 x 235 cm. Image courtesy of L.A. Gallery, Frankfurt am Main
With its 1.2 billion inhabitants, China is the world’s most populous country; 12.6 million people live in its Capital Beijing alone, 14.5 million in Shanghai. "Dynamics" and "vitality" are two prominent catchwords in modern China. Everything is bigger than life, everyone wants to be state-of-the-art, and "bigger, broader and fresher" is the way to go.
Referring to Asian metropolises, the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas coined the term "generic city," meaning cities governed by maximum efficiency and functionality. His theory sets forth an extreme case, assuming cities that are completely shedding themselves of their–historical and physical–identity, no longer marked by deep-rooted structures, but a mere reflection of the needs and skills of the here and now.
During the 1990s, Beijing’s and Shanghai’s architectures changed rapidly. Entire settlements with traditional architecture were torn down, taking with them an urban identity established over centuries. Even today, privately-owned apartment houses continue to make way for new office buildings, shopping malls and other modern premises by order of the municipal authorities, with the former inhabitants rarely getting compensated for their relocation. Human values such as compassion and charity yield to egoism and lone-wolf mentality, while the individual is left with little space, and little time, to establish or improve his or her social environment.
The dynamics of urban space in these cities has had a powerful and often disadvantageous effect especially on the lower classes, and as such has been the critical subject of a variety of Chinese artworks. Many of the artists were born in the Chinese provinces, but have long since moved to one of the country’s major urban areas.
In China, temporariness is a prevalent phenomenon of contemporary life. Living space is temporary, jobs are temporary, the interpersonal institution of marriage is temporary, life is temporary. The exhibition China: Dynamics of the Public Space puts works of art in dialogue which deal with this rather sobering fact in different ways. They approach the rapid developments of urban space in Beijing, Shanghai or Shenzen by pointing out their negative effects on private and social life. It is true that in its critical and questioning response to the changes of urban space, contemporary Chinese art is not really that different from its Western counterparts. However, globalization, the breeding ground of "generic cities," has hit cities like Beijing and Shanghai with much more force and within much shorter time than the metropolises of the West. As Lothar Albrecht, L.A.Galerie Director, commented, "I took the freedom to look at China for many years before I decided upon the artists to exhibit."
Ma Han, Map of the City, 2002
The Chinese artist Ma Han (b. 1968) has been living in Beijing for ten years. His work is in part driven by the question of how to keep a deeper insight and understanding through the medium of art at a time when one is constantly inundated with pictures, be they real or digital. He also reflects on the rapid changes of urban centers as well as the reconstruction of Chinese culture.
In his photo-collages Ma Han deals with the velocity ruling his environment. Map of the City consists of numerous little single takes arranged against a monochrome gray background. Their setup corresponds to the street grid of Beijing, a structure of concentric circles suitable for the heavy traffic governing the city’s infrastructure. The individual pictures, in contrast, convey the impression of chaotic, unstructured activities in the street. Comparable to a battlefield, every conflict represents the problem of a rapidly changing environment. Elements that seemingly providing order and structure, like the traffic system, are exposed as merely superficial.
Wang Jinsong One hundred Signs of Demolition, 1999
"Chai" is the Chinese word for "demolition." Its graphic symbol shows up all over a photograph by Wang Jinsong (b. 1963) with the telling title "One hundred Signs of Demolition." The picture shows Chinese signs sprayed on many building fronts by the municipal building inspectorate, suggesting that inhabitants look for a new place to live because their house will be torn down soon and fall victim to the construction of a modern skyscraper. The actual structures and functions of these buildings cannot even be guessed at, as Jinsong focuses on the causes of urban change, as much as those responsible for it.
The sign for demolition symbolizes the radical transformation of city landscapes; throughout Beijing, entire neighborhoods have been guillotined by order of the city’s building inspectorate. The absence of human beings–the real victims of the eradication–in combination with the cool, off-putting sign for demolition, makes these photographs sharp criticism, if not an outright accusation, of the city’s building policy.
Xiang Liqing, Rock Never, 2002
In a series of rigorously upright photographs entitled Rock Never, Xiang Liqing (b. 1973) presents another reaction to the architectural changes and breakneck construction of skyscrapers in Shanghai. Numerous traditional-style housing communities have been leveled to make room for postmodern shopping centers, office buildings and apartment complexes. Rigid apartment high-rises bespeak the discipline that push horizontally structured communities into vertical organizations of order and control. Xiang Liqing’s photographs, with their grid-like facades of contemporary residential buildings, scrutinize these symbols of architecturally controlled life. Their extreme upright format and cold black-and-whiteness give an impression of the narrowness in the streets between all these skyscrapers. Unlike other artists-photographers who focus on the high-speed development of China’s urban areas, Xian Liqing reflects on the coolness and tightness of existing in these "dwelling machines."
Cai Guangbin, Window No.12, 2004
Cai Guangbin (b. 1963) uses the traditional Chinese painting technique of watercolor on paper. He does not, however, feature traditional subjects like exotic birds or plants illustrating poems or Confucian writings. His compositions, in mostly square format and titled, e.g., "Window: Departure" or "Window: Reflecting," are dominated by crosses–mullions and transoms with a dividing function. From behind the mullioned windows, heads stare at us with wide-open eyes or cast empty, inward gazes which suggest a constricted, insecure situation. These faces do not appear in a clearly defined environment, but are left disoriented. With great force, Cai Guangbin tells of existential threats, of the both physical and psychological constrictions imposed on the individual by nowadays’ living conditions in overpopulated cities.
Wang Wei, "Temporary Space", 2003
The video entitled "Temporary Space" by artist Wang Wei (b. 1972) documents the building of a wall inside a gallery. Within two weeks, ten workers put up a wall four meters high and thus erected a ceiling-less "room within a room" spanning 100 square meters in a commercial gallery in Beijing. Farmers who ordinarily subsist on selling well-preserved bricks from destroyed buildings transported those bricks to the gallery on donkey carts. Wang Wei took pictures of the construction work on a daily basis. When the wall had reached four meters in height, Wei invited not only the farmers, but also visitors to the gallery for a topping-out ceremony. Because space was now much more limited, people were crammed into the only 60 cm-wide corridor surrounding the wall. After the ceremony, the builders tore down the wall again and bought the bricks for less than half of what they would have sold them otherwise. The donkey carts reappeared, and bit by bit the room became as empty as it had been before the construction of the wall. What remains are the video and a series of photographs called "That which stands cannot fall," which show that the workers disappear behind the walls more and more.
This work is designed to be temporary, with regard to both form and content, and it emphasizes the displacement of public and private lebensraum, as those present at the topping-out ceremony were especially made aware of. Thus it represents a critical comment on the city-planning problem of construction and deconstruction. It also points to the desire to leave no trace of former long-grown traditions. Correspondingly, it directs our attention to the social problems resulting from the far-reaching architectural changes through the demolition of countless houses. The video demonstrates how the farmers make a virtue of necessity, taking advantage of the changes in city planning by selling the bricks.
Chen Wenbo "Passage", 2003
In his pictures, Chen Wenbo (b. 1969) deals with the variety of aspects characterizing today’s fast-paced life, determined by the power of money, superficiality and instability; he also puts forward an aesthetic manifestation of China’s socio-political climate. His pictures usually feature details of urban life–a facade reflecting glittering streetlights or a tunnel leading into nowhere and also seemingly immersed in artificial light. His superrealistic, ductus-negating painting technique corroborates this impression of artificialness, conveying a cool and artificial atmosphere. A human being is nowhere to be seen, only referred to by the form of expression. Chen Wenbo’s pictures can be placed in the tradition of photo-realistic painting because of their technique, which the artist utilizes to convey the artificialness and anonymity characteristic of big cities. For him, it’s a matter of "depicting the surfaces of things." The tunnel appears to be immersed in excessively artificial light, which dematerializes it and makes it seem like an illusion of the real thing.
In a video called "Bored Youth" by Zhao Liang (b. 1971), a teenaged actor is walking through the sorry remains of a declining traditional neighborhood of Beijing. We watch him go inside dark, empty houses, and hear rocks falling down, window panes shattering or objects being smashed, as the protagonist is joining in and speeding up the destruction. Slow music without any distinctive rythm accompanies the sequences and enhances the monotony that the film conveys.
With its title "Bored Youth" the video also brings to mind the concept of the so-called "no-future generation" ascribed to Cinese youth. As long-grown traditions become lost and replaced by a life where one always has to go faster, higher, or further, the younger population especially does not always end up in boundless enthusiasm; aimlessness and often total resignation are common effects of these developments, too.
