onstructed Winds
Tony Scott
The beginning of a new season replaces the cold winds of winter. The city of Beijing reminds me of a constant changing wind. Everything changes in an instant. As the new blows the old away, what memory or remnant is left of the past in a city bent so headlong on the future, as both a symbol and as a reality of the new China? How does an artist who lives and works and needs to survive, both physically and spiritually, in such an environment make sense of this constant changing view–this endless reconstruction of the physical and psychological environment? Does he, like Zhou Jirong with his hazy urban scapes, echo the fading faces of passing Beijing residential areas? Or does an artist, like Liang Shuo, illustrate the physical aspects of building the new cities of China by casting bronze figures of migrant workers who then fade back into the provinces while Alvin Mak photographs these very workers clambering across the bamboo scaffoldings that are the initial skeletons of the concrete high rises in China? Perhaps the artist depicts constant change like Li Gang who stacks left over industrial trays as physical reminders of the constructed underpinnings of the city and who bronzes the shoes of past inhabitants who have discarded unwanted remnants of their lives. Or maybe change is captured by Wang Jinsong’s photographs of the Chinese character for demolition, reminding us of the poignant images of past sites that used to be thriving Beijing communities. An artist could interpret the changes like Shao Kang’s intriguing brick constructions providing us with a glimpse of the secret communities needed to be taken apart layer by layer to reveal their human spaces or like Sui Jianguo’s powerful stone and metal sculptures, echoing images of repaired and patched ceramic plates once too precious to be discarded like the plastic and styrofoam of today’s dispensable utensils.
What does an artist do to reflect these myriad and unimaginably rapid changes when his voice is but one of millions trying to be heard and understood in a huge metropolis such as Beijing? Perhaps these seven artists give just a glimpse of answers which explain this struggle. Time may judge the relevancy of their voices amid the changing winds of Beijing.
