Chinese Relativity: Part 1 - Joshua Altman - NY Arts MagazineNY Arts Magazine

Chinese Relativity: Part 1 – Joshua Altman

    Spearheaded by an increasing cultural globalization and, more specifically, by the West’s ever-expanding multiculturalism, large exhibitions such as the Taipei, Gwangju and Shanghai biennials have introduced contemporary Chinese art and artists to the global stage. Although this may appear to have been an overnight phenomenon, it is actually a gradual one that parallels the political upheaval beginning with the death of Mao Tse Tung in 1978 and the resulting demise of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976.
“Chinese Relativity,” which features a selection of contemporary Chinese painting and photography, focuses, primarily, on the identity of the individual in relation to the sociopolitical situation from which it originates. The exhibition is intended to serve as a cross-section, rather than an absolute statement, of contemporary Chinese painting and photography today.
    In 1978, Deng Xiaoping allowed for an opening of China to the influences of the West, albeit in a limited and controlled way. The result of this modest liberalization of the early 80s was the formation of artist groups and collectives that utilized their artistic mastery of realism to rail against the past. Soon, the schools became centers of an artistic avant-garde, no longer limited to social realism as the sole means of artistic expression. Painting came to be dominated by formalism and process, rather than by a strict adherence to the social realism of the 50s.
    Spurred further by the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, artists began to search out alternative environments in which to make their art (Cai Guo-Qiang, Wei Dong) under a less stifling regime. With an increase in migration of artists from mainland China to the West and back, opportunity arose for a great crossover and exchange of ideas. It is during this period that we see the growth of experimental media originally banned in China, such as performance and installation art, and a surge in the use of photography to document these radical forms of contemporary Chinese art (Zhang Dali, Wang Qingsong, Cang Xin).
The 90s saw China approach both an open market economy and the incorporation of Political Pop as a common influence and style among painters. What began with the general appropriation of Western Pop Art, with American icons replacing elements from earlier Chinese propaganda posters, morphed into a new palate, in which these symbols were replaced by icons from Chinese history and everyday life (Hong Hao, Yan Lei, Yan Pei Ming). Featuring dramatic colors and an irreverent attitude, this Pop style was followed by, among others, Neo-reality, Neo-figuration (Yang Shaobin) and Cynical Realism, in which emphasis was placed on political boldness, everyday life, the identity of the individual and an explicit social awareness.
     Such significant political turmoil was bound to have a powerful effect, not only on practicing artists, but also on the uncharted urban landscape that such artists inhabit. This landscape included the mid-20th century art schools and academies of the People’s Republic of China, heavily ensconced in technical schooling and laden with a hefty dose of realism. Such schooling geared artists of the time to focus on Soviet socialist realism—“art for the people”—in an attempt to build support for the presiding political forces. The imprint left by this academic system on the artists of the 80s and 90s would be a significant one.