The China Project

169 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection NI Haifeng Ni Haifeng’s art has often been considered subversive. Born on Zhoushan, a small island off the coast south of Shanghai, he studied at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou (now the China Academy of Art) and, after graduating, co-founded the Hangzhou-based ‘nonsense calligraphy’ group called 70% Red, 25% Black, 5% White. The group’s practice questioned the continuing relevance of calligraphy within a modernising China, and was part of a broader avant-garde movement during the mid 1980s. Ni, along with artists Xu Bing and Gu Wenda, is considered an important participant in this development. Now living and working in the Netherlands, Ni makes art that manipulates cultural stereotypes and symbols, encouraging contemplative enquiry. Working across a range of media including video, installation and photography, his recent works explore ideas of geography and trade. It is the history of Dutch importation and adaptation of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain that informs his major sculptural installation and his single-channel video work, Of the departure and arrival 2005. The commercial activities of the Dutch East India Company — whose immense wealth during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries helped establish the Netherlands as a major power within Europe — are central to this history. Widely acknowledged as one of the first multinational corporations in the world, the Dutch East India Company conducted a lively trade with the East, which included importation of the highly prized blue-and-white Chinese porcelain for European royalty in the 1600s. Primarily from Jingdezhen, the porcelain capital of China, these objects inspired Dutch potters to create their own works, known as Delftware — named after the Dutch East India Company’s home port of Delft. Early Delftware depicted the same style of scenery found on Chinese porcelain, although native Dutch scenes soon became popular. By collecting everyday items in the Netherlands, casting them in porcelain in Jingdezhen, and then painting them with blue Delft motifs, Ni is engaging with the historical and cultural importance not only of porcelain in China, but also of the mass-produced Royal Delft Blue Ware in the Netherlands. In Of the departure and the arrival , Ni interprets the history of porcelain as one that has, since the seventeenth century, been largely motivated by economic imperatives. Ideas of trade, exchange and economics are further explored in the video work, which documents the collection of the works, their transformation into porcelain in Jingdezhen, and their journey back to Delft via an international shipping company. While the choice of commonplace and often mass-produced objects as subject matter is crucial — because they are derived from, and represent, a culture of consumption — Ni Haifeng’s porcelain objects are also beautiful. Exquisitely cast and decorated with blue floral patterns, they are transformed from everyday utensils into objects of desire. opposite and above Of the departure and the arrival (details) 2005 Porcelain, handpainted / 66 objects: dimensions variable / Purchased 2007. Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Grant