The China Project

47 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection endnotes 1 Several translations have been published of these ‘Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art’. For this discussion I have used the translation by Bonnie S McDougall, Mao Zedong’s Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art: A Translation of the 1943 Text with Commentary , Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1980. 2 See Wu Hung, Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the End of the Millennium [exhibition catalogue], The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art and the University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill., 1999, p.15. 3 The development of the ’85 New Wave movement gained specific momentum after August 1986, when a group of 40 artists, critics, editors and theoreticians gathered at a symposium in Zhuhai. They conducted a presentation of 342 slides from a collection of 1100 works by artists who worked across China during the 1980s in the production of new, experimental art. During the symposium, a large overview exhibition of Chinese modern art in the 1980s was conceived that would eventually lead to the opening of the ‘China Modern Art Exhibition’ ( Zhongguo Xiandai Meishuzhan ), also known by its alternative title in English, the ‘China/Avant-Garde’ exhibition. 4 The discussion of ‘high culture fever’ in the 1980s is derived from Jing Wang, High Culture Fever: Politics, Aesthetics, and Ideology in Deng’s China , University of California Press, Berkeley, 1994, p.48. 5 See Martina Köppel-Yang, ‘Zaofan Youli/Revolt is Reasonable: Remanifestations of the Cultural Revolution in Chinese contemporary art of the 1980s and 1990s’, in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art , vol.1, no.2, fall 2002, pp.66–75. 6 For further reference, see my book Performance Art in China (Timezone 8, Hong Kong, 2006). 7 This follows an unrecorded conversation with Kwok Mang Ho in Hong Kong in April 2004, during which I was told how he met Huang Rui (one of the two main organisers of the first Stars exhibition) in Beijing, and that they talked about his work as a performance artist. In early statements on his work, Kwok Mang Ho often makes clear how his performances feature great concern about the direct relationship between art and the environment, and his early use of everyday objects in public happenings would have a significant impact on the conventional perceptions on art practice in Hong Kong. In 1982, Kwok moved to New York, where he would stay for 15 years, until returning to Hong Kong in 1995. 8 For a full description of the variety of performances and open-air exhibitions across China during the 1980s, see Berghuis, Performance Art in China , pp.34–94 and 225–36. 9 Published in the leading art journal Meishu ( Fine Arts ) in March 1981. 10 Following the unrecorded conversation with Sheng Qi in Beijing in 2001, and confirmed in a recorded interview with Hou Hanru in Paris in 2003. Hou is currently working at the San Francisco Art Institute in the United States. 11 Heshang was aired twice on national Chinese television, in June and then in August of 1988. Although the exact number of viewers remains unknown, the program is thought to have been watched by at least several million Chinese viewers, and possibly as many as several hundred million. In following months, excerpts from an annotated text of the program were published in several leading national newspapers, and the subsequent publication of the full script in a book sold over seven hundred thousand copies in 1988 alone. For further reference, see Su Xiaokang and Wang Luxiang, Deathsong of the River – A Reader’s Guide to the Chinese TV Series Heshang , translated from Chinese by Richard W Bodman and Pin P Wan, Cornell University, Ithaca, 1991. 12 Jing Wang, High Culture Fever , p.123. 13 Further reference on the use of the term ‘idea art’ ( sixiang yishu ) in China can be found in the essay by Gao Minglu on ‘Conceptual art with anticonceptual attitude: Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong’ in Farver, Global Conceptualism [exhibition catalogue], Queens Museum of Art, New York, 1999, pp.127–39. 14 Throughout the 1980s, it was very common for artists (including students) to travel to various historical sites. Some academies even required students to spend an entire year of their studies travelling past archeological sites across China. 15 For further reference, see Yin Jinan (ed.), Duzi Giaomen: Jinguan Zhongguo Dangdai Zhuliu Yishu ( Knocking at the Door Alone: A Close Look at the Mainstream of Chinese Contemporary Art ), Shenghuo dushu xinzhi sanlian shudian, Beijing, 1994, pp.86–91. 16 Following comments made by Gao Minglu in The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art [exhibition catalogue], Albright-Knox Art Gallery, University of Buffalo Art Galleries, New York, and Millennium Art Museum, Beijing, 2005, pp.195–96. 17 The work has been well examined in a broad range of studies, and is often mentioned by Marina Abramovi´c as having had an important influence on her later career. For further reference, see Marina Abramovi´c (ed.), Marina Abramovi´c: Artist Body: Performances 1969–1998 , Charta, Milan, 1998; Marina Abramovi´c and Germano Celant, ed. Marina Abramovi´c: Public Body: Installation and Objects , 1965–2001, Charta, Milan, 2001; and Abramovi´c, et.al ., (ed.), Marina Abramovi´c , Charta, Milan, 2001. The performance was recorded by Murray Grigor for the BBC and released as a documentary in 1990 under the title The Great Wall of China: Lovers on the Brink (BBC London 1990, VHS, 65 minutes). However, there exists another copy in which Abramovi´c gives her own account of the event, titled The Lovers: Boat Emptying, Stream Entering (Yugoslavia, 1988, Distributed by Montevideo, Amsterdam, VHS, 30.59 minutes). 18 In fact none of the Chinese performance artists whom I have spoken with recall having heard any news about the performance until the 1990s. They include Ma Liuming, who in an interview conducted in 2001 has told me that he only knew of the performance some time in the mid 1990s, through a foreign book on performance art. 19 Following descriptions of Cynical Realism and Political Pop — two important new stylistic discourses in the 1990s — that were introduced by Li Xianting in his essay on ‘Major trends in the development of contemporary Chinese art’, Chang Tsong-zung and Li Xianting (ed.) in New Art from China, Post-1989 [exhibition catalogue], Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong, 1993. 20 Wang Shuo’s novels first appeared in Chinese during 1988 and 1989 and sold millions of copies throughout the country. For further reference, see Wang Shuo, Please Don’t Call Me Human ( Qianwan bie ba wo dang ren ), translated from Chinese by Howard Goldblatt, Hyperion East, New York, 2000, and Wang Shuo, Playing for Thrills ( Wan de jiushi xintiao ), translated from Chinese by Howard Goldblatt, No Exit Press, Harpenden, Herts., 1997. 21 See Qian Zhijian, ‘Performing bodies: Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming and performance art in China’, in Art Journal , vol.58, no.2, summer 1999, p.68. Further reference can also be found in the two interviews with Zhang Huan, conducted in 1997 and 1998 by Xu Xiaoyu, Tanhua queshi daolu ( Talking is the Road ), Henan meishu chubanshe, Henan, 1999, pp.289–308. 22 This concept was fist introduced in Berghuis, Performance Art in China , and becomes related to the specific role that the body occupies in relation to the environment. 23 The important notion of huanjing became evident during a range of conversations and recorded interviews with artists in China during conducted between 2000 and 2004. Details of these of these conversations can be found in Berghuis, Performance Art in China .