The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

performance art. By choosing the body as the site of art, individualisation and control of the artistic product is taken to an extreme. The artist and the work become indivisible. Art becomes performance and spectacle; a vehicle through which human endurance, suffering and absurdity can be directly expressed. Artists in Beijing such as Ma Liuming, Zhang Huan and Zhu Fadong have been particularly active in this area. Networking Artist networks form the backbone of contemporary Chinese art practice and an increasing number of projects are realised through these channels. There are formal groups such as the Big Tail Elephant Group in Guangzhou comprising installation artists Lin Yilin, Xu Tan, Liang Juhui and Chen Shaoxiong. Much of their work uses waste products of consumer culture to comment on what they perceive as the oppression of Third World countries by imperialist nations. These four artists have held an annual group exhibition since 1991. 4 Women's networks have also been active. In 1995 the female critic Liao Wen curated an exhibition in Beijing entitled 'Women's Approach to Chinese Contemporary Art'. The exhibition comprised work by twelve artists, including Lin Tianmiao. Later that year, an exhibition of installation work by Chen Yan Yin (Shanghai), Li Xiuqin (Hangzhou) and Jiang Jie (Beijing) was held at the Art Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Both exhibitions emphasised women's artistic responses to contem– porary society and were aimed at raising the critical appreciation of female artists' work in what is still a very male-dominated and chauvinistic art world. Informal networks also crisscross the country, linking artists working in the major contemporary art centres: Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Wuhan. Projects initiated by these networks are often of a transitory nature; a response to an idea or event. They are documented through print media such as loose sheet catalogues, postcards, books and newspapers. 5 'Agreement to Choose 26 November 1994 as a Reason' was initiated by Geng Jianyi and Wang Qiang of Hangzhou, and brought together some eleven artists from Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai in response to the theme of 'time'. 6 The artists created their work independently and a series of cards was produced as documentation. Zhan Wang, who works in the sculpture studio at the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing, chose the demolition site on the eastern side of Wangfujing Street as the location for his work.This was an old residential and shopping area in the heart of Beijing comprising two city blocks from Changan Boulevard to Goldfish Lane, and including much of the original Central Academy of Fine Arts campus. This area has recently been bulldozed in preparation for a shopping mall 40 I cu RAT o RI A L E ss AY s • EA s T A s I A investment project partly financed by Hong Kong millionaire businessman Li Kashing. Ironically, the only building that has been left standing is McDonald's. Zhan Wang's work involved cleaning and repainting sections of partially demolished buildings. Artists As Entrepreneurs And Other Strategies Artists have increasingly sought to involve media and commercial organisations in the sponsorship and promotion of their ideas. In 1994 the Beijing Youth Daily and Bao Yuan Hua Trading Company collaborated to create the 'Bao Yuan Hua 1994 Artist Invitational Interior Design Plan Exhibition'. The artistic coordinator was Li Xianting and the initiators were Wang Youshen, artist and art editor of the Beijing Youth Daily and Liu Bo of the Bao Yuan Hua Trading Company. The artists' interior design plans were published in a monthly 'gallery' page of the newspaper over the course of one year and a set of postcards was printed as documentation. The playful designs may be understood on one level as satiric responses to the popular preoccupation with home decoration and renovation. Wang Jian Wei's proposal, published 25 August 1994, incorporated movie cameras, binoculars, television monitors and television network apparatus; cameras were trained on selected outside targets and images relayed back to a room for scrutiny in an isolated environment. The proposal has not as yet been physically realised. Books are another medium through which artists have been disseminating artistic propositions. Chinese Contemporary Artist's Agenda 1994 (Zhongguo dangdai yishujia gongzuo jihua 1994), published by the Sichuan International Cultural Development Corporation, is a bilingual publication of proposals by nineteen artists from Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou and Wuhan. Some of the proposals have been realised, whereas others await an appropriate opportunity and budget. The working party for this project comprised four Beijing-based artists:Wang Luyan, Wang Youshen, Chen Shaoping and Wang Jian Wei. The Black Cover Book (Heipi shu), printed in Beijing in 1994, is another significant publication which was self-funded and intended for internal circulation amongst artists.The editors were Xu Bing, Ai Weiwei and Zeng Xiaojun. Both Xu Bing and Ai Weiwei currently live in New York and Beijing, and Zeng Xiaojun is based in Beijing. The editors invited Chinese artists engaged in contemporary art practice in different parts of the world to submit photographs, drawn proposals and text relating to recently completed work, work in progress, or work that for whatever reason has not been realised. The venture is significant for the way in which it seeks to transgress national boundaries and unite like-minded Chinese artists, regardless of where they choose to live and work. Traffic The traffic of Chinese artists to and from China, particularly those who are now resident in other countries, has had a significant impact on the local Chinese art world. For most expatriate Chinese artists, China remains their spiritual 'homeland'. Projects such as the Black Cover Book; Xu Bing's Cultural animals-a case study of transference, Hanmo 1994; and Cai Guo Qiang's Project for extraterrestrials no. 10: Project to add 10 OOO metres to the Great Wall of China, Jiayuguan, 1993 are the result of a determined quest to unite international and local artistic languages on home soil. In recent years many mainland Chinese artists have participated in high profile international exhibitions. Wang Guang Yi, Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun and Liu Wei have had wide exposure in such major contemporary art exhibitions as the 'Venice Biennale', Italy, 1994-95 and the 'Sao Paulo Biennale', Brazil, 1994-95; and Wang Jian Wei, Wang Luyan, Wang Guang Yi in the 'New Asian Art Show: Now a Dream of the East' 1995 and the 'Kwangju Biennale', South Korea, 1995. Participation in these exhibitions has created a sense of achievement and vindication for the artists and for contemporary Chinese art in general. At the same time it has contributed to a wider social debate concerning the global centre and periphery which has helped to reinvigorate nationalistic ideals and the widespread questioning of 'West-centricism' and 'Western cultural imperialism' by an increasing number of artists, critics and cultural commentators.? The Revolution Reinvigorated The critic Huang Zhuan, commenting on the 'New Asian Art Show' which brought together twenty-seven artists from China, Japan and South Korea, states: We must realise that it is more important for Asian artists to go through a period of 'non-Westernised culture' and 'anti-Western culture', and be brave enough to voice our own opinions on a variety of contemporary topics, than it is to break free from the shackles of traditional ideology and overcome narrow minded nationalism ... Western cultural hegemonism will have no means of sustaining itself into the twenty-first century. We applaud this exhibition and regard it as a step on the way to realising a new cultural construct ... 8 Huang Zhuan echoes sentiments expressed by Hou Hanru, a Chinese critic now based in Paris. Hou posits that in view of current global cultural developments the construction of a 'new inter– nationalism' should take the place of all previous forms of 'West-centric' internationalism or universalism as a matter of urgency and necessity. 9