Far and Away: Reporting from the Brink of Change

I thought again of Song Shuangsong’s haircut and I understood then why it had generated so much anger, and I saw in what terms it had been a success. I saw why even that trivial event was, in its way, more dangerous than a bomb. So long as art can assert its own danger, it succeeds. For this whole concept of individuality, this humanism of which Lao Li is the epitome, is something almost unknown in the People’s Republic. And if the idea were to penetrate to the vast population of that country, it would shift them toward self-determination. That would be the end of central government, of control, of Communism—it would be the end of China. With luck, this struggle between humanists and absolutists will never stop: for either side to win absolutely would be tragic. Injustice is terrible, but the end of China is also something that no one wants, neither Deng Xiaoping nor Lao Li and his circle.

Acceptance of Chinese contemporary art within the Western art world came more readily than acceptance of Soviet/Russian work. It has coincided with a rethinking of Western cultural history, in which what European and American cultures have exported to Asia is matched by what we have learned from Asia. Asian influence inheres only superficially in a taste for lacquer and porcelain; it resides more profoundly in philosophy. Minimalism and formalism are Asian ideas. Would Fluxus have been possible without Asian traditions celebrating temporality? Having ceased to disparage Asian contemporary art as plagiaristic of modernism, we must now reckon with the idea that modernism was in some ways plagiaristic of Asia. While Western artists learned a bit of technique from calligraphic brushwork, what they mostly took from character-based languages was the metaphoric richness of blurring the line between language and visual representation. Only lately have we acknowledged this debt.

Contemporary art from China, so marginal to Western consciousness when I first encountered it, has since become pivotal to any conversation about contemporary art, and works by Chinese artists have reached astronomical prices. In 2007, the Cynical Realist Yue Minjun set a record for Chinese contemporary art with the $5.3 million sale of his painting Execution. It was soon surpassed when a picture by Zhang Xiaogang, whose paintings had sold in 2004 for about $45,000, sold in 2008 for $6.1 million. Zhang Xiaogang’s record was exceeded that same year when Zeng Fanzhi’s Mask Series 1996 No. 6 fetched $9.7 million; in 2013, his The Last Supper sold for $23.3 million.

Lao Li calls much of this work Gaudy Art, a term he made up to characterize the shiny surface and slick appeal of work that demonstrates “the powerlessness of art to shake the pervasiveness of consumerism.” He has referred to it as “a self-ironic response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China.” Apolitical cynicism abounds. Cao Fei, a prominent artist from Guangzhou, said, “Criticizing society, that’s the aesthetics of the last generation. When I started making art, I didn’t want to do political things. It’s all been expressed.” The painter Huang Rui said of the new generation, “They grew up during an economic period. They think economics influences their lives. They don’t realize politics can influence their lives even more.”

The Yuanmingyuan artists’ village was shut down by authorities in 1993. Lao Li, Fang Lijun, and Yue Minjun were among the first to migrate to Songzhuang, a peasant village about twelve miles from central Beijing. Many others soon followed. Town government was pleased to have tax revenue from this influx, but artists soon became embroiled in land disputes with local residents. Other artists set up shop at 798, an abandoned electronic-switching factory in the northeast of Beijing. This became a mandatory stop for art tourists and the cafés and boutiques that follow artistic efflorescence worldwide soon developed. Li Wenzi, a Beijing dealer, said, “The Yuanmingyuan Artists’ Village was a haven for idealists, for troubled souls seeking freedom and peace. From the very beginning, these other villages have been driven by money.” The government was eager to exploit cultural tourism, but its promotion of these areas pushed up rents, and many artists were soon priced out of 798. The problem was less acute in more far-flung areas, and over four thousand artists now work in Songzhuang, which is only one among more than a hundred artist communities on the outskirts of Beijing.