My inquiry is the relation between the contemporary artist and his/her local community regarding the understanding of art. I am trying to foreground this relation in the process of my art making. Many of my painting and photography works are about the notion of the people. In conceiving an artistic expression, I work in the similar fashion of journalist writing, in which the writer always keeps in his/her readers in mind. My artistic expressions are constantly negotiating with the receivers’ understanding of art. I was a journalist in China a decade ago. I am now making art to communicate with my fellow Chinese communities. This is meant to be a critique of the enclosed circle of contemporary Chinese art scene, which I believe is disconnected with its local communities. In a broader sense, I am anti-elitist in the context of contemporary Chinese art worldwide. For this reason, I choose the Chinese folk art as the basis of my artistic creation.
In 2010, I found an interesting phenomenon in China and Taiwan when I spent a year there visiting the art scene. Despite the excitement of seeing remarkable contemporary artworks, I found something missing in art museums and galleries: the visitors. I mean the non-professional visitors from the general public. Solo exhibitions of Zhang Huan and Yue Mingjun, for example, received very few visitors except the professionals from the openings. On the one hand, these artists are internationally acclaimed, highly regarded by critics, curators, and the art market; on the other hand, their names and artworks are little known to the public. The equation is just not right.
I pondered about it and believe that the globalized art world makes the local community irrelevant. As a matter of fact, the enclosed circle of artists, dealers, collectors, museums, auction houses, biennales, international art fairs, and art publications form their little world and deem certain works culturally influential. The recognition need little input from the general public.
This does not sound right to me. If contemporary art claims to be part of the contemporary culture, it has to be gauged to some degree by its influential power on people. Contemporary Chinese art seems completely out of touch with the public. This is more interesting when contemporary art is placed in China’s long art history. Throughout Chinese dynastic eras, the awareness of art had been ingrained in the social fabric. A painting of scholar-official could be widely admired in his community. In fact, art had been so influential that it arguably sustained Chinese civilization in the wake of foreign invasion. Art today is no longer organic with the local community. Based on my observation, contemporary art in China is growing very fast: art museums and galleries mushroom in recent years, and art sale sets new records at auction houses. However, the whole enterprise of contemporary art does not seem to make any difference in the society.
Ai Weiwei is one of the most influential and celebrated contemporary artists today. However, you may be shocked to know how little his name is known in China. Although his activist art works are internationally acclaimed, they are very much disconnected with the Chinese people who are living in the reality his works try to represent. Ai Wei Wei’s art power has nothing to do with his actual influence in Chinese people. For me, this is an irony. I admire Ai Weiwei, but I just cannot admire the strange logic in which contemporary art is run in China. Contemporary art negates the public when it purports to speak for the public.
From the global viewpoint, this phenomenon of disconnection is more obvious in places where the local tradition has been superseded by the colonizers’ culture. In Canada, contemporary art has a linear development throughout the history and is now supported by a mature infrastructure. In contrast, contemporary art is an imported product of globalization in many developing countries like China. Its language, appearance, theories are totally foreign to the locals. This does not mean that it will not find a place to communicate with the local audience had there been good educational program. Unfortunately, hardly any educational programs are made available for the public in China.
Art communities like Vancouver are doing better in this regard. In Vancouver we have public outreach and some educational programs to connect the local community with the art community. Yet, in my opinion, the disconnection is still there and more has to be done to engage the public.
My finding in contemporary art in China leads to my inquiry of the relations between artists and the non-artist community around them. There must be many reasons for the disconnection in between, but I would focus on the individual artist. More specifically, I would like to ask the question about the artistic freedom that is assumed legitimate by most artists today. I think this freedom has something to do with the disconnection. While an advertising director has to exercise his creativity in relation to his clients and a teacher has to organize their teaching materials according to the level of students, a contemporary artist, theoretically, has unlimited freedom, and negotiate with no one in their job—art making. His or her creativity is orientated inwardly, and that gives him or her an artistic freedom. In my view, when this freedom is used properly, it leads to remarkable art; when it is abused, it leads to elitism, egoism and narcissism. During my travel in China, I saw many deep and urgent social problems happening in some parts of China but the local artists collectively tuned them out and made no reflection in their arts. Is this artistic freedom or bad ethics?
I think maybe in some context, such as art in the socially troubled regions in China, the artistic freedom needs to be qualified. In this cases, art making can be a process of give-and-take between the artist and his local community. By local community, I mean his neighbors, family doctors, or anyone relevant. I do not mean the art community. Within the art community, give-and-take is a completely different story. In the local community, the artist may need to accommodate the popular understanding of art in his art making, so that his art makes more sense for the community. Contemporary art has to respond to the local community. It is okay for an individual artist to care nothing about his/her community, but it is problematic when the whole art community care nothing about it, which is the case I mentioned above in some part of China.
Because of my journalist background, my preference is the notion of the people, and I value the give-and-take process, as I see it a more effective way to communicate with my community. In conceiving my art idea, I incorporate the popular understanding of art from the people of my community. I welcome a negotiation between my artistic freedom, including my taste, interest, and preferences, with that of the local community. My Chinese folk-art painting is an example for this process of negotiation. Folk-art is the images already in the mind of the people from the Chinese community, so I choose them as my subject matter on my canvas, and I add my personal touch on these images. I do not want to work on something I like very much but the average Chinese audience cannot relate to. Through these folk-art paintings, I want to make a statement to address the Chinese art scene today, to critique its disconnection with the ordinary people.
In her performance at MoMA, Marina Abramovic was sitting in the entire duration of the exhibition on a chair, staring in absolute silence at each one of the viewer participants on the other side of a table. This work is powerful not only in the silent look, but also in the scale the artist offered herself for the participants to share an experience, and this experience makes sense to the audience. This idea of having people in the art process and having an equal and effective dialogue with them is a perfect example for my notion of negotiation with the local community.
Recently, I am more inclined to believe that a finished visual artwork in display is dead, and action to connect people in art is more alive. I help kids to make arts in community centers. I lead gallery tours, and I am going to help seniors with art therapy. Contemporary art exists in the relations between me and my community.