The Relation to the West

in Contemporary Chinese Art dslcollection

Caroline Ha Thuc dslmagazine l issue no.6
 Long history of

Hu Jieming, Raft of the Medusa, 2002, photograph, 125 x 177 cm

Courtesy of dslcollection
Westernisation
The issue of Westernization has a long history in
China since the defenders of democracy in 1919 used
Europe as their model.

Following the crisis of the literati’s status, many artists

came to Paris at the beginning of the 20th century to
learn western techniques, and some came back to
China to share them with other Chinese artists. But
quickly after WWII, and despite other artists fleeing
communism but who did not come back, a long period
of isolation occurred in China.

Mao’s death and the liberalization of the country as

from the late 70’s opened the door to the beginnings
of Chinese contemporary art and to the resumption of
east-west exchanges. In 1985, an exhibition of the
American artist Rauschenberg took place in Beijing
with a great impact, and in 1989 Paris invited Chinese
artists to participate in the great exhibition Magicians
of the Earth, at the Pompidou Center.

With the internet revolution that arose in the years

2000, access to new data and to international artistic
news modified deeply the artistic landscape and
accelerated the integration of Chinese artists into the
international art world. From Paris to New York, a
sizeable artistic diaspora has appeared, transferring
and developing Chinese culture as embodied by
artists with international recognition like Xu Bing
(b.1955), Cai Guoqiang (b.1957) or Yan Pei-Ming
(b.1960). Independent curators and art critics such as
Paris-based Fei Dawei and Hou Hanru significantly
contributed to the rising connections between Chinese
and western cultures.
Today, Chinese artists increasingly go abroad for study, boosting exchanges with
the West. The younger generation quotes easily Proust, Breton or Foucault while
classical western artworks are often taken as inspiration sources for Chinese
creations. It would seem that the artists resume, with the West, a dialogue which
had started one century before, and which had been stopped too early by Chinese
modern history.

However, the issue of a galloping Westernization raises many questions. Mao

Zedong said “Put the past at the service of the present, make the foreign serve
what is national”. There are probably no limits to such an assimilation: mixing past
and present as well as integrating new cultures and thoughts have always been at
the core of all creation. Furthermore, today’s art history tends to be written more
and more regardless of nationalities.
 Miao Xiaochun, Desire, 2008, C-print, 194 x 480 cm
Courtesy of the artist and dslcollection

Yet the underlying identity issue remains, often blurred and paradoxical,
strengthened by a global impression that the West still dominates some rules of the
games, imposing its curatorial and critical tools to apprehend contemporary art.

The recent museum boom in China reflects a Chinese will to keep up with western
standards while some artists challenge these models and try to create new ones. A
better definition of the so-called Western model becomes then essential: the
deconstruction of the Western doxa about art does not embrace necessarily the
questioning of the model as a whole, including its socio-political dimension. New art
forms and definitions as well as new relationships with a rapidly evolving audience
may lead to a real emancipation of Chinese contemporary art, shaking up our own
perception of art, and opening up the path for new models worldwide.
Wang Qingsong, Goddess, 2011, photograph, 180 x 250 cm
Courtesy of the artist
 Fruitful but complex
Wang Qingsong (b.1966) seems to keep a
chronicle of the relationship with the West,
from Follow Me! (2003) until Goddess
(2011), representing the statue of liberty
dressed in Mao costume and surrounded
with bamboo scaffolding. The artist focuses
in his work on this complex relationship to
the West, who is influencing whom, and how
can China adapt itself to the global system,
unless the world will perhaps finally adapt
itself to China. In Follow Me, a teacher
points to an immense blackboard scribbled
all over with a mixture of English and
Chinese phrases, most of them being
references to China’s recent history, words
taken from school textbooks, and slogans.
Wang alludes to a TV program of the same
name dating back to 1982, the first-ever
English-language TV program on Chinese
television, thanks to which many Chinese
could learn not only English but also the
ways and customs of the West. In the
background one can decipher the words:
Let China walk toward the world! Let the
world learn about China!
For a long time, China was shut to the
outside world, and Wang is curious to see
all the new, and different, things happening
now. At the beginning of the 1990s, the
products sold by MacDonald or Coca Cola
were considered luxury items in China. He
would wonder whether this was because of
their quality or because of the
advertisements, which created new
fantasies among the Chinese.
confrontations
Today, just like then, he feels confused in
front of this avalanche of novelties and of
this new cultural equation. He continues to
define himself as « backward », having had
much difficulty to learn English, and being
very sceptical about the evolution of
Chinese society. According to him, the vast
majority people in the country are clowns or
pretending to be clowns; in reality, as we all
know, clowns in theatres are happy in the
front stage but are always very sad behind
the scenes. Moreover, the audience in the
auditorium is from the West, looking at the
Chinese people’s performance on the stage.
He does not believe at all in any
rapprochement between the cultures: for
Wang Qingsong, Follow me, 2003,
photograph, 120 x 300 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Pekin Fine Arts
him, the Chinese are used to be under
dominance and guidance, the old-fashioned
patriarchal system in China being instilled
into Chinese people’s bones and blood.
The artist draws much inspiration from
Western art, though, and, across his work,
one can see direct references to David,
Ingres or Michelangelo. His 42 meters long
History of Monument (2009), for instance,
presents his own, very personal, vision of
History that mixes all cultures and
civilizations: objects of everyday use like his
own bicycle can be seen side by side with a
Buddha figure, at the centre, among replicas
of ancient Greek statues or of the sculpture
by Rodin “The Kiss”.
Wang Qingsong
The History of Monument, 2009, mixed media and 30 minutes video, 125 x 4200 cm
Courtesy of dslcollection
The West is indeed often
perceived as a kind of
Otherness from which the
artists can mirror themselves in
a paradoxical gesture, claiming
both differences and kinship
with its cultural heritage. The
photograph Now-ing by Chi
Peng (b.1981) could very well
represent the confrontation
between the two cultures. Peng
works on the notion of identity
and how we perceive it. Here,
the Monkey King seems intent
on challenging King Kong.
Born in Shandong province, Chi
Peng initially was attracted by
the cinema but he finally
entered the Central Academy of
Art in Beijing. There, he quickly
joined the digital media
department under the teaching
of Miao Xiaochun, a pioneer in
conceptual photography and
digital imaging in China.
Technique or craft in
photography do not interest him
as he is more focused on its
directness.
There is a pervasive spirit of
liberty in his work. The Sprinting
Forward series (2003-04)
shows men running, naked and
seen from the back, in corridors
and in urban spaces, pursued
by red airplanes. These
airplanes embody at the same
time the past, communism, and
the whole Chinese culture
weighing on citizens who are
eager to get rid of it. From 2006
onwards, the men begin to fly:
equipped with the wings of
gigantic dragonflies they flutter
about urban symbols. In The
Day After Tomorrow (2006),
they fly over an imaginary city, a
mixture of Shanghai and New
York, two cities which incarnate
the hope of liberty. Other
images show them flying over
vast expanses of nature. They
seem to start off like in a dream,
maybe fleeing from difficult
years, or discovering their own
possibilities, their liberty.
The Dream East-West is a mad
pursuit, almost hysterical. The
photograph expresses the
irrepressible desire of young
generations for westernization,
turning their back on
communism. Beyond the East-
West divide, Chi is above all
expressing the incredible
energy of the young generation,
keen on emancipations of all
kinds.
Images courtesy of the artist
 Top: Chi Peng, Now-ing, 2011, photograph, 175 x 243 cm
Bottom: Chi Peng. Dream East-West, 2006, photography, 120 x 196 cm
The relation to the west reflects
indeed today’s complex issue of
identity typical of the Chinese
young generation, trapped
between their own roots and the
globalized western culture.
Born in Zhejiang province, Chen
Zhou (b.1987) graduated from
CAFA’s Digital Media Art
department. His video My Loving
Artist – Yu Honglei (2012) could
be seen as a work about the loss
of the subject. In the video, the
artist goes through a pile of
personal photos in front of a
mirror while a monologue can be
heard. He is thinking about a Jeff
Koons solo exhibition he saw,
and especially about a photo of
the artist when he was young,
called The New Jeff Koons. As
the artist repeats the text, the
subject is not him anymore but a
friend who saw the show, and
Chen says that he likes how this
friend described it. Thus there is
a transition between the subject
(Chen), his friend and Koons.
The subject does not think by
himself and borrows opinions
from others, but in the end, he
seems to come back to himself:
facing the camera, he
acknowledges he saw another
exhibition by Koons and became
fond of his work. A huge blank
echoes this last, abrupt remark.
Koons is perceived as the mythic
“star” with which people identify,
or try to. This could reflect a kind
of essential phase in the process
of constructing the subject in
today's society: “stars” replace
God and become the ones who
are guiding the course of
people’s lives.
In that case, Koons represents
not only a successful artist but
an icon from Western culture, a
whole system of symbols that
Chinese society might
appropriate for itself. Thus,
Chen’s work reflects also the
idea of a society that adheres to
the ideologies of the ruling class,
through the symbol of Jeff
Koons, but the artist seems
more concerned with the
exchangeability of the subject,
even up to its dilution.
Chen Zhou, My Loving Artist – Yu Honglei, 2012-, HD digital film
Courtesy of the artist and Aike Dellarco
 An inexhaustible source of
inspiration…

Many Chinese artists draw actually from European painting and classic history, and give their
own interpretation of it. Their attitude towards these classics is very different according to each
of them, and serves different purposes. The Death of Marat, painted by French Jacques-Louis
David in 1793, has notably inspired recently at least five of the most famous contemporary
Chinese artists and is a good example to study. This famous painting represents the murdered
French revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat during French Revolution.
The Death of Marat

Wang Guangyi’s own interpretation of the Death of Marat dates

from before his well-known series Great criticism Series: Coca-
cola (1993) which became iconic as to the relationship between
China and the new Western influence: an heroic worker, peasant
and soldier from revolutionary China are shown gripping Mao’s
Little Red Book and the red Communist Party flag against a Coca-
Cola advertising background.
Wang (b.1957) is the spearhead of the so-called Political Pop Art
movement, which developed during the 1990s. By merging the
style of socialist realism with the emblems of capitalism like Coca-
cola, the artist criticizes the new symbols of consumption, which
were then submerging China as it opened to the West following
the adoption of Deng Xiao Ping’s policy.
Wang painted his Death of Marat two years after he graduated
from the oil painting department of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts
while he was confronting himself with Western philosophy. The
work belongs to his Post Classical series (1986-1988), a
systematic attempt to appropriate and revise the great works of
Western art to deconstruct them in a provocative way. In his own
version, the human figure -supposedly Marat - is not recognizable,
seized in an almost abstract style, drained of colour. The scene
depicted by Wang loses its entire heroic dimension and does not
trigger any emotion. The duplication of the figure, as if a mirror
was standing in the middle of the work, has been read as a pop
motif. It could also be seen as a metaphor for the artist’s quest for
references at a time when he was searching for his own style.
Wang did actually two artworks untitled the Death of Marat, both
in the same style and following his reading of EH Gombrich’s Art
and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation
(1960). He then considered western paintings as starting points
from where to begin his own career and from which he could
develop his personal visual language.

Wang Guangyi, The Death of Marat, 1986, oil on canvas, 150 x 200 cm
Courtesy of the artist and M+ Sigg Collection
This relation to the work is very
different from the one of Yue
Minjun (b.1962). The Death of
Marat made a deep impression on
the latter when he was still at
university, traveling to Beijing to
see an exhibition of classical
copies organized by a French
museum. He was also extremely
surprised with the fact that a great
deal of audience had brought
binoculars to watch and imitate the
painting. After doing some
research, Yue discovered that this
period of French history showed
many common features with
China’s modern history. According
to him, the influence of the Paris
Commune and of French
Revolution has been considerable,
in particular for those who were
born in the 1930s and had studied
in France like Deng Xiaoping and
Zhu Enlai.
For him, the figure of Marat is
symbolic of fighting and of the
possibility of change. Similarly he
will use the figure of Christ to
represent morals, as an alternative
to that of Confucius. Through his
depicting of mythical figures, Yue
Minjun tries to throw light on the
problems of China today and to
help approach them differently.
The artist actually used to consider
painting the history of America,
with such figures as Lincoln and
George Washington, but finally
discovered that he could not find
the connection between the
American culture and himself.
For him, the topic chosen for his
creations have to be in direct
connection with his own past
background.
In his interpretation of The Death
of Marat, Yue bases himself on the
picture by David, but does not
portrait the martyr of the French
Revolution. He pushes further the
sober character of the original
work by making the human figure
totally disappear, and the silence
around seems absolute. He
intended to express the concept of
missing and hollowness when
creating this work. According to
him, there have been various
attempts at minimalism, but there
are seldom attempts like this in
realism. There are fewer people
who remove the element of human
beings, who have the most
important part in reality. This kind
of work can offer the original work
a new form and answer, which is
not controlled by artists but is open
to answers, and is more easily to
interact with the audience.
Besides, this disappearance might
echo the subconscious element
accumulated from his past
experience. During his study and
life, there was always a lack of
daily consumerism and of money,
and Yue assumes he might
express such feelings in his works.
Yue Minjun, Death of Marat, 2002, oil on canvas, 220 x 292 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Pace Gallery
Who would be today’s
Marat?
 He Xiangyu, The Death of Marat, 2011, mixed media, life size
He Xiangyu (b.1986) responded
indirectly with The Death of Marat
(2011), a sculpture representing, very
realistically, Ai Weiwei in glass fiber
lying with his face upon the ground
and with closed eyes. David would
portray heroes of his time and
nowadays Chinese artists portray
their own heroes, or search for them.
For the artist, the presentation of the
works can help people understand
the society. It is certainly a pure visual
Courtesy of the artist and White Space Beijing
language, which can probably inject
new elements into the culture, or
simply remain there as a form of
continuity. Art as an ideology is
closely interrelated with social and
economical factors, and reflections of
such relationships can be found in all
historical periods. The basic elements
of each artwork derive from life, yet
people can be educated from great
works.
Zeng Fanzhi (b.1964) gives out
a version more faithful to the
original, probably because he
finds with the French painter an
echo to his own expressionist
and dramatic painting manner.
However, it is a Chinese person
who sits, bloody, in the bathtub,
and the background is covered
with Chinese characters. For
Zeng, the act of painting is
synonymous with appeasement,
like a meditation. It is a way to
exteriorize his interior
experiences while constantly
searching the pictorial matter:
the artist is truly obsessed with
painting and has been so since
an early age. When he was 17,
although penniless, he spent
three days travelling to
Shanghai to see an exhibition of
French painting. His Marat,
shows a quiet man, still, in the
middle of a storm of paint. Dead,
Zeng Fanzhi, The Death of Marat, 2001, Oil on canvas, 180 x 150 cm
© Zeng Fanzhi Studio, courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
he keeps his eyes closed, but
looks serene: he is beyond this
reality, which does not affect him
anymore.
In 2001, Zeng had already
painted his own version of The
Cene by Leonardo Da Vinci.
The apostles, and Christ, all
identical and wearing masks,
share a watermelon between
themselves instead of bread and
wine as traditionally. Dressed in
V-shaped white T-shirts, they
wear around their necks the red
scarf, a symbol of the
communist youth. Judas wears
a golden scarf, a symbol,
according to the artist, of the
corrupt power of money and of
capitalism. The artist thus uses
a classic model from outside
Chinese history to express his
own dissatisfaction with the
contradictory ideologies of his
country.
Yan Pei Ming, Marat (13 July 1793, Paris) I, II, III, 2012, triptych, oil on canvas, 280 x 280 cm each
Courtesy André Morin © Yan Pei-Ming, ADAGP, Paris, 2014
Yan Pei-Ming (b.1960) revisited David’s
painting for a specific exhibition in Qatar
in 2012. It dealt with current painting
political assassinations but the artist
chose to refer to the past to confront two
approaches for painting History. David
was a very engaged artist at his time
and he deeply influenced society and art
history. Yan depicts him as a genius. For
him, the question of the exhaustion of
the Western model as well as that of its
domination on China is not essential:
men continuously renew themselves.
What matters more is the permanence
of great works such as The Death of
Marat, which is and always will be
inescapable.

The artist draws much of his inspiration

from history painting in order to reflect
our times. According to him, history
repeats itself: men will not change, and
there will be always wars between them
as it is part of their nature. The artist
stands as an observer and expresses
the fears and suffering, violence and
cruelty from the actual society. His
paintings reflect his inner and deep
feelings as well as his vision of the
world, projected like a scream on the
canvas.

For him, Chinese art is an art of copying.

Yet some evolution can occur, just as it
occurred for him and for other Chinese
artists who came after the show in Paris
Les Magiciens de la Terre in 1989. He
does not feel much influenced by
Chinese painting, being more interested
in Painting in its broadest sense.
A common
heritage
Yan Pei Ming, The Funeral of Mona Lisa, 2008, polyptych, oil on canvas
Installation view from Salon Denon, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 2009
Courtesy of André Morin © Yan Pei-Ming. Courtesy Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, 2014
Yan Pei-Ming grew up during the
Cultural Revolution and used to draw
Mao and red guards propaganda
pictures as a kid. At the age of 18, he
was rejected by the Shanghai Art and
Design Academy. This gave him the
opportunity to open a new path in his
life: in 1980, he moved to France,
learned French and graduated at
Dijon School of Fine Arts. Later he
spent a one-year residency in Rome
at the Villa Médicis. For him, it was a
fantastic experience as he discovered
the whole tradition of Western
painting. He felt he was taking part in
a long History, exploring a universal
pictorial language that goes beyond
times and cultures. In 2009, Yan had
the chance to exhibit at the Louvre
where he presented The Funeral of
Mona Lisa. Painting from Mona Lisa
was obvious to him as it is the most
famous painting in the world. He
wanted to pay homage to her mythic
figure and wished at the same time to
bring her further on. This is how he
revisited her and buried her at the
same time.
Miao Xiaochun (b.1964) also sees
himself as part of a continuous history
of universal art, in which each artist
responds to his predecessors. The
point becomes now to inscribe oneself
into this global history, insisting on
continuity, hybridation, interlinking of
times and spaces. However, while
praising thus inheritance and filiation,
Miao also insists on his will to create a
unique and original language.
The artist has produced work inspired
by Cranach the older, Bosch,
Michelangelo all in all more than 70
paintings inspired him. Trained in oil
painting but also in the use of Chinese
ink, Miao painted for ten years before
turning to photography as an
autodidact. He then moved over to the
new media and created a single visual
language integrating informatics and
photography. He will say, “Bacon had
only his brushes while we have the
computers”. His numerical approach
of the classics of painting allows him
to renew their perception: hundred
years after cubism, he wishes to
prolong this reflection work on the
multiplication of points of view, by
inventing a new grammar, capable of
expressing our new relationship to the
world. He combines his formal
research with a ceaseless
interrogation about the future of man,
whom he often represents as close to
the animal or to the machine. His
parallel quest for identity took the form
of an alter ego which the artist created
very early: as he was a student in
Germany, he invented another “I”,
whom he represented in his series
Visitor of the past (1999-2004) under
the shape of a scholar-visitor from the
Song dynasty. He would carry with
him all the time this very light
sculpture in polyester. Later, he
brought it back to China and staged it
there as a symbol of the existing gap
between him and his contemporaries:
in his own country he felt a stranger.
 Miao Xiaochun, Microcosm, central panel, 2008, C-print
Courtesy of the artist

According to him, photography is more powerful than painting, it speaks more quickly to
people because it looks real. People can identify with the character and understand how
he felt while in Germany, and, beyond, understand the gap that he is pointing to
between the past and the present. Because, finally, when he continued this series in
China, in colour and as from 2002, he realized that the gap between the China of
yesterday and China today is wider than between East and West. Observing the great
figures of the history of art, Miao noticed that they finally only portray a single human
figure, which they afterwards reproduce with some changes: a man pictured by Bacon
looks like another man pictured by Bacon and the same goes for Van Gogh or
Michelangelo, the latter making also women look like men.
Miao Xiaochun, The Last Judgment in Cyberspace, 2006, front view, C-print, 418 x 360 cm
Courtesy of the artist
He therefore chose a face for himself, a computerized face, replacing all others in his
digital reinterpretation of the classics of Renaissance painting. In this new world,
peopled with clones, there is no original any more: is this a complete assimilation of the
“other” and exasperation of the individual or a universal utopia? We may see in this the
dissolving of the subject, a very Buddhist prospect: the multiplication of faces finally
reveals a universal, single, face and the complete disappearance of the subjective.

Photography implies a single point of view. With the computer software, however, Miao,
is in a position to choose all the points of view, and to move around the object. He
enjoys another relationship with reality since the issue is now to build everything, to
start from scratch. In his 3D version of the Last Judgement inspired by the work of
Michelangelo in the Sistine chapel in Rome, one can walk in the sky and look at the
characters from all angles. If he stuck to the black and white, it is by reference to
Michelangelo’s sculpture: the Italian artist defined himself as a sculptor and not as a
painter, and this is a way to pay homage to him.

Miao Xiaochun, A visitor from the past, Spring festival, 2002, photograph
Courtesy of the artist

When he is at work, Miao feels he is in a virtual reality. His studio is like a laboratory
where he can experiment and express whatever he wishes to. It is his own ivory tower,
which he sees as a utopia. His grand series on the Last Judgement takes place entirely
in heaven and he explains that it represents his window of liberty.
Both Yan and Miao work in continuity with
the works of France-based Chen Zhen
(1955-2000) and Huang Yongping
(b.1954) who, from the beginning, were
focussing on breaking down the concept
of “Chineseness” to open the audience’s
mind to an art without borders. One of the
earliest and significant gesture by Huang
Yongping was indeed to mix three tons of
paper which had passed through three
washing machines laundering out a
Chinese and a Western book of art
history. The two books turned out to be
perfectly compatible and well mixed: they
formed an undefined paper paste that
could be used for any new creation, based
equally on both of them. With the
installation Un Immigrant sans papiers, set
in the Netherlands, Huang stages with
humour a buffalo, long associated with
Chinese Lao-Tseu, in the isolated
countryside to address the question of
immigration in Europe, and beyond the
issue of identity: a powerful metaphor for
the renewal of the fusions of different
cultures, which Chen Zhen might refer to
as creative “synergy”.
Huang Yongping, Un immigrant sans papiers, 2005, installation
Courtesy of dslcollection

The opening to the West has long
been synonymous with progress, until
criticism addressed to this “neo-
colonization” emerged in the 1990’s.
The idea behind the installation Plant
Republic (2011) by Shi Qing (b.1969)
is to show an ecosystem, represented
here by a complex set of objects and
of wooden constructions. This is a
metaphor for a selection of well-
identified and labelled plants intended
to be grown in a glasshouse. For the
artist, on the international scene,
Chinese artists are selected just like
those plants that are later transferred
to the garden for proper cultivation.
By this method, people who come
and look at Chinese art actually only
see an artificially created garden and
they forget that there are real, wild,
plants outside. According to him, art
Shi Qing, Plant Republic, 2011, installation
Courtesy of the artist and ShanghART Gallery
When artists
cannot be controlled, it is a seed that
grows freely, outside all labelling.
Born in Inner Mongolia and an
autodidact, Shi Qing has been
producing experimental work since
the end of the 1990s and has created
his own idiosyncratic language, using
very simple materials like wood,
green plants or boxes, in order to
remain as neutral as possible. A great
reader, Shi has been inspired in
particular by the ideas of French
philosopher Henry Lefebvre (1901-
1991) in his attempt to evade the
conventionality of daily ways of life
and to free the individual. For both the
philosopher and the artist, everyday
life is a barrier which prevents
imagination and inventiveness from
finding the ways of personal
autonomous expression.
challenge the West
MadeIn Company, Seeing one’s own eyes, 2009, installation, 800 x 800 x 60 cm
As seen from their angle, the artists of
MadeInCompany have noted the
persistence of a demand for the exotic
and for preconceived ideas on the part
of Westerners. For them, and for many
artists, Chinese contemporary art is still
not understood by Westerners, who
project on it many stereotypes and who
use it to nourish their own visions.
Courtesy of the artist
Seeing one’s own eyes (2009) is part of
a wider exhibition labelled « Middle
East ». It focused on the use of clichés
and references such as Arab
calligraphy, ceramic shards, or pictures
of camels, to create a fake Middle East
art, thus showing that a Middle East
contemporary art exhibition could very
well be “made in China”. This mimics
the simplified analytical tools used by
the West and the artists’ willing
participation in these expectations.
MadeIn Company is a group of artists
created in 2009 in Shanghai by Xu Zhen
(b.1977), as a parody of a business
company. Its founder likes to make fun of
all “Chinese” clichés and preconceived
ideas: his Dinosaur (2007), is a pastiche of
the famous “Shark” by Damien Hirst, sliced
in two and exhibited in two separate glass
windows. This colossal installation, more
than 10 meters long, supposedly proves
thereby and ironically that Chinese people
can imitate anything and make it “bigger”.
More than focusing on the production of
art, the artists of MadeIn Company actually
take into account the energy issued from
creation, reflecting their spirit in a time
when material things appear and disappear
easily and randomly.
Mocking this neo-colonialism issue and
well decided to stand beyond the debate
between West and East, Zhou Tiehai
(b.1966) deliberately adopted the visual
language of Western art to criticize the
actual establishment.
In his very satirical works, he appropriates
master’s paintings, replacing their figure’s
faces by a camel’s head, and using
airbrushing rather than brushstrokes. The
artist even created in the 90’s his own
Western alter ego, Joe Camel, to hit the
auctions sales and defy the art market.
Zhou Tiehai, The Dense Cloud Dark, 2000, gouache on canvas, 307 x 520 cm
On the other hand, the younger generation
refers more and more to the Western
classics: Li Ran quotes Barthes and
Foucault in his performance Mont Saint
Victoire (2012) titled after Cézanne, Cheng
Ran reinterprets classics such as The Birds
by Hitchock but also the video by Bill Viola
Five Angels For the Millennium (2001) with
his The Sixth Angel for the Millenium
(2011) Is this expressing a need for
credibility or a critique of a dominant
history?
Courtesy of dslcollection
For Yan Xing, the classics of Western art are heavy
with the history and the culture which nourished
them, even made them sacred. The point then is to
fight this process whereby we create myths,
perceived as tools for power and a new form of
domination of the West on the rest of the world.
In his series American Art (2013) he presents two
men, almost naked, imitating the postures of Greek
athletes, throwing the javelin or the disk. The
universe of black and white, very dark, strengthens
the sensuality of the prints and allows the artist to
chisel the forms in a very precise manner. However,
for Yan, the issue is not of asserting the individual
nor his sexual freedom: beyond the bodies, what he
is questioning is the criterium of what is Beauty and
he challenges dominant ideas in this respect. These
sculptural and idealized bodies refer obviously to the
idea of Beauty as it was defined in Western Antiquity.
They could also represent the glorification of strength
and bodily perfection as promoted by both fascism
and socialism during the 20th century. And what with
today’s mainstream cult of beauty? Coming closer,
one sees that the bodies are covered with scars, like
those of the slaves of an alienating culture.
Yan Xing, American Art (photo no. 3), 2013, photograph, ultra giclee,
152 x 186 cm, edition 1/3 + AP
Courtesy of the artist and Urs Meile Gallery
 In his performance Realism (2011), Yan
confronted another approach to art, that of
surrealism: standing around a 3.5-meter
plaster replica of the David by
Michelangelo, seven actors, including the
artist, whisper, recite or exchange on the
topic of the Surrealist manifesto by André
Breton (1924). The artist, who is also a
singer, plays the role of the initiator of the
debates and shares with the others his own
reflections upon art, challenging the notions
of Beauty in various cultures and defending,
beyond any ideology, the idea of the
sublime in art. The whole scene offers itself
as a ritual in which actors take ownership of
the words of André Breton.
His work raises the issue of art as an
instrument of power, a crushing, sometimes
alienating weight to bear, art being
constantly instrumentalized by cultures and
ideologies. His installation Dirty Act II and II
(2013) inspired by Edward Hopper’s Drug
Store (1927) presents itself as two
pharmacy cupboards, each containing nine
television screens. Extracts from the films
of Pasolini, close-ups of a bonsai or of a
kiss, are displayed and all these shots give
the artist a diarrhea, as he says himself.
Yan Xing, REALISM, 2011, performance and installation
Exhibition view, courtesy of the artist and Urs Meile Gallery
The pharmacy cupboards are there to
supply medicine against this indigestion of
images, re-used and re-exploited in the
name of the dominant ideology. Like
Pasolini, whom he frequently quotes, Yan
Xing is at war against the standardization of
thought and against a discourse about art
which has become a system.
In the background lies the issue of teaching
and transmission of the history of art: for
Lenin in 1918 (2013), a glass case
containing fake paintings by Mondrian,
Cézanne or Malevich in black and white as
well as copies of antique sculptures,
reproduces Lenin’s imaginary drawing
room. Could these pale replicas of
masterpieces have been used to give a
foundation to Russian revolutionary power?
Are these tokens of an endangered species
which should be preserved or, to the
contrary, of a dangerous species against
which we should protect ourselves? Each of
these works thus becomes, potentially, an
instrument of power that we must know how
to use and analyze.
 Yan Xing, Lenin in 1918, 2013, photography, ultra giclee, 96 x 120 cm
At that point, Yan explores the western
concept of postmodernism in the new
context of China. For a long time
mythologies and epics drove human lives,
making them meaningful and contributing to
the organisation of human societies. But as
societies globally have become secularised,
individuals have liberated themselves from
external rules and beliefs, becoming more
and more engaged in self-government and
autonomy. This swing from heteronomy to
autonomy marks the beginning of modernity
but the end of “grand narratives”.
Courtesy of the artist and Urs Meile Gallery
This also marks what philosopher Jean-
François Lyotard described as post-
modernity: myths are not only unnecessary
now, but also lead to a false vision of
history that it is no longer possible to
accept. For Lyotard, grand narratives are
close to totalitarianism in the sense that
they impose supposed facts and truths that
will never be demonstrated.
The old Chinese cultural system has been
left aside but new myths have appeared,
based on the Western culture and new
social values. They reflect an idea of
society that adheres to the ideologies of the
ruling class, and against which Yan tries to
warn us.
This issue of modernity – and of post-modernity, since China discovered both
at the same time – is also informing the work of Li Ran (b.1986). Li uses
performances and videos very freely, being unconstrained by the medium but
following liberally his own ideas. Through his ceaseless questioning of the
role of the artist, he tries to situate himself with regard to a complex cultural
heritage and to his own personal history. Another “the other story” (2013) is
an installation inspired by the particular story of his father, a realist painter
who was, in his own time, also in search of modernity. In the black and white
video accompanying the paintings collected by his father, most of them of the
impressionist school, Li represents himself as a classic painter: what does it
mean today to be a modern painter and what shall we do with this History of
Art which is imposed upon us? He asks: “Who is at the edge of the world and
who is at the centre?”
The title refers to the 1989 exhibition entitled “The Other Story: Afro- Asian
Artists in Postwar Britain” curated by critic Rasheed Araeen at Hayward
Gallery, which pointed to the “absence of non-Western artists in the history of
modern art.”
Li Ran, Another “The Other Story”, 2013, single channel sound HD video, 7 min 5 sec
Courtesy of dslcollection

The world of contemporary art is
still largely dominated by the West,
imposing its theories and analytical
tools. Venice, for instance, is still a
compulsory part of the artistic
curriculum and it is by following the
rules of the game of the West that
artists may obtain recognition.
However, more and more curators
are giving voices to emerging art
scenes and offer new platforms for
them to express on an international
level.
At the same time, the issue of the
transmission of culture, and of its
place in society, is also at the heart
of the discussions about the
museographic practices in China,
where it is said that one museum
opens every day. How should one
arrange exhibitions in the country,
what should be exhibited, how to
write a history of art which would
not be one-sided and how can a
museum-specific space be
defined?
Yet, for the time being, facing what
we now call the “museumification”
of China, the question seems more
to be ‘how many museums can we
built and at what pace?’ rather than
‘what content will be shown?’ In a
2013 article quoted by Chinese
Leap magazine, Guo Xiaoling,
director of The Capital Museum,
stated that China would need to
create at least 43,000 museums in
the future to catch up with the
world standard, more than double
the amount that currently exists in
Museums:
the US. This figure seems actually
unreachable even though nearly
100 new museums are being built
annually across the country.
With the fashion of contemporary
art and the growth of the market,
private initiatives also proliferate,
like the Sifang art museum, located
in the countryside around Nanjing
and opened in 2013, having been
designed by New York architect
Steven Holl. Private collectors are
encouraged to build their own
museums to show their personal
collection. Chinese billionaire
collectors Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei
opened for example in 2014 the
Long Museum West Bund in
Shanghai, their second museum in
the city, designed by Liu Yichun of
Atelier Deshaus. Many of the
structures are indeed designed by
renowned architects, but are also
often being built as part of new
property projects and some will
probably never exhibit anything.
UCCA, independent, not-for-profit
art center in Beijing and Rockbund
Art Museum in Shanghai are
among the most successful
museums, supporting decisively
both acclaimed and emerging
Chinese and international artists,
yet they are both directed by
Westerners: the former has been
founded by Belgian collectors Guy
and Myriam Ullens and the latter is
directed by French Larys Frogier.
last bastion of Western culture
Public museums have actually not Rather than copying traditional
traditionally been part of Chinese Western institutions, this frenzy
culture, and because of the period of museum-building could
troubled history of the 20th century, actually be a good opportunity for
no complete public collection of China to adopt a fresh attitude and
contemporary art exists in China. to rethink deeply the museum
Furthermore, the majority of culture. There have been actually
exhibited works have still to be already a few interesting initiatives,
approved by censors. Besides, both taken from the private and
most of the public museums lack public sector, such as K11 and M+.
proper funding, critical discourses
or curatorial directions. Despite
their beautiful and contemporary
design, they are often empty
shells. The Guangdong Times
Museum is probably one of the
exceptions, being driven by a
strong curatorial think tank and
offering cutting-edge curators and
artists talks. One of their earliest
exhibition was entitled A Museum
that is Not, reflecting their desire to
escape mainstream conceptions
and to search for their own path.

View of Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai

Born in Hong Kong into a family of entrepreneurs, Adrian Cheng set the
tone for mixing deeply art and business with his “Museum of retail”, a totally
new and inventive concept. His K11 chains are hybrid contemporary
spaces including shopping mall and high quality art exhibitions. K11
Shanghai, for instance, opened in 2014 and recently hit the headlines with
the exhibition of 40 masterpieces by Claude Monet and 12 other works by
Impressionist artists lent by the Marmottan Museum in Paris. The exhibition
was accompanied by debates, educational programmes and film-
screenings. To Cheng, it is important to bring art into everyday life and
there are no incompatibilities between experiencing art and sharing a
coffee. The brand is expanding throughout China with a total of 19 projects
in 11 Chinese cities planned between now and 2020.
 View of M+ from the Park at WKCD.
Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron and West
Kowloon Cultural District Authority
M+, the new museum for all forms
of 20th and 21st century visual art,
built in Hong Kong and scheduled
to open in 2017, offers another
view about exhibiting art.
Its designation itself, just an M to
suggest Museum without naming
it, reflects the founders’ will to get
off the beaten track. It is M+,
meaning it is more than a usual
museum, actually a place where
nobody has actually never been
yet to see art. According to its
Executive Director Dr.lars Nittve, it
is aiming at being a new type of
museum, able to reflect the needs
and the culture of this age.
Dedicated to “Visual Culture”, it will
not present the collection
according to the disciplines they
supposedly belong to but will allow
permeability between departments,
mixing for example design and
sculpture. The organization of
todays MOMA stands for their
perfect counter example as it
reflects too much a western point
of view. Curators from different
regions, countries and generation
are working together to invent this
21st century museum.
Yet, Dr. Nittve insists that whatever
story is built up, it is likely to
change. Every museum is created
in tune with the times and reflects
them. It certainly is not about
finding or establishing a truth, but
offering a momentary one.
According to Jacques Herzog,
from the Swiss architecture firm
Herzog & de Meuron, winner of the
competition for the building’s
construction: “the project deals
with a totally new institution, so the
building needs to be really well
thought out and cannot be just a
piece of architecture that is
especially flashy.” The museum will
be in the shape of a wide
horizontal platform topped by a
wide, slim tower overlooking
Victoria Harbour and covering an
overall area of 60,000 m2 in the
middle of a 14 hectares park. A
large part of the collection has
already been donated by Uli Sigg,
one of the greatest collectors of
contemporary Chinese art, and
includes 1463 works of art dating
from the late 1970s up to the
present day.
Hu Xiangqian, Art Museum, 2010-, performance, video 14’31
Courtesy of Long March Space and the artist

Simultaneously, artists take increasingly the lead on institutions and create diverse
platforms for connecting the audience and the artworks. MadeIn Company, for
example, is not only a contemporary art creation company but also forms a curatorial
team that conceives and organizes exhibitions and art projects. They provide artists
and art collective with their own space to promote young emerging artists and
cultivate exchanges. Their exhibition Bourgeoisified Proletariat in September 2009
gathered works by more than 40 Chinese artists and art organizations.
Since 2010, Hu Xiangqian (b.1983)
proposes his own alternative: he collects
works for his own museum, the Xiang Qian
Museum, gathering everything which
passes through his mind. Because works
gathered in institutions are material objects,
he offers to mime his own work at each
exhibition, thus using his body as the
vehicle of his work. Hu thinks art exists
through performances without needing to
materialize: for him it should be possible to
carry art around with oneself everywhere.
He draws most of his inspiration from his
own everyday life in an attempt to expose
the failures in the functioning of society. His
work is often humorous and appears absurd
although it is not so. The artist prefers to be
called actor rather than performance artist,
and his attitude echoes many others
western practices, Tino Sehgal to name but
one. It reflects another phenomenon that
drives nowadays western museums and art
fairs, which turn their space into stages,
integrating increasingly performing art to
visual arts as if to renew them.
In Hong Kong, an independent non-profit
organization collects and preserves all
material relating to Asian contemporary art,
leading the way to the opening up of a
space where multiple voices can come
together. Founded in 2000, Asia Art Archive
documents and makes accessible the
histories of the recent art from Asia. Its goal
is to shine light on less visible histories, and
allow for a comparative reading of these
histories across the region. Its collection
contains nearly 50,000 documents
consisting of artists’ catalogues and books,
videos, newspapers, sound recordings and
personal archives. The now internationally
recognised institution recorded 900,000
visitors to their website in 2013, and is also
regarded as an opinion leader: for example,
its founder Claire Hsu has been invited to
speak at the World Economic Forum, Davos
in January 2014 on cultural heritage.
Its collection is now accessible online which
increases its visibility and offers a
remarkable open alternative to the usual
western classification of art. It isn’t simply a
question of safekeeping documents, but it is
about how an Asian platform activates and
shares them to catalyse and enable new
thinking, research and knowledge.
With new technologies, the way we share
content is actually evolving rapidly and
digital platforms can precisely offer new and
rich alternatives. The dematerialization of
the artworks through photography and
reproduction generates opportunities for
gathering artworks from very different
disciplines, times and contexts. Very
flexible, it allows the audience to build their
own museum in their mind, achieving what
André Malraux called the Imaginary
Museum.
This new framework could change again
and deeply the deal about sharing art
across the globe: for instance, the Google
Art Project enables people from all over the
world to discover the art collection from
museums located all over the world.
Everyone who has a good internet access
can walk virtually inside MOMA, Orsay Paris
Museum, National Gallery of Modern Art in
New Dehli or UCCA in Beijing. Borders and
nationalities do not mean anything anymore
on this platform. Collectors like Dominique
and Sylvain Levy propose curated shows on
line while anyone can have free access to
their art collection from their website. With
the increasing size of TV/computer screens
and with higher definition, the quality of the
reproduced artworks will become better and
better even though it is difficult to evaluate
the ability for such digital images to move
someone or trigger real emotions. At least
digital museums work like encyclopaedia,
bringing art history and knowledge globally.
 Hybridity and re-invention:
reconciliation and beyond

Hybridity is as topical as ever, even if the Eternity for example is a sculptural

debate between western influence and
local culture is still open. The point is not
anyway to choose one or the other but to
manufacture an alloy, so to speak, of the
two, to recover an identity that would not
be a negation of one’s own cultural
inheritance but that would be able to
adapt to a global international society. A
new space for creativity emerges, while
the borrowings from the West open the
way for original pictorial languages.
Recent works by Xu Zhen (b.1977) with
MadeIn Company could perfectly
illustrate the creative possibilities that
hybridity offers when mixing western and
eastern cultures.
installation composed of replicas of
selected classic statues embodying the
highest benchmark of western and Asian
civilizations. The missing heads of the
Greek divinities sculptures are replaced
with statues of Buddha positioned upside
down, held together by the necks. This
clever manipulation of cultural differences
can be read as a representation of a long
and insoluble conflict of civilizations but
also as a complementarity and inventive
figure beyond the power struggles of
human history. It reflects today’s artists’
own negotiation with an increasingly
hybrid and mobile identity.

Xu Zhen, Eternity-Northern Qi golden

and painted Buddha, Tang Dynasty
torso of standing Buddha from
Quyang city, Northern Qi painted
Bodhisattva, Tang Dynasty seated
Buddha from Tianlongshan, Northern
Qi painted Buddha, Tang Dynasty
torso of a seated Buddha from
Tianlongshan grotto No. 4.,
Parthenon East pediment, 2013-2014.
Mixed media installation, 1522,5 x 93
x 460 cm, courtesy of the artist
Xu Zhen, Eternity-Tianlongshan Grottoes Bodhisattva Winged Victory of Samothrace,
2013, mixed media installation, 460 x 230 x 626 cm, courtesy of the artist
Top: He Xiangyu, Antique series, 2010, ink and coca cola resin on silk, 40 x 45 cm
Right: Coca Project – Extraction, 2009-10, coca cola dregs, 35 x 23.5 x 27 cm
Both courtesy of the artist and White Space Beijing
In the same vein, He Xiangyu has
ingeniously replaced traditional Chinese
ink by the most western material that
exists: coca-cola resin. Coca-Cola
Project, started in 2008, seeks indeed
to extract all the water contained in this
drink by boiling it until only its essence
is left. At the beginning, He had one ton
of coca cola boiled through in his
Beijing studio, then he went back to his
native town, close to the Korean border,
and hired workers to, this time,
transform 127 tons of the drink. The
mountain of residue thus created forms
an artificial landscape, devastated and
sinister, almost lunar. He also extracts
from this residue a paste with which he
can paint, thus pushing very far the
integration of American culture into
Chinese society.
He also succeeds in transforming
radically the attitude of individuals
toward this iconic drink: his work,
immense, repulsive and black, reveals
the chemical components, which lied
hidden inside the drink.
His Antique series, thus, is painted in
the style of the Song dynasty (960-
1279) and looks like an authentic one.
In fact it has been made with coca-cola
resin. Once mixed with water, the drink-
turned-paint becomes a sort of dark
brown pigment. How long will the work
last? Traditional landscapes no doubt
represented a form of longevity; this
one will decay swiftly, like everything
which is done nowadays.
His use of typical western material offers a critical view on todays’
globalization, beyond the simple Chinese horizon. His Tank Project
(2011–13) made entirely of luxury Italian leather embodies the
sometimes uncanny and paradoxical outcome of the current
interdependencies between nations. The work is a life-size military tank
hand-sewn by an entire factory of female needle workers, specially
trained by the artist. Yet, rather than rising proudly, the sculpture has
collapsed and appears deflated, suggesting an incompatibility between
western political and economic power and traditional cultures. It took
actually two years for the women to complete the work and it could be
linked with the artist’s interest in traditional cultures, which he aims at
reviving, prioritizing human culture over technologies.
 He Xiangyu, Tank project, 2011-13
Leather, 890 x 600 x 150 cn
Courtesy of the artist and White Space Beijing
 Hybridity gives definitively birth to an
original aesthetic language. Sun Xun
(b.1980) creates animation videos made
from woodcuts, colour powder and
traditional ink that blend western and
eastern styles. His universe is a dark
one, burdened with anxiety. It is the world
of lies, of black chimney smoke
emanating from factories, which darken
the sky and hide the sun from sight. An
atmosphere much like the one in George
Orwell’s novels.
The Shock of Time, for instance, includes
150 small paintings and drawings on old
Chinese newspapers and books.
Sun Xun, The Shock of Time, 2006, installation, multi-media, 300 x 600 cm
Courtesy of dslcollection
The artist borrows the Western surrealist
style to draw his black figures, which then
melt with the background, mixing Dali’s
aesthetics with the People’s Liberation
Army Pictorial.
Inspired by Aldous Huxley’s novel Brave
New World, the work entitled What
happen in the year of the dragon (2014)
is an animation screened between two
pillars topped with a stuffed hen and
presented in front of a brown horse’s
rump. His surrealistic images and
drawings reflect and condemn the way
how the fictional and tragic future
described in Huxley’s text has become a
reality: a society controlled by a
totalitarian government through the use
of science and technology.
 Sun Xun, What happen in the year of the dragon, 2014, video 10 minutes
Courtesy of the artist and Edouard Malingue Gallery

Yet Sun Xun’s nightmarish creations and
psychological manipulations are also full
of fantasy as he keeps inventing hybrid
animals or extravagant situations. In
many of his animations, one finds the
same character, a lost wizard in search
for a better world: indeed, his world is
also a child’s world, full of dreams, a
unique mix of William Kentridge’s and
William Blake’s universes with a dash of
ancient Chinese cartoon.
The artist deals with nowadays human
condition, not only in China, but across
the globe: he feels the threat of a tyranny
of technology. This concerns everyone
and his original language aims at
universality.
Today, many works find themselves at
the crossroad between Chinese and
Western cultures and can be interpreted
through both angles: the immense
painting Bamboo Bamboo Broadway
(2011-12) by Liu Ye (b.1964) is for
instance a direct homage to the Boogie
Boogie Broadway (1943) by Mondrian,
but it could also be seen as a revival of
the shanshui style. The bamboos,
sketched at the limit of the visible,
suggest the delicate stroke of painters
like Ni Zan (1301-1374) as much as the
Dutch painter’s architectural outlines.
Tang Song, 1989631, 2013, mixed media on canvas, 250 x 600 cm
Courtesy of dslcollection
In the last five years, Tang Song
worked on a series on a tribute to
Dutch Hans van Dijk who introduced
in the 80’s in China the principle that
art should be "real", instead of being
a representation of a reality outside
of art itself. The artist repetitive
movement and gridded, geometric
lines embrace then Western and
Eastern theories, giving birth to
dynamic abstract works.
The painting 1989631, for instance,
refers all at once to traditional ink
painting, modern abstraction and
action painting. More than a
monotonous gesture, the artist’s
attitude is violent and active: Tang
Song adds layers over layers of
painting on the canvas but also
opens up the surface of his
canvasses by crushing it. The title
indicates an invented day of his life
(June 31, 1989) and reminds the
artist’s past strong involvement in
social ad political debate.
On the other hand, the large acrylic
paintings by Wang Guangle (b.1976)
remind us of the work done on colors
by such American artists as Morris
Louis in the 1960s or Mark Rothko. At
the same time, the repetition of the
gesture allows the artist to work with
an empty, open, mind akin to that of
the Taoist philosopher or to Zen.
Looking at these works, people do
not suspect that the author is
Chinese and Wang relishes this
ambiguity.
At the beginning he gave himself to
repetitive painting so as to recover an
interior serenity, which he was
lacking. His series Terrazzo required
much work and concentration, and
was for him a therapy: with small,
successive and precise strokes of the
brush, Wang reproduced on the
canvas the motifs of those Italian
floorings, made of natural stones and
broken fragments. This series was for
him a step toward abstraction. The
repeated gesture reminded him of a
tradition in his native village, whereby
aging persons must paint their own
coffin. Every year they have to put a
new layer of paint so as to keep the
coffin in good state. The artist drew
inspiration from this for his series
Coffins (2007-2009) where he
superimposed lines over one another.
This technique is very time-
consuming, and this makes him think
about the passing of time and about
death. The form, then, decreases in
importance: it is time itself which he
portrays, trying to find possible visual
expressions for it.
In these cases, Western art can be
considered a base from where to
elaborate a truly creative gesture
combining the foreign influence with
deep cultural roots.
Wang Guangle, 121030, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 180 x 160 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Beijing Commune
Zeng Fanzhi, Hare, 2012, oil on canvas in 2 parts, 400 x 400 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Gagosian Gallery
To start from an existing image is
notably for Zeng Fanzhi a new
method to elaborate his interior vision
of a landscape. For the three works
Head of an Old Man (2012), Hare
(2012) and Praying Hands (2012),
the artist started with reproducing in a
single color, and on very large
panels, the exact outline of Dürer’s
drawings. Then he let free his own
creative talent, criss-crossing the
canvas with quick strokes of rose,
blue or white, scratching the figure
with dense, black twigs and vegetal
veined designs. He added one
source of artificial light. Despite their
apparent differences in style and
manner, the Chinese artist revives for
us the precision of the German artist
who painted with brush on paper, and
a true dialogue is established
between the two.
In his previous works, one can see
the influence of Max Beckmann in the
cruelty of the strokes and of Francis
Bacon in the isolation of the subject.
Egon Schiele and Chaim Soutine
have also inspired his early
expressionist works featuring
exaggerated animal’s carcass and
butchers figures. Progressively, his
gestures seem to become freer as he
moves more and more towards
abstract expressionism. From the
years 2000 on, his paintings look as if
they had been scratched all over,
swept across by spontaneous
strokes: like De Kooning, Zeng paints
with two brushes, one for the design
and the other left free to express
directly and purely his unconscious.
This type of pictorial research feeds a
new, hybrid, kind of painting, more
and more akin to a very
contemporaneous re-interpretation of
the traditional Chinese landscape
and many artists converge toward
this view.
The confrontation with the West has
been remarkably fertile for Chinese
artists and it opens the path for
constant creation. What we may see
more and more is the distinction
between the West as an economic
and social model, something which
may well fade away, and "the West",
or more specifically such and such
artistic movement, as source of
artistic inspiration among others, at
the level where artists have always
felt free to draw inspiration from
whatever they wanted. Claude Monet
has been reportedly influenced by
Hokusai, Henri Michaux by Zao Wou-
ki etc: this is the common heritage of
humanity. Art only lives by contagion.
The distinction will be nourished by
the capacity of Chinese artists to take
a step back from social and political
issues of their time and produce
content which would be neither
hybrid nor defined in relation with
models. It is also likely that new ways
to exhibit works of art will emerge in
China and the new, tighter, forms of
relations with the public will perhaps
help artists operate this
emancipation.
CHEN Zhou
(b. 1987, Zhejiang, China)
Chen Zhou graduated from the
Central Academy of Fine Arts in
Beijing with a degree in Media
Art in 2009. His experimental
practice alternates between fluid
roles of artist and filmmaker.
Tapping into the aesthetics of
cinema history and popular
culture, Chen explores the
pliability of language and the
incongruous new system of
aesthetics unfolding in
contemporary China. Chen’s
latest exhibition was “I am Not
Not Not Chen Zhou” at Magician
Space in Beijing. He was also
part of “ON|OFF” at UCCA, and
appeared in the group shows
“Jungle” (Platform China) and
“Get It Louder” in Beijing in
2010.
CHI Peng
(b. 1981, Yantai, China)
Chi Peng is one of the youngest
contemporary Chinese artists. A
graduate from the Digital Media
Department in Beijing’s Central
Academy of Fine Arts (2005),
the influence of his teacher,
artist Miao Xiaochun, is very
clear. Chi’s photographs, often
several meters long, refuse any
beginning or end of the visual
narrative. In his work, the
separation between cyberspace
and living reality is already a
relic of the past. Paranoid
agitation and egomaniacal self-
reference characterize the
artist’s alter egos that multiplied
like a clone and mutated into a
flying humanoid fly across urban
landscapes. Using the same
montage technique he uses to
manoeuver this cast of figures
into his pictures, Chi also
employs additional fantastical
elements. Like film stills, Chi's
photographs capture moments
of the highest psychological
tension, physical exertion, or
arousal. It is never about
exposing the represented
figure—after all, it is the artist
himself.
HE Xingyu
(b. 1986, Dandong, China)
Part of a new generation of
conceptual artists in China using
a range of media to articulate
cultural and social concerns, He
Xiangyu is known for his
provocative and ambitious work.
He started the Cola Project in
2008. For this work the artist
boiled down 127 tons of Coca
Cola over the course of a year.
The resulting material residue
has taken various forms
including a highly corrosive,
pungent earth-like substance,
and a black ink that the artist
used to make Song Dynasty-
style landscape paintings. Cola
Project recalls works from the
1960s by artists such as Robert
Smithson whilst also providing a
commentary on the effects of
western consumer culture on
contemporary China, by
subjecting its products to a
profound process of material
transformation.
Equally ambitious in scope, He
Xiangyu’s Tank Project (2011–
13) is a life-size military tank
made entirely of luxury Italian
leather. The work took two
years to create, and was hand-
sewn by an entire factory of
female needle workers,
specially trained by the artist.
This collapsed and deflated
object suggests the steady
advancement of Western
materialism in contemporary
China, and highlights the inter-
dependencies of political and
economic power.
He Xingyu currently lives and
works in Beijing. He has held
solo exhibitions in The
Bathhouse, Tokyo; White
Space, Beijing; Kunstlerhaus
Schloss Balmoral, Bad Ems,
Germany; Loft Art Gallery,
Paris, and Wall Art Museum,
Beijing. His work has been
included in group exhibitions in
Groninger Museum, The
Netherlands; Ullens Center for
Contemporary Art, Beijing;
Iberia Center for Contemporary
Art, Beijing, and Kunstmuseum
Luzern, Switzerland.
HU Jieming
(b. 1957, Shanghai, China)
Hu Jieming’s artistic
explorations revolve around
memory and the sense of time,
which he calls “very powerful
tools, but also dangerous ones”.
Without them, human beings
cannot learn, or civilisation exist.
Yet personal recollections and
historical records can never be
complete, much less truthful; all
we have are flickering fragments
of scenes forever lost. The
Remnants of Images (2013)
links memory and history
through the metaphors of store
and archive, filling battered file
cabinets and lockers with old
and recent photographs.
Converted to digital and partly
animated images, printed on
glass or displayed on video
screens, these visual remnants
of the personal and collective
past shimmer and shift, appear
and disappear as lights change
and drawers open and close at
random. Hu Jieming says he
wanted to replicate the way we
“screen” memories: with eyes
closed, we can almost see the
past, but the images are vague,
and when we open our eyes
they vanish. The events of
history take place in sequential
time, he says, but the traces
that remain in memory are
detached from time:
chronologically jumbled, they
come and go outside our
conscious control. The
“remnants of images” in this
storage bank come from Hu
Jieming’s own camera, family
photo albums, and the Internet.
We believe in our memories the
same way we believe in the
historical record, he says. But
both are as elusive as will-o’-
the-wisps: “I believe the past is
alive But it is impossible to
remember it perfectly.”
HU Xiangqian
(b. 1983, Guangdong, China)
Hu graduated from the
Guangzhou Academy of Fine
Arts in 2007. Hu’s artistic
practice tends toward
performance and video inspired
by current events and his own
surroundings. With a keen eye
for the absurd, he skilfully
highlights the contrasts in our
society and amplifies minor
incidents into major social
signifiers. One of his best-
known video works, Blue Flags
Everywhere, documents a Space and Shanghai’s Aike
humorous but earnest attempt
to run for mayor of his
hometown at the age of 21. In
Sun, Hu tries to tan himself the
same shade as two of his close
African friends, while Drift with
the Tide is a poignant work
about the artist leaving
university by literally rowing out
to sea.
HUANG Yongping
(b. 1954, Xiamen, China)
Huang is a contemporary
French visual artist of Chinese
origin. Huang's work combines
many media and cultural
influence, but is particularly
strongly influence by the
intellectual abstraction of Dada
and by Chinese numerology
traditions. Founder of the
Xiamen Dada group in China in
the 1980s, Huang's installations
have included unorthodox
materials such as live snakes
and scorpions. Many of Huang's
sculptural works encompass a
large scale, some tens of
meters in dimension. Although
Huang permanently left Paris in
1989, his creative methodology
remains firmly rooted in his
Chinese identity. Huang’s
consistent questioning of the
hierarchies of language, art,
history and politics is equally
mediated, however, by Western
influences including Ludwig
Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault,
Joseph Beuys, John Cage and
Marcel Duchamp.
In fact it is the collision between
ancient beliefs (China) and new
knowledge (the West) that
drives Huang’s art.
LI Ran
(b. 1986, Hubei, China)
Graduated from the Oil Painting
Department of Sichuan Fine
Arts Institute in 2009, Li is the
co-founder of the artist group "
/Company". Li has had solo
shows at Beijing’s Magician
Dellarco Gallery, and was
included in the Shenzhen and
Gwangju Biennales in 2012. Li
also took part in curator Biljana
Ciric’s “Alternatives to Ritual”
exhibition at the Goethe Institute
Open Space in Shanghai, and
ON/OFF, a major survey of
young Chinese artists in
Beijing’s Ullens Centre for
Contemporary Art (UCCA). In
2013, Li participated in a group
show focusing on reassessing
performance art in China
(curated by Su Wei at Beijing’s
Star Gallery). For Art Basel
Hong Kong 2013, Li was
commissioned by Aike Dellarco
to create a new piece for the
gallery’s space in the
“Discoveries” section of the fair.
MadeIn
Under the moniker MadeIn,
Shanghai-based artist Xu Zhen
employs a pool of young artists
to conceive and execute vast
quantities of work in a range of
media. Since the group’s
inception in 2009, MadeIn’s
paintings, sculptures and
installations have frequently
been shown in both solo
presentations and group
exhibitions. MadeIn's key
conceptual strategy is to
challenge the audience's
perception through artworks that
verge between the genuine and
the unbelievable.
MIAO Xiaochun
(b. 1964, Wuxi, China)
Miao is renowned for his
photographs of contemporary
China, vast cityscapes which
record technological
development, painting an alien
view of his homeland and
envisioning a new dynastic era.
Typically printed in black and
white, Miao’s photos are at once
enchantingly serene and
threateningly industrial. Miao
uses photography to engage the
viewer in an ultra-modern way.
By using digital process to
create his subject ‘from scratch’,
Miao’s photographs
authenticate a virtual world
rather than document reality.
Similar to video game graphics
and ‘screen shots’, Miao’s
images involve the viewer by
casting them as ‘avatars’ within
the action.
SHI Qing
(b. 1969, Baotou, Inner
Mongolia)
Shi Qing's work is hard to
categorize and always evolves
in both media and
methodological tools of
perception. From behavioral
analysis of psychology to study
of geopolitical conflict in the
globalized world, from socialist
cultural heritage to actual
geographical environment in the
nomadic space, a wide range of
topics have come under his
attention. His recent projects are
more focused on everyday life
politics and artistic production
relations.
Shi lived and worked in Beijing
for almost two decades before
moving to Shanghai. A selection
of major exhibitions in which Shi
Qing has participated includes:
Santa Fe Biennale (U.S.A,
2008), Guangzhou Triennial
(China, 2005), Prague Biennale
(Czech Republic, 2005), Busan
Biennale (Korea, 2004).
SUN Xun
(b. 1980, Fuxin, China)
Sun creates animations that
combine hand-drawn renderings
and traditional materials with
new media. He studied
printmaking at the China
Academy of Fine Arts, but a
burgeoning interest in moving
images led him to found his own
animation studio in 2006. To
create his meticulous
animations, Sun produces a
multitude of drawings that
incorporate text within the
image. His subjects range from
elements found in world history
and politics, to natural
organisms. He then films the
drawings, sequentially one at a
time, to create a sense of
movement and suggest the
passing of time, the
machinations of history, and the
beauty inherent in simple forms.
Sun’s work plies the
uncontested surface of
politicized truth. By tying
together the tenets of academic
drawing with political cartoons
and projecting them into the
realms of installation and film,
he manifests his multifaceted
imagistic world as
improvisational theatre.
TANG Song
(b. 1960, Hebei, China)
One of the older artists in the
collection, Tang graduated from
Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts
(now China Academy of Art) in
1989. Tang is perhaps best
known for his participation in the
"gunshot incident" at the
China/Avant Garde exhibition at
the National Art Museum of
China in 1989, which was itself
a turning point in the
development of Chinese
contemporary art. Over the
intervening years, Tang has
developed a unique and
independent artistic language,
creating works across a range
of media (painting, installation,
and performance).
WANG Guangle
(b. 1976, Fujian, China)
"If I am to paint, I will paint the
passage of time itself which
concerns the essence of my
life." According to Wang, people
in northen Fujian used to buy a
coffin when they turned 60.
They kept it at home and each
year painted it with red lacquer
to celebrate their survival and
remind them of their impending
death. Each year they’d add
another layer, until they died. As
a child, he saw his grandfather
painting his coffin, and the
memory inspired his Coffin Paint
series.
WANG Guangyi
(b. 1957, Harbin, China)
Though Wang Guangyi’s work
has erroneously been
associated with Chinese
Political Pop, in reality one of
the main themes of his art can
be found in its relationship to the
transcendent. Juxtaposing
revolutionary images with
consumer logos, Wang’s
canvases provocate with their
duplicitous message,
highlighting the conflict between
China’s political past and
commercialised present.
Stylistically merging the
government enforced aesthetic
of agitprop with the kitsch
sensibility of American pop,
Wang’s work adopts the cold-
war language of the 60s to
ironically examine the
contemporary polemics of
globalisation.
Wang’s first solo exhibition took
place in 1993 at Bellet Gallery in
Paris. Since then, he has had
countless group and solo
exhibitions around the world.
WANG Qingsong
(b. 1966, Heilongjiang, China)
Wang first won recognition as a
painter in the mid-1990s through
his membership in the Gaudy
Art group, a movement
influenced by the work of Jeff
Koons and championed by
China’s most influential art critic,
Li Xianting. Since turning from
painting to photography in the
late 1990s, Beijing-based artist
Wang has created compelling
works that convey an ironic
vision of 21st-century China’s
encounter with global consumer
culture. Working in the manner
of a motion-picture director, he
conceives elaborate scenarios
involving dozens of models that
are staged on film studio sets.
The resulting color photographs
employ knowing references to
classic Chinese artworks to
throw an unexpected light on
today’s China, emphasizing its
new material wealth, its
uninhibited embrace of
commercial values, and the
social tensions arising from the
massive influx of migrant
workers to its cities.
XU Zhen
(b. 1977, Shanghai, China)
Xu's art-making has crossed
over various disciplines, from
installation, photography, video
to performance and painting.
Executed with a critical
intelligence, low-tech subtlety
and often in forms of theatrical
pranks, Xu’s work focuses on
human sensitivity (Rainbow,
1998; In Just a Blink of an Eye,
2005–07) and dramatizes the
humdrum of urban living
(ShanghArt Supermarket,
2007). His recent pieces have
employed more provocative
lexicons and social interventions
so as to confront socio-political
issues and taboos within the
context of contemporary China.
YAN Peiming
(b. 1960, Shanghai, China)
One of the most dynamic and
experimental Chinese painters
in the international art scene,
Yan Pei Ming is particularly
known for his epic size paintings
of iconic figures, Mao Zedong,
Bruce Lee, Obama, and his
father and self-portraits. His
expressive style and controlled
palette reflect a connection to
the aesthetic and cultural
climate of China as well as the
influence of 20th Century
American conceptual art. His
canvases are typically mono- or
bi-chromatic and painted with
large brushes (sometimes a
broom), in either black and
white or deep shades of red.
With a mastered economy of
marks, he delineates his
compositions with broad,
sweeping gestures and visible
drips, resulting in images that
dissolve into near-abstraction at
close view. Since 1982 Yan has
lived in Dijon, France.
Yan’s works can be found in
numerous public and private
collections around the world.
Following his first solo exhibition
at Musee Geruze in Tournus,
France, in 1989, Yan has had
countless group and solo
exhibitions around the world, the
most recent of which was at
Beijing Center for the Arts in
2014.
YAN Xing
(b. 1986, Chongqing, China)
Yan Xing graduated from the Oil
Painting Department of Sichuan
Fine Arts Institute in 2009 with a
bachelor degree. Yan currently
lives and works in Beijing. He is
both the initiator and participant
of the “COMPANY” project.
His works have been
extensively exhibited in leading
institutions including:
Contemporary Arts Museum
Houston (CAMH), Houston,
USA; Central House of Artists
(CHA), Moscow, Russia;
PinchukArtCentre, Kiev,
Ukraine; National Gallery of
Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia;
Ullens Center for Contemporary
Art (UCCA), Beijing, China; and
China Central Academy of Fine
Arts Museum (CAFAM), Beijing,
China.
Yan’s works involve an
extremely broad range of
creative media, including
performance, video, installation
and painting, among others. As
a young artist, Yan made an
impressive result during recent
years. He has received several
notable awards, in 2012 he won
the Best Young Artist Award by
CCAA (Chinese Contemporary
Art Award). The same year, he
was a finalist in the “Future
Generation Art Prize”, Victor
Pinchuk Foundation, Kiev,
Ukraine; “Focus on Talents
Project 2012”, Today Art
Museum, Beijing, China, Martell
Art Fund.
YUE MInjun
(b. 1962, Daqing, China)
Immediately humorous and
sympathetic, Yue’s paintings
offer a light-hearted approach to
philosophical enquiry and
contemplation of existence.
Drawing connotations to the
disparate images of the
Laughing Buddha and the inane
gap toothed grin of Alfred E.
Newman, Yue’s self-portraits
have been describe by theorist
Li Xianting as “a self-ironic
response to the spiritual vacuum
and folly of modern-day China.”
Often basing his compositions
on well-known European
masterpieces and iconic
Chinese art, Yue subverts the
grandiose aura of art history
through his adaptation of pop
aesthetics.
Using both the exaggerated
expressiveness of cartooning
and the stylistic rendering of
graphic illustration, Yue depicts
his cloned doppelgangers as
contorted and grotesque, all
scalded pink skin and maniacal
toothy cackles.
The acidic tones and
commercialised vacuity of his
works are used to underscore
the insincerity of his figures’
mirth. As both antagonists and
anti-heroes, Yue’s hysterical
cohorts equally bully the viewer
and stand as subjects of
ridicule. Using laughter as a
denotation of violence and
vulnerability, Yue’s paintings
balance a zeitgeist of modern
day anxiety with an Eastern
philosophical ethos, positing the
response to the true nature of
reality as an endless cynical
guffaw.
Yue’s works have been
exhibited in leading institutions
and museums around the world
since 1991.
Zeng Fanzhi
(b. 1964, Wuhan, China)
Zeng's paintings are
immediately recognisable by
their signature expressionistic
style, an effect that lends
provocative sensations of
underlying violence,
psychological tension, or
supernatural aura to his lavishly
rendered canvases. With
subjects ranging from portraits
and rural landscapes to
politically charged motifs, Zeng
infuses the everyday veneer of
shared experience with an
ambience of transgression,
reflective of both the rapidly
changing terrain of
contemporary Chinese culture
and the negotiation of personal
identity within this societal flux.
Zeng's magnificent landscapes Using iconic works by da Vinci,
express the vast conceptual gulf Goya and Ingres as well as
between individual cognition contemporary stars like Jeff
and the actuality of Koons, Richard Prince and
environment. Painting with two Maurizio Cattelan as his
brushes simultaneously, Zeng models. Zhou makes self-
uses one to describe his promotional images that subvert
subject, while the other the established notion of how
meanders the canvas, leaving artists should look and behave.
traces of his subconscious
through processes. Through this
combination of painterly realism
and 'automatic' expression,
Zeng's landscapes are
transformed into near abstract
fields; the depicted people and
places merging both memory
and imagination.

Zhou Tiehai
(b. 1966, Shanghai, China)

Zhou's conceptual projects

represent the artist’s vengeance
and attitude towards the self-
absorbed art market. His work’s
power to amaze and provoke is
the result of a host of strategies
that mix antagonism with
sincerity. The key ingredients
that drive Zhou’s unsettling yet
amusing practice includes
appropriating classical imagery,
generating ironic projections,
proclaiming laconic yet heartfelt
discourse and actively
subverting painterly craft. He
takes on the role of both artist
and patron since many of his
airbrush paintings are rendered
by assistants under his
supervision. He permits himself
to ‘play’ with art’s historical
baggage by making paintings
that are simultaneously self-
aware and self-abnegating,
virtuosic and pop all within a
single canvas. He manipulates
acclaimed magazine covers for
his own purposes and
articulates the notion of ‘artistic
agency’ within current
conditions of the art world and
global economy.
 About the author

Caroline Ha Thuc is a French art writer and curator

based in Hong Kong. Specialized in Asian
contemporary art, she contributes to different
magazines such as ArtPress in France and Pipeline
in Hong Kong.
She just published a book about Chinese
contemporary art analyzing the interactions
between the art scene and China's rapidly
changing society (Nouvelles Editions Scala,
France).

Hong Kong Contemporary Art by Caroline Ha Thuc

has been published in English by Asia One, and in
French by Nouvelles Editions Scala, in 2013
dslcollection

dslmagazine is directed and

designed by Helen Ho