My Thoughts and My Actions - Qing Wu

Black-White Song Village (Hei Bai Song Zhuang) - Zhao Tie Lin

The Chinese avant-garde art movement in the last two decades is probably one of the most unique events in the art history that deserves some attention of the future historians. It is still unclear whether this movement would leave behind any significant works that would be long remembered, but study of this unusual phenomenon would shed some light on some very basic questions about art: Why do people make art, sometimes against all odds and out of all kinds of madness? What is the function or role of art in a society that is rapidly transforming itself? How does art survive and move from fringe to the center?

Zhao TieLing’s new book, Black-White Song Village, is not an ambitious project to set about to answer these big questions. Instead it focused on daily life of a dozen free-lance artists who live and work in a rural village on the outskirt of Beijing, which has also been compared to early SoHo in New York or Montmartre in Paris. The village is not the first congregated living environment for Chinese artists. As early as 1990, YuanMingYuan Painter’s village was once made quite famous due to over-exposure to media. The artists in that village were eventually dispersed when the district government decided to clean up the neighborhood. Quite a number of them moved further away from Beijing and settled in Song Village. Over the time the village grew in reputation and became a magnate for artists of all kinds, some of whom have already been well established internationally, while most of others are struggling and little known.

Zhao selected a range of characters and devoted one chapter to each of them. Mixing dialogues with black-white snapshots, he used the usual photojournalistic format. The style of the dialogues runs from casual chitchatting to serious conversation on art. The photo shots are usually candid and intimate. The featured artists, often seen from the back and at a low angle with light lit behind, rarely stared straight into camera and did not seem to even notice the camera’s presence. If they did happen to look at the camera, they appeared slightly coy. Zhao must have got to know them fairly well in order to shoot at such a close distance. The artists were chosen not by their success but by how well they represent certain group or certain hierarchy in the village. They often had more interesting stories to tell, although some of them seemed to waster their time away in the village because it offered an isolated utopia where irresponsibility and craziness could be tolerated. Zhao’s intention is quite clear: He wants to give a more comprehensive view with their most private moments. Observant but not intrusive, these pictures give no embellishment of such kind of bohemian life but shows the unpretentious and the unforgiving sides.

Zhao was trained as a computer scientist but had a true passion for photo-journalism. After a few years in Computer Science Institute in Beijing, he gave up on science and devoted himself full-time to photography when he was well into his 40s. In the early 90s this could be seen as unusually rebellious and might have raised many eyebrows. From mid 90s, he published a series of books on marginal characters of the society: prostitutes, migrant workers, artists, people who exist outside the official system. It is a very rich and provocative vintage point: As China reformed itself from state-controlled socialism into a market driven free economy, more and more people left the land and old work units and ventured into migration without the official system to fall back on. Zhao wanted to document these changes and capture all the human dramas, both tragic and comical, with his lenses. By exposing the life of the poorest and most marginal characters, he also aimed to educate the prejudiced mainstream readers and hopefully bring changes to the system.

But with Black-White Song Village, Zhao hit a homerun since the material itself was highly relevant for his own artistic endeavors. His specialties, or his signature themes, are still there: The liveliest parts of the book are the anecdotes and life stories, narrated by the artists themselves. Their personalities and the hardships they encountered came well through the interviews. While letting the artists talked about their own ideas and strategies, Zhao also peppered his questions with his own thoughts on art and practice of art. He knew well that both the artists and himself faced the same questions : How can one maintain his atristic integrity while surviving in this market-oriented society? How does one pursue his/her individual freedom and financial success while remaining socially responsible? How far can one go in terms of self-promotion and making his/her works known? The answers are not so simple, and there may never be good answers.

As China continues to change and move forward, its internal art market is also slowly developing itself and the government also started to organize exhibitions and reform the art schools. Gone are the days when avant-garde artists had no other means to survive other than selling works outside China. Zhao’s first-hand sketches froze a particular time moment at a particular location, and his efforts would prove invaluable in the near future when the art scene could be entirely different from what is now. After all, the initial growth is often painful and slow and the pioneers often have a lot to pay.

Staging is Fun - Wang QingSong

Staged photography is all the rage now, and it is getting bigger and more expensive. Gregory Grewdson is probably one of the most prominent photographers specialized in this genre, using expensive equipments, a large crew and even Hollywood celebrities to create dark, surrealistic and suburbia epics. Jeff Wall, the Canadian who started this whole thing 20 years ago, stick to his more political themes, subtle but no less poignant. The Chinese artists apparently do not want to be left behind either: Wang QingSong, a photographer from Beijing and the brightest rising star, is taking New York art scene by a storm. Not only did New York Times use one of his images on last week’s magazine, it also dedicated an article about him on this Sunday’s art session, presenting it as a hard proof that Chinese modern art is catching up. Currently his works can be seen at his first New York solo show (Salon 94) and at the upcoming exhibition at ICP and Asia Society.

So what are all these buzzes about and why are the foreign curators so enthusiastic about him? I clicked through his website with these questions in my mind. I am usually a bit suspicious on Chinese artists who earned their fames in the West. Due to lack of official support in China and driven by greed, Chinese artists have a weakness to take shortcuts and cater to whatever the foreign art market wants. Some of them cashed out, while majority of them produced mediocre art and lost their true sense of creativity.

Regardless of any type of criticism, Wang’s images are definitely very impressive. They are very large prints (the longest is 31feet), eye-popping, colorful and story-telling. Any museum goer would be immediately drawn in by their sheer sizes, and he or she would not move away quickly because there are a lot to see and a lot to decipher. For western eyes, they can be both familiar and strange to look at. You may recognize Manet and Botticelli, you may know some Chinese famous paintings being referred but you won’t know which. The themes are inevitably both exotic and universal. To some degree this is the kind of modern Chinese art you expect to see (postmodernism practised using Chinese art tradition), but on the other hand, there are enough surprises to keep you engaged. The line between Western art and Chinese art is deliberately blurred here, and the visual and intellectual pleasures are abounded.

But Wang is not entirely original in his approaches. The lavish setting, the theatric posing and vibrant colors can be found in David La Chapella and Pierra et Gilles. The political pop and irony on commercialism have been overdone in the early to mid 90s by Wang Guanyi and a few others. The famila battle scenes were once staged by Paul Smith and Jeff Wall. The stitching of the scenes with help of photoshop to create long scrolls was probably first tried by Sam Taylor-Wood in her Five Revolutionary Seconds, and referring art history and famous paintings in staged photography is once specialty of Jeff Wall. But Wang is still the first one who combined all of above in his images, who borrowed Chinese art (both classic and revolutionary) so freely and in the end he formed his own particular vernacular to create visual wonders as well as a very dry but witty sense of humor to critique the absurdity of modern life (and the art world). Wang is very self-conscious. He can mock exactly what he intends to be.

Lukas Felzmann & John Priola

Photo Alliance in San Francisco is a wonderful organization for photographers or collectors to communicate and study from each other. Their lectures typically feature one or two established local photographers whom would show their works and talk about why and how they made them. The audiences usually have the chance to get a very comprehensive view of a whole body of works within 90 minutes. Last night’s lecture by Bay Area photographers John Priola and Lukas Felzmann, which kicked off a three-day workshop on book-publishing, was especially good. It brought together two very different artists in the same classroom who are also excellent presenters.

Born in a Swiss intellectual family, Felzmann graduated from SF Art Institute and spent most of his adult life in Northern California. His works thus embodied the dual influences of West Coast landscape and German philosophical traditions. They fall naturally into the “New Topographics” movement, whose main players include Robert Adams, Stephen Shore and the Bechers. The photos from the new book LandFall were mostly shot in Sacramento Valley, where human activities and natural force are in a perpetual tug-of-war. While the landscape continues to change due to manmade underpasses, highways, aqueducts and nonnative trees, the nature also gives back flood, landfall, and rural decays. Not only is Felzmann interested in documenting these changes, he is also captivated by their poetic potentials and philosophic meanings. His series on migration birds are some of the most unforgettable images. Using the formation of the flocks, he shows to us that nature is full of wonders, and it is often more than what we can grasp. As an avid reader, Felzmann seems to be obsessed with knowledge and learning. His many shots of books and classrooms seem to be an unusual lifelong hobby of his.

Priola, on the other hand, made most of his photos in his studio, often with very controlled lightings and meticulous settings. While Felzmannm focuses on the nature and its relationship with humankind, Priola is more obsessed with the sentimental values of objects and memories. If Felzmann observes the world with a detached and analytic eye, for whom God renders itself as a rational, scientific but formidable force, Priola, thanks to his catholic upbringing, gets more fascinated by its mystics and melancholy power. Priola came out of age in late 80s and 90s, when AIDS took away many of his friends. This intense emotional experience affected him significantly, and they showed up under various disguises in many of his works: objects from diseased ancestors, dead butterflies, a fallen flowerpot, an apartment number lit in night. They speak silently and powerfully on time and on the ghosts we can’t see.

Though both artists started with very different aesthetic visions and photographic practices, they have a lot more in common. Both have done installation works, both ponder on traces of time, and both shoot mostly black-and-white photos and rarely do portraits. They look at the world and at the most ordinary with shock and awe, and their works express this feeling of being overwhelmed. Inevitably, they would cross each other’s path: In Priola’s latest works, he shot the same set of trees as Felzmann did. But they don’t necessarily see the same thing.

Citizens Here and Abroad

Taking the name from 50's girl scout handbook, Citizens Here and Abroad was born in the end of 2002 when Adrienne Robillard and Dan Lowrie from Secadora joined force with Chris Groves and Chris Wetherell, both of whom are also from another band called Dealership. After a relatively slow start, they are suddenly getting more attention and more bookings, thanks to Adrienne's increasing efforts in reaching-out. It is never easy to make big for indie rock bands, even if the band could be really good. When ten thousand bands compete every year for a dozen spots, you can well imagine pure luck could weight more than music talent. Beyond that there are always relentless touring and self-promotion, getting words out and recruiting fans. But without a major label's help, it is a slow grass-root campaign that often goes nowhere, and the band vanishes without a trace while members move on to other things.

But Citizens Here and Abroad is determined. Their latest album, Ghosts of Tables and Chairs, is fast-paced and rigorous, with little playfulness or anger of a typical femme-rock but heart-felt candor and solid deliveries. I saw their show for the first time at Cafe Du Nord tonight and felt immediately connected with their music. Adrienne's voice is beautiful, calm and melancholy, and it reminded me a lot of the female vocal in the French band Ivy. Chris's harmony tends to stay in the background, creating a perfect layer that enriches Adrienne's singing but not overwhelming it. The guitar riffs and the drum beats, on the other hand, could be moody and forceful. This contrast infuses with each other seamlessly and works well for the lyrics.

Due to my insider connection to the band, I collect some more information about the band. Adrienne, a HAPA from Hawaii, met Dan in UC Santa Babara and moved to Bay Area eight years ago. Both Chris's come from Cal and have off-stage personalities that are not typical of band players (Yes. They are also nerds). While all of them have full-time jobs, they rehearse twice a week and try to hit the road as much as they can. The road to success is a tough one. Even if they may never make it, they seem to be having a ball.

Russian River-Memorial Weekend