The modern Chinese art dated its beginnings to the year of the Reform in 1978. As free artists, be able to implement in China, their ideas now? Andreas Schmid, and Stefanie turning Thiedig a time.
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As China’s art was politically
Ai Weiwei: “Mao” (1986)
Mao died in 1976. His death also marked the end of the cultural revolution. As the mid-80s modern artists in their images experimentally with the figure of Mao deal, it was still a Gamble. If you wanted to see him behind bars, or very close to it approach? Ai Weiwei worked, inspired by Andy Warhol, in his “Mao’s Image,” the Idol of Mao.
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As China’s art was politically
Geng Jianyi: “Two people under a light”
Geng Jianyi, born in 1962, was one of the avant-garde of modern art in China. He belonged to one of the many artist groups formed in the mid-80s. As he as a final thesis for his studies in Hangzhou, the first Time a Couple of painted, has not been rejected, the image of “cold”, it corresponded to the positive image of man. The globally exhibited artist died in 2017.
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As China’s art was politically
Wang Guangyi: “Great Criticism” (1992)
Wang Guangyi, born in 1957, was one of in the late 80s, the “group of the North”, which dealt much with the texts of Western philosophy. The connection of the Propaganda art of the cultural revolution, with a Pop Art Aesthetic, brought his works to the label of “Political Pop”. “Great Criticism” is his most famous-and paradoxically most commercially successful series.
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As China’s art was politically
Yue Minjuns faces laughing
Also, Yue Minjun, born in 1962, is one of the leaders of the avant-garde in China, and now to the Stars of international auctions. In his crazy laughing, his own face grimaces often to detect trains. To be “Cynical realism” was coined after the events on Beijing’s Tiananmen square in 1989, an important style within the socio-critical artistic movement.
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As China’s art was politically
Fang Lijun: Cynical Realism
The 1963-born painter and woodcut artist belonged in 1989 to break the artists of the ground-breaking exhibition “China Avant-Garde” in Beijing. Bald men in front of a Background of the sea or sky were in the 1990s, his trademark, and to the programmatic image of the uprisings in the art. Again and again he shows humans as part of a mass society, bored and angry at the same time.
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As China’s art was politically
Feng Mengbo: “The Big Chair”
The “Great Chairman” in the image of Feng Mengbo his counterpart in the Hand. Feng was born in 1966 in Beijing, as the culture erupted in revolution. The Video and installation artist, even as a Student in his imagery in a subversive way with the revolutionary Idol. Feng recycles the images of the Mao Era and later in his Videos, and animations.
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As China’s art was politically
Zeng Fanzhi: The Last Supper (2001)
Zeng Fanzhis four-Meter-wide painting “The Last Supper” recorded in 2013 at an auction in Hong Kong, with 23.3 million dollars, a record sum for Asian art. In Zeng’s work, the Disciples are replaced by Jesus, as seen in the model of Leonardo da Vinci, by pioneers with red scarves. Only “Judas” is wearing a Western tie, a note on China’s shift to capitalism.
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As China’s art was politically
Cao Fei, “Live in RMB City” (2009)
Cao Fei is China’s most important media-artist, and in the most important international exhibitions represented. Their works – here’s a still image from a Video are often of a subjective mixture of fiction and documentary. She deals with the high speed urbanism, but also with the latest technologies and their social consequences.
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As China’s art was politically
Huang Yongping: “Leviathan Station” (2011)
Huang Yongping, born in 1954, was one of the earliest artists of the Chinese avant-garde. In 1986, he and others founded the group “Xiamen Dada”, which burned their pictures to the exhibitions open to the public. In 1989, he took part as one of the first Chinese artists to an exhibition in France at the Centre Pompidou. After the 4. In June 1989, he remained in Paris, where he still lives today.
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As China’s art was politically
“Groove Brother” in Beijing (2015)
100 days of Wang Renzheng alias “groove Brother was” 2015 in Beijing, gathering with an industrial vacuum cleaner, the Smog-dust from the air. At the end of the artist-activist from Shenzhen to let the collected particles in a brick factory with clay mixed to block stones to bake. Air pollution to the touch and his comment on the relationship between man and nature, was “groove Brother” know.
-
As China’s art was politically
Ai Weiwei: “Mao” (1986)
Mao died in 1976. His death also marked the end of the cultural revolution. As the mid-80s modern artists in their images experimentally with the figure of Mao deal, it was still a Gamble. If you wanted to see him behind bars, or very close to it approach? Ai Weiwei worked, inspired by Andy Warhol, in his “Mao’s Image,” the Idol of Mao.
-
As China’s art was politically
Geng Jianyi: “Two people under a light”
Geng Jianyi, born in 1962, was one of the avant-garde of modern art in China. He belonged to one of the many artist groups formed in the mid-80s. As he as a final thesis for his studies in Hangzhou, the first Time a Couple of painted, has not been rejected, the image of “cold”, it corresponded to the positive image of man. The globally exhibited artist died in 2017.
-
As China’s art was politically
Wang Guangyi: “Great Criticism” (1992)
Wang Guangyi, born in 1957, was one of in the late 80s, the “group of the North”, which dealt much with the texts of Western philosophy. The connection of the Propaganda art of the cultural revolution, with a Pop Art Aesthetic, brought his works to the label of “Political Pop”. “Great Criticism” is his most famous-and paradoxically most commercially successful series.
-
As China’s art was politically
Yue Minjuns faces laughing
Also, Yue Minjun, born in 1962, is one of the leaders of the avant-garde in China, and now to the Stars of international auctions. In his crazy laughing, his own face grimaces often to detect trains. To be “Cynical realism” was coined after the events on Beijing’s Tiananmen square in 1989, an important style within the socio-critical artistic movement.
-
As China’s art was politically
Fang Lijun: Cynical Realism
The 1963-born painter and woodcut artist belonged in 1989 to break the artists of the ground-breaking exhibition “China Avant-Garde” in Beijing. Bald men in front of a Background of the sea or sky were in the 1990s, his trademark, and to the programmatic image of the uprisings in the art. Again and again he shows humans as part of a mass society, bored and angry at the same time.
-
As China’s art was politically
Feng Mengbo: “The Big Chair”
The “Great Chairman” in the image of Feng Mengbo his counterpart in the Hand. Feng was born in 1966 in Beijing, as the culture erupted in revolution. The Video and installation artist, even as a Student in his imagery in a subversive way with the revolutionary Idol. Feng recycles the images of the Mao Era and later in his Videos, and animations.
-
As China’s art was politically
Zeng Fanzhi: The Last Supper (2001)
Zeng Fanzhis four-Meter-wide painting “The Last Supper” recorded in 2013 at an auction in Hong Kong, with 23.3 million dollars, a record sum for Asian art. In Zeng’s work, the Disciples are replaced by Jesus, as seen in the model of Leonardo da Vinci, by pioneers with red scarves. Only “Judas” is wearing a Western tie, a note on China’s shift to capitalism.
-
As China’s art was politically
Cao Fei, “Live in RMB City” (2009)
Cao Fei is China’s most important media-artist, and in the most important international exhibitions represented. Their works – here’s a still image from a Video are often of a subjective mixture of fiction and documentary. She deals with the high speed urbanism, but also with the latest technologies and their social consequences.
-
As China’s art was politically
Huang Yongping: “Leviathan Station” (2011)
Huang Yongping, born in 1954, was one of the earliest artists of the Chinese avant-garde. In 1986, he and others founded the group “Xiamen Dada”, which burned their pictures to the exhibitions open to the public. In 1989, he took part as one of the first Chinese artists to an exhibition in France at the Centre Pompidou. After the 4. In June 1989, he remained in Paris, where he still lives today.
-
As China’s art was politically
“Groove Brother” in Beijing (2015)
100 days of Wang Renzheng alias “groove Brother was” 2015 in Beijing, gathering with an industrial vacuum cleaner, the Smog-dust from the air. At the end of the artist-activist from Shenzhen to let the collected particles in a brick factory with clay mixed to block stones to bake. Air pollution to the touch and his comment on the relationship between man and nature, was “groove Brother” know.
On 4. June, 30 years ago, were rolled to the peaceful student protests in Beijing of tanks low. The public memory of the Tiananmen square massacre in China is still taboo.
Artists played a large role in the movement – just think of the Statue of the goddess of democracy. After the crackdown on the nationwide democracy movement, the art was the first form of expression that sought a new visual language for ways to reflect on social developments.
Deutsche Welle: in China, a country that has, in recent years, more and more totalitarian features, and its population is heavily controlled, even something like critical or system-critical art?
Andreas Schmid: There is definitely an art, which deals with problems, or problem of company positions. That’s actually been around for 40 years, since 1978. Since then, not in China for many artists is always an undertone there that are concerned with social conditions, even if the images seem so. That is, one creates a plant that also read between the lines needs to be. That was earlier common.
The Berlin-based artist and curator Andreas Schmid
2014 tell me the artist and the artists who have participated in the exhibition “The 8 ways – young art in Beijing” in Berlin: “We don’t try every day, the line again a bit of push back, so that the control is so strong.” And you stated that: “Our Effort is that we can pick up still, social ills, and what moves us in this society.” Of course, this was before the tightening in 2015/16.
Stefanie Thiedig: From this point on, the art was abstract, dance, and other Performances were integrated into the exhibitions – all the things you can’t directly attack. Everything was aesthetically beautiful, pleasing, precisely because the pressure was greater.
Which Form looking for critical art now?
Andreas Schmid: it is Often, I think, very successful Videos. Because women like Cao Fei played a major role. Also Fang Lu can I find a great artist. She is internationally active and is not satisfied with Chinese theme. Most recently, she has turned a really interesting Film with seven Israeli women.
Stefanie Thiedig: This type of video art is very subtle, not open to regime-critical as in the case of Ai Weiwei. It attaches directly to the Finger in the wound, is sometimes humorous, as in a Video by Cao Fei, where the factory workers are dancing your dreams.
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Ai Weiwei Drifting
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Ai Weiwei Drifting
After the suppression of the democracy movement in China in 1989, has also changed for the visual arts very much. In the 1990s, contemporary Chinese art was perceived for the first Time abroad with images of the Cynical realism or Political Pop. How did it develop?
Andreas Schmid: In the ‘ 90s, the astonishment in Europe, the USA, or in Asia, it was great that there was such an art, even art that has been disturbed. Very politically Xu Yong’s series of “Negative Scans” with a digital Negative-pictures of students on the Tiananmen square in the spring of 1989. But within the 90s has changed in China, much further. There were, for example, very interesting installations made with Ecology, as in the case of Yin Xiuzhen and Song Dong, both with the condition of the Hutongs (narrow streets of the old quarter, Anm. d. Red.) deal with it.
Wang Jianwei has interviewed farmers who were displaced by the dam project in Sichuan: He interviewed the victims of these actions – something that has not been otherwise made in China. You can’t say simply that he is against the Regime pre-Inge. A strong work.
Stefanie Thiedig was made, situations to be incorporated, as they are only once a documentary, but then in an artistic conversion to grievances show. Especially during the rapid growth in the ‘ 90s – but it pervades over the years and until now.
Tiananmen square in may 1989: A protester collapses after three days of hunger strike
Andreas Schmid: Cao Fei has rotated with Ou Ning and others, a Film about a small village that has resisted against reaI estate developers. Five people have filmed with hand cameras, the life in this of high-rise buildings surrounded by the village and the recordings with an incredible sound. A great Film that ran in the 2003 Venice Biennale. This is just a kind of subtle socio-critical engagement, which clearly stands out from any according to expressed criticism. This means that the correlations very well, when you see the Film. One has on the one hand, an artistic experience, and on the other hand is well-informed of what is happening in the pearl river Delta.
It can be shown this Film in China?
Stefanie Thiedig: partly in galleries. Meanwhile, it is actually so that the state knows exactly what’s going on, when and where. The security forces of rum to go in advance and look at the. The straightening is cord: Prostitution, violence, suicide, and similar matters should not be shown. Occasionally, it happens that you see on the walls of small stickers, which mean: we had to remove it.
Stefanie Thiedig
The art of the four decades after the cultural revolution, told in many voices, how China became what it is today. They reported that the interpretation and reinterpretation of history – something which in freer countries, religious leaders, philosophers, politicians, writers or journalists. In the 90s, it was an absolute privilege of the visual arts, the literature was silent after the suppression of the democracy movement for years. The artists still have a kind of sovereignty of interpretation?
Andreas Schmid: No. I recently told a Chinese artist sitting together, the: “It is easy. This whole story of ’78 until now, a conclusion was drawn bar, which is closed like a steel door.”
Stefanie Thiedig: The new Era of Xi Jinping has announced himself, and he does his program really.
Andreas Schmid: Tough. I think you have to adjust to something totally New. It is certainly also other forms of art will be developed. But it has to start again something new.
How does a subtle critical contemporary art with Xi Jinpings socially prescribed harmony?
Andreas Schmid: Actually, not at all, because by the digitization of a monitoring system is possible. On the other hand, the Narrative is for artists of this time interesting.
Yellow rubber ducks instead of tanks: 2013 this via Weibo widespread photo-excited Assembly of the famous “Tank Man”photos stir
What is the social significance of Chinese art today, in General?
Stefanie Thiedig: the first factor is the market. This is the big difference. It’s very much about Profit, and therefore, the government is also yet to come: art is an important market.
Modern Chinese art is first been abroad very much perceived, and then, relatively quickly, via Hong Kong and also in China for sale hit become a…
Andreas Schmid: Chinese collectors appear until 2005.
Stefanie Thiedig: Actually, it was only after the financial crisis, as Western investors pulled out. After that, the Chinese are entered correctly.
This Boom yet?
Andreas Schmid: Yes, massively, and he is also a national welcome. The collectors and museums to bring the world back everything, not just the old, also the modern Chinese art. The originally critical, world-renowned artists of the 80s and 90s to be exhibited in China prominent.
The most expensive contemporary Chinese painting was sold in 2013 for about 17 million euros, “The last supper” by Zeng Fanzhi. Artists such as Fang Lijun, who was perceived with his bald heads in the ‘ 90s as a rather critical, or Yue Minjun, with his laughing faces, are absorbed from the market completely. There are still artists who want to resist, that their works are bared by the market mechanisms of their subtle or subtly critical opinion?
The figures in the paintings of Fang Lijun’s been to the programmatic image of the awakening of the Chinese art in the 90s
Andreas Schmid: There are always only a few that fight back. Sun Yuan Fang Yu, for example, a pair of artists, the very, very committed art making. For example, you have upgraded an SUV as a police car, and the whole night went to Beijing on the rings around. Which of course is a madness action. Don’t let them get to you, and have not been bothered until now, surprisingly well.
Stefanie Thiedig: actions are perhaps even easier than to show big paintings. You don’t want to be shown only abroad. It’s for your own country because you want to be, and perceived to be seen, and there the discussion lead to something back. And is now much more difficult.
How effective is the self-censorship in the light of the changed circumstances?
Stefanie Thiedig: This is a large topic. The fact that you don’t know exactly what you are allowed to do and what not, it is arbitrary. Then the self-censorship attacks. On the other hand, there are still artists which you say to yourself, amazed at what a madness, what is courage still. And in turn, some of which, as I mentioned already, abstract, or suddenly landscape painting. But maybe this is now just a transitional moment, where you have to have a look, that there is a new Form. Because we are now on a break.
Andreas Schmid: You can sometimes issue a bit in the Canton of what you can’t show in Beijing, or in Shanghai, or Chengdu. Hordes of Chinese artists have left Beijing to go to Shanghai, or even back in their home cities, because, they say, because we can stay somehow. In Beijing, many have lost their apartment and Studio in the demolished or gentrified Artist areas.
Andreas Schmid has studied in Germany and China, art. He lives and works in Berlin since 1987 as an artist, curator, and author. With its exhibitions and publications, he is one of the pioneers which have made Chinese art in Germany and Europe.
Stefanie Thiedig, Sinologist and photographer, since 2009 as a Freelancer under the name of “cultural heritage 文化财富”, a cultural mediation and a platform for freelance Creative for art – and culture projects in Beijing and Hamburg. Since 2000, regularly in China, from 2007 to 2017, with the center of life in Beijing, and since 2018 in Hamburg, she works currently on her PhD thesis on the art district 798.
The interview was conducted by Sabine Peschel.