'Oil Spills' by Ai Weiwei
'Speak, Memory, Butterfly' (2006)
C-Print, by Hong Lei
Here at White Space in the city's Dashanzi art district, fifteen artists reevaluate the place of classical Chinese aesthetics in contemporary China. Shows that mix traditional and contemporary elements are about as refreshing as Beijing smog. But there's something different at play here. The show is conceptually tight and, in the way that most of the works relate to each other, it is also well paced.
This delicate sense of compositional pacing is demonstrated in one of the gallery's two central rooms. Here C-Prints and oil paintings line the wall but the space is broken up by a sculpture from Shen Shaomin and a sculptural installation from Shi Jinsong. Shen has crammed a pair of bonsai trees in a porcelain vase. The trees are clipped at the top and encased in a rectangular metallic contraption of the artist's making.
In Shi Jinsong's poetically titled work, 'Five Haiku' (2007), the artist has impaled plum trees on metallic tripods. The trees themselves have all types of metallic objects and animal bones - screws and bolts and teeth - shoved into their flesh. In spite of these violations by dead and man-made objects into natural living things, the trees keep their poise. Although deprived of their natural root system, probably not for long.
Along the wall, there is a beautiful series from one of this country's best photographers. Hong Lei has spent several years now experimenting with classical techniques. We find several classical motifs in his photography here - plum blossoms and bamboo, for instance. Both of these plants serve as Confucian representations of what it means to be good and they gained visual currency as symbols for China's literati tradition of painters during the Song.
But Hong clutters these idealized images with buzzing flies and on occasion, a hissing snake. All the plants and all the insects in the C-prints are attached to strings, so their existence by turns seems both precarious and slightly mechanical.
Hong's work can be taken to respond to the curator's theme on two levels. First - what with the flies and snakes - contemporary arrivals pollute the garden of classical delights (the work is not overtly political but brings to mind Deng Xiaoping's phrase that when you open your window to the world, you're going to let in a few flies). Second, the strings attached to these natural objects reference the aesthetic ideal that the best art is closest to nature. If Hong Hao doesn't intend for us to have any of these readings, the series is still nice to look at.
In another room, we step over Ai Weiwei's conceptual installation 'Oil Spills' as big ceramic globs of oil spill on the floor. It could be a comment on the oil industry. But in this context, it also recalls the black ink of Chinese ink-and-brush. Furthermore, it complements the black-and-white stripes paintings from Wang Guangle.
Wang's pieces are personal responses to a folk custom in Fujian province, where old people paint their own coffins - one stripe per year over a twenty-year period - until they die. Local viewers will recall Wang Guangle's 'Terrazzo' series at One Moon Gallery a couple years ago. At 32, he still remains one of China's best young painters, even if his rate of production is slow in comparison to most of his counterparts.
Curator Fu Xiaodong favours the intimate over the grand. Reflection takes priority over spectacle here, and it is a positive reflection rather than a rambling lament.
The exhibit's Chinese title is taken from a phrasal proverb (literally translated as 'Dark willows, bright blossoms'), which in fact was lifted verbatim from a Southern Song poem. In 'Traveling to West Mountain Village', a traveling poet sees the light of a prosperous village after wandering through a seemingly endless stretch of rivers and mountains. In other words, there is light at the end of the tunnel: classical visions for contemporary artists are at hand. Taken at face value, the phrase suggests hope when you least expect it.
It's worth a mention that 'Dark Willows, Bright Blossoms' was the Chinese title for The Gay Divorcee, a 1934 Hollywood classic starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. No one is tap-dancing at this show, but the exhibit's optimistic title implies a marriage of sorts between China's contemporary art and its classical roots. This exhibit succeeds in that the artists absorb the proverb written on the wall. Their works adequately express the possibilities of a 'new vista': a union of old and new.
Despite their success here at White Space, the artists will be hard-put to find a larger audience, especially among the next generation. Classical culture becoming cool again remains a wet dream for the nation's cultural elite. One local dean recently announced that all high school teachers will soon be able to teach Peking opera; Cheng Kaige's upcoming film about opera legend Mei Lanfang appears later this year and is already getting play in China's glossy magazines; while a newly renovated theatre devoted to Peking opera opens this month in Beijing. Despite all that, most kids still prefer to slap on a set of headphones, shoot some hoops and dream in Hip-Hop.
Stacey Duff
'New Vista' is on show at White Space in Beijing until 16 March 2008. Visit www.whitespace-beijing.com or call +86 10 8456 2054.
Images courtesy of the artists, White Space (Beijing) and Alexander Ochs Galleries (Berlin-Beijing)
Stacey Duff is Saatchi Online magazine's China correspondent and Time Out Beijing's art editor.
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