Taste and Selection
Decision-making Criteria of Contemporary Chinese Art
Exhibitions in the Dutch Museum
Lixiaodan Zhang （S2320533）
MA Thesis
Tittle: Taste and Selection, Decision-making Criteria of Contemporary Chinese Art Exhibitions
in the Dutch Museum
Author: Lixiaodan Zhang (S2320533)
Arts, Culture and Media, Faulty of Arts
Supervisor: Prof. dr. P.J.D. (Pascal) Gielen Second reader: dr. Q.L. (Quirijn) van den Hoogen
Content
Abstract ... 4
1. Introduction ... 5
2. Artistic Decision-making: Ins and Outs ... 11
2.1 The Globalization Context ...11
2.2 A Showcase in the Contemporary Art Scene: Museum and Its Value ...14
2.3 The Way towards Decoding Artistic Selections ...16
3. Chinese Art and Dutch Taste ... 22
3.1 Mapping Chinese Art Exhibitions in Dutch Museums ...22
3.2 Eyes on the Groninger Museum ...24
3.2.1 A Prelude to New Trends in the Groninger Museum ...25
3.2.2 A Meaningful Dialogue between the Groninger Museum and Contemporary Chinese Art World ...27
3.2.3 Looking at the Back of the Tongue ...33
3.3 Art and Its Backers ...44
4. Conclusion ... 46
Bibliography ... 49
Abstract
This thesis aims to investigate the selecting criteria of exhibition in terms of contemporary Chinese art in a Dutch museum, the Groninger Museum. As we know, Chinese art within the globalization flow has significantly impact on the worldwide art scene. Besides that, the Dutch museums that supported by the domestic funding scheme have successfully branded them as an important role in the global cultural industry. Therefore, the present research initials to reconnect these two actors from a sociological perspective, mainly based on a value regime model proposed by Pascal Gielen, and further take a deep look at the decision-making mechanism behind that working in the current art world. The paper begins with tracing the early signs of contemporary Chinese art in the European countries, and then formulates the theoretical context, globalization, museum scene and the conceptual framework of evaluating the selection criteria. After that, it moves onto the empirical section of analyzing the material collected from the decision-maker in the museum, namely curator, together with some further concerns regarding the art and its backers. In the end, the criteria can be concluded within four clues, aesthetic value, financial support, educational role, and social network. This study attempts to make a contribution to a deeper understanding of contemporary Chinese art in the Dutch art scene. In addition to that, it will potentially enlighten similar research, based on knowing the ins and outs of the current art world, to evaluate the artistic selecting criteria, and to develop the existing conceptual model through a more resourceful way.
Key words
1. Introduction
The art world has changed tremendously over the last twenty years as the wave of globalization has been sweeping across the whole world. During these times, Chinese artists and artworks, with the wider recognition, have also involved in this flow inevitably. They have been exposed to a global ‘networking’, in Gielen (2010) words, and became an indispensable part of the contemporary art scenes at the global level.
In the late 1980s, contemporary Chinese art was highlighted only in a few shows in the Western world, normally as a minor section of those large exhibitions, or small-scale exhibitions (Erickson, 2002). The earlier signs, the exhibitions of Chinese avant-garde art, came out in North America in 1980s, but with limited acknowledgment among the public. Exhibitions such as Painting the Chinese
Dream: Chinese Art Thirty Years after the Revolution at the Smith College Museum
of Art (1982), Artists from China – New Expressions at Sarah Lawrence College (1987), and solo exhibition of Chinese artist Gu Wenda, Dangerous Chessboard
Leaves the Ground, launched in the Art Gallery of York University in Toronto in
1987 (Chang, 1998; Erickson, 2002; Koch, 2011). While in European countries, the first flow took place in Jean-Hubert Martin’s exhibition in 1989, Magiciens de
la Terre, displaying at the Centre Georges Pompidou (Erickson, 2002). This
exhibition introduced several avant-garde artists from China, such as Gu Dexin, Huang Yongping, and Yang Jiechang, along with other Third World artists to one of the most charming venues in the contemporary art world.
As we know, the year of 1989 was remarkable not only because it was the turning point of globalization，but also, for Chinese mainland, as it reminded people of a depressive period in the domestic environment that influenced by the political and social world. Without saying that, in the art world of China, discursive and reflective moments addressed a highly urgent dilemma: in what way artists made, or were able to make, their art works in that special period. Although Chinese artists were isolated due to the political regime at home, they took inspiration and advantage of learning from western world about art theories and ideas. “A romantic relationship between China and outside world had
been built up during the 1990s”, Britta Erickson said (Erickson, 2002).
outside China. Important representatives were Zhang Peili, Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang, Huang Yongping, Yan Peiming, Gu Wenda, Wu Shanzhuan, and so on. China’s changing political realities, rapid modernisation, and conflicting identity issues have resulted in a discourse system behind those art works, distinguished from centuries-old visual traditions, in a real time and space.
In retrospect, from the 1990s and on, both solo and group exhibitions overseas made a good move to qualify those Chinese artists outside Mainland China (Hung, 2010). In terms of solo exhibitions, for instance, Yang Jiechang showed his works in Paris (1990) and London (1991), and during the same time, another artist Chen Zhen made his shows in Paris and Rome, respectively. Moreover, Xu Bing’s solo show Three Installations by Xu Bing in Elvehjem Museum of Art in Madison was presented in the year of 1991. Slightly later, Cai Guoqiang staged his first solo exhibition, Flying Dragon in the Heavens, in the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek Demark in the year of 1997. Group shows, such as Art
Chinois, Chine Demain pour Hier curated by Fei Dawei was also exhibited in
Pourrieres in 1990, whereas Silent Energy curated by David Elliott and Lydie Mepham was shown in Museum of Modern Art, Oxford in 1993. During the same year, Counter-Currents in Art and Culture was presented at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, in which sixteen artists’ works were exhibited. Apart from that, Out of the Centre curated by Hou Hanru in Pori Art Museum in Finland, and
Heart of Darkness, curated by Matianne Brouwer, in Kroller-Muller Museum were
presented to the public in the year of 1994. The next year, Change-Chinese
Contemporary Art, organized by Folke Edwards, opened at the Konsthallen in
Goteborg, Sweden, and Des del Pais del Centre: avant-gardes artistiques xineses (Out of the Middle Kingdom: Chinese Avant-garde Art) curated by Imma, was exhibited at the Centre d’Art Santa Monica in Barcelona. Afterwards, China!
Zeitgenossische Malerei, curated by Dieter Ronte, Walter Smerling, and Evely
Weiss, took place at the Bonn Art Museum in 1996.
It is clear that the 1990s saw an increasing inclusion of Chinese artists and their works in the international art events, which contributed to achieving their unique profile, rather than as an exoticism, on the international art circuit (Erickson, 2002). We may notice that one of the blockbuster exhibitions, China’s
New Art, Post-1989, was opened at the Hong Kong Arts Centre and City Hall in
impact on shaping the overseas roster of Chinese artists. Accompanied with the detailed catalogue texts, the exhibition demonstrated the sociological and political background of China both in the literal and the visual context. The other blockbuster exhibition focused on Chinese avant-garde art is Inside Out: New
Chinese Art, which was curated by Gao Minglu in USA in 1998. It was the first
major international exhibition to explore the impact of the social, political and economic changes on artists in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and on those who left the region in the late 1980s. In addition, this exhibition included works in such cutting-edge media as installation, video, and performance art, as well as more traditional materials of oil and ink paintings. As said before, new materials, new angles, and new media had been assimilated into the whole process of making art since then.
If take a look at another international art circuits, the biennial or the triennial, good examples of these were the 22nd and 23rd International Biennial of Sao Paulo (1994 and 1996), the 45th and 46th Venice Biennials (1993 and 1995), the first and second Asia-Pacific Triennials (1993 and 1996), the fifth Lyon Biennial of Contemporary Art (1999), and et cetera. More specifically, in the 1993 Venice Biennale, fourteen Chinese artists1 were selected to present their work in a section titled Passaggio an Oriente. And the other peak time was the year of 1999 when twenty Chinese artists2 participated in the 48th Venice Biennale.
As we have seen, contemporary Chinese artists and artworks have found their place to keep a foothold in more and more international art venues since the second half of 1980s. In addition to that, largely driven by the globalization flow, the recent rise of an international interest in Chinese artists and artworks indicated that Chinese art has moved from the margin to the centre of the global art scene. Meanwhile, combined with the mushrooming of art market, Chinese artists have been increasigly involved in the worldwide business. However, there are still areas for a deeper understanding, and needs of perceiving art in more than just name-only or superficial appearances.
Coming back to the context of the present research, this article tries to find out some interactions between the Dutch art scene and Chinese art, or at least, trace the relations of the Netherlands with the Asian region. Most of us are familiar
1 They were Wang Guangyi, Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi, Xu Bing, Liu Wei, Fnag Lijun, Yu Hong, Feng Mengbo, Wang Youshen, Yu Youhan, Li Shan, Sun Liang, Wang Ziwei, Song Haidong.
with the Dutch art history in the time of Golden Age. Beyond, thanks to the Dutch East India Company (established in 1602), which mainly engaged in the trade between Europe and Asia. The oriental export porcelain and the Delft Blauw apparently illustrate the intimate relationships to a larger extent. It is not a new story. Chinese and Dutch arts used to be historically connected. Thus, what I am going to do in this paper is to unfold the situations that re-connected these two countries within a particular research topic on artistic selecting criteria.
Furthermore, the wide acceptance of contemporary Chinese art could be considered as a successful reaction of the social networking manipulated by the art intermediaries. The importance of those intermediaries, such as museums, art galleries, curators, and critics, cannot be overlooked. While on one side, they still perform a leading or strategic role in circulating and exhibiting art; on the other side, selecting the subject matter of artworks plays most fundamental role in making an artistic discourse (Crane, 2009). What really counts, however, is the question of the artistic decision-making process: how did the museums and curators choose the artists and their works? Since the numerous exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art on the international stage has manifested the use of certain endorsed criteria for the evaluation in the global art circles (Joy & Sherry Jr, 2004), it seems inspiring to discover what kind of criteria regulated these artistic selections.
When the criteria issue came to the modern and contemporary art time, it met with the more complex situation than before. It tends to be ever changing and flexible, but blurred in the meantime. Certain kinds of criteria no longer exist in the artists’ agenda, not in other players’ mind either. It is seen clearly in the case of the conflict between different artistic groups and the art movements. But equally notable is the attendants’ experience also has been challenged side by side. The audience group is wandering between the so-called ‘good art’ and ‘bad art’ since they are not familiar with the rules or criteria working in the art world, which makes them feel disoriented most of times.
The artistic criteria, hereby, still keep the real deal. To give a powerful example, let’s return to the case of Venice Biennale, one of the hottest potatoes in the contemporary art scene. When visiting the large-scale exhibitions, people were surprised to find that the majority art works are made by foreign artists, instead of the artists came from their own countries, in some national pavilions. That might raise the question about why it happened, not as a special case, but so often. As to the Chinese visitors, for example, it is also interesting to know their opinions with regard to the artworks that represented in the Chinese pavilion. Both of the cases can open the debate about how do the artists get the tickets to the show and why the art works are able to display in one particular space, rather than in the other exhibition hall nearby. Are they the best representatives of artistic quality? Everyone has his/her own judging standard. Taking a step inside is full of inspiration, even though there is no universal framework to measure this output.
this theoretical mechanism. This research aims to accommodating a significant perspective of viewing and decision-making about contemporary Chinese art outside the mainland. Without a doubt, it is not restricted to Chinese artists and artworks themselves, but is also applies to the western art world within an evaluation system. Considering that the framework of value regimes was successfully adopted in the precious samples (Gielen, 2010), whether it also works for the Chinese art appeals to be the experimental practice. After that, moving on to the next chapter, an action on decoding the selection process in relation to the criteria issue has been taken, providing the empirical evidence to support, or polish up, the concept framework. The initial step, mapping Chinese art exhibitions in Dutch museums, makes us have a clear picture of the quantity of Chinese art exhibitions in the museum samples. Besides, the Groninger Museum, as one of the most representative and productive art scenes connecting Chinese art and the Netherlands, turns out to be the best candidate for conducting the present research. For this reason, looking through all the writing materials and online resources, the preliminary analysis has been finished on the one side. On the other side, by using face-to-face interview as my main method in collecting the empirical data, it embraces certain insights from the curators. Apart from that, the analysis section also includes some further concerns in relation to the issue on art and its backers. In terms of this part, literarily, it will lead to reach the place where we could find its way to solve the criteria issue on the artistic decision-making process. And the interpretation, equally importantly, unfolds the discourses both from the intrinsic and the extrinsic sides. Finally, the research arrives at four clues, aesthetic value, financial supporter, educational role, and social network, in order to read the selection criteria in our research context.
2. Artistic Decision-making: Ins and Outs
2.1 The Globalization Context
The term, globalization was initially formulated by Marshall McLuhan with the renowned metaphor of the ‘global village’, a popular phrase in his books, The
Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962) and Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964). McLuhan interpreted how the globe had
been contracted into a village by electronic technologies and the instantaneous movement of information from every quarter to every point at the same time (McLuhan, 1987). Increased speed of communication and the ability of people to read about, spread, and react to global news quickly, makes us become more involved with one another from different social groups and countries around the world. The new reality has implied that, across the global village, people are able to reach out and transcend their neighborhood instantaneously.
easily relate the expression form of her work to the artist’s name. Another example is the author of the famous character Moomin, Tove Jansson. The comic book was first released in Finland in Swedish language as Jansson is originally from Sweden. Her work reflects that the Nordic countries have usually shared mutual ideas in the realm of art. However, what has drawn our attention is an anime television series Moomin based on the original books was initially broadcast in the early 1990s in Japan. Since then, the character goods were produced by Japanese company, and exported to dozens of countries. If the shopping-goers are not familiar with the story backwards, it is difficult for them to associate this work with the author’s nationality. It’s partly down to the fact that Japanese anime industry plays one of the most dominant roles in the worldwide market, and partly because of the instruction on the package is normally written in Japanese. This too is, somehow, the reality that resulted from globalization.
Just as Gielen (2010) pointed out, globalization had impact on contemporary art world in the following aspects: a boost to the number of artists; the rapid development of artists’ career influenced by new artistic trends in an immaterial rationale of ideas; global mediatization; denationalizing of artistic trends; inflation of the ‘international’, and dedifferentiation of value regimes.
that came into being is artist mobility or cultural mobility. The art talents experienced travelling from one place to another in order to participate in, for instance, artist residencies, exchange programs, and workshops. Those physical encounters have provided an ideal platform for the artists to meet different people and share ideas with like-minded individuals and organisations. It became abundantly clear that the artists have taken advantage of those international networks to extend their professional paths worldwide. Plus, if we take a moment toexamine the composition of those network organisations, we may easily find that they are overlapping in the economic, political, and cultural domains.
However, as we have seen, making an artistic decision appears to be a much more complex process than before due to a meshwork of plentiful networks and hierarchies (Gielen, 2010). What is more, art works in the globalized art world present themselves no more than as the superficial images in the more classical method, even though the global mediatization has sharpened the artist’s eccentric appearance, or using Nathalie’s word ‘singular’. In other words, an artwork may also reveal its political or economic colour at times.
2.2 A Showcase in the Contemporary Art Scene: Museum and Its Value
Whilst we were discussing globalization and its effects, it’s necessary to examine those intersections that have their important roles in the ‘highly differentiated’ (Gielen, 2010) art world. Some of them are artistic and intellectual in nature or functioning as an educational role in the society, while others are primarily financial-based.
It goes without saying that a museum, connecting the past and the present times, is such an essential showcase in the contemporary art world. Visiting a museum, for the visitors, means learning, whether it is consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or unintentionally. Audiences have the opportunities to view artworks with their own eyes, and experience them by feeling, tasting, smelling or playing in the museum show, instead of learning from the paper work or the regular lesson.
The International Council of Museums (ICOM) has defined museum, in the present cultural scope, as follows:
A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment, for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment. -- (ICOM, 2007)
The bonus of visiting museum is making people view the world from a different perspective, which constitutes the museum’s fundamental value to exist in our society. Alongside, museum exhibition, as an interpretive medium, is a collective and creative activity with an overall goal of communicating a message or messages (Gary & Dean, 1994). An exhibition equation, based on Gary Edson and David Dean (1994), has illustruated the main function and goal of the museum exhibition since the twentieth century:
Presentation (physical display)
+ Interpretation (explanation and exposition)
= Communication ( the exhibitor’s goal)
experience those artworks within artistic discourses. Just as Lisa Robert (1991) pointed out:
“Museums have the authority to select, interpret, and present that which they decide has value or significance. […] The process of selecting and arranging objects is at bottom a fabrication and as such, a statement about what the fabricators suppose an object to say.”
However, as a public resource, museums in the contemporary period have also established closer ties with governments, educational institutions, mass media, private initials, public funds, and art market. In this point, we should take time to make research on Dutch museum system in order to get better understanding of its position and function, which would help us to step further into the concrete art scene.
Museums serve as an important role in the Dutch arts and culture sector as they have provided valuable contributions to knowledge generation and helped raise historical awareness. The Netherlands Museums Association (2011) claimed the five social values of Dutch museums. They are collection value, connecting value, educational value, experience value and economic value.
“Collection value is in line with governments’ cultural policies, for example social issues such as stewardship, acquisition and disposal, digitisation, and visitor profiles. Potential alliances: other museums, libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions.
Connecting value relates to the government’s social policies, including issues such as civic participation, volunteer policy, democratisation and social cohesion, volunteer organisations, service organisations and social and professional networks.
Educational value is directly related to educational policies and issues such as the extent to which the education system meets the demands of the labour market, adult education, life-long learning, talent development, and work placements at non-profit organisations, civic integration, and the knowledge economy. Potential alliances: all forms of education from primary schools to scientific institutes, along with the private sector.
Economic value relates to governments’ economic policies and town and country planning, with issues including tourism, city marketing, merchandising, area development and quality of life. Potential alliances: property developers, architects, contractors, the hotel industry and tourist and recreational organisations.”
-- (More than Worth It. The Social Significance of Museums, 2011)
From the statements above, it has produced circumstantial evidence to establish what the relations are there among museum, the art world, and the social world. Aside from that, the Dutch cultural policy in terms of cultural heritage also provides us with some ideas about the museum system in the Netherlands.
The central government subsidises 48 museums, of which 30 are part of the Basic National Infrastructure (BIS). The 18 remaining museums funded by central government receive subsidies from other ministries (for example, the Army Museum is subsidised by the Ministry of Defence). In 2012, the museums under the BIS umbrella generated 29% of their income through their own activities. Their private income rates vary widely. The Van Gogh Museum, for example, generated 70% of its 2012 income through ticket sales, sponsorship, private gifts and commercial activities. In addition to the BIS, a great number of museums is subsidised by local government. The Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Jet Bussemaker, presented a Museum Letter in 2013, in which she reveals her vision on the museum system and proposes some measures in order to improve the system. She particularly stresses the need for more cooperation between museums across the country.
-- (Compendium, 2015)
2.3 The Way towards Decoding Artistic Selections
artworks’ cultural contexts for the public. They are supposed to have the knowledge of the techniques of selection and evaluation, and the current market as well (Gary & Dean, 1994).
In that event, two questions came into being: how do they (the decision-makers) make their choices? And what kind of principle stands behind or what arguments play a role in the selection processes? These two focal questions have been approached in Gielen’s research (Gielen, 2010) on analyzing artistic selections from a sociological perspective. Accordingly, a conceptual model is composed of four value regimes within theoretical and empirical explorations, in order to regulate artistic selection processes in a globalized art world: on the one hand, (1) a singular content and (2) a singular context logic; and on the other hand, (3) a collective content and (4) a collective context logic. ( see Firgure 1)
Singular Regime Collective Regime
Focus: Artefact Focus: Artistic Referents Content Logic Argumentation form: Internal consistency Argumentation form: Artistic conventions Time dimension: Non-historical Time dimension: History of Art Focus: Subject Focus: Social Referents Context Logic Argumentation form: Auto-normativity Argumentation form: Social conventions Time dimension: Artistic-biography Time dimension: Positional trajectory
This model can be divided into four domains in line with their argumentations independently.
I. A singularcontent logic
The first realm focuses on the work of art itself, and the attention is paid to the internal consistency of a work from a non-historical point of view (Gielen, 2010). Before we step into the theoretical framework, it is necessary to explicate what singular means, as well as in what way the content logic came out.
The concept singular was primarily created by a French sociologist Nathalie Heinich. In her study Glory of Van Gogh: An Anthropology of Admiration (1996), she explained how and why society transforms certain personae into van Gogh as a cultural hero for the 20th century. According to Heinich, the singularity is the consequence of the overflowing admiration or adoration, and further generates a cognitive distinction between what is good and what is bad. (Gielen, 2010). Here, adoration is certainly not an emotional or a sentimental principle, but a capacity to distinguish and categorize. Besides that, Heinich also mentioned the cases of Romantic artists who were active at the end of eighteenth century. Indeed, when it comes to the material object, the composition of the works of the romantic genre, the strong contrast colors, and the smooth and unrestrained stroke, featured them within a totally different face compared to the works that presented beauty in a neoclassic ideal way. No more precise line to outline the contour, or symmetrical grave balanced composition to present the artworks. Instead, a lot of attention had been paid on the imagination and creation, the expression of personality and emotion, the spiritual freedom and liberation in order to break the rules of the academic value system. As indicated by Hans van Maanen, the realm of singularity is based on the ethics of rarity in formulating value judgments (Maanen, 2010). Alternatively, using Gielen’s word, it pays more attention to abnormality, excess and deviation (Gielen, 2010). It opposes the realm of the community, or the collective. In this respect, I will elaborate in the later text.
other artworks from a historical perspective. Every piece of artwork can take a place in the time axis of art history.
For this and other reasons, internal analysis of artworks, artistic quality or aesthetic value is of great importance. Imagine that when someone is standing in front of a painting, a sculpture, or any other artwork, perhaps, they are taken by a range of sensual experiences: they like that shape, those colours, or they do not like them at all—they are offended. Artwork has the power to inspire personal reactions, to involve emotions and feelings. It can also touch some timeless realm; there can be a feeling of transcendence, or a communication with a higher sense of being, which offers a way out of the mundane world of everyday life. The general consensus is that aesthetic concerns can be traced back to the Greek origins of contemporary philosophy. The modern tradition of aesthetics stems from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when attention was directed towards beauty in art and nature. What is pleasurableis the bondage with simple sensual enjoyment as well as individual emotional and intellectual experience. Thus, if an artwork has been chosen for a content logic, the artistic selection is largely subject to the aesthetic experience, a sort of pure appreciation, based on the preferences or taste for the artworks themselves. As to those external factors, at this point, they are rarely functioning.
II. A singular context logic
The second category relies on the subject, which means the decision-makers should consider the artistic biography of the artists. In that case, the artists’ professional career, rather than their institutional career, is fairly determining. Since we already have certain insights on the singular regime, the next focus will move to a context logic. Context, the term regularly used by art historians, refers to the way in which the artist introduces and represents the work, for instance an institutional context. Here, the selection criteria give high priority to the external analysis of the artwork, and keep an eye on the social position of artists, the place where the artwork is presented, the brand influence of institutions, the way that media promoted, and other social referents. Simply put, the extrinsic value has drawn a line that separates art from aesthetic values, which leads to the consideration more in relation to the peripheral conditions.
their names seem to be good reasons that their artworks are welcomed to museums, galleries, or other art spaces any time. In this case, a work made by an anonymous artist may not be included in the waiting list of the curators, or the museum exhibition agenda.
III. A collective content logic
The next grid has emphasized again on the material object, the work of art, from a historical perspective. As usual, before we head to interpret how this realm is working in the selection process, we need to take some moments to get the idea of the collective regime. Gielen extracted this regime from Bourdieu’s concept, and further indicated two concerns. The first one is when doing analysis about status of the artworks we could draw a conclusion that ‘it constitutes a status provider in a social game of distinction and internal strife’ (Gielen, 2010). And secondly, the artefacts can derive their value from the social interaction or transactions between artists, publishers, art critics and other actors.
By reason of the statements above, collective values of artwork are in accordance with artistic conventions, such as a certain movement in the art history. Here, for example, a work has been chose as it is a good expression of Zero. Or if a museum is attempting to expand their collection to the Nordic countries, then picking up artworks from Iceland can be a good solution. Alternatively, the argumentation of an artwork is related to Chinese convention also makes sense in this realm.
IV. A collective context logic
Last but not the least, a collective context logic has been settled in the fourth domain of the model, which counts social referents. To be more specific, it is very much about people and institutions that act as important extrinsic function to the artworks. The positional trajectory in this regime relevant to the artistic paths highlights the place where the artwork is presented. For example, the institution within the well-known reputation would lead to the success of the exhibition. Or in other case, an artist owns certain social prestige, such as the board members of committees, also worth much to the artist selection. It seems to be more open and multi-layered due to variable factors like the finical support, the government policy, the social transformation, the network of both inner circle and outside are spinning and weaving together in this field.
organise exhibitions of Chinese art, create projects, and make cooperation with Chinese artists.
By far, we are only just getting to the point where the theoretical frame has been constructed, with four-dimension argumentations side by side. Nonetheless, in some cases these boundaries can be relatively vague. Just as Gielen (2010) remarked, “[…] translations are always possible, depending on the connotative network within which the argumentation is constructed”. Remember we mentioned the case of Yayoi Kusama in the above discussion. If her work has been chosen by a museum, the possible reasons could be, on the one hand, it is one of the most representatives of Zero movement; and on the other hand, her artistic biography has impacted the selection motives too.
3. Chinese Art and Dutch Taste
3.1 Mapping Chinese Art Exhibitions in Dutch Museums
As what we indicated at the beginning, thanks to the globalization trend, Chinese art world has played an essential role in the global art scene step by step. There were considerable exhibitions presented within an international touch. Two among those international shows, China Avant-Garde, and China’s New Art:
Post-1989, can be viewed as the first big breakthrough that contemporary
Chinese art was on display to the western audiences (Koch, 2011). The former exhibition, China Avant-Garde, was held in the Haus der Kunlturen der Welt (HKW) in Berlin, which was opened on January 29 and ended on May 2, 1993. It later travelled through some other venues in those neighbouring countries, for example, Kunsthal Rotterdam in the Netherlands (May 29 to July 15,1993), Museum of Contemporary Art in Oxford in England (July 31 to October 17, 1993), and Brandts Klaedefabrik in Odense, Denmark (November 13, 1993 to February 6, 1994) (Koch, 2011). The second exhibition, China’s New Art: Post-1989, was organised by the Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong, which also attracted worldwide attention. It was opened in February 1993 at the City Hall Art Gallery and the Hong Kong Arts Centre, and then travelled to Sydney. This exhibition, in the view point of Sullivan (1996), implied the advent of modernism in Chinese art world. Subsequently, from the year of 1993, participation in major international events resulted in the rising status of Chinese art, especially in the biennials of Venice in 1993 and 1995, the biennials of Sao Paulo in 1994 and 1996, and several international exhibitions in 1997 (Chang, 1998). In the meantime, some momentous shifts, for example, rapid modernization, changing political realities, and conflicting global, ethnic, and local identities (Gao, 1998), had largely transformed the domestic environment in China in the late twentieth century. A significant number of Chinese artists, as aforesaid, had reacted to this tendency consistently with their characteristic artworks. In that case, exhibitions abroad facilitated Chinese artists and their artworks a louder voice in the contemporary international scenes. We also noticed that, it becomes even clearer that the museum performed as a gatekeeper provided the Europeans with a means to approach Chinese art, and helped to formulate a cultural dialogue between these two different areas.
materials, the first sign of contemporary Chinese art exhibition launched in the Netherlands was China Avant-Garde which took place in Kunsthal Rotterdam in 1993. Plus, another exhibition of Chinese installation art, titled Another Long March, was hold at Chassé Kazerne, Breda in 1997, which gave recognition to the achievement of Chinese multimedia art (Chang, 1998). 3
In order to visualize all kinds of data more clearly, I am using the mapping technique to systematically analyze those inputs. Moreover, there are two main criteria I have kept in mind while doing the investigation on the museums: firstly, the museum should give the priority to contemporary art, and secondly, the museum features itself as an international-minded organisation, rather than a community-focus one. Even though I intend to grab all the possible information to complete the mapping task, by looking through the museum exhibition archive, as well as by searching other online and paper resources, the result tends to be less than comprehensive for some reason. However, it still gives us some ideas about the interaction between contemporary Chinese art and Dutch museum scenes. The mapping process is presented in the diagram below.
3 There were also some exhibitions that host by gallery-based space or as one part of a specific festival, for example, Food for Thought in De Witte Dame in Eindhoven and Foto’s van Zhao Shaoruo in Soeterijn Theatre, in cooperation of the Royal Institute for the Tropics to the China Festival Chinese Karakters (1998).
Confused… Reckoning with the Future exhibition showed works of 15 Chinese painters and photographs in
Table 1 Contemporary Chinese Art Exhibitions in Dutch Museums
From the above diagram, we can have a concrete idea of the quantity of Chinese art exhibitions in nine specific museums. Apparently, the Groninger Museum ranks the top position. In particular, there were eight exhibitions with regard to contemporary Chinese art over the last ten years. The quantity is dominant and remarkable. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen enjoys the second place, which hosting four exhibitions. Stedelijk Amsterdam and Kunsthal Rotterdam have two exhibitions respectively, while the other four museums have only one exhibition each regarding contemporary Chinese art.
In line with the outcome of mapping, it is well true that the Groninger Museum tends to be the best candidate for our current research topic as their experiences and contributions, compared to other Dutch museums, are relatively fruitful. In the following section, I am going to take a closer look at the real thing under the surface, by asking in what way these decision-making activities happen and what kind of criteria may work in the artistic selecting process.
3.2 Eyes on the Groninger Museum
In this section, an integrated analysis within several hypotheses has been put forward, on the basis of the well-documented materials from the Groninger Museum include exhibition catalogues, museum magazines, online exhibition archive, and press releases on the museum website. It attempts to present a
1 1 1 8 2 1 4 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Cobra Museum De Pont Museum Drents Museum Assen Groninger Museum Kunsthal Rotterdam Museum Beelden aan Zee Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam Tropenmuseum
preliminary result regarding the three focal questions. First of all, when did the museum start to pay attention to modern and contemporary Chinese art? Second, what drove the museum to make a decision on mounting exhibitions regarding Chinese art? Third, in what way did the museum curator(s) observe and choose Chinese artists and artworks? What’s more, if any criterion has impact on the selection? Then the text will be devoted to the interpretation of those materials within the concept model that has been explained in the previous section. Furthermore, the comparison with other paralleled exhibitions during the same time referring to, for example, the subjects, the motivation, and the selection standard issues is supposed to be carried out when necessary, in order to enrich the qualitative discourses bit by bit. After that, it will move on to collecting insights from curators who were in charge of organising related exhibitions, concreting the analysis from different angles. Lastly, the analysis around both art history and art sociology fields will be compiled, which leads this study to reach a final conclusion.
3.2.1 A Prelude to New Trends in the Groninger Museum
In the recent past, China, within its spectacular development in economic and social fields, pushed itself into the foreground more frequently. Alongside this, Chinese art has served in playing an increasingly prominent role in the global art scene. From the 1990s onward, Chinese artists and their artworks experienced a series of shifts since they were involved in the international art world, especially in the market field. Some critics often questioned in terms of the art-historical importance and artistic value of Chinese artworks, in particular, directing at contemporary Chinese art. On that account, Chinese art, as a new comer, enjoyed considerably high interest and demand amid domestic controversy. As a consequence, an increasing number of exhibitions highlighting Chinese art were organized abroad.
A few years ago, there was a special exhibition named Asian Decorative Arts -
Studio Job, juxtaposed works by Studio Job (Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel) with
related to Chinese art, it represented the world community, including the Chinese art, in relation to social and cultural perspective through a visual means. For that reason, this exhibition with its prophetic insight can be treated as the first landmark in the Groninger Museum respecting the idea of planning certain exhibitions featuring Chinese art. Of equally importance, in the same year, a small-scale group exhibition entitled Beijing Studio – Zhuang Hong Yi and Lu Luo presented art works of these two artists in the Groninger Museum. Zhuang Hong Yi and Lu Luo settled in Groningen to continue their education at Academie Minerva in 1992 and 1995 respectively. A majority of their works adopted the traditional Chinese materials and patterns, in combination with some west-oriented characteristics. Understandably, eastern and western cultural elements were blended together in those artworks.4
A year later, China with the forthcoming Beijing Olympic games showed its enormous influence in the global scope. In the year of 2008, the Groninger Museum designed four exhibitions aiming at Chinese artworks: 1) Ancient
Bronzes, showing a certain number of masterpieces from the Shanghai Museum;
2) a solo exhibition of Ai Weiwei; 3) a group exhibition titled ‘Writing on the
Wall’, displaying Chinese New Realism and Avant-garde works in the eighties
and nineties; and 4) another group exhibition named ‘New World Order’, with the theme of contemporary installation art and photography from China.
Undoubtedly, tracking down the new trends in the museum agenda is insufficient as to such a multi-faced artistic practice, so a deeper investigation is required. What were the motives of organizing those exhibitions? How did they make a choice with the artists and artworks in the certain shows? Are there any kinds of criteria that have impacted the artistic selections? In the next phase, the analysis will take a step further to discuss the context of those specific exhibitions, which helps to construct a linkage between the Groninger Museum and contemporary Chinese art from a more detailed perspective.
4
There is no catalogue, but image documents on this exhibition. All the materials regarding this exhibition based on the press releases on the website of the Groninger Museum. See:
3.2.2 A Meaningful Dialogue between the Groninger Museum and Contemporary Chinese Art World
Museum exhibition, as an art intermediary, serves the function in the process of art observation, selection, presentation and interpretation. In order to conduct the study, a chronological survey of exhibition documents does matter much. After the first round research, all the exhibitions organized in the Groninger Museum with respect to the subject of Chinese art have been listed as follows (see Table 2):
Table 2 Exhibitions of Chinese Art in the Groninger Museum
Year Exhibition Type Contemporary
Art?
Curator(s)
2007 Beijing Studio – Zhuang Hong Yi and Lu Luo
Group Yes Han Steenbruggen.
2008 Ancient Bronzes. Masterpieces from the Shanghai Museum
No
Ai Weiwei. A solo exhibition of the work of Ai Weiwei
Solo Yes Mark Wilson,
Sue-an van der Zijpp Writing on the Wall. Chinese New
Realism and Avant-garde in the eighties and nineties
Group Yes Cees Hendrikse,
Mark Wilson, Sue-an van der Zijpp, Sabine Wang
New World Order. Contemporary Installation Art and Photography from China
Group Yes Mark Wilson,
Sue-an van der Zijpp, Sabine Wang
2009- 2010
Pure or idiosyncratic? Form in oriental ceramics
No
2011 Me, Myself and I, Chi Peng. Photoworks 2003 – 2010
Solo Yes Mark Wilson,
Famille Verte. Chinese Porcelain in Green Enamels
No
2012 Yin Xiuzhen Solo Yes Mark Wilson,
Sue-an van der Zijpp Dragons and Lange Lijzen. Chinese
porcelain from the Museum’s own collection
No
2013 Fuck Off. Part II Group Yes Ai Weiwei,
Feng Boyi, Mark Wilson 2015 Song Dong, Life is Art, Art is Life Solo Yes Sue-an van der Zijpp
As we can see from the table above, the Groninger museum has continuously shown Chinese art, especially contemporary Chinese art. In total, there are twelve Chinese theme exhibitions; eight of them are more relevant to the focal subject, contemporary Chinese artists or artworks. Based on the catalogues of those exhibitions, all the items, in general, can be grouped into seven categories as follows: 1) painting; 2) installation art; 3) photography; 4) performance art; 5) sculpture; and 6) video. Nevertheless, the other shows are centred on the ancient Chinese crafts, such as bronzes, ceramics, and porcelains. It should be noted that this research is done prior to the contemporary art genre, which means not all the exhibitions listed above would be taken into consideration in the following analysis.
In fact, the behaviour of exhibiting is not a monologue of the museum or Chinese art itself on this scene. A kind of interactive relationship has continuously impacted on those artistic practices. Sketching each target exhibition with its unique profile aims at getting a clear perspective of how an artistic dialogue has been established step by step in the museum, even if some of the ideas seem rough, or even not precise enough.
more symbolic that blended Chinese cultural traditions and European social axioms. Most of those works expressed the memories of the conventions in their region of birth, Sichuan. At this point, a singular content logic was functioning here since the initial idea inspired by the artworks. In addition to that, it is also not accidental that the artists selected by the curator, since they lived in Groningen and joined training programme at Academie Minerva. The exhibition, on the one hand, focused on revealing their physical location and social life from a local perspective. And on the other hand, the cultural identity of their homeland, China, also had been highlighted. In this respect, the argument for this exhibition could fall into a context logic as well.
Representing the art scenes on the occasion of 2008 is necessary due to the fact that the high point of the museum was a Chinese theme in this special year. Firstly, a solo exhibition of Ai Weiwei was displayed in the Groninger Museum. Considered as one of the most outstanding Chinese artists among the Western art stage in the recent years, Ai Weiwei’ debut created a special experience for the museum. He took advantage of traditional Chinese elements in his works, with the intention on exploring the mechanisms of political and national symbolism in a provoking way. Then we noticed that a singular content logic was working here. However, it is also easy to associate the motive of this exhibition with the subject, the artist himself, and his own biography, which is strongly connected to Chinese cultural identity. For this reason, a singular context logic was an appropriate argumentation for the solo show on the other side of the measuring criteria.
The second exhibition in the same year was ‘Writing on the Wall’, focused on Chinese New Realism and Avant-garde in the eighties and nineties. As I noticed that, in the foreword of the exhibition catalogue (Lago, Hendrikse, Welsh, & Berghuis, 2008), the idea of organising an exhibition project with regard to modern and contemporary Chinese art emerged for a while, followed by a straightforward action that transforming the whole museum into a small Chinese empire. This exhibition, considered as one part of the exhibition project entitled
Go China! Assen- Groningen, helped to sketch a picture of Chinese present-day art
curator Cees Hendrikse pointed out that it was inevitably a personal choice (Lago, Hendrikse, Welsh, & Berghuis, 2008). It seems to be very interesting point to our research due to the reason that personal taste usually has been discussed in the aesthetic domain, or at least it is related to the art appreciation issue. Then the criteria should depend on a singular and content logic. However, the exhibition put emphasized on the art-historical importance of contemporary Chinese art, as well as the changing social and political situations in the eighties and nineties in Mainland China. According to the fact above, the decision-making criteria, in this case, also can match a collective content logic.
The next month, another echoed group exhibition New World Order showed contemporary Chinese installation art and photography. The works on display were created since 2000, as Mainland China had undergone a rapid change both economically and socially at that moment. Apart from that, contemporary Chinese art, with its exponential development, got a foothold on international art venues in a very short time. From the exhibition documents, we can see that the reasons why this exhibition was launched are more related to the issues of how Chinese artists responded to the new reality of China. Accordingly, in what way their works reflected a series of social and political problems in this new era. With twenty-seven selected candidates, the main purpose of the museum was to “give an impression of the great diversity of contemporary Chinese visual art, which is a reflection of individual artistry as well as social dynamics, and of the new international position that China currently occupies in the world of art” (Zijpp & LU, 2008). Similar with the previous exhibition, a collective content logic seems to be the basic argumentation of the selecting criteria regarding this exhibition.
Notwithstanding, all the shows held in the Groninger Museum in the year of 2008 might largely attribute to the social status of China as all eyes centred on China, the Olympic games host country. Likewise, Ai Weiwei was one of the chief designers of the Olympic stadium, which might be another crucial reason of staging his exhibition in the museum. Thus, be aware that the criteria respecting artistic selection should take the other part of value regime into consideration. In other word, a collective context logic cannot be overlooked in the particular situation.
generation experienced during their process of growing up in the present China. Chi Peng was firstly chosen by Feng Boyi, the co-curator of this exhibition, to exhibit his works abroad. Just as the foreword of the exhibition catalogue (Wilson & Zijpp, 2011) mentioned, Chi Peng’s personal and distinct visual language was particularly impressive in his generation. Besides that, offering such an emerging artist to have his first international exhibition catered to an established tradition of the Groninger Museum, supporting younger artists and giving them their first big breaks. Therefore, concerning the arguments in this selection process, the content logic and the context logic were blending together to a singular regime. The internal artistic value and the artist’s own profile determined the exhibiting of Chi Peng’s artwork in the museum. As stated in the evaluation by Feng Boyi, the artist, Chi Peng, managed to ‘create two mythological systems in his work: one is the abstruse world of journey to the west, the other parallels social reality – a reality that has been replaced by him.’ (Feng, 2011).
Furthermore, the sixth targeted exhibition is a solo exhibition of Yin Xiuzhen, one of the most prominent artists of her generation in Chinese art scene. Most of her works concerning the notions of memory and oblivion have reflected the monumental social transformations within a far more significant political guiding. This is about a content logic of the artist’s work. More than that, the propaganda of this exhibition stressed the artist’s personal experiences and reputation in the professional field, which indicated that a singular context logic existing there as well. However, it is worth mentioning that, especially for this exhibition, Yin created the cityscape of Groningen added to the Portable Cities series, consisting of opened suitcases that present mini-cities made of textile. Therefore, I would like to assume that a collective logic might be tied up with in this case at the same time.
outside China, yet, equally insightful towards inside China. Undoubtedly, the criteria in this case, on the one side, were closely connected with a collective context logic because of the social trajectory of the artists, and the political references of their works.
Last but not least, more recently, the Groninger Museum was continuing its tradition of hosting impressive exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art. The solo exhibition Song Dong, Life Is Art, Art Is Life represented one of the most influential artists coming out of the capital of China, and appeared to be a chronology of the life of the artist, a testament to his own experiences, his family and the place he calls home. Song Dong was educated in traditional fashion, but in 1989 he abruptly quit painting, to manifest himself again with photography, video, performance, and installation a few years later. At Documenta 2012, he was represented by the sculpture Doing Nothing Garden, the one consisted of a hill built up by rubbish, covered with wild flowers, together with a bench around it where people could simply sit. Also, one of his works Waste Not, also included in this solo show, triumphantly toured several international art institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2009), the Barbican Centre in London (2012) and the Biennale of Sidney (2013). At this point, the personal artistic references have been given much weight on. Thus, we could deduce that the selecting criteria seem to depend on a singular content logic.
Beijing Studio, it is clear that there do exist certain differences in the exhibition
arguments and selection criteria, even though the exhibitions were organised by the same curator(s) at the same time.
We are in the process of approaching the focal issue in a contextual survey. Making the hypothesis on artistic decision-making criteria tends to be one extraordinary ride. It is convinced that an active role in such artistic selection cannot be overlooked. Right, we need to take it serious to hear their voices. Maybe it’s not more interesting in the back stage. Or, on the contrary, they will tell us a fancy and vivid story about the shows inside and out.
3.2.3 Looking at the Back of the Tongue
If one seeks the light of truth, he (or she) is expected to go through a bunch of people, search across every kind of proof, into the skies above and below the earth's surface, in the end, reaching places, probably, to the limits of one’s imagination. The current art world, within all known matters, is becoming ever more integrated and complicated. Looking at the mechanism in the process of artistic selections, together with an inspiring take on the role of the curators, may shape the tone of the full story.
Let’s open the box and have a look at the back of the tongue. The first important person I approached was Sue-an van der Zijpp, one who mainly takes charge of contemporary art and fashion design in the curator team of the Groninger Museum. We met each other in the museum café at the brunch time, later started off our conversation with her routines in the position of museum curator. Based on those general questions, I learned much around the mission and vision of the museum, the exhibition arrangement in the museum system, over and above the way they run their own business. When the feeling of strangeness began to wear off, I knew a relationship of trust, more or less, had been built up. Of course it would take some time to get one thing straight with someone you first talk with, yet, I felt that it is possible to trace out something may work in terms of the selection mechanism according to her words.
A Chinese Art Feast in the Groninger Museum
show that was launched in the Groninger Museum should be refreshing. It has been proved that the exhibition Beijing Studio (2007) was carried out by Han Steenbruggen, the director of Museum Belvédère, rather than the curator of the Groninger Museum. As a result of that, I will start from the exhibitions took place in the year of 2008, as the first brilliant chapter for the Groninger Museum, and attempt to capture the footages behind the scene.
In the year of 2008, the Groninger Museum introduced four exhibitions about Chinese art to local art scene. This special programme was initiated by Cees Hendrikse, one of the most important figures in the Dutch art circle, who collected numerous contemporary Chinese artworks, and formulated several exhibitions of Chinese art both in the Netherlands and Mainland China.
“He (Cees Hendrikse) came to the museum around 2003 or 2004, and suggested that we should definitely do the exhibitions for Chinese art. I didn’t know why. He always wanted to do something with Chinese art. […] China was really a hot topic at that point, and a lot of attention had been going to China and Chinese people. It’s about Olympic Games, about social changes, and so on. ” -- [Sue-an van der Zijpp]
Then in the following years, Mr. Cees Hendrikse, together with Sue-an and her colleague Mark Willson, went to China and visited the artists there. According to the interview material, the entire project had been split into four parts: a classic part, which was collaborated with Shanghai Museum and showed bronzes; an older generation of contemporary Chinese artists; a younger generation of emerging Chinese artists; and a solo show of Ai Weiwei. In reference to the main selecting process, Sue-an added, the curator team started to do the research on Chinese artists and works before their trip to China.
“We went through many magazines, year-by-year, exhibitions and other possible sources to find out what they were interested in.” -- [Sue-an van der Zijpp]
We could tell that a singular content logic was determinative at this stage as the judge directly affected by the artistic appreciation. Moreover, when talking about the selection scene behind, Sue-an pointed out that it was not like a blindfolded picking.
The quotation above reveals that the aesthetic value, a well-recognized standard among the art professionals, has been taken into account when the curator making choices about the artworks. Again, it has proved that a singular content logic, indeed, played a significant part in the decision-making process.
In order to achieve the blockbuster, the curators went to China and met those potential candidates in person. And in the end, twenty-six artists and their individual or cooperative works were brought to their own exhibition rooms in the Groninger Museum. When they were in China, another figure showed up. It was Sabine Wang, a Germany sinologist. Thanks to her valuable inputs, the museum team could have an easier channel to the Chinese artists and Chinese art scenes. Sabine played a role as an artistic guide and a translator during the whole process, and she also contributed to making contacts with most Chinese artists who worked or lived in Mainland China at that time.
“[…] there was one great thing. Cees knew Sabine, and Sabine knew everybody. She called them (Chinese artists) up and contacted them. That’s the way we could do that (gathered Chinese artists and got to know them, further, succeed in making a series of exhibitions).’’ -- [Sue-an van der Zijpp]
It is not surprising that the social network has been successfully constructed, accordingly, functioned in the staging process of Chinese art exhibitions. Thus, the collective context logic turned up in the meantime. Apparently, it was not an easy job for the museum. I was told that the original plan of presenting the shows was expected in two years later, around 2006. In fact, it took almost four years to achieve that goal.
“[…] we had to build up a network, get to know people, visit them more than once in
order to discuss what kind of work(s) they wanted to be presented in the show. We met more people than we selected. There were many artists we were interested in, but at that moment, they had some other shows, or their works were not ready for our exhibition.” -- [Sue-an van der Zijpp]
Big Name Rocks?
The Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, enjoys wide popularity in the Western world. In the summer of 2013, the exhibitions of his works traveled through several European countries and cities: in Erlangen, Escher, Oberhausen and Essen, Germany; in Venice, Italy; in Zurich, Switzerland; in London, the UK, and in Paris, France. I am not entirely sure that if there do a large amount of admirers exist in those countries. However, at least, lots of people seemed to be attracted by his works that embodied the spirit of freedom and critical power. It, also, made great sense to include Ai Weiwei’s works in the museum shows, since a majority of his works have expressed strong physical presence, cultural identity, political issue, and social surroundings of Mainland China over the last few years. And for the audiences, through his works, they were likely to be astonished by the content presented, for instance, the democratic movements in China and the tough situation that Chinese artists faced. Even though some critics hold that he is mere a so-so artist instead of a brilliant one, compared to other Chinese artists, he has captured broad appeal and made his way towards many museums and gallery spaces in the contemporary art world. In this case, we could say that Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist whose work is kind of individual it barely needed a signature. If we can arrive at a conclusion with regard to the selection standards in his case, then the big name rocks to a large extent.
In reference to Yin Xiuzhen, we cannot simply label her works as ‘feminist’. As a matter of fact, a logic for art and life, which is far more than female thought, exists in her creative works. That is the general opinion from the museum. However,
“ […] it is evident that, in the previous generation, less women artists were there.” -- [Sue-an van der Zijpp]
The story we have been told suggests that gender issue still influenced the decision-making, while the fame sometimes may not. Yin’s husband, Song Dong, actually is more famous. It probably is the main reason that Song’s solo exhibition also on the list of the museum exhibition agenda.
Besides, on the basis of Sue-an’s statement, they did not mean to mount an extensive survey of one Chinese artist, giving their audiences a full overview of the artist’s output, from the artist’s early experiments to the recent works.
“We didn’t want to make an exhibition only showed: this was China, or Chinese art. We wanted to make an impression. […] Presenting people from that selection aimed to highlight the art ideas from different generations (of Chinese artists) as well. Chi Peng, of course, was very young one (artist). Struggling with other issues, we knew that in the last ten years China changed so fast. If you were from other generation, you would find different perspectives to see the world. So we started it (solo exhibition of Chinese artists) with Chi Peng, an emerging Chinese artist who represented the young generation, then we came to host a solo exhibition of Yin Xiuzhen. ” --
[Sue-an van der Zijpp]
Now and then, they have a tendency to qualify people associates more than their artworks, because a suitable opportunity is significant as well. That’s partly the reason why some called the artist, at times, is an opportunist.
Money Talks?
There has been a notable phenomenon that, in recent times, contemporary Chinese artists with their works were flooding into the international stage, even though they made progress towards being recognized as individual artists rather than as ambassadors of their own country. Of course there is a catch and as is an all too frequent occurrences in the present art world – it’s money. Thus, whether the economic factor determines the artistic selection process seems to be far more interesting.
In the conversation with Sue-an, we raised financial aspect twice. The first time was about the way they could survive as a city and province museum. And the second time, more related to our focal issue, is about the sponsors of the Chinese exhibitions.
