Gao Shiming and Xu Jiang’s “‘Globalization’ and Chinese Contemporary Art –– written on the occasion of the Kassel Documenta curators’ visit to China”

读许江与高士明的《“全 球概念”与中国当代艺术的境遇——写在卡塞尔文献展艺术策划人访华之际》 的一些感受

The following are some thoughts and some translations while reading Xu Jiang and Gao Shiming’s essay, “‘Globalization’ and Chinese Contemporary Art” (The Chinese title translates more literally as “the notion of Globalization” and the circumstances of Chinese contemporary art.”) I hope to outline the framework of their argument. This text was first published in 2000, and reprinted in the 2008 Third Guangzhou Triennial “Farewell to Post-Colonialism” reader No. 1 (读本一), a Chinese version can be found on the exhibition’s homepage. This text has been circulated widely on the Internet, and the question is, is this a work of “criticism,” or a manifesto of sorts?

Authors Gao Shiming was a curator of the Third Guangzhou Triennial: Farewell to Post-Colonialism” (2008) and is currently on the curatorial team of the 2010 Shanghai Biennial, “Rehearsal.” Xu Jiang is the Dean of the China National Academy of Fine Arts, and one very lively orator.

关键观念：全球化、后殖民主义、 身份、文化多元化、文化他者、“中国性”、“西化”关键词：非西方的西方化，反思着的现代性，沉默的声 音

Key Concepts: Globalization, modernization, Westernization, Post-Colonialism, Multicultural, Identity, Cultural Other, Chineseness.

Key Words: non-Western Westernization, introspective modernity, silent voices

For the sake of brevity, Postcolonalism has been abbreviated to Po Co. The general idea is that Po Co is not applicable in China, and Chinese artists need to creatively assert themselves on a multicultural stage.

“Globalization has caused the West to introspectively reflect on its modernity, especially the various universalisms that this includes.”

“But, amidst the multiculturalism promoted by ‘globalization,’ the strategic misinterpretation and use of Po Co cultural theory to interpret and Chinese contemporary culture and art still exists.”

“Chinese art is facing fortunate opportunities for development like never before, and is likewise experiencing cultural circumstances both of unprecedented complexity and full of paradoxes. In view of the present world’s cultural pluralism, Chinese artists must devote themselves to establishing a new Chinese art rich in imagination and creativity, and not the characteristic monotony of a cultural other.”

So Po Co theory is not applicable in China ( a sentiment that I’ve heard echoed from some students at CAFA, who have said, “why should we apply foreign theories to what’s happening in China?”), and likewise Chinese artists need to make new art that defines them on a multicultural stage.

My reading of this statement sees art creation endowed with a mission to promote a “new Chinese art,” one free from the Western gaze, or free from the “West” as a determinant factor in establishing cultural value. This argument is not new, but here is placed within a framework of Po Co theory and globalization. One valid question that arises is whether or not the same terminology in translation is being interpreted or understood in the same ways across contexts. Po Co as an interpretive model has been looked upon with suspicion in Chinese academia, I believe that it falls outside what ever may be called the mainstream of critical literature, film, and cultural studies in China.

Their argument centers around Okwui Enwezor and the arrival of the Documenta 11 curatorial team in China, a now China-art-world-legendary encounter. Their first stop was the Hangzhou China Academy of Art, where they met with authors Xu Jiang and Gao Shiming, among others. Their question to them was: “What is the West?” The authors are shocked and seem insulted that upon arriving in China, their first question is West-centric (and we assume he should have asked what is ‘China’?)

Marking a north/south Central Academy vs. China Academy of Arts differentiation in art historical narratives. The authors acknowledge that “some critics” map the transition in art during the 1990s as being from “idealism to eclecticism, from a concern with ideology to a preoccupation with individual realities,” but this, according to our authors, is questionably accurate, and perhaps suitable only to discuss developments in painting.

In their opinion, the real catalyst for the major transitions in art during the 1990s was the entry and discovery of new mediums, possibilities enabled through installation, video, multi-media and new media.

China and Chinese art has become the object of interest for many, and the first question the Documenta 11 curators ask is: What is the West? Listing questions surrounding the “West” they allude to an understanding of the Po Co discourse:  “…are its notions of progress and science rational object of study? …does it maintain a deep-rooted cultural hegemony, cultural superiority and disregard for aliens? … has its international progress-oriented value system already seeped into our social structure and modes of thought?”

But instead of addressing these questions, they dismiss them entirely: “We can find a great many heavy and complicated answers for these questions in China’s recent experiences and actual circumstances. But now, this simple question delivered by this curator of African-heritage for the most important exhibition in the ‘West’ actually reveals an important bit of information about the ‘West,’ it suggests the significance of the theme cultural circles in the West follow intently––the issue of ‘globalization.’”

Yes, Globalization is a major issue in “Occidental” discourse. But according to XU and GAO, Globalization is no more than an economic trend, that of developed nations penetrating developing nations, an phenomenon also known as “Westernization.”

They cite the consequences of a “discourse of globalization” in Non-Western cultures as resistance in the form of “localization, ethnicization, even fundamentalism.” And thus , as opposition to an integrated model of globalism, words like Po Co, Orientalism, multiculturalism, going against the dominant globalist trends were inevitable and people like Enwezor increase. They cite the nationalities of the seven curators on the panel: with the exception of two American women, none of the curators come from Western developed nations. “It’s possible to say that this group displays a reformed, pluralized West, representing a ‘non-Western face.’”

ROOTS

In Enwezor’s address at the academy, he references Alex Haley’s Roots (1976), in which an African-American traces his slave heritage and returns to Africa, only to find that he is an oddity among his people. He discovers himself to be a “Black American,” not an African.

This “root searching” narrative is likened to a modern Odyssey, it is a story influenced by a western power discourse and colonial history. But, they ask, what does this story have to do with China? Enwezor explains how it relates to cultural identification and the existence of a contemporary Western other, but, Enwezor “faces a crisis that is generally difficult for Western scholars to avoid: that is, the complicated reality of using Po Co cultural theory to analyze and interpret contemporary Chinese culture and art.”

The authors acknowledge that most forms of new media and experimental art in China is a result of Westernization, but its employ is different. Unlike other nations, whose model for Westernization is “anti-Western Westernization,” China’s model is “Non-Western Westernization,” it is a “pro-active” Westernization and willful process whose purpose was always to enrich the socio-political-cultural atmosphere of China. Thus definition makes Po Co theory (which reacts to Western colonialism and its imposed modernity and Westernization) unsuitable for use in China. The authors assert that China’s purpose in importing Western knowledge was to use as tools for “introspective self-reflection.”

In the same vein, different from the “defensive modernity” of postcolonies, Chinese modernity is a “introspective modernity,” used to re-introduce and criticize (thus challenge and recreate) China’s native culture at a deeper level. And thus, Chinese “roots” have a dual expression, on the surface and deep within the system, they are neither mythologized nor are they a distant idea, as they are in the Odyssey and Roots.

A COMMON KNOWLEDGE FOUNDATION AND SILENT VOICES

The Western search for uniqueness, localization, and difference, are important elements in Globalization. They also inspired the reflection and reconsideration of what were formerly known as “universals,” and they lead to the Western art world’s discussion on “identity and otherness,” and defense of the Multicultural, “boasting difference, preaching identify identification and the politicization of one’s identity has penetrated to every last cell of Westernization.”

The Documenta 11 curatorial team is eager to discuss these “fashionable” issues dominating the international theoretical realm, but they never think to ask the pertinent question about using these theories in China: is the Western discourse for third world nations with a colonial history suitable in the Chinese context?

These curators are searching for the “silenced voice” of the “cultural Other” in Chinese art, searching for art that asserts its cultural identity through identifiable symbols. Artists who are aware of their quest are satiating the “appetite of novelty-seeking Westerners.”

And thus the use of cultural symbols becomes suspect of feeding a “foreign gaze” exactly the “silenced voice” of the “cultural Other” that they are searching for. The “China vs. West” art world debate on judgments (or jiazhi guan “value systems”) is thus eloquently located within the “search for cultural identity/roots” and Po Co framework:

“In actuality, this [Chinese local] voice is not lacking in the Chinese theoretical world, and there are many representatives among artistic practices. In ‘overseas Chinese artists’ who are active in international art circles, we can witness their ingenious wielding of Chinese cultural symbols and political icons for ourselves; we can hear the faint echoes of Po Co in the multitude of fervent displays by ‘guocui pai’ (roughly, national essence schools) or nationalists who have been abroad a few times and tacitly understand the appetite of novelty-seeking Westerners. Situated within this art world of a cacophonous multitudes of languages and varied ethnicities, identity becomes important; in the increasingly flourishing post Anglo-Saxon, Western cultural tradition of self-reflection the self-identifying as the Other (or trying every means possible to identify one’s self as an other) is of utmost importance.”

Thus we can assume that “Chinese symbols” in art are employed because the artists is using them like capital to establish his/her status on the international art world. This argument seems to out rule all such symbols in favor of cultural anonymity, and regardless of the individual artist or artwork.

Despite their disagreement, our authors see the curatorial team as motivated by “good intentions, ” and a hope for the Chinese art world (which they also view as an Other), that it may participate actively in the art world, and XU and GAO identify two definite dangers in this.

The first is “under the banners of Globalism and Multiculturalism, the non-critical advancement of a fragmented image of the ‘other’ to strengthen a ‘global imagination’ makes pluralism and globalism become difficult to distinguish from separatism, and separatism and fundamentalism are two sides of the same coin.” These ideas could potentially lead to fundamentalism.

The second danger is interpreting art culturally, ie. looking at art from China in an anthropological light. This is dangerous because some viewers may lack a historical or cultural understanding of China, simply put, they lack the necessary “China experience” that would mark the difference between China actual and the “China” in the global imagination.

On this note, they mention market forces, and under market (ie. Western) domination,  “Chineseness” is a pre-determined role, one wearing a twisted mask of the cultural Other. And, counter to the complexity of the Chinese cultural civilization, the past 100 years have seen the construction of a Chinese cultural identity built on comparisons with the West. The binary “Oriental” comparison with the “Occident” has obstructed “China”: China is passive, free form (vs. realism), intuitive (vs. rational analytical), and idealistic (vs. realistic). “China’s non-Westernness” has obstructed authentic “Chineseness” from view.

This last statement rings true with me, ending a comparative discussion and focusing on the inherent, present nature of China would be infinitely more productive. But similarly it strikes me, if we are going to talk about the “present circumstances” or “reality,” and China’s culture is to be dissected for its “cultural complexity,” is the generic term “the West” still valid in the “China-West” dialogue? The West is likewise a pluralistic collection of cultural heritages, Europe vs. North America, the United States vs. Canada, etc. For anyone living in China, the overwhelming use of zhong-xi (China-Western) term in international, cultural relations is unavoidable, and widely disappointing.

CHINESENESS AND CONTEMPORARY ART IN CHINA

“As we attempt to unearth the silenced voices, we must realize, a race’s culture is not merely a voice, no matter if that voice is saying “yes” or “no.” There is always deeper meanings of significance. The crisis still remains.” They cite China’s lack of a “colossus stimulating world cultural development,” which makes it difficult to believably become a culturally strong Eastern nation.

“The Western discourse is examining Chinese contemporary art with a new passion, and is trying hard to use Chinese art as a mirror that the West can use to reflect on themselves, or to turn Chinese art into a side dish on a larger platter of hors d’oeuvres. And even though the Chinese are capable of scrutinizing this kind of attention, it is difficult for artists, no matter how strong, to reject the seduction of Western buying power.”

The authors cite the exciting current global trend of a dissolving dominant discourse, and they assert that Chinese artists are experimenting with many non-traditional artistic elements, and are formulating their own style and fundamental nature in art. It all sounds like exciting stuff. Unfortunately, they do not give any specific examples of artists in this essay.

There seems to be a condition to the healthy advancement of art in China, let artists be free of the shackles of Po Co: “The Chinese cultural world wants to explore, contemplate and create in a comfortable and relaxed way, and all of this (authentic new culture creation) is dependent on introspection on our own native culture, on insight into the present cultural circumstances, and perceptive intuition into the world’s ever pluralistic cultural resources.”

The authors see the real challenge as how to use these borrowed forms and languages to discuss China and gain perspective on a Chinese existence. “Culturally speaking, this is precisely the ‘silent voice’ that has been obstructed,” meaning, the real “silent voice” is that of Chinese who introspectively explore native culture without being forced to perform the role of a Chinese cultural Other.

Citing this era as the closest relationship Chinese art has ever shared with the rest of the world, the authors ask how to maintain a “healthy interactive relationship” with the outside world. They close with the same question as in the beginning: how to create new Chinese art that possesses imagination and creativity, something that is not merely a specimen to be seen as a monotonous cultural other.

And the closing paragraph: “Here, the question of identity is one of primary importance for Chinese artists. Identity is self-evident, the Chineseness planted deeply in our minds and hearts are our cultural roots that have never been lost; roots not only found in the long shadows cast on the ground, these are spreading through the air around us, stretching out in an unbroken chain on the ground below our feet. We could even say they are a kind of future, an enthusiastic wish for the future that nourishes our souls, and urges us to go forth and create.”

The way they and other Chinese art scholars refer to “post-colonial theory” implies that there is some such coherent body of work out there, rather than different viewpoints and different opinions discussing a common point of historical experience–the transition out of imperialism, which China certainly more than shared, and even continues to perpetuate on a political level today.

At the same time, their argument seems to take on the idea of Western “theory” as a whole, and I’m guessing you could swap out “post-structuralism” for “post-colonialism” without having to rewrite much at all. There will always be that set of academic painters who insist on reading Chinese art in terms of the energy of the Dao and the moralism of the Rujia, but in many ways that seems like a reluctance to engage with the misunderstood.

The best take on the reference to Chinese exceptionalism as a critical strategy I’ve seen was Paul Gladston’s article “(More Writing on) The Wall (and Entry Gate): A Critical Response to Recent Curatorial Meditations on the ‘Chineseness’ of Contemporary Chinese Visual Art” in Yishu, March 2007.

[…] the argument picks up where “Globalism” (2000) leaves off. Gao “puts aside the ‘political spectacle’ of large-scale international […]

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