“Observations on and Predictions for ‘After Postcolonialism’” was a Gao Shiming’s curatorial essay printed in the catalog for the 2008 Third Guangzhou Triennial. It collects and builds upon the rejection of Postcolonial interpretive strategies that was put forth in Xu Jiang and Gao Shiming’s “Globalization,” (see a post on that article here) and provides the framework for Gao’s curatorial strategies in the 3rd Guangzhou Triennial. Almost an decade lies between the first article, and this consequent official “farewell” to Postcolonialism, or what is perceived as Postcolonialism as a factor influencing the production of art. How has a prominent critical discourse in the West, likewise a broad field that might be effectively put to work in China, come to be rejected here? Perhaps more importantly, what comes next?

Key Concepts: Globalization, Postcolonialism, Westernization
Key words: “After Postcolonialism,” “two-fold colonization,” “Self-Othering”

概念：全球化、后殖民主义、西化
关键词：“后殖民之后”、“双重殖民”、“自我他者化”

Anticipating the flurry of discussion surrounding the provacative exhibition title (“Farewell to Postcolonialism”), Gao rounds up a few key criticisms of his thesis in the introduction to his article: with no former colonization to speak of, why do the Chinese even need to bid farewell to postcolonialism? (From the Chinese side.) He nods to “multiculturalists,” who find the notion politically incorrect, reeking of a return to new forms of colonialism (with the colonizers being the Chinese), or who see the notion of rejecting Postcolonialism as a the rise of new forms of cultural superiority.

But Gao has no interest in debating Postcolonial theory or politics. His purpose here is to express his personal dissatisfaction with the politicization of art and the evident harm that this process (understand to be a by-product of Postcolonial) has done to art.

In his first footnote, Gao expounds on some interesting thoughts about “colonization” in China, stating that she has undergone a “two-fold colonization” (shuangchong zhimin): Westernization and then Anti-Westernization; a technological and then utopian colonization. “Social experiments eliminated “traditional” China, and the experience of the Cultural Revolution left deeper scars on the collective Chinese psychology than colonial memories ever could.” Thus, “Art in the 1980s was unrelated to the so-called Postcolonial experience, the Chinese were rising against the social system and the ‘new traditions’” created in this unique context that had been formulating over the past few decades.

To Gao, Postcolonial is a discourse that is available to everyone, but China’s local discourse is not based in a “Postcolonial reality” and neither does she have a historical experience with colonialism. (He says that China’s 20th century discourse is based in the battle of East-West cultures.) China is familiar with Postcolonialism through experiencing it as a framework, an ideology.

Postcolonialism in the visual arts is a “system for viewing” art (guankan zhidu), and it has its drawbacks: “As a mechanism, it is like a net, only catching that which it is able and willing to catch. Sometimes, it transforms into a productive mechanism, penetrating into the artist’s thoughts.” Later Gao states that his curatorial impetus is to collect the things that fall between the holes in the Postcolonial net, and outside of this “system for viewing.”

Here, in his second footnote, Gao makes some more important points: “China’s 20th Century context is the clash of Eastern and Western cultures. In the beginning of the 20th Century, Chinese intellectuals intermingled various “self-othering” terms into cultural discussions, such as Guocui, and New Confucianism. He asserts that  Mao’s “Theory of New Democracy” was extremely similar to Postcolonialism, which he equivocates as the theory of postcolonialism in actual terms as being present in mainstream China much earlier than in the West.

And why should Chinese artists care about Postcolonialism? In a global context––doesn’t matter if you’ve heard of it or not––once an artist participates in any international exhibition, he/she is thrust into this “system for viewing.” To some degree, all artists are caught up in it.

Here the argument picks up where “Globalism” (2000) leaves off. Gao “puts aside the ‘political spectacle’ of large-scale international exhibitions, vulgar displays of cultural identity, and the empty promises of multiculturalism,” to confess that saying “Farewell to Postcolonialism” stems from a deep sense of fatigue (one that I assume stems from being burnt out on political rhetoric).

POSTCOLONIAL DISCOURSE BECOMES AN IDEOLOGY

Over the past ten years, Postcolonial has permeated critical thought and academic discourse, forming a “politics of discourse.” This politics of discourse has created a formal sense of “freedom” but a “society unable to realize actual freedom, a society that worships difference, but is unable to create difference.”

Pretending for a moment that ideology didn’t exist, and attempting to say farewell, Gao states his goal for the Guangzhou Triennial: to catch the fish swim through the “Postcolonial net,” and to arrive at the “dark regions” where Postcolonial discourse and multiculturalism are unable to go.

THE PRICE OF POSTCOLONIALISM

Gao sees the “politics of discourse” and the politicization of art as two regrettable consequences of Postcolonial. Likewise, there are the unfortunate acts of self-objectification which ultimately lead to nationalism (as based on ethnicity, “minzu zhuyi”) and religious fundamentalism.

“The Postcolonial discourse entered China as a ‘Western’ discourse, and its anti-Western, non-Western nature aided its acceptance in China.” Gao cites scholars Zhao Yiheng (赵毅衡), Tao Dongfeng (陶东风) and Xu Fen (徐贲), each who published their own respective analyses of Postcolonial theory in China during the mid-Nineties, and whose collective and generalized conclusion Gao describes as: the nature of the discipline was transformed here, that Postcolonialism “might not be preserved within China.” Their conclusion is a collective warning that Postcolonial comes dangerously close to “New Conservatism,” stresses nativism, Chineseness, and her unique modernity. Gao quotes scholar Xu Fen: “Nativism is at the core of Chinese Postcolonial critical theory, not anti-oppression. Or we could say it is only against the oppression of the first world discourse, not the oppression of the domestic local culture.”

Gao’s conclusion: “In the West, it is a radical Leftist discourse, in Left-leaning China, it becomes the enemy of the cultural ‘left.’”

THE ANXIETY OF THE RETURN

Important themes in Postcolonial are the diaspora, dispersal and return, the search for ones roots, and the anxiety surrounding that return. Gao once again cites Alex Haley’s Roots and the Odyssey, (also included in “Globalization,” 2000), and considers a new kind of colonization in the example of New Zealand’s “role playing” relationship to the “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy.

He cites examples of places in New Zealand where “Lord of the Rings” were filmed have been replacing recently restored native Māori names in favor of names that coincide with the movie. Gao cites this attempt to promote tourism. as a true rejection of the Postcolonial, and an “After Postcolonalism” example of “Media colonizing reality” and “the virtual colonizing reality.”

And we can say goodbye to all those identity politics: “After Postcolonialism, identity becomes a false limb played as a cultural resource and a political game,”

So what does this “Post” art look like? “What was once known as the ‘postcolonial entity’ is just now establishing a new contemporary culture that belongs to itself (regardless of whether or not this culture is built on a foundation of “self-othering”) and is a blend of global capital, public culture, mass media with experimental art.

Also, because contemporary life is unfolding on so many different levels, craving the “return” is deemed a moot point. We won’t ever return, and in fact we cannot return. After all, “After Postcolonalism, history is in the future.” We can’t return, even if we wanted to.

SOCIETY UNDER SIEGE OR POLITICAL SPECTACLE

Reality has been broken, sports a deep fissure that results from various technologies, competing historical views, and multiple experiences. “After Postcolonialism, the artist’s primary responsibility is to eliminate or escape the over-politicization of the international art scene.”

Over the past forty years, contemporary art and society have mingled, producing political art, and art politics. Large scale international exhibitions have regressed into becoming an elitist “false system of representation,” and mere spectacles of politics.

The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman uses the phrase “society under siege” to describe our plight today: Gao understands this siege as our being endowed with a metaphysical political freedom, but no actual freedom. How to combat this? Gao proposes that After Postcolonialism, multiple realities and plural histories have become real life experiences, and they open up new spaces and new possibilities for artists.

THE ANXIETY OF CREATION

If Postcolonialism is dominated by the anxiety of return, “After Postcolonialism” we are concerned with the anxiety of creation.

“It is precisely Postcolonialism’s obsession with cultural politics that causes it to neglect the changes occurring in life itself, and to overlook the latent forces that are manifesting themselves in artistic experiences and in creation.” The discussion of pluralities and difference has gone well beyond race and ethnicity, and into new realms opened up by new media.

Furthermore, heterogeneity is not merely co-existing with others, but is effected by the experimental modes of existence, and is constantly moving into unfamiliar territory.

“Deeply entangled in the various social and political issues of contemporary art, how can artists begin new explorations in creation? Is this a return to early modern ideals, or have they lost their way in this state of After Postcolonialism?”

RUINS OF BABYLON

It seems that the criticism of Postcolonialism here and in “Globalization” (2000) has roots in critical reflection on “international” exhibitions, and Gao acknowledges that suspicion of Biennials and large exhibitions is not new. I wonder how Gao’s argument has evolved since the publication of “Globalization”? Their critical object is still International large scale exhibitions (Venice Bienniale, Documenta, etc.), but their early condemnation of the focus on cultural “identity” is not included here.

It seems like many of the problems addressed here stem from “internationalism,” but what is “guoji” in relation to art? There are no clear terms for these broad concepts. Gao expresses doubt that a “common knowledge” base can exist, and that if might eliminate difference if it did. We are aware, from his earlier work that the guise of “Internationalism” at large-scale exhibitions has led to the habitual donning of cultural masks, or performative culture. The task for artists After Postcolonialism is to find and experiment with new expressive mechanisms, those left unsnared by the Postcolonial net.

Acknowledging that all large scale exhibitions seek to establish platforms for discussion, Gao suspects that these are not authentic, that they play up to a “global imagination” (see the notion of performative cultural masks in “Globalization”). “What are we left with, other than the ruins of a crumbled tower of Babylon?” The task to construct something in its place is put to us, will “After Postcolonialism” be capable of filling that void?

YELLOW FLIGHT

The only artist or work thoroughly discussed in his essay is Wu Shanzhuan’s conceptual (but physically unrealized) work from 1995, Yellow Flight. In this, the artist would embark on a air journey, taking off from Beijing, and landing in every international airport in the world before at last arriving in Hong Kong, a place (for the artist) that exists between “international” and “national.” This absurd route would take years to finish, the significance in the “flight” is no longer about the destination, but becomes about the transition.

Complicating the situation, Hong Kong is still a colonized at take off, but when the theoretical flight would be completed, the arrival is in a “liberated” Hong Kong, which he sees as a metaphor for the precarious nature of Postcolonialism in China.

AFTER POSTCOLONIALISM––A RETURN, OR THE BEGINNING OF A NEW JOURNEY?

The international exhibition is compared to the airport, similar in the sense that it launches people into international careers/destinations. Likewise, the “exhibition” has become a mechanism of cultural authentication, affirming and then amplifying cultural differences and cultural stereotypes that are becoming more rigid everyday.

Citing Italo Calvino, who pointed out that The Odyssey was written even before Odysseus had arrived at home, Gao stresses the complexity of actual reality: narration can predate events themselves.

“We must search for, contemplate and remember the return: because the real danger is, this return may be forgotten even before it is embarked upon. Therefore, the return is destined to become a lost way, because the destination is already gone. And the search for the return cannot simply rely on memories, only when the memory has congealed past impressions and future plans, can the memory truly be important. The return must constantly be in planning and in preparation, it must be narrated repeatedly, this narration is not a reflection on people and things that once existed, but is a premonition about people and things that will exist in the future. Thus, the return has become an exit from reality, an outlet for the beginning of a journey.”

Gao concludes by emphasizing that we live in a pluralistic world, a world that is reproduced and has been “done” over and over again. This is a world with no borders. So, no matter if we are taking off, or landing in our destination, everything is in a similarly unattainable place. Creation becomes a process of endless recovery, because neither the beginning, nor the end exist, and each transfer has become an arrival.

The above is just a brief summary of the essay, and doesn’t include my own thoughts or reflections on the piece, which are included in a paper (Chinese) that I will post later this week.