On my last weekend in Beijing, I headed with a colleague to check out the city’s intriguing avant-garde art scene. It’s hard for me to imagine such a scene in Beijing; in the 80s and early 90s, when I lived here, the Communist Party still tightly regulated the production of art. Artists had to stick to the accepted motifs of the Revolution, and very few dared express -- even connote -- defiance, cynicism, and irony. Those who did were often imprisoned, humiliated, beaten, or killed.
Art and Communism have been on my mind lately. Not long ago, while my father was still visiting me in New York, we headed up town to the Asia Society to see the "Art and China's Revolution" exhibit. There were oil portraits of ruddy-faced proletarian heroes, their sleeves rolled up, striking patriotic poses on industrial backgrounds; wood-block posters decrying the Capitalist Road Runners (
Crush those Dogs!); endless iconography of Mao Zedong – Mao the eager student, Mao the idealist youngster, Mao the wise leader, Mao the compassionate savior.
I had seen many of these images before, plastered on government buildings, restaurant walls and printed in miniature form in Little Red Books. Still, I found the exhibit spellbinding. I had never seen so many important pieces from this era gathered in one place -- and seriously curated. The exhibit treated the subject with respect (and occasionally, with a sense of humor) rather than the usual sensationalist hip-kitsch approach to communist art. What's more, many of the works showcased were by technically outstanding painters, engravers and photographers, and some of them were genuinely trying to channel their revolutionary fervor. Sure, some of the works are cloying in their idolatry, but regardless of how one may feel about China's Communist history, this torrent of emotions occasionally translates into impressive works. We also marveled at their sheer size: some of the original paintings are of epic proportions, their brushwork expert, their colors vibrant.
Near the entrance, I found a video that my friend F. had enthusiastically recommended: an extended interview with Liu Chunhua. Liu's famous portrait of young Mao setting off for Anyuan, his left fist clenched with determination, was hailed as a model portrait and reproduced en masse. Liu explains that the portrait was published only after some (very awkward) artistic editing and -- no less personally -- a serious misprint of his name. Such was the success of this portrait, Liu explains, that his fate was forever enmeshed with the portrait. He ended up simply changing his legal name to match the misprint rather than requesting a reprint.
The exhibit made me think about the city as a site of artistic production. Typically cities, by bringing together diverse groups, provide fertile ground for artistic effervescence and rebelliousness. In Communist China, and especially during the frenzy of the Cultural Revolution, Beijing lost this function. Artists were openly persecuted; thousands were "encouraged" to relocate to the countryside, and urban motifs were relegated to industrial scenery. Since the government frowned on avant-garde art, from the 1980s this community worked out of individuals' apartments, or in the northwestertern suburbs of Beijing, near the Summer Palace. In the early 90s, the community was evicted from the decrepit houses where they had set up shop.
These images were still fresh on my mind in Beijing as I hailed a cab to visit Factory 798, a 50-year old decommissioned military factory complex co-designed by German foreign experts in the Bauhaus style. Over the last decade, avant-garde artists and designers began to trickle into the complex's vast abandoned spaces, transforming it into a thriving art community. Sadly, the space is in danger of becoming one more victim of Beijing's rampant growth. The area around the factory has been fast gentrifying, different state agencies covet the space for their own mega-projects, and the financial viability of the space is now in question.
My colleague and I got off and walked along the galleries, niched within rows of factory spaces with soaring ceilings, arched roofs and enormous windows. Many of these have been beautifully restored and adapted to new artistic uses. As for the content of the galleries, I saw flashes of excitement and real talent, and lots of technical wizardry, but the abundance of kitsch made me think that this is still a transitional stage for Chinese art. Artists are still rebelling against the prior restrictions only superficially, recasting key iconography as, well, jokes. In the car back to the heart of the city, my colleague ponder this, agreeing that kitsch is simplest wit, sort of like pun is to humor. For the most part, the works we saw at 798 did not project deeper criticism, alternatives, or a vision of hope. It would be unfair to extend this umbrella statement to the entirety of contemporary Chinese art -- some of which I have seen in New York and is truly awesome -- but it seems that, at 798, kitsch is still king. Or chairman, as it were.
Still, the mere existence of this complex attests to the growing liberties for artists. One of the galleries at 798 had a replica of one of the run-down, nondescript apartments where the small but ballsy avant-garde community in the 1970s and 1980s gathered to make non-Revolution art (and sometimes, anti-Revolution art). The Chinese government -- itself the butt of many jokes by the very artists whose work 798 houses -- now seems to tolerate, if not outright support, avant-garde art. Mainland Chinese artists now hold a far bigger palette -- the scene come a long way from the Soviet-inspired posters decrying capitalist ideology. Let's hope that the current financial crisis won't put an end to this scrappy, lively scene, and that it will develop into the forceful scene that it promises to be.
