intro, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, last word
While there are plenty of artworks that deal with political issues, the works in the biennale are never anything but polite. There is no violent expression of angst or anger, and there are no works whose main aim is to shock. The political works manage to broach the issues tangentially, poetically or with a subtle wit. Huang Yongping's Bank of Sand or Sand of Bank, mentioned on Monday, is a perfect example. It may be political, with a strong point to make, but in its inception and execution it is utterly refined. No viewers have fled from it with their hands over their mouths.
There are other examples too. Australian artist Gordon Bennet's dryly intellectual paintings also deal with political issues, but on a highly theoretical and philosophical level. Chinese artist Sui Jianguo's amusing replicas of Michelangelo's 'Bound Slaves' sculptures could potentially be seen as political; the famously homoerotic icons have been dressed in traditional Communist worker's outfits. But the title of this series, 'Study on the Folding of Clothes', is so neutral that it casts doubt on any political intentions on the part of the artist. Zhao Bandi's entertaining set of photographs, 'Zhao Bandi and Baby Panda', certainly tackles political issues, but it could hardly be deemed offensive, even to official tastes, as these images are regularly seen on advertising hoardings across China. Probably the most aggressively confrontational work in the whole biennale is Hong Hao's 'Selected Scriptures' series of altered world maps, which I mentioned on Tuesday.
Go to some of the off-biennale projects and... well, it's a different matter entirely. Of these artist-organized exhibitions, the most talked about was a large exhibition of nihilistic works that traveled down from Beijing. This show took place in a disused office space and warehouse near to the Suzhou Creek, a far cry from the respectability of the town center where the biennale is located. There are several reasons why this show was so talked about: it presented work by the youngest artists, it took an aggressive stance towards the biennale, and it was deliberately shocking. All of these attributes were embodied by the exhibition's succinct title: 'Fuck Off'. (The translation was a brilliant underplay; the Chinese title was 'The Uncooperative Attitude'.)
So the message from the exhibition was plain, and best articulated by an artwork involving a red, framed wall painting - with the opening date of the biennale written on it - a red carpet, and a red chair. Comfortable as the chair may have looked, it was not advisable to take a seat; it had been stuffed with raw meat. The nauseatingly sweet stench of the leaking, rotting flesh hung in the air around it. This was a work that came straight to the point: 'if you've come to view the biennale, your comfort is at the expense of death'. It was meant to repulse viewers, and it certainly worked. Other works adopted a more ironic approach: the words 'Shanghai Biennale we look forward to your arrival' were printed on a huge photo of young women putting on their make-up. But such irony was far outweighed by the rest of the exhibition's cheap reliance on sex and death. Particularly death.
Recombined horses, diseased and wounded humans, tests of physical endurance, raw flesh. These were the enduring images of 'Fuck Off'. Unfortunately, most of these provocative works encompassed little more than simplistic nihilism. Those few artists who had developed their ideas into complex, engaging artworks tended to be overshadowed by the relentless quest for nausea.
The other main off-biennale show that people were talking about was a photography and video exhibition called 'Useful Life'. Similar themes of bodily transformation and mortality were on display here, but it was a far less aggressive show, with noticeably higher production values. However, one aspect that recurred throughout both shows was the fact many of the pieces were in a state of disrepair: video works hadn't been switched on, photographs had fallen from the walls, and meats had been disposed of.
The reason for this abandonment became clear later on when I spoke to Lorenz Helbing, from the Shangart Gallery, which represents many of the younger Chinese artists. I asked him if these artist-organized exhibitions were common in China. He said, 'Yes, but they usually get closed down after two or three days'. The exhibitions aren't meant to last, so the weeklong opening of the biennale is proving a marathon for these smaller events. What's been upsetting a lot of people about the local art scene, though, is the fact that neglecting an exhibition becomes a far more serious matter when some of the artworks involve live animals.
Recently, amongst young Chinese artists there has been a vogue for using animals within artworks. Meat is everywhere, of course - as these off-biennale projects have proven - but other works have involved animals being killed during performances, or being left to die as part of sculptures.
The catalogue for 'Fuck Off' contains even more provocative works: one artist questions the taboo surrounding cannibalism, and proceeds to break it. The fact that acquiring dead babies is not too difficult in China, and that using corpses for art is not illegal, has fuelled an unprecedented surge in the number of artworks involving human body parts. The whole point of these works is that they are meant to be outrageous, and if you are not outraged - if you seriously believe the artist in his insistence that there should be no stigma attached to cannibalism - then you're missing the point. It's a bad joke, not an intellectual argument. Such works ask to be condemned, and condemn them we should, but in doing so we should not succumb to the kind of hysteria that would proscribe what materials artists are allowed to use (within the law). There have been some brilliant works that have involved dead animals, but none that I have seen in Shanghai. Too many of these works seem simplistic: poor derivations of previous works, with little thought beyond finding the most provocative action.
Many of these young artists graduated during the 90s. The major Chinese social event of that decade must surely have been the rise of consumerism, yet there is virtually no reference to this in the work seen here. But consumerism has certainly not passed them by; they have learned from it, and what they have learned is marketing. This is what all the provocative artworks are really about, and this is where the posturing against the biennale comes from. Perhaps they do hate the biennale, but they can't hate what it stands for too much because they are welcoming the international artworld to their exhibition.
While the explicit message is 'Fuck Off', the implicit message is 'Come here, look at this work, take notice, buy the catalogue'. The whole project has been designed to court the market, and to provide a perfect 'opposing view' story to international art critics covering the biennale. How much more cooperative could it be?
So these off-biennale events have succeeded in something admirable: the artists have successfully produced vastly ambitious exhibitions and made themselves heard by the biennale crowds. This fact suggests that there is a vibrancy to this scene that will not go away too easily. Whether the artists all want to play a part in the international art scene remains to be seen.
The paradox is this: there are the seeds of some interesting projects under all this gore, and we probably wouldn't know about them had the more extreme works not caught our attention. But any more blood and this whole scene will be pushed back into obscurity. Chinese artists have managed to grab the world's attention. Now all they have to do is hold it.
intro, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, day 5, last word— End —