‘Art is a Thinking to Enlightens the Future’: art as a brand, art as aspiration

Since the district’s official classification as a Creative Industries Precinct in 2006, 798 has spawned a range of cultural enterprises, many of which have taken on the idea of ‘art’ with which to brand their businesses. Walking around 798 today, the word ‘art’ is constantly flashing up before you, on billboards advertising galleries or design consultancies, on signs for gift shops, hotels, bars and cafes. Artopal, Artside, 798 Art Hotel, such and such Art Centre or Artspace … Visitors are repeatedly running into odd composite bi-products of the word ‘art’ – uses that suggest the term’s ability to ‘value-add’ to all kinds of entrepreneurial pursuits. In both English and Chinese, the word often looks raw and partial, slapped onto ventures and slipped into business titles in a way that suggests its newness – or even more so, its novelty – as a Chinese marketing category. At 798, the term ‘art’ has a faddish quality to it, a kind of hype and artificial freshness reminiscent of the thousands of so-called ‘Twenty-first Century’ housing developments, or many SoHos, under construction across the country.

To the extent that art is a brand at today’s 798, it is one that conflates notions of the global and the contemporary, and one that is consonant (or you could say ‘harmonious’) with national discourses of China’s economic development. At 798, the word ‘art’ occurs frequently alongside the terms ‘new age’ (xin shidai), international (guoji) or ‘contemporary’ (dangdai). Billboards advertising Coca Cola or Vitamin Water do so by situating 798 within a perceived pantheon of global and cultural cities (‘Available in New York, Paris, Japan, and now Beijing!’). In signs, advertisements and art-branded objects at 798, ‘art’ generally represents a component in a contemporary urban lifestyle, the latest in fashion and, by virtue, a hallmark of a Chinese cosmopolitanism.

Jin Xing is China’s most celebrated choreographer, dancer, and transgender role model – an outspoken and inspiring figure who as she says ‘is always challenging the boundaries of Chinese society.’ With 350,000 fans on Sina Weibo (China’s Twitter), and an array of regular TV gigs, she’s also a national celebrity, and a symbol of the diversification of popular culture in contemporary China.

It gives me great pleasure to post the following edited transcription from a talk given by Jin Xing at the University of Minnesota on 16 February this year. Colloquial and compelling, the piece reads as something of a manifesto on Jin Xing’s life and dance practice, and has been edited in consultation with the speaker herself.

For those already interested in Jin Xing, get ready for a real treat. For those who haven’t heard of Jin Xing yet, allow us to introduce you to one powerful personality.

“The club space is long and narrow, with the bar on the right and the stage at the far end as you walk in. There is a balcony that runs from behind the stage right up to the front of the club. The walls of the club are painted a muddy red typical of old Beijing, and all along the balcony we have hung up the Matt Niederhauser posters of the best bands and musicians that have come out of the club.

On big nights when the club is full – it can take about 300-350 people – the bands are surrounded by the audience, above, below, in front and around one side. That generally gets them pretty juiced up. In the audience we typically get a lot of repeat customers – mainly lost wild kids, musicians, and people involved in the music scene. I suspect that they like to come often because we never charge them for admission or drinks and it’s the only time and place in which they are treated like stars. Maybe because of that repeat crowd we sometimes get accused of being cliquish, but I am not sure that there’s much we can do about that, and it’s easy to become part of the clique – just show up often and talk to the musicians. Everyone is pretty friendly.”

Michael Pettis is the guy behind D-22, and the record label, Maybe Mars, which runs as a side-project to the club. An ex-merchant banker, equities trader and professor of finance, he also has a love of music – specifically finding new bands and being at the generative core of new scenes. Pettis has played a huge role in the flourishing of Beijing indie rock, providing the venue, the label and a profile for the music overseas. He speaks passionately about the club, the personalities involved, and what might well be a history in the making. Read on …

In the minds of many curators and collectors today, Chinese art of the 1990s is synonymous with kitsch Cultural Revolution iconography, and large-scale paintings and sculpture. However the 1990s were also a time of experimentation for a handful of artists uninterested in these market trends. Frustrated with the limitations of traditional media, they worked with video and installation as a means to extend their art practices and to raise issues that would challenge their audiences.

Wang Gongxin was one such pioneer and, along with his friend and colleague Zhang Peili, is now considered one of the granddaddies of new media art in China. Wang and Zhang were both headline acts in the exhibition 幕Mu:Screen, Three Generations of Contemporary Video Art which ran at UTS Gallery in June this year, curated by Marie Terrieux.

dGenerate Films is a US-based distributor of independent contemporary Chinese cinema, with a catalogue drawn from the salons, festivals and personal distribution networks of China’s underground film scene. Since their inception in 2008, they’ve built a catalogue of around thirty titles and have been instrumental in increasing the profile of independent Chinese cinema, both overseas and within China itself. They also have a cracking website with critical reviews and commentary on contemporary Chinese cinema in general.
I recently spoke with Kevin Lee, dGenerate’s Vice President of Programming and Education, about this burgeoning underground film scene, the documentary impulse, and the power of cheap technology.