An exhibition called Cola Project doesn’t at first sound entirely new: Coca Cola, consumer culture, the power of advertising—these have all been considered before, not least of all by Chinese artists assessing the impact of global capitalism on traditional aesthetics and values.

This recent show at Gallery 4A in Sydney’s Chinatown, however, took a different perspective, and considered cola the sticky liquid rather than the clout of its global logo. After analysing the effects of consumerism on images, it appears that what you are left with is the object, and the ‘stuff’ of material culture.

Cola Project is currently the signature work of young, Beijing-based artist, He Xiangyu, and one that has been doing the international rounds since first showing in Beijing in 2010. 4A brought it to Sydney as part of their ongoing program to situate Australian art within the context of the Asia Pacific, bringing Asian exhibitions to Australia and recognising the Asian in Australian work. This, He Xiangyu’s third major art project, helps underscore this geographical and cultural proximity, if only for its acknowledgement of the finite—and increasingly crowded—nature of our physical world.

Chan Koonchung’s The Fat Years struck a chord with many when it was first published in Hong Kong in 2009 and later in the English language in 2011. Many said it felt eerily like documentary, despite its deliberate exaggerations, while others pointed out that it tapped into widespread fears of Chinese world hegemony.

A satirical novel, set in the semi-future of 2013, The Fat Years proposes a Brave New World like China in which all dissent has been bought off with the promises of stability and consumerism. Emerging victorious from a global financial crisis of 2008, the country has now entered a new age of peace and prosperity, its version of ‘authoritarian harmony’ now legitimated by its economic success. Meanwhile, the majority of the Chinese population appears to have willingly forgotten about a one-month period of turmoil that raged across the country until ended in a bloody government crackdown.

Given the dramatic events of the last few months (e.g. the public ousting of party functionary, Bo Xilai, and the extremely public fleeing of blind activist, Chen Guangcheng from house arrest into the arms of the US Embassy in Beijing) I thought I’d have a word with Chan Koonchung and ask how the China of today appears to be shaping up against that predicted in his novel. How does he see the real China of 2013, now on the horizon? Is it maintaining its political legitimacy, internationally? And is it a coincidence that his main character, Lao Chen, shares a surname with the blind human rights activist, Chen Guangcheng?

From Cao Fei’s entre to the art world in the late 1990s she was pitched as ‘new generation’—a representative of the much needed next wave of artists to carry on from the theoretical dilemmas (and hype) generated around the contemporary Chinese artists who had preceded her. Drawing on the languages of pop and youth cultures, she signified a new voice on Chinese society, one that was savvy with globalisation and could comment on Chinese consumerism with the tools of the system itself.

More than 10 years on, Cao Fei is astoundingly accomplished, having spent the greater part of her 20s engaged in elaborate experiments with multimedia, collaborative performance pieces and deep explorations into the world of virtual reality. While primarily a video artist, Cao Fei’s interest in theatre has extended her work to the stage, often toying with the distinction between the digital and the real. Films inspired by the cultures of hip hop, pornography and gaming have given verve to her artistic vocabulary; meanwhile her cool eye is manifest in a number of shrewd documentaries. Cao’s works have been included in biennales around the world and dozens of catalogues and compendiums include essays under her name.

Cloud’s Nightmare, Animation 8’30″,2010

The animations and paintings of Wu Junyong have the same unsettling effect of an Aesop’s Fable or Grimms’ Fairytale. Peopled by kings, jesters, and animals, they use the language of shadow-puppetry and performance to comment on the greed and hubris of society. Almost gothic in their aesthetic, they are marked by a dark wit that seems timeless, crossing Chinese and Western mythology to expose the follies of those in authority. There is more than a little of The Emperor’s New Clothes in Wu’s work, and a strange feeling of wickedness in the fact that pictures so violent should be so appealing.

Wu Junyong’s studio is a mish-mash of paper cut outs pinned to corkboards, paintings propped up against the walls, prints hanging from the upper levels, and a quiet digital studio in the corner. It’s easy to picture him moving from one area to another, picking up different tools with which to work, depending on the mood and demands of the moment.

To meet Wu Junyong is to come into contact with the same cheeky ambiguity in his art. Hopefully something of his mischievous smile comes through in the interview posted below.

Yan Jun is a creative polymorph. Search on his name on the Internet and you’ll come up with a list of roles – from experimental sound artist, to critic, to curator, to performance poet – and stories of his pioneering in China’s underground music scene from the late 1990s to early 2000s. In 1998 he began the independent label, Sub Jam, initially to publish zines and later for music CDs; and in 2004 he established Kwanyin records for the release of more experimental works. From June 2005 to December 2010, Yan and his Sub Jam community organised a series weekly of performances called Waterland Kwanyin at the Beijing Bar, 2Kolegas, serving up rock, experimental and electronic music to an ever-morphing crowd of listeners.

Both Sub Jam and Kwanyin continue, supported by a regularly updated blog (see here for Yan Jun’s own), as do gigs, and the general greasing of communal and creative activities for which Yan Jun has become widely known. Meanwhile Yan remains one of China’s most important experimental artists, pushing the limits of sound, language and music in his own performances and recordings. Translator, Maghiel van Crevel once said Yan Jun makes things happen, and there is no doubt that Yan has this generative role. Raised in Lanzhou, but based in Beijing since the late 1990s, Yan is something of a creative catalyst, preferring the early and ambiguous stages of invention and putting a high value on the amorphous in artistic communities.

If Documenta XI hadn’t supported Yang Fudong in the completion of his film Estranged Paradise in 2002, we might have lost an important contemporary artist. More than five years into the film’s production, Yang was considering leaving the world of contemporary art to take up a career in the commercial film industry – and then the Documenta festival stepped in.

As it is, we’ll never know Yang’s feature films (although we can be sure they would have been beautiful). Instead we have his delicate and poetic film and video pieces, and ongoing questions about where they should best be shown.

Chen Shuxia is a Sydney-based arts writer currently completing her Masters on Chinese contemporary art history at the University of Sydney. She spoke with Yang recently in Sydney, where he was attending the opening of his exhibition No Snow on the Broken Bridge showing at the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) from 18 March – 4 June 2011.

Many thanks to Chen for this interview.

Zhang Ding in Last Words (Phase 1)
4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art
July 16 – August 28, 2010.

Born in 1980, Zhang Ding belongs to the most recent generation of Chinese video artists, growing up beyond the shadow of the Cultural Revolution and in a world saturated with images of the West and a new aspirational China. Rather than commenting on China’s history, or even its recent economic reforms, Zhang’s work is marked by feelings of alienation from contemporary society, a sense of retreat into fantasy, and an ongoing struggle with desire. For Zhang the political is personal, and highly mediated. Mixing video art and installation, Zhang creates worlds of light and sound, surreal cinematic dreamscapes, and intimate performance pieces. Originally from the Western province of Gansu, Zhang now lives and works in Shanghai, a city he has made something of a muse for his work.

China and Revolution: History, Parody and Memory in Contemporary Art
8 August – 7 November
University of Sydney Art Gallery

China and Revolution: History, Parody and Memory in Contemporary Art is an exhibition of Cultural Revolution propaganda posters, and their legacy in the visual culture of China today. The show brings a selection of original 1960s and 1970s posters from the University of Westminster collection, together with the work of four contemporary artists – Li Gongming, Liu Dahong, Shen Jiawei, and Xu Weixin – whose styles and methodologies continue to be influenced by this time.