Import & Exit

By Li Xianting
Translated by Binghui Huangfu

Import and exit is the major theme of Chinese modern and contemporary culture. Since the end of the last century when the West forced opened Chinese doors, Chinese intellectuals and open-minded bureaucrats, who thought they were punished for being poor and underdeveloped, advocated a policy of opening to the outside world and learning from the West. The government began a programme of sending officials to the West on short fact-finding visits, and students to study abroad. This resulted in the spectacular ' Yang Wu Movement' (Yang means foreign or the West, Wu means to be engaged or devoted to one's effort. It may also be translated to mean engaging with movements in the West).1

The 'Yang Wu Movement' was based on the belief that China needed to get from the West what it required to protect its own interests. The major interest was confined to the acquisition of modern ships and weapons. Cultural acquisition was not high on the agenda. The intention of this programme was aimed at protecting what was felt to be a superior Chinese culture by being in the position to protect Chinese sovereignty. The leading figure of this movement, Zhang Zhidong, proposed the key theme of the period which was ' Chinese concept with Western methodology'.

The belief in the pre-eminence of Chinese culture was challenged in 1919 by the vigour of the 'May Fourth' movement. This was a culturally critical-movement aimed at breaking the bonds of tradition. In art it led to the loss of the literati art tradition. 'May Fourth' saw the adoption of Western Classical Realism as a means of developing Chinese culture into the new world structure. After1949. the era of the 'Cold War' saw China again isolated from the West . Although allied against the West as part of the socialist family, the political and cultural directions of the Soviet Union and China were subjected to the struggles between philosophies of Mao and the Soviet model. In China, Mao's model was pre-eminent. Under Mao's direct supervision, Revolutionary Realism was established, by combining Soviet Social Realism with Chinese folk art traditions.

The first seventy years in this century was a period of experimentation in the West with modern art, which led to the betrayal of the Realist tradition. Originally China was influenced by the West to open its doors, accepting the pounding of Realism from the West, as a means to communicate with other parts of the world. But the Cold War between ideology of the East and the West saw China again locked in the Socialist plenary power family. From the perspective of art practices, China not only lost the opportunity to connect with World Modern Art developments but also its original characteristics of (Chinese) traditional art, which emphasized self-expression and freedom of spirit. This caused Chinese art to sink into purely descriptive art language with a dependency on politics for spirit.

The advent of the 'Information Age' caused world politics, economies and cultures to develop rapidly and to become globalised; these imperatives prompted China once again to open its doors to the West. Chinese peoples were surprised to discover the huge gaps between themselves and the West. The artists were made to understand the inharmonious relationship between themselves and World Modern Art. It had taken almost a century to build the 'Realistic Style' in Chinese art. This new tradition was again to be discarded. In 1979, as at the beginning of the 20th century, modern art in China once again reached out towards the West; even so, it grappled with the need to protect its integrity, not from guns but the dawning of the new information age. Again it was the same cultural theme - import and exit. During the ten years from 1979 to 1989 many Chinese artists went abroad, those who stayed tried to assimilate as much of the last 100 years of Western art development as quickly as possible.

The Western Modern art influence was, however, only to provide a system of production, a kind of language and a method of working. The process of art creation is primarily about artists devising ways of handling one's inner feelings. Every individual must live within certain cultural and social surroundings in a particular nation and location. No artist can produce art that has no relationship to his/her surroundings. So this process is also a process of importation and re-creation. It has two conditions, one which recognizes modern art as an international language, and the other as the most revolutionary and modern language mode available for expression (Western artists had created a splendid page for the expression of human history). This language was initially the expression of European and American cultures but like the ocean it touched all parts of the world, becoming a less exclusive world language. Secondly, as a language, the world language was presented to those who had not taken part in its development as a complete, fully-resolved system. So from the original creative perspective, this left little or no room for Chinese and other non-Western artists to generate to its formal construction.

Since the 1960's , European and American art has moved from the search for an original creation of language modes to concern itself with the current human condition, From this point of view, every artist whether from West or East will have similar intentions. Compared with the period of European and American dominance of modern art. The current state of art is an international art, sharing the same space and time. Seen this way, all artists are in the same situation. They all are facing their own difficulties in the context of their social surroundings.

The prospect of creating a new primary drive in their art is most likely to come from a combination of an international language and the use of the local classical art tradition and cultural custom. For example, in the 1990's the first artist using political Pop in China was Wang Guangyi. He used Cultural Revolution propaganda posters 'Great Criticism', and combined in it logos for Coca Cola and other Western consumer goods, to create a kind of absurd, cynical, humourous atmosphere. Political Pop, although influenced by American pop artists like Andy Warhol, who used the current popular images to highlight consumer culture, is a unique creation using past cultural memories, those most representative of the revolutionary ideology such as Mao Zedong's Communist symbols, the Red star, mixed with current popular images. This could be regarded as spiritual symbols of the popular culture from the Cold War finally being able to take their place as simply logos of culture. This symbolizes the infiltration of strong Western consumer culture into the socialist ideology; but also points up the political absurdities of propaganda culture as seen by the artist's spirit.

Since the 1990's Wang Guangyi has turned his interest to installation art. The work mostly concerns issues of identity in the process off cultural globalisation. Artist Li Tianyuan also uses a mixed approach. He selects his images from history and current events then divides them by using a narrow strip of paper, The images are then mixed on the same canvas. This way of using art language perfectly fits the current cultural situation in China. It expresses the reality of a culture where the Cultural Revolution, post-Cultural Revolution, agricultural society, industrial society and post-industrial society exist in the same cultural time and space. The loss of value systems also becomes evident in this mix of cultural memories and impressions of reality.

Wang Luyan has always been interested in creating works with paradoxical themes. In 1995 Wang Luyan succeeded in re-forming bicycles so that they moved backwards in response to normal pedaling. Audiences not only felt the paradox of the installation but were also provided with a parable about the kingdom of the bicycle.

Wang Jianwei has been searching for a way to eliminate ideology in normal life. He is investigating the elimination of channels by which artists gain intellectual power. Searching for a new depersonalized from, he has used multi-media video, slide projectors and machine structures to form a space which he calls ' a grey space'. He uses this non-determined multi-media space to eliminate the power of authority and the foundation of linear logic.

Wang Yushen and Jiang Jie are both materials oriented artists. Wang Yushen uses normal life images and soils from Northern Chinese Changbai mountains to structure his installation work. He is interested in the relationship between people, land, and culture. These relationships are among the most sensitive issues in the current process of cultural globalisation.

Jiang Jie is a female artist especially interested in exploring the life process. She uses semi- transparent and fragile materials such as wax and silicon glue to produce bodies of women and men, and a viviparity or baby. These works show her unique feelings toward the sensitive and fragile states of life.

Artists residing in Australia, such as Guan Wei, Ah Xian and Wang Zhiyuan show their double cultural identities in their works. While using Western art language as a tool, they all express their Chinese cultural identities. Their works employ Chinese cultural marks and traditional Chinese painting structures. For example in Guan Wei's painting, the structure and the taste of Chinese folk art tradition are obvious.

The cultural theme of import and exit is particularly expressed by every artist.1

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