克里斯蒂安・波尔坦斯基（Christian Boltanski）在日本举办历年来规模最大的回顾展“Lifetime”（国立新美术馆）的同时，在东京路易威登艺术空间（Espace Louis Vuitton Tokyo）也推出了一个聚焦于影像装置作品的个展“Animitas II”。围绕本次两个展览，2016年策划了波尔坦斯基个展的东京都庭院美术馆策展人田中雅子，和他聊了作为“神话”的“Animitas”系列和关于艺术本身的思考。
克里斯蒂安・波尔坦斯基 摄影=稻叶真
成为神话的“Animitas”
——首先我想先聊聊路易威登艺术空间里的绝对主角——系列作品“Animitas”。以智利的阿塔卡玛沙漠（Desierto de Atacama）为开端的该系列作品是如何被创作出来的，以及又是如何完善的？ 阿塔卡玛沙漠是一个特别的地方。海拔高度为4000米，是世界上最为干燥的地方。在那里能够更直接地感受星星与天空，也有天文观测站设立在那里。在同一地点也埋葬着因智利军事独裁政权而牺牲的人们，汇聚着他们的亡灵。因此在那谁也找不到的地方创作了作品，而且那件作品也已经悄无声息地消失了。
Japanese architect Arata Isozaki has generated a theory to analyse the evolution of the interior design of museums and art galleries. According to his theory, museums and art galleries over the past several centuries have diverged into three categories.
The first category refers to museums established by the 18th century. This type of museum’s primary purpose is to show the art collections from noble people, for instance, Louvre Museum. The features of such a museum are old-fashion coloured walls and heavy frames with elaborate decoration. The permanent collection constitutes mostly of art pieces from old masters.
Louvre Museum
National Museum of Tokyo
The second category includes museums and art galleries that exhibit modern and contemporary artwork. In these, the interior design is simple and modern. These spaces are categorized by white walls, which is why they are also called “white cubes“.
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum
The third category is artist-centered and pays more attention to the architectural design. It is marked by two distinguishing features. The first is collaboration among artists and architects; architects generate the museum concept and design based on the artist’s style and work. This kind of exhibition space is characterised by a strong visual impact from the outside, as well as perfect harmony between the art collections and the buildings they are housed in. The second feature is founded on the concept of renovating abandoned historical buildings, including factories and train stations. These buildings have high ceilings and enormous spaces, therefore meeting the common exhibition space needs. Transforming the abandoned buildings into cultural institutions gives them new life, therefore promoting the concept of recycling and encouraging innovative ideas.
Hamburger Bahnhof
The fourth and the last category adds a new element to the museums and galleries: the “human” one. This characteristic (that isn’t part of Arata Isozaki’s theory) made its first appearance on the International Art Festival of Japan. For example, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale that’s located in a rural village in Nigada province of Japan. The artwork exhibited in this festival is mostly site-specific and located in the outdoor environment. Moreover, the festival is keener on the process of making artwork, compared to the final result. It is a collaborative process in which local people living nearby participate and join the artist in bringing a vision to life, other ordinary people then come and visit the art. Thus, in this instance, art superseeds its original boundaries and influences a society as a whole.
Professor Kurakuma Sumiko from Tokyo Art University called this emerging art scene “collaborative art activity” and summarised its main features: 1. It is focused on the process and is actively present. 2. It considers the surrounding environment and reacts to the social situation. 3. It is open to feedbacks and influence. 4. It attracts diverse people. 5. It plays the role of a social activist.
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial
After doing research about the development of Japanese museums and art galleries, I feel the enormous public need for art. This has led to the speedy, development of museums and art galleries in recent years. Art, as a tool of expression, is no longer only mastered by artists like painters and sculptors; ordinary people are getting the opportunity and confidence to express themselves with the help of art professionals. At the same time, I have to admit that the impact of collaborative art activity is still small. White cubes and old-fashioned museums and art galleries enjoy the dominate legitimising status. People are used to be appreciators and outsiders, rather than participators.
On July 16, 2018, the president of La Biennale di Venezia, Paolo Baratta and the curator of the 58th international Art Exhibition, Ralph Rugoff, met the press at Ca’Giustinian to launch the Biennale Arte 2019, which will take place from May 11th to November 24th 2019 at the Giardini and the Arsenale, as well as around other venues in Venice. The 58th International Art Exhibition is titled May You Live in Interesting Times.
When La Biennale di Venezia first announced this title on July 16, 2018, it became a controversial topic right away. In the official La Biennale di Venezia press description, they wrote: “The 58th International Art Exhibition is titled May You Live in Interesting Times, after an ancient Chinese curse referring to periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil; interesting time, as exactly the ones we live in today”. Those sentences sound beautiful and elegant. Unfortunately, there is no such Chinese curse. To be more precise, May You Live in Interesting Times is not a Chinese saying or Chinese slang. Actually, it has nothing to do with China.
Right after the La Biennale di Venezia announced its title, the Hong Kong press South China Morning Post quickly published an article against La Biennale di Venezia. The article is named La Biennale di Venezia deliberately used a fake Chinese curse, and this behavior set off the Art director of Hong Kong Art Center.
The vice curator of Chinese art of the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation at New Guggenheim Museum Wen Xiaoyu summarized this kind of title as a “curatorial fortune cookie”. A fortune cookie is a small dessert offered in Chinese restaurants around North America and Europe. If you break the cookie, it contains short sentences of (supposedly) wisdom. Ironically, the fortune cookie was entirely created in the West. You can’t find fortune cookies in local restaurants in China. Even in the supermarket, you can’t find any kind of cookie with a small paper inside of it.
Fortune cookies are a perfect metaphor for the following situation. Some western art curators want to show that they’re erudite or want to add a bit of mystery into their exhibition. To do that, they will use some words or stories which seem to be originated from the east. However, they do not even check their validity.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Fortune Cookie Corner) 1990
On July 18th, 2018, La Biennale di Venezia’s official site changed its theme description. They wrote: ”The 58th International Art Exhibition will be titled May You Live in Interesting Times, after an alleged ancient Chinese curse, a false belief that British MP Sir Austen Chamberlain had learned of from a British diplomat, and which refers to periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil; interesting time, is exactly the ones we live today.”
Then, on July 20th, 2018, La Biennale di Venezia’s official site changed the description again. They wrote: “The 58th International Art Exhibition, titled May You Live in Interesting Times, will take place from 11 May to 24 November 2019 (Pre-opening on 8, 9, 10 May). The title is a phrase of English invention that has long been mistakenly cited as an ancient Chinese curse that invokes periods of uncertainty, crisis and turmoil; interesting times, exactly as the ones we live in today.”
Yet, the above example is not the only case that shows misunderstanding and stereotypes which western people hold towards China. Similar circumstances not only happen in the art world, but also in the fashion world.
The Chinese Spring Festival, which is often held in February, is the most important festival for China, just like Christmas in Europe. Well-known luxury brands always aim at promoting themselves during this important period. They will shoot special posters and introduce a limited version of clothing and bags. But the outcome is not always satisfactory.
Luxury brand Burberry published its new year advertisement at the beginning of this year. In the poster, Burberry aimed at presenting a sense of family. Yet, because the facial expression in this ad is cool and poker face, the Chinese audience could not understand the initial purpose of this advertisement. On social media, people are still teasing this ad as a screenshot of a horror movie.
Burberry
Of course, it is never easy to understand a foreign culture, particularly between West and East, since these two culture systems are not similar at all, from their philosophy to social norms. Even the understanding within Asian countries is hard to achieve. Take Japan for example. In Japanese animation and TV drama, if there is a Chinese woman character, she must wear a red cheongsam and a two-bun hairstyle. In today’s China, no one dresses like this.
“I don’t like contemporary art, because I can’t understand it. What does the artist really want to express?” People often complain about contemporary art and its difficulty to be understood.
The truth is, the turning point of contemporary art history is undoubtedly the famous Duchamp fountain. He brought a readymade product from the male toilet to the exhibition space. Since then, the fine line between art and daily life was blurred.
For instance, the female Chinese artist and engineer Liu Xin’s chose bread as her art medium. She follows the shape of Cuba’s national round daily bun to make her artwork Bread Havana. Like Cuba’s daily subsidized national bun, this artwork’s raw materials are imported flour, sugar, dry yeast, and water. The unique part of the Bread Havana is its flavor. In order to complete this artwork, Dana Gasiorowski from IFF (International Flavor and Fragrance) designs an essence flavor that balances the nuances of gasoline, sweat and white ginger flower (the national flower of Cuba).
The artwork is appreciated through a dining experience. Liu Xin will serve the audience with freshly baked bread. When the audience breaks the bread, bites, chews and swallows, it will notice the difference between Bread Havana and bread sold in regular stores. Bread Havana tastes like nothing but pale flour. This dull taste won’t shock the audience but drives people to think of the living conditions in Cuba.
State-owned bakery in Havana, Cuba
Artist Liu Xin got her inspiration by visiting Cuba, where tourism is the third largest source of foreign currency, behind the two dominant industries of sugar and tobacco. Cuba doesn’t conceal and hide its poverty and struggles. The lack of regulation on sex work, ungovernable black markets and creaky infrastructure make of poverty and development a reason for visitors to travel.
Liu Xin is not the only artist who picks daily food as a medium of expression. A couple from Los Angeles, Mitra Saboury and Derek Paul Boyleshan put toast on a staircase, then stepped on it to leave footprints. They call the footprints the trace of life.
Although artists and professionals working in the art industry may discover the artistic meaning behind those daily commodities made artworks, ordinary people tend to showcase confused faces towards them. There are two extreme cases to vividly present the confusion which the average audience experiences.
Dove andiamo a ballare questa sera? (where are we going dancing tonight?) is an art installation by Sara Goldschmied and Eleonora Chiari, a Milan-based art duo. This artwork was once exhibited in 2015 at the Museion in Bozen-Bolzano, in the South Tirol region of Italy. Through this piece of art, the artists wanted to represent the golden time of the Italian economy in the 1980s. This installation, demonstrating the mess after a party, including empty beer bottles, scattered colorful decoration papers and other trash was ironically so realistic that the museum cleaner swept it off.
On the other hand, people often mistake some irrelevant elements or people as art pieces. In 2016, two California teenagers visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern art. They decided to play a small game to test the audience’s reaction. They placed a pair of glasses on the floor and stepped back to see how the audience would perceive them. After a while, people gathered around the eyeglasses: some people pondered over it and tried to understand it while some people kneeled down and took photos of it.
So why is contemporary art that confusing? From my perspective, one of the biggest reasons is that compared to classical art and the old masters, contemporary art is a more diversified medium of expression. As the audience is more used to a traditional way of appreciating art, in their mind, art should be a painting or a sculpture. Therefore, when the contemporary artist puts a readymade product in the exhibition space and calls it an art piece, the audience can’t fit this type of art into their pre-existing categories of what art is. In addition, contemporary art reflects the world we are living in now. In other words, contemporary artists are writing art history with their artworks. Some of them may have a long-term impact, and some of them may disappear and diminish. Therefore, it is now still too early to determine whether works can be viewed as art or not.
The art exhibition“Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami joint Art Collection” was presented on September 22nd in a shopping mall located in Shanghai’s central area. Visitors can experience several rooms with bright backgrounds decorated with an intensive spotted pattern, a classical feature of Yayoi Kusama’s artworks. Moreover, the exhibition also presented artists’signed artworks. However, Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami claimed that they never joined this exhibition and created those artworks.
Nihon keizai shinbun（Japan Economic News）and several other Japanese well-known media reported that: “since this year’s April, this kind of fake exhibition already appeared in four Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Shanghai.” As the investigation went further, the similar exhibitions were also found in other Chinese cities, for instance, Tianjin, Qingdao, Changsha, Xinjiang, Zibo, Chongqing and Suzhou. Some were the Yayoi Kusama’s solo exhibitions, while some are joint exhibitions of Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami.
When the news came out, both the Japanese artists and Chinese audience were angry and disappointed towards the exhibition organizers. Regarding this news, Yayoi Kusama said: “when I heard that some fake artworks were exhibited in Chinese several places and lots of people believed it and went to see those exhibitions, I was totally shocked. I have contributed all my life to the art creation, but my work was presented to the public in a wrong way. It is an extremely frustrating thing. To Chinese audience and also to the world, please stop this kind of fake art exhibitions, and please appreciate my real work by your eyes. I am sincerely hoping that we can overcome this kind of difficulties and create a better world.”
On the other side, this news was widely spread in Chinese social media and people were discussing about it. The most popular comment regarding this news is: 我可能看了个假展（I may visit a fake exhibition）. This sentence was originated from some similar Internet popular phrases. Chinese people were used this expression to show the mixed emotion of irony and resigned. Visitors were angry for this deliberate deception behaviors. Some of the exhibitions were free entry, while others needed admission tickets, which were sold on two biggest ticket selling websites. Moreover, the exhibition organizer even promoted the exhibition in the underground stations. Lots of people were totally deceived until saw the news.
Currently, Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami have urged the exhibitions to stop and plan to sue the organizers for violating their rights. The reason why these fake exhibitions were firstly organized is that the reputation of these two artists would have attracted people and the shopping mall, along with the exhibition organizers, would have benefitted from this improved turnout. Kusama’s and Murakami’s artworks are colorful and easy to understand, making them perfect for visitors who want to take photos and share them on social media. As a consequence, the shopping mall has extra customers and can link its brand to the art world, while the exhibition organizers earn money from the admission fees and from the shopping malls hosting the show.
The past 30 years were golden years for the Chinese economy. The average growth rate for China was around 9.6%, while for the ideal growth rate for a country’s GDP growth is 2-3% from the international standard. In other words, the growth of Chinese economy was much faster than average. On average, every Chinese’s income will double every 7-8 years. Moreover, in the past 30 years, a Chinese family’s income more than tripled. Along with the fast income growth, Chinese also are receiving tons of information from other countries. The number of Chinese students choosing to go aboard is breaking the record every year. For example, in the UK (one of the popular aboard study destinations for Chinese students) almost one-third of non-EU students are Chinese. I believe that China knows more about the world than the world knows about China. Chinese people are actively committed to visit and know about foreign countries, especially developed countries like US, UK, Japan, Korean and European countries. China, having experienced an economic boom later with respect to other countries, is driven by the former sense of crisis to know and understand the rules of the game. At the same time, the world is shifting from the Second Industrial Revolution to the information revolution due to the fast growth of technology occurred in the past years.
To conclude, Chinese people are experiencing remarkable changes in social and economic aspects of their lives. Everything is speeding up, opportunities are everywhere, and at the same time the environment is less-regulated. The result is an uncertain social environment, where choosing to be the first-mover is a wise thing to do. Being the first-mover allows to set the rules for these new and improved markets. Therefore, even if one made a mistake (e.g. organizing a fake exhibition), revenues were still earned. Furthermore, it is unlikely to face harsh consequences because market is less-regulated and having no case law to rely on slows down possible lawsuits. After analyzing the Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Muramaki case along with the assessment on the overall situation, most people might choose to take the risk, as the revenues seem to be certain while facing consequences is just a remote possibility.
“The Art is a white shell in a water basin” – Alberto Giacometti
意大利威尼斯双年展(La Biennale di Venezia)、德国卡赛尔文献展(Kassel Documenta)与巴西圣保罗双年展(The Bienal Internacional de Sao Paulo)被并称为世界三大艺术展，其中威尼斯双年展又是最负盛名的执牛耳者。2019年恰逢两年一度的威尼斯艺术展开展，自然是要去凑凑热闹的。今年的威尼斯双年展的主题为“May You Live in Interesting Times(愿你活在有趣的时代)”，从5月11日持续到11月24日，长达六个月的展期。关于这个主题还有一段和中国有关的乌龙，据策展人介绍他是从在西方广泛传播的一句中国俗语中获取的灵感，然而实际上中国根本没有这句俗语。策展人所借鉴的那句中国俗语其实是英国人Austen Chamberlain从一本英语文献中知晓并开始使用，之后便以讹传讹地传播开来。这不过是西方视角对一知半解的东方文化的神秘化与自我高潮的又一表现而已，作为双年展的注脚倒是另有一丝荒诞感。
非常酷！非常酷！非常酷！重要的话要说三遍。以色列馆直接被改造成了一家医院，致力于服务那些沉默的呐喊和处于不公正状态的人们，为它们带去慰藉。首先，你需要使用门口的机器取号，然后在整齐划一的蓝色等待区观看视频，直到你被叫号。随后，你前往医院前台，护士会问你：你想要哪一种治疗方案？随后我就不剧透啦。有机会的话，请务必体验一下。It’s ok to be weak and our hospital are there for you.
20世纪90年代以后，日本开始举办一些引入性别观点的展览。发起这一潮流的，是担任东京都写真美术馆事业策划部长（至2018年）的笠原美智子和栃木县立美术馆主策展人（至2016年）小胜礼子。我们向在美术馆现场的最前沿以多边方式探讨性别问题的两人，询问了关于至今为止策划过的展览和美术馆制度等问题。（转载自《美術手帖》2017年11月刊“GENDER IS OVER!?”）
娄依伦 