For the 10th UP-ON Up International Live Art Festival in 2022, in addition to the permanent observers of the previous editions, five additional commentators have been appointed, with the intention of building an effective communication and interaction mechanism between art practice and theoretical research. After the festival, the commentators published articles one after another, commenting on the organizational mechanism of the festival, artists’ works, regional art ecology and other topics from their own perspectives.
In the previous edition of Night School, we discussed the articles by Mr. Cui Fuli and Mr. Cha Changping, and in this edition, we share an article by young scholar Miao Linrui, “Building Mechanisms in Chaos and Flux”. This article includes both a micro-analysis of art festivals and a macro-analysis of regional art ecology.
On the evening of March 19, 2023, the Archive invited some scholars, art critics, curators, artists, and non-profit organizers: Cui Fuli, Huang Jiao, Miao Linrui, Shangguan Kelly, Tan Yubing, Tian Meng, Xie Xifeng, Cha Changping, Zhang Yi, Zeng Jie, and Zeng Qunkai to the site of the 15th edition of the Evening School – Thick Gardening Thoughts, where they discussed the article, Building Mechanisms in the Midst of Chaos and Change, with program director He Ruoxi as moderator. In the midst of chaos and flux, we started a dialog and discussion on the article “Building Mechanisms”.
Miu Linrui:
First of all, I would like to make a self-introduction, because such a self-introduction will also be related to the topic I would like to communicate with you today. First of all, I’m a student of Philosophy at Sichuan University, and secondly, I also work for the Situs Sucking Soil team, which is usually responsible for operating a public number for communication and interviews with artists, as well as cooperating with art organizations to carry out some academic curation. The origin of this event, as Mr. Hexi mentioned earlier, is a review article written for the 10th UP-ON Up International Live Art Festival. Today’s discussion will also be related to this article. Because this article focuses on art ecology, we have invited critics (who have a more holistic view of ecology) and the directors of various organizations (who are the most important builders of ecological mechanisms) to join the discussion.
The first question I would like to share with you is: what is the relationship between the academy and the field in the art ecology? Many of the guests who are here today come from the academy and are involved in the art scene as critics/researchers. The involvement of the academy is important because if we want to overcome the fluidity of the scene, it is necessary to direct artistic work towards more permanent values through research and organization. For many scholars, it may be difficult to participate in today’s art scene. This is because the art world still lacks a mature research mechanism to attract such a group of people, and there is a tension between the rather frozen approach of scholars and the flux of the art world. So how should the relationship between the academy and the scene be constructed?
The second question I would like to share with you is: how should we look at the relationship between the local and the international in the art ecology? A previous review pointed out that the 10th UP-ON Up International Live Art Festival lacked “internationality”. In my article, I expressed the view that for UP-ON Up, the dimension of locality is equally important, and even plays a decisive role. In the art ecology, local and international mean different emphasis. So, how should we weigh the relationship between the two?
The third question I would like to share with you is: how should different organizations survive in the chaos and flux of the ecology? This question is actually addressed to the directors of each organization. For an art organization, the establishment of its own working mechanism is essential, and different ways of working will change its role and positioning in the ecology. So, how do different organizations find their own position in the art ecosystem?
Zhang Yi:
A lot of things are not as clear-cut and ironclad as they seem. The academy and the art scene you mentioned are two sides that are not diametrically opposed to each other. To take the initiative to go from the academy to the art scene, to observe and discuss academically, is to be dissatisfied with the established framework of knowledge or the way of internal circulation of knowledge. If our knowledge production is only the reproduction of classical and dominant concepts, traditions and methods, it is no less than a kind of “non-heritage” knowledge production.
In the art scene, we can see different types of artists, all kinds of reflections and reset paths of art tradition, all kinds of understanding and response to daily life and socio-political issues, and we can also observe the tension and game of art museums and art spaces with all kinds of forces under different funding mechanisms, and we can also see the barbaric growth of the unbalanced art ecosystem, and think about its origin and possible direction. We can also see the brutal growth of an unbalanced art ecosystem and ponder its origins and possible directions. What is more interesting is that because of one’s own curiosity, one accidentally becomes a force participating in the construction of the current art ecological mechanism, that is to say, the field of knowledge and the field of art and the field of society converge due to such interventions and produce a sustained effect, which in itself is very worthwhile to explore the issue of sociology of knowledge and art from different dimensions.
Taking interest as a precursor, using academic or different disciplinary knowledge as a background, and entering the field of art production, this may be the working path of our “Sucking Soil” art and aesthetics seminar team. We hope to take the occurrence of contemporary art in Southwest China as the basic object of observation, and try to explore the art experiments, exhibitions, and the construction of art spaces that take place in this landlocked region without much capital or international attention. Like most regions in China, the history, current situation, and generation of the art ecology here have a great deal of reference, which can help us to understand the basic situation of contemporary China and Chinese contemporary art, as well as the influence of various art forces on the “art of the future”. It can help us understand the basic situation of contemporary China and Chinese contemporary art, as well as the resistance and revolt of various artistic forces against the “internal power”. Therefore, we prefer to regard this kind of academic participation as an “action” to intervene in public affairs.
Zha Changping:
In my observation, Chinese universities are a place that is getting farther and farther away from academics, and this is my personal experience. The art ecology composed of art planning, art criticism, art creation and art acceptance is more of a vital organic connection. What does it mean by vital connection? It means that your observation of an art phenomenon is unique, and it is important that you observe your unique observation. Without this, being an art critic is untenable. It is too easy to be an art critic in China, why? Because there is no such thing as a unique observation, and even if there is, you can travel all over the world for 20 years by relying on one keyword.
I have a magazine on hand called Art Academia, and the articles in it are basically not worth reading. It has basically nothing to do with contemporary, realistic art, and tends more toward art historical research. But where is the source of “Art Academia”? It is in the field of living art ecology. Without this source, your understanding of art history is absolutely a kind of death-like understanding, or provides zombie writing. This is very desperate. In my opinion, international versus local is a pseudo-issue. The question of art itself is universal. Because, art relates to the question of individuality in human nature, which is truly universal. We need to get rid of this binary distinction. The distinction between international and local, Eastern and Western, is worthless. It was discussed more in the late 1990s and is now resurgent!
Cui Fuli:
Teaching today is a question of how to teach. Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts has been parallel to two very good teaching mechanisms, one is academy education and the other is jianghu education. A lot of education is carried out in bars and experimental spaces. In the classroom, we talk about art philosophy and art history, OK, but what is contemporary art? But what is contemporary art? Where is the most vivid and cutting-edge direction? This is something that can’t be told in the classroom. At that time, Mr. Wang Xiaowei took us to a bar to “teach with beer”, which was a very vivid way of teaching.
Mr. Wang Xiaowei asked me, “Do you have 1,000 phone numbers in your cell phone when you do curatorial work?” I didn’t quite understand it at the time, but I thought it was a question of resources and personal ability.
My curatorial work is more of an action-oriented curatorial work, not theory-oriented, and often it is my butt that decides my head. The premise of my exhibitions is whether it is fun or not, whether it is interesting or not. This is probably one of my styles of making exhibitions nowadays. I think today’s internationalization and globalization is a kind of participation and awareness, an international vision. It is not an identity. If you have a few foreign artists in a pavilion, does it mean it is internationalized? That is a matter of face, and the smaller the place, the more it recognizes this.
Tian Meng:
If we completely erase the relationship and boundary between locality and internationality and talk about internationality by eliminating locality, then internationality also becomes a problem. A noteworthy phenomenon is that many people may consciously or unconsciously presuppose a universal value when they talk about internationality. What are universal values? Are they established, are they presupposed, or are they arrived at through the collision, negotiation and intermingling of different cultures, different ideas and different concepts? This is a question we must face. When we talk about globalization, we are not talking about eliminating differences, contradictions and conflicts between the local and the international; on the contrary, we are talking about acknowledging the fact of the existence of these differences, contradictions and conflicts, the impact of the international on the local, and also local self-consciousness and resistance to the increasingly visible homogenization of the local. In this way, globalization can present a diversity of cultures and their tensions.
The academy is consciously moving towards society from a reflective perspective, intervening in the field and participating in the present, in order to break through the conservatism and lagging nature of the academy’s knowledge. This is undoubtedly a positive action. However, we should also realize that the conservative phenomenon of the domestic academy at present does not in fact come from the conscious conservatism of the academy, but is the result of being prescribed and restricted. In this sense, the contemporary academy is not too conservative, but too unconservative. The academy has the mission of the academy. Society today needs a systematic construction and a guardianship of the fruits of established civilization. Without such guardianship, innovation will lose its soil and foundation. If the academy is truly conscious of constructing systems and guarding civilization, then this kind of conservatism will become avant-garde in another sense in reality. Realizing this, we would not be anxious about not being open and innovative.
Shangguan Kaili：
AVG Space has been doing Sino-British art exchanges since 2018.
In 19 years two British artists came to Chengdu for an art residency through us, and in the process of exchanging with local Chengdu artists, they were asked how they define your work as contemporary. The answer from the British artists: I am in a society where I am a contemporary person, so the works I do are contemporary works.
I have two bosses, one is British and one is Chinese. The selection of artists is very strict and the works are experimental and academic. The aim is to help young artists by giving them a platform, a springboard. But one of the bosses has always been dissatisfied, think I do academic, there is no interest, I hope to combine with business, at present I explore. We’ve been doing this for five years now, and we’ve always been very concerned about the content of the artists’ works themselves. What I want to do more now is to let the public, whether in the art circle or not, as long as they love it, to be able to enter into such content more quickly or more easily. They are actually interested, but they don’t understand what contemporary art really is. We also hope that through art we can bring healing or reflection to everyone.
Huang Jiao:
I think from the perspective of establishing a standard of work, it is reflected in the way we work as individuals, such as artists, curators, critics, or other individuals; as well as in relation to institutions, such as art museums and art spaces; and the media. I think in these three aspects, Chengdu is very lacking in professionalism. We need to talk about ecology, which is constructed by upstream, midstream and downstream.
I believe that all small non-profit spaces have a hard time surviving, the same problem all over the world. But it’s important that it exists. Because we give artists more choices, so that they can follow their hearts and express their ideas more freely. The importance of alternative spaces is as a cornerstone of the art ecology. Its weakness is that its existence is often very short. First of all, there is the problem of funding, the problem of people. In Chengdu a lot of small spaces popped up a few years ago, and then after the epidemic, suddenly all of a sudden they were gone. If there is a force to support these spaces that are willing to serve as a cornerstone to help artists create differently, the ecology can become richer. It’s not just about hearing the voices of art museums and big galleries, we want to provide another kind of voice!
Zeng Jie:
Due to some uncontrollable factors, our space was subjected to some restrictions last year, and the number of exhibitions and events was therefore relatively low. In the past few years, we have been doing more work to break away from the fixed space itself and explore more flexible ways of implementing projects in an independent art space. Therefore, we have continued to participate in and initiate a series of projects related to walking, including the ArtZine project “Sarur Kazan, Witch, Harmonica”, which we initiated this year and are currently working on, and “Buzhou Mountain”, which was initiated by the Institute of Inspiration in 2020, and so on. “and so on.
In the various forms of walking programs, we try to explore ways to create a greater sense of excitement or strangeness for the artists. We hope to create more possibilities for localized activities, rather than just a simple one to two week residency in a fixed city. We have a new question about the “pure residency in the city that ends up in an exhibition”, and whether a new kind of artist’s inertia, or the “exhibition” itself, is still valid in the current social context. When we participate in different walking projects, we will experience many direct conflicts with our bodies, including the contradiction between many direct intellectual theories and the current social scene, etc. Of course, walking projects will still face the same problems. Of course, walking programs still face a lot of problems, that is, placing artists in such a fast-paced walking process, if the event still requires artists to present their creations in a short period of time, what are the attributes of the works? Later I realized that the conflicts encountered during the walk, or the need for the participants to quickly adapt to the time schedule, left the participants with more of a “possibility” to break out of their self-information cocoon and creative inertia, or to create a sense of “strangeness”, an experience that is not always possible. “This kind of experience is not an effect that can be presented immediately, but a possibility that will continue to be internalized, and will influence the participants’ future creations and thoughts. Finally, I would like to mention that apart from the possibility of establishing a mechanism in a physical art space, there is also a walking experimental method that can be utilized and is worth exploring.
Zeng Qunkai：
Compared to the specific scene of blood and passion in the 1990s, the new century has seen a general weakness. Including curatorial, creative practice and theoretical construction, we have seen and clarified common sense relatively clearly, and made objective and growing judgments. As for the scene of inefficiency, recycling, repetition, re-commercialization, and tendency towards visualization, trendiness, and kitsch, it is important to protect and establish the mechanism of innovation, and optimize the mechanism based on the work of innovation itself, as well as the structure, circulation, and collaboration among institutions, practices, and theorists.
Attention to common sense, ecology, and the purpose of mechanism establishment, as well as intellectual knowledge of the field are the prerequisites for the creation of mechanisms. The dilemmas faced by critics and institutions, and the realities encountered by specific projects, are similar to those encountered by university mechanisms that are standardized and theorized, generally academized, and tend to be conservative, modular, popular, and communal knowledge “overviews” that need to be engaged in more social isomorphisms, and to generate specific theories in practice, and to interact with each other once again. Today, especially in experimental institutions, many of them are exploring various issues spontaneously and autonomously, but at the same time they are facing substantive bottlenecks. Many of them are in a state of artist-like status, and in their individualized functioning they lack the possibility of exploring the macroscopic possibilities of the mechanism itself, and fail to establish a mechanism applicable to themselves or to make the mechanism match their “individuality”.
Involving localization and international common sense, local and international are not terms, such as Tianfu New Area, High-Tech Zone, Xinjiang or Chengdu, the place itself exists naturally, locality is not a re-description of the place, it is not confined to the local area, it is the open identity with local consciousness, regional autonomy of the individual consciousness, and the importance of such consciousness lies in the circulation of knowledge and creativity among the geographies and the flow of differentiated information of sharing value, if there is no information gap and interaction of differentiated value. If there is no information gap and interaction of differentiated values, the so-called locality and locality do not exist. The emphasis on mechanism construction is to awaken locality and individuality. The search for value and new knowledge, the interaction, the “change of power”, and the generation of knowledge flow are the prerequisites for internationality rather than internationality. The “closed loop” of today’s scene, and the internalized body “experience” of some parochial common sense, change each other’s working methods and modes, which the public more often than not fails to retrieve and reread with self-awareness, and are trapped in the hotbed of low-quality cycles. The common-sense deviation of the public’s self-empowerment and self-identification is an intellectual situation that requires urgent vigilance. Mechanisms that protect locality and individuality include the independence of institutions, their creation of new knowledge, the guarding of the individuals involved, and the “kinetic energy” of continuous improvement of the mechanism of innovation itself.
