| ART 31 BASEL
21-26/6/2000
ART BASEL: ART STATEMENTS H03(Hall 2.1) /PLACEBO
by ZHOU TIEHAI |
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The airbrushed 'Placebos'are large hanging motorized scrolls. They automatically roll up and down to show different pictures when the viewers press a button. The first Placebos were successfully tested in Shanghai, October 99 ZHOU TIEHAI Living and working in Shanghai, China's most cosmopolitan city, Zhou Tiehai is not only active in the local art scene but also observes (and recently takes part in) the international art world (Cities on the Move, Venice Biennale 1999 etc). Zhou Tiehai works in a wide variety of media including painting, photography, video etc. to create his 'visualized strategies' (term used by Harald Szeemann on awarding the main CCAA prize - Contemporary Chinese Art Award -, to Zhou Tiehai in 1999). OTHER WORKS BY ZHOU TIEHAI: Artless (1999); Hurry up, Art History Isn't Waiting for You; You Are
Not a Hero, Just because you have shown in Venice (1999); Aiming at the
Museum; The Avant-Garde Doesn't Fear a Long March (1998); Buy Happiness /
You Can't Grow Healthy and Strong Without the Godfather's protection;
Press Conference; Vale Arte (flag, 1997), Fake Cover series (95-97);
Will/We Must (video, 1997); Airport (sound work, 1996) etc. PLANED EXHIBITIONS TEXTS ON ZHOU TIEHAI
TEXTS on the PLACEBO by Grace Fan on the first exhibition of Placebos in "Don't worry about
making mistakes" at ShanghART, Oct. 1999 (Shanghai Talk, Oct. 1999). "You've seen his "fake covers" hanging in the city's hottest art gallery, ShanghART. Or you've heard, in brief snatches of conversation, the buzz about one of China's most intriguing contemporary artists, 33-year-old conceptual artist Zhou Tiehai. Now, fresh from his sojourn at the most-hyped international art exhibit in the world, the Venice Biennale (an event that still has the power of bestowing art stardom on up-and-coming artists, thought critics bash it as aging and too-establishment). Zhou is finally gracing the Shanghai art world with his first solo exhibit in China. On exhibit will be Zhou's new series of airbrushed works called "Placebo", based on the wedding photo studio technique of airbrushing romantic backgrounds like Eiffel Tower or Niagara Falls. Among the works are two large hanging motorized scrolls, featuring, among others images often a dapper Joe Camel. The scrolls automatically roll up and down to show different pictures when the viewers press a button - a mechanized twist on that 60s art notion of inviting audience participation.
"He is not an artist in my book," snorted one Hong Kong journalist recently, upon learning that Zhou doesn't actually paint or construct any of his works. ¨He comes up with an idea, then finds someone to execute the idea for him - more a movie director, really, instead of an Emersonian do-it-youself-er." One of Zhou's influences, not surprisingly, is Marcel Duchamp, arguably this century's most influential artist. Ducham first shot to aesthetic notoriety in 1912 with his painting Nude Descending A Staircase (nudes were supposed to recline or pose seductively, but - gasp! - a moving nude?). A few years later, Duchamp graduated to "ready-mades", by taking an already manufactured snow shovel and a toilet, signing them (or getting a friend to sign them for him), and then exhibiting them as Art Objects. The readymade sent an other shockwave through the art world. Disturbingly, it posed the question "What is art?" and suggested that "art" could really be anything at all. Opponents blasted the entire notion as sacrilegious. Duchamp's own explanation was that is was "a form denying the possibility of defining art." He also said, laconically: "It was the idea that came first, not the visual example" - a concept that the contemporary art world, 80-odd years later, is still grappling with. Enter Zhou who carries Duchamp's concept of the readymade into the post-industrial world of global brand-making and commerce. Could art .. be Joe Camel? Why not? In his best works, Zhou playfully and ironically collapses the worlds of art and advertising, with a cool brashness that questions the value system of a world in which everything, including an "art star", is a made commodity, not born." (Grace Fan)
ART BASEL ART UNLIMITED (Project)
A Project Project Idea: "To exhibit the works of the artist of China's most influential gallery, ShanghART, at the most famous art fair in the world, Art Basel. No doubt, that is exciting and also full of challenge. The meaning will be UNLIMITED.
THE PROJECT: To exhibit ShanghART Gallery at Art Basel - Art Unlimited. ShanghART will be exhibited at ART Basel and is for sale. It is living and interactive project. ShanghART (with stock, staff, office etc.) will move to ART Basel and will be going on working in Art Unlimited as it has been in the last few years here in Shanghai. Pieces of the gallery, resp. the individual artpieces from all the artists represented by the ShanghART, will be on sale. But most important, the gallery itself will be for sale. It is the most radical work by Zhou Tiehai until now. A complex Ready Made. "Shall ShanghART go to Art BASEL?"is a living being. If anybody is going to buy the work "Shall ShanghART go to Art BASEL?",ShanghART will move to the new place (and going on to work from there, promoting the artists it represents and doing all the work it was always doing as good as it can). "Shall ShanghART go to Art BASEL?" it's questioning the sellablility (and buyability) of art in a seemingly elegant way. It is pushing the limits of ART, but not only at Art Basel. Being a gallery in a place with a very limited art infrastructure and at the fringe of the (Western) art world, i.e. far away, art critics, power and money, ShanghART has created in Shanghai its own microcosmos with a diverse mixture of art. Inkpaintings, oils, photo, video and internetprojects are all linked together and support each other at ShanghART in an unique way. "Shall ShanghART go to Art BASEL?" is also about putting artworks from the fringe, without any protection, in the harsh centre of the artmarket.
Zhou Tiehai about this project "To exhibit the works of the artist of China's most influential gallery, ShanghART, at the most famous art fair in the world, Art Basel. No doubt, that is exciting and also full of challenge. The meaning will be UNLIMITED. The role, ShanghART had for the arts in its short four years, can not be ignored anymore. It has a top ranking on the list of the Chinese art. The way, how ShanghART is run, is unique and creative in concept and form. At Art Basel it can exchange experience with other galleries in the search for the possibilities of Unlimited-ness of a gallery. That will surely benefit the future development of the gallery. From the point of view of the ShanghART artists, although most of them have participated at different exhibitions in the West, I still truly believe that participating at Art Basel will certainly help the development of the artists. The dawn light of the 21st century has brightly lit the Huangpu River. It is time that the ShanghART aircraft carrier weighs the anchor. " ¡¡ Zhou Tiehai Shanghai, Feb. 20000 "Let the world know ShanghART, Let ShanghARTIST understand the UNLIMITEDness of art."
TECHNICAL DETAILS A desk with working space for two people, a phone/fax line, storage space, a few walls and a TV monitor. ShanghART's form and space requirements are not very fixed. We are flexible and used to work out from different spaces.
THE GALLERY ShanghART began in 1996, as a one of a few places for contemporary art in China. Group and solo exhibitions of artists living in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities in China made the gallery program in the last few years. In the same time we were working together with curators, museums and galleries from all over the world to promote contemporary Chinese art. In addition to paintings in different media, ShanghART carries also sculptures, photographic and video works. ShanghART produced a series of catalogues and maintains also an extensive website with internet projects, documentation of the represented artists and information on the current gallery exhibitions. ShanghART is the first gallery from China to participate at Art Basel. ShanghART and ShanghART artists have been cooperating with many museums, institutions and galleries from all over the world, including: Shanghai Art Museum, 1996; Asia Pacific Triennale/Queensland, 1999; Biennale of Lyon, 1997; Biennale of Maya 1999; Biennale of Venice 1993, 1999; Biennale of Sydney 1998; PS 1, NY, 1998; Secession, Vienna, 1997; Shisheido Gallery, Tokyo, 1997; Louisina Museum, Danmark, 1999; Haywarth Gallery, London, 1999; Queens Museum, NY, 1999; Kunsthal Rotterdam 1998, 1999; Art Berlin 1998; An Other Long March, Breda, Holland, 1997; Cities on the Move 1998-99; MoMA 1998 etc.
On Zhou Tiehai by Harald
Szeemann Zhou Tiehai is an artist whose visualised strategies are being given
increasing attention, evev in Europe. The term strategy defines a force
field that in a militarily and economic, as well as ideological way, uses
art as an "expanded medium"that orbits spirally around the triangle
artist-gallery-museum, and the associated expectations-more glory, more
money. In one large painting, Zhou Tiehai embodies a "Younger Statesman"
before a golden backdrop and fixed banners, who makes a concise and serious announcement to the world of
an historically proved but never voiced truth:"The relations in the art
world are the same as the relations between states in the post-Cold War
era. "And he expresses this as a Shanghainese artist, born of the most
rapidly growing diverse and consecrated layers designed to accommodate
their activities. Recognition of Chinese artists comes from outsides. That
is why the "outside" has to be informed of the artist's own imaginings, at
first in the caricatured critique of the capitalist yuppie as a "camel"
modelled on the same creature that appears on
on ZHOU Tiehai by Karen
Smith Zhou Tiehai was born in Shanghai in 1966, a city in which he continues to live and work. He graduated from the Fine Arts College of Shanghai University in 1989. More fortunate than most artists based in Shanghai, Zhou has a large studio where, amongst other things, he creates his monumental paper paintings, which he first began in co-operation with fellow graduate Yang Xu in 1989. Decided upon making a kind of anti-painting, the pair began by painting upon sheets of newspaper and throwaway packing paper that they bonded together, adding to and subtracting from as the painted image took form. This remains an approach to which Zhou frequently returns, the images increasingly sophisticated but the unconcern for the durability of the ground as strong as in the first initiative. Zhou Tiehai¡¯s natural sense of humour, his deadpan approach to life, and his powers of observation, make him at home with foreigners, and in foreign countries on his regular travels abroad for exhibition. The knowledge he gleans of other cultures provides the comparative that vindicates the judgements on contemporary culture in China and beyond, which he expresses in his art. Of the younger generation, Zhou carries a different set of personal experiences and owns a different mindset to artists of preceding generations. Zhou Tiehai is the true cynicist of the avant-garde, the sharp tongue of the artist-as-commentator on both his own society and the interaction and symptoms of the Chinese art circles. His work is conceptual but, in line with the evolution of a society with a preference for instant and disposable culture, his work has the fleeting quality of impermanence; today¡¯s that becomes tomorrow¡¯s garbage. The power of mass media to shape opinion and present the facts of the (art) world has been a force he manipulates for his own poignant ends. This takes the form of a series of magazine covers that imitate the well-known faces of publications like Art in America, ArtNews, frieze, Stern and the New York Times. These he recreates as format perfect copies, but with headlines and images that make direct and succinct reference to the situation of, and the influences governing art in China as he perceives them. The ¡®headlines¡¯ appear in his huge drawings, where the compositions approach graffiti with the slogans they contain. No matter how careless the works might first appear, they demonstrate a refinement that distinguishes Zhou Tiehai from many of his peers, and made him a deserving recipient of the first Contemporary Chinese Art Award, presented by the CCAA Association in 1998. Zhou Tiehai remains defiantly longhaired at a time when all other artists are cropping their locks. He creates waves without fear of being judged, just as he himself is not averse to passing judgement on others. In Shanghai, exhibitions occur with ever-greater frequency. Artists travel, abroad, visitors explore the Chinese art world. Zhou Tiehai observes and absorbs all. Who¡¯s visiting, who is doing what with whom, who is in what show, all is fed into his mental archive for future reference, just as it spawned the sound installation Airport in 1996, magazine cover headlines and paper works. Zhou Tiehai has participated in numerous showings of contemporary art from China abroad, and in many more international exhibitions. He is one of the most sought-after artists in China at the present time (Karen Smith 1999).
on ZHOU Tiehai by David C.
Robinson In the process smashing aside prevailing notions of what consitutes art, "with Dadaism there was nothing you could not do, it ripped your mind open" Zhou explains. One day you were listening to your teacher extol the technical merits of Da Vinci - the next you could paint moustaches on the Mona Lisa. Recognition and acclaim in his own country though meant little 'real'
success. Fame and exposure would only come with Western acknolegement and
acceptance. "Before I thought that to be an artist all you needed was your
work to be good. I discovered this was not the case. You have to be on a
list." Zhou says it was a bitter realization art wasn't simply the
pure creation of paintings - getting seen involved negotiating a
treacherous path through gallery owners, museum curators and art critics.
But most important of all, you had to be featured in the World's most
powerful media. It soon became apparent that "As a Chinese artist you had
to be on the covers of the right Western press for people to know you."
In true Dadaist tradition Zhou just constructed his own ersatz press images, his mock covers depict the artist's desperate struggle for visibility upon the horizons of a hostile foreign media and offer an honest expression of his own ambition. Their sheer audacity ironically garnering him the media attention he sa craved and in the process perpetuating his march to international notoriety. With Western interest came a label - 'Chinese artist.' The political connotations of which Zhou has an uneasy relationship with. "The West needs and wants to see that in China there is an artist with democratic thinking, or people who have democratic ideas, as an example of opposition to the Chinese communist party." But Zhou claims the only thing preoccupying him is work, not opposition to the government. The irony is that while Zhou can't wait for the 'Chinese' to be dropped from 'artist', it is this political label that helps China's modern artists get the attention they need to survive. The internecine relations within the art world itself Zhou compares to the perspicious wrangling of international diplomacy. The distribution of profit, who gets to know about you and where works are shown all depend on your rapport and negotiations with various curators 'It's like the Mafia and it depends which Godfather you're with." Zhou's reputation continues to grow. It is prepetuated through his manipulation of a game he treats with so much derision. His most potent contemporary statement to date has been flaoting himself on the Shanghai stock exchange. Upon listing 'the Zhou' rose gradually but accelerated into an all out buying spree following a large European purchase. This caused one senior trader to announce "If the Zhou climbs much higher it will find itself very vulnerable to market fluctuations and exposed to the whims of profit takers." It reaffirms Zhou's statement - this is the true value of art as we hurtlye towards the twenty first century. (David C. Robinson)
on ZHOU Tiehai by Hou Hanru Zhou Tiehai is a singular figure who, unfortunately, has hardly been
involved in collective presentations of the avantgarde. As someone who
grew up in Shanghai, China's biggest city and current focal point, he is
by no means an outsider to cultural change. His extraordinary gouache
works on large scaled wraping paper can be compared with a kind of "bad
painting" or graffiti. However, the messages that he transmits through the
amalgam of "exotic" iamges and ironical statements, are instead poignant
sarcasm directed at power plays in the international artistic, cultural,
and commercial exchanges, especially the manipulation of the omnipotet
Western mass media and the ambivalent reactions in Chinese society and the
art world. |
