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Yang Mian
Discussion is itself the best type of concern, a means of clearing things out with a respectful attitude. Here, what is meant by discussion is not talking but rather a kind of discipline, revealed in a professional way with the purpose of a generalized discussion of disciplinary exchange.
We discuss ideals, we discuss history and we discuss politics... I still remember when I was just a few years old I began to sing: “I love Tiananmen”. But I didn’t understand why I should love Tiananmen until some years later. I also said that after I grew up I wanted to be a scientist or engineer, but now I am a teacher and artist...
Perhaps we don’t need too many ideals when we are young..., perhaps we don't need to ask what we will do when we grow up..., but the standards of my youth, have to be considered and discussed.
In the 80s there was the poetry craze - reading poems, reciting poems, writing poems. The ability to use poems become an important standard for determining whether you could enter the ranks of advanced youth, and discussing poetry also created many cultured young people. Poetry was the most important activity of the time.
In the 90s came the business craze that made doing business seem like something everyone had to be involved in. Doing business is the standard for having money.
In the 1990s there have been many crazes and standards are continually being modified. Under these ever changing conditions both the good and the bad are continually transforming. There are no further reasons, but there is the beautifully packaged "Everything for Development". What have our lives changed into and what kind of change do we need? Are the standards we have set the standards that we want?
Since the 1980s, our family has moved four times, from a one-story building to a “comrade” building and from a comrade building to a unit and from a small living room to a big living room…
Observing our city it can be seen that it too is undergoing a “revolution” - gradually the single story dwellings are disappearing and the courtyard-based culture is in the early stages of vanishing. We await the emergence of a new culture but what kind of culture do we need? With the disappearance of the comrade buildings, human relationships have transformed from comrade to Mr. and Miss. And when all the Misters and Misses have moved into the units, then what kind of culture will our society have?
Since the 80s, the progress of Chinese society has been an epic moving of house. Throughout this process, the rural norm has been to move from different kinds of single storey buildings to "standard" buildings with tiles or to move to the city. If conditions permit, the country dwellers move into town; first line urban residents immigrate overseas; second line urban residents move to first line cities; third line urban residents move to second line cities; fourth line urban residents move to third line cities... In a modern civilization based around a city personality culture, what kind of personality culture does our urban society have?
The civilization of urban movement is progressing at an unprecedented pace. We are continually moving, continually demolishing our old homes, of our own will or by force, full of hope, we repeatedly move home. Yet at this time, we haven't stopped to reflect and to consider just what is our “China Dream”? Time and time again we stand within the illusory and superbly garbed range set for us by the government and property developers, but have not heard the voice of the intelligentsia! Our cities, our homes, the architecture that we call cultural hardware without listening to the voice of culture, its existence is being legitimized.
But what kind of culture and cultural hardware do we need and how do we carry forward civilization and unlock history? Is it that we only respect the culture under tiles and glass? What kind of culture do our residential zones need? We cannot just respect the present, the residential zone way of life decorated in a myriad of fanciful ways by the developers. We should respect those unimplemented and traditional ways of life.
The construction of our cities is the product of the will of the developers without infringing city planning. What developers seek is profit and speculation. During the primary phase of capital accumulation, a large-scale city has thousands of developers and each city has thousands of projects that, regardless of size, are all crowned with names like “Garden” and “Plaza”. Our cities have almost all taken on these place names, but do we really live in this type of garden city? Looking at the real estate projects lining the roads, they are all like silos (a building surrounded by a wall), each clad in highly reflective tiles and highly reflective glass. The architecture of the entire city and its people radiate an uncomfortable and extremely exaggerated brightness. We excitedly and carefully select and move into, at huge expense, a home that we are destined to not love in five years time. Even though the advertisements for our homes all declare: Continental Flavor, Clean Grassland, Urban Park, Waterside Pavilions, Modern Living, Refined Community, Ideal Home.
As we haven't sought out a rational historical support nor involved cultural circles, all of China is being besieged by a sort of architecture. It has no character to speak of and no regional cultural tradition. Perhaps this is the power of commerce against culture. This is different from political power, this is a situation formed by a culture being suppressed and cultural circles in a state of numb apathy.
I always pay attention to what is happening and changing the standards of China's socio-cultural life. These standards are synonymous with rights. I, as an artist, can only use my art to express my viewpoints and maintain the independence that only I can be aware of. My exhibits aim to create a dialogue with the public. I am also eager to join authors using words or poets using poetry or photographers using film... the discussion of our cultural hardware using different kinds of cultural elements.
I believe that that whatever cultural hardware we have will produce the same kind of cultural software.
Yang Mian
Winter 2001
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