Beijing Celebrates 

by Carol Yinghua Lu

On the morning after the 60th anniversary celebration of the founding of the People’s Republic of China of October 1, I overheard a conversation among three volunteers on the street, who belonged to the community of 800,000 uniformed citizens mobilized prior and during the National Holiday to safeguard the city at every street corner. One of them had witnessed the fireworks on the official gala performance of the previous night on Tian’anmen Square and was describing in detail and excitement to the other two the changing of colors and patterns of the fireworks. I witnessed briefly the animated exchanges and was deeply moved by such a simple human gesture of appreciating and sharing the splendor of fireworks out of a situation where human i

OVERSEAS, close by
《OVERSEAS：里九外七》



我们在一起时会有什么发生？会有什么渠道相互交错？亲密关系是怎样建立起来的？是什么限制了彼此的共处？普通和特殊之间存在着什么？欢迎金秋十月来互助巷 八号与我们一起共享晚餐，分享熟悉而且新颖的体验……

What happens when we spend time together? What paths are crossed, how is intimacy created, what are the limits of togetherness and what spaces lie in between the ordinary and the extraordinary? This October, join us for dinner at the courtyard at Huzhu Xiang 8 and share this experience with us, both as a familiarity and as something completely new.

在中央美院就读雕塑系研究生的期间，卢征远曾经接受过一项不寻常的训练。担任他导师的、活跃在北京的艺术家隋建国要求他在100天的时间里每天创作一件作品。每天创作的作品没有形态上的规定，它不一定是雕塑作品，也没有其他具体的限制。唯一的设定就是每天一件，持续100天的时间。这项看似简单的任务对于卢征远作为一位独立艺术家的创作和思考是有益的，而且是影响深远的。对于艺术，人们往往存在着一些不切实际的幻想和误解，而艺术是一项需要韧性和长时间的艰苦的脑力和心智的苦力劳动这一事实似乎令人难以接受。艺术是一项理性的、有计划性的、艺术家自发强制给自己、往往得不到即时的甚至是长远回报的、入不敷出的工作。只有艺术家自己才能说得清楚为什么要从事这样一项吃力不讨好、失望多于喜悦、无法

 

An email conversation with Kristiina Koskentola about her works and her experience of working in China

 

LU: Please tell me a bit about yourself.

KOSKENTOLA: I am a Finnish artist based in Amsterdam. I was also trained in the Netherlands and I have been living here for the past 15 years. Am I Dutch or Finnish? I would say I am Finnish but Amsterdam is home. I work with a range of media: installation,

 

LU: Has working in China changed your way of making art? The reason I ask this is that I have experienced the dramatic or even fundamental change that has occurred to a young Chinese artist who spent two years in Holland through a residency program. It completely changed his way of thinking about and working with art. He developed a much more inward way of thinking about issues in relation to art rather than focusing purely on socially inspired, narrative aspects of artworks rooted in socialist-realist education at art academies in China. I wonder whether there is a reverse effect or something on a more metaphorical level that was transferred to your actual way of making art?

KOSKENTOLA: What happened is that I became more “outward”. I think

刊登于friezeIssue 124, 2009年6－8月


Ai Weiwei

Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, China

 

It seems somewhat beside the point whether all of Ai Weiwei’s public activities can be considered part of his art-making or not, since it’s almost impossible to draw a line between his role as a visual artist and that

1998年11月21日，由冷林策划的“是我！——90年代艺术发展的一个侧面”展计划在北京劳动人民文化宫开幕。但11月20日晚被有关部门以“展览申报手续不全”为由所封杀。虽然展览未能开幕，但是该展和《是我——90年代中国艺术新趋向》这篇文章对中国当代艺术在进入90年代以后的创作和思考状态作出了及时、全面而准确地思考和梳理，是90年代中国当代艺术的一个重要节点。在这篇文章中，冷林针对中国

上海研讨会系列 Discovering Contemporary
2009年9月10日-13日

“当代艺术也许被视为不纯粹的或者非纯净的，但不过是以其作为一种艺术理想的毒性有悖于萦绕于心、挥之不去的现代主义回忆而已”。
——亚瑟•丹托（Arthut C. Danto），《艺术终结之后》（1995年）

去年夏天，当我设法在e-flux上为当代艺术开发一套维基百科时，我遇到一个小小的技术问题，当时到了开发一个简单的菜单结构以便读者能够浏览这一文献库的时候了。我们首先想到按运动来组织，但是过去二十年里并没有什么重大运动，而且艺术家们也没有兴趣按照任何运动来组织。依照媒介吗？但是当代艺术家们同 时在用种种不同的方式来创作。根据地域？这种方法可能更适用于中央情报局。最后我们发现，没有一种客观的构架或标准来组织过去二十年来的艺术活动，或者有 必要为之创造一种构架——使之变得更加清晰明了——这最终被证明也同样无法彻底解决，于是这个问题暂时令这个计划完全搁浅了。

在为理解过去三十年来涌现出来的艺术而开发出某种确定的方针时，总会有些犹豫，因为某种程度上它依然处在不断涌现的阶段。同时，这个工作让位给了博物馆收

Recently, I received a call from a young artist based in Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province. He talked excitedly about a space he is launching soon with another two artist friends from the same region. At a time when more art spaces are closing business than ever, such a move seems to be really going against the tide. Further discussion reveals their simple artistic vision, which is to establish a platform where they can independently put their thinking to practice, without being bounded by any specific obligation other than their own creative urge or having to be measured by any pragmatic outcome. Aptly named the Observers Association, such an initiative sets itself apart from the considerable number of lofty galleries and art spaces mushrooming all over China in the past five years. Their rent is low. Their budget is minimal and purely contributed by each of the three founders.

The state of Chinese contemporary art is in danger. This is not a wistful speculation but an inescapable fact. The downfall seemed to have taken place overnight but actually it has come a long way. The recent collapse of the financial market has contributed to a feeling of its abrupt fall yet there have been many problems with the inner logic of its development, where the evolutionary theory failed to apply. The market boom in recent years prior to this unexpected drop seemed to be an upward spiral, yet little was taken to secure that artistic practice and discussions were enjoying the same attention, resources and appreciation. As many artists and dealers thrived in a feeling of a seemingly endless good time, some critics of the art system that was overdriven by money have long foreseen the onset of a harsh winter. Now that the party is over, can we bear to look at the darkness of the night with