Exhibition Review of “THEN”- White Rabbit Gallery

“THEN” showcased from 11th September 2019 until 2nd February 2020.

Left: Zhu Yiqing, Xue Yongjun, Made in China - Chinese Flag 2, 2009, oil on canvas

Right: Chen YanYin, 1949 - The Young Pioneers of Communist China, 2010, bronze

Image Courtesy: White Rabbit Gallery

“I do not care who it is by, what it is about, if it does not attract me visually then it has failed, because it’s visual arts” – Judith Neilson

Judith Neilson, founder of White Rabbit Gallery, showcased works from the first ten years (2000-2010) of her private collection, at her $100 million-dollar gallery in Chippendale, Sydney. ‘THEN’ presents itself as a retrospective exhibition on the history of Chinese contemporary art during the symbolic time of a new trajectory in ‘ideologic-centricism’[1] of Post-Mao China[2]. It was the birth of an ideological era that rejected ‘official’ ideologies of Communist dogma, manifested through ‘unofficial’ dissident genres like Cynical Realism and Political Pop. With more than 40 artists showcased, THEN only boasts a fraction of Neilson’s extensive private collection of contemporary Chinese art. Curator David Williams sought to provide an opportunity for visitors to see the works in a new light more than 10 years later. With that in mind, I tasked myself to examine the ethnocentric contextualisation of Neilson’s collection of Chinese contemporary art on the institutional walls of White Rabbit Gallery. Upon entering the institution, it made me conscious of my identity, my appearance and the way I carried myself around the space.

Chen WenLing, Red Memory— Smile, 2007, bronze

Image Courtesy: Kimberley Low from Broadsheet Sydney 

‘THEN’ features over 60 artworks spread across four floors in Neilson’s renovated knitting factory in inner-city Sydney. Upon walking into the gallery, we are confronted with Chen WenLing’s fire-engine red sculptures ‘Red Memory—Smile’ (2007) and ‘Valiant Struggle 11’ (2007) dominating the ground floor. Red Memory Smile is a five-metre tall naked boy with a hunched posture and distorted smile emitting a looming presence across the ground floor, dictating the poignant tone of the show. The Cynical Realist sculptures allude to the historical significance of the Cultural Revolution, and much like the boy, the disillusionment of political idealism continues to prevail over the experiences of the Chinese society today. Evidently the overarching themes that permeates throughout the walls of this institution are Chinese identity and political dissidence. The Cold War ideological antagonism of the Free World and Totalitarian State is heavily imbedded and internalised within the Western consciousness, establishing the political context of the gallery space as a site that actively negotiates with formalised EuroAmerican ideologies. The Western method of inquiry is driven by teleological and universalist ideals that does not leave room for multiple discourses of non-Western modernism and knowledge systems.[2.2]

Qi ZhiLong, China Girl, 2001, oil on canvas

Image Courtesy White Rabbit Gallery

Zhang HaiEr, Portrait Series , 2005, chromogenic photo prints

The White Rabbit Gallery wields potential power to reinforce representations of Chinese contemporary art within Australia, as viewers may enter in search for definitive ethnographic representations of Chinese art and identity. THEN informs the viewers of the complexities of the Chinese identity through various uses of juxtaposition. Fittingly, on your left as you approach the first floor is Qi ZhiLong’s Cynical Realist portrait ‘China Girl’ (2001), a pig-tailed girl in a ‘Mao-suit’[3]. THEN presents us with the paradoxical nature of Chinese identity, with the immanent juxtaposition of an idealised harmonious and egalitarian society, with a disenfranchised Communist state. Placed alongside China Girl is Zhang HaiEr’s chromogenic photographic portraits (1995-2006), documenting the narratives of Queer women hidden and ostracised into the ‘urban underworld’. David Williams contrasts Zhang HaiEr’s subjects with Qi ZhiLong’s China Girl, connoting the deep paradoxes and underlying conflicts of the Chinese identity and femininities. The dichotomous contextualisation indicates to the political and social duality of China, perhaps positioning the narratives of Chinese women in opposition to the Western neo-liberal feminism and Western measures of ‘democracy’.

Following the Economic Reform in 1978, Chinese artists began to be recognised in the international media and market in the late 1980’s through dissident movements such as Political Pop and Cynical Realism which sought to undermine the ‘official’ art and political discourse of China. Chinese curator and critic Hou HanRu argues cynicism of China’s social reality not only became a ‘fundamental’ concern of Chinese contemporary art, but also became the easiest ideology for Western audiences to understand. It allowed the West to discover a symbolic and ethnographic representation of ‘Chinese people’ that reinforced the Western capitalist and democratic ideologies. The ‘international’ market commodified the aesthetic and ideological cynicism, positioning Chinese artists in opposition to Western politics and art movements. Art institutions began favouring artworks that embodied the aesthetic and ideological criteria of ‘chinese-ness’ over more de-ideologicalised[4] and conceptual work. Chinese contemporary art was exhibited for its political and social cynicism, drawing distinctions between the Western monopoly of freedom and progress. This shaped Cynical Realism and Political Pop as a tool of ideological propaganda and commodity for the spectacle society[5]. Chinese aesthetics and political dissidence have become a pre-condition to the visual language of Chinese contemporary art, artists are expected to invoke social and political commentary in order to merit recognition.

Foreground: Jiao Xingtao, Green Diary, 2007, fibreglass

Background: Shen Liang, This is a book, 2007, oil on canvas

Image Courtesy White Rabbit Gallery

The negotiation of cultural translation and contextualisation for artists and audiences from different socio-cultural contexts can change the way differences are bridged, generating a potential to challenge and destabilise dominant values. Jiao XingTao’s Political Pop ‘Green Diary’ (2007), a large fibreglass sculpture of a crumpled-up chewing gum wrapper, and ‘Happily Forgotten’ (2007), a fibreglass sculpture of a crumpled toothpaste box in the pink room, sets a distinct critique on the materialism of post-Mao China. Jiao XingTao’s approach to materialism and aesthetics highlights the growing consumer market in China, the striking pink floor brings attention to the intensity and irresistibility of consumerist packaging and aesthetics.  Additionally, the sculptures set a sense of familiarity to the visual language of Pop Art. Behind the fibreglass sculptures hangs Shen Liang’s Political Pop ‘This is a book’ (2007), collection of thick impasto oil paintings of socialist comic books, featuring heavily aestheticised revolutionary heroes and heroines. Upon further inspection, Shen Liang parodies the socialist heroism and subverts the official ideology through humorous homonymic references and cultural satire, undermining the official art discourse of Socialist Realism. The didactic descriptions hardly provide enough contextualisation for the average audience of Shen Liang’s satirical intentions, degenerating the works into aestheticised commodities as a volatile form of difference to view and spectate. This is a book is positioned as an aestheticised visual language of Chinese Socialist propaganda that capitulates to the capitalist worldview as a distinction between the Free World and Communist State. The role of the curator is to ‘take care of’ and facilitate the bridge between the artist and audience, particularly in the case for THEN, the translation of Chinese art in the Western context should be reconsidered to harness a possibility to challenge how meanings are reinforced by dominant values.

Zhang DaLi, Chinese Offspring, 2005, fibre-reinforced plastic, automotive paint, acrylic paint

Image Courtesy White Rabbit Gallery 

Judith Neilson's private collection includes a multi-disciplinary archive of contemporary Chinese art, from video installations and sculptures to ready-mades. Hanging in the black box on the second floor is Zhang DaLi’s visceral ‘Chinese Offspring’ (2005), confronting us with the nauseating imagery of plastic casts of naked rural migrant workers hung like cured ham. The listless bodies in the black box are isolated from the rest of the show, providing a cynical commentary on the social reality of migrant workers in China. Each body is stripped of its individuality and is ‘left hung out to dry’ in the growing urbanisation of China. The political context of the show positions Zhang DaLi’s gruesome imagery of the Chinese working class as a distinction between the social reality of the East and West. The isolated bodies of Chinese migrants become a ‘spectacle of otherness’ in the eyes of the white audience, signifying the racial power structures entangled between the works and the audience, that is imminent throughout the show. I felt self-conscious and surveilled as I travelled through the work surrounded by predominantly white Australian visitors spectating the racialised and politicised bodies around us, wondering if they were also looking at me.

Zhao XiaoHu, Even in Fear, 2008, weather balloon, pump

Many artists have sought “to ‘decentralise’ ideologic-centricism” in their works through performative and temporal installations that reflect on the temporality and experiential nature of art. Video artist, Zhang PeiLi, has sought to de-ideologicalise their work through the temporalisation of situations to reflect on the static nature of meaning and reality[6]. By deconstructing the ideology, they reject the expectations to be confined by politics, totalising narratives and the othering lens of the Western market and media. Artists[7] denied any agency to produce meaning, and criticised the practice of over-interpreting and the over-emphasis of meaning in their works, parallel to those ideas of Roland Barthes[8]. Zhou XiaoHu’s ominous installation ‘Even in Fear’ (2008), unfolds the temporality of art and human desire through moments of anticipation and containment of energy. Even in fear is a featured temporary installation of a room sized weather balloon slowly inflating, and then deflating once it reaches to the limits of the pink room. This endless cycle of inflation and deflation is symbolic of the anxieties and entrapment of reality. This work stood like an overwhelming reminder of the containment of energy and expression suppressed by the very walls of this institution, waiting to implode.

XU ZHEN®, Calm, 2009, waterbed, carpet, bricks 

Image Courtesy: White Rabbit Gallery

One of the highlights of THEN was the dedicated space to XU ZHEN® tucked away on the last floor of the show. Xu Zhen®’s alluring installation ‘Calm’ (2009), consumes us with an inconspicuous mass of building ruins breathing on the floor. Calm is a play on the audience’s superficial tendencies to reduce Chinese and ethnic art into exotic and politicised clichés. By positioning the work in dialogue with Middle Eastern culture and identity, Xu Zhen® subverts the cultural perception and expectations of Chinese artists. Xu Zhen® refutes the pressure and responsibility as a Chinese artist to invoke political and social cynicism of China by positioning his practice in a global context, obfuscating his identity as a Chinese artist. For me, Calm was the best finale to Neilson’s 2000-2010 archive, as many artists began to blur the lines between their Chinese identity and politics in their art and began to deconstruct the dichotomy between global and local. As I made my way out of the gallery, I began to recognise the power that Neilson wields within her institution to collect, exhibit and shape the perception of the ‘lived Chinese experience’ in a Western hegemonic context. In light of these reflections, we might wonder how Neilson and Williams could have reconsidered the ethnocentric exoticism throughout. Perhaps, a new way of viewing and exhibiting Chinese contemporary art should be re-invented to confront the power embedded in Western gallery spaces, that harnesses the ability to perpetuate political and cultural clichés.

I could not help but wonder if I would ever witness a show curated by a person of colour, in a gallery dedicated to exclusively Contemporary Chinese Art. Curators of colour can bridge potential differences in cultural translation and identity, through our very own lived experience as part of the diasporas in Australia.[9] We have the capacity to foster rich relationships with our peers and lend our ears for each other. We know how to listen. And listening isn’t just limited to hearing, it is also about providing the capacity for voices to be articulated. How is it possible for me to feel completely displaced and disembodied in a space that is dedicated to Contemporary Chinese Art, Chinese people, identity and culture? This proses the bigger question, how do white institutions and white billionaires still continue to take ownership over our bodies, culture and art? What does this say about the future of art and the creative practices of non-western artists? For now, I look forward to a day where we are working behind the scenes making decisions, occupying space, and not just at the frontlines of white cultural institutions and organisations as tokens of diversity or exotic cultural manufacturers. We need to be provided agency our own representations and narratives within the walls of the White Cube. We are not here as spectacles of otherness. Our art and lived experience aren’t here to be monopolised as cultural tokens and spectacles for you.

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[1] Coined by Hou HanRu, as the focus of ideology in Cynical Realism and Political Pop, that resisted against the ‘official’ ideology and art’ in Communist China.

[2] Hou, HanRu, ‘Towards an 'un-unofficial Art': De-ideologicalisation of China's Contemporary Art in the 1990s. Third Text 10, no. 34 (1996): p.40

[2.1] Hung, Wu , 2008. "A Case of Being “Contemporary”: Conditions, Spheres, and Narratives of Contemporary Chinese Art", Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity, Okwui Enwezor, Nancy Condee, Terry Smith

[2.2] Graham, Mary, '“Place and Spirt, Spirit and Place”. EarthSong, Volume 2, Issue 7, 2014. p.5-7

[3] Standardised socialist suit worn throughout the Communist Revolution.

[4] Coined by Hou HanRu, as a method to deconstruct ideologic-centricism, and the dematerialisation of art to escape the cliched readings and appropriations imposed by dominant powers. Hou HanRu argues "art should neither be a forum of dialogical, antagonist debates nor a battlefield or propaganda or counter-propaganda; but, rather, it should be an irreplaceable, specific and autonomous narrative of and testimony to reality”

[5] Hou, p.40

[6] Hopfener, Birgit., and ProQuest. Negotiating Difference: Contemporary Chinese Art in the Global Context. Weimar: VDG, Verlag Und Datenbank Für Geisteswissenschaften, 2012, pp.71-72

[7] Artists such as New Mark Group (Wang LuYan, Chen ShaoPing, Gu DeXin), Lin TianMao, Ren Jian, Qiu ZhiJie, and Ding Yi.

[8] It is most likely that Chinese artists were unaware of Roland Barthes work and post-structuralism, and had formed their own ideas independently. Gao MingLu argues that “Chinese artists were not born out of philosophic logic, but instead were closely related to the specific reality of contemporary Chinese art”. Barthes works had not circulated in China at the time. Roland Barthes argued cultural context and codes are significant to the production of meaning, therefore authors do not have the capacity to create meaning but only act as ‘scriptors’.

[9] For more about the under-representation of Curators of Colour in Australia : Orly, Nanette, The Slow Burn, Un Magazine, Issue 14. 1, 2020. http://unprojects.org.au/magazine/issues/issue-14-1/nanette-orly/

[1] McKenzie, Helen, ‘Judith Neilson: A Travelling Eye’. Art Collector Magazine, issue 68, April-June 2014