Cai Guo-Qiang's Retrospective at the Guggenheim

Cai Guo-Qiang's recent retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum is naturally generating lots of press.

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In response, I post a bit from my Master's thesis Borrowing the Enemy's Arrows: Strategies of Contemporary Chinese Conceptual Artists where I discuss one of Cai's works:
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Globally aware, many Mainland Chinese contemporary artists capitalize on the Oriental stereotype that is projected onto them and reflect it back to the Western art world....

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Cai Guo-Qiang’s installation Borrowing Your Enemy’s Arrows (1998) perfectly illustrates this intelligent strategy. For the Inside Out: New Chinese Art exhibition at P.S. 1 in New York City in 1998, he installed a life-sized boat made of rice straw from his hometown, Quanzhou, an ancient seaport. Suspended from the air, the boat was pierced with a multitude of arrows and a People’s Republic of China flag, attached to the stern, waved frantically in the breeze produced by an electric fan.

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The work is based on a third century Chinese tale. A famous general, in knowing that he did not have enough arrows to win an imminent battle, sent out three hundred boats of straw filled with straw figures. To the enemy, the boats and figures seen through the mist seemed real enough and they attacked, shooting hundreds of arrows that pierced through the straw boats. The general recovered the arrows that were embedded in the boats to defeat his foe (Gao, Inside Out 34).

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Here, Cai uses a traditional Chinese narrative to create multiple layers of meaning: historical, cultural, theoretical and autobiographical. The boat symbolizes the female and the piercing arrows the male gaze. Also, in exoticism, the “other” is seen as female while the “self” is male. This piece is effective because it is normally exhibited in a Western exhibition space where figuratively, Cai, like the general, strategically takes the art world’s arrows to his great advantage. The boat of arrows then becomes a metaphor for Cai’s art practice, as he reflects and deflects the image of Asian artist that is projected upon him by the Western art world.

Július Koller at Musée Rochechouart

An exhibition that opens at the Rochechouart Museum of Contemporary Art on March 1st will feature the work of Slovak artist Július Koller who died last year.

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Koller saw the utopian possibilities inherent in art. In the '70s, he founded the UFO Gallery Ganek on the Ganek Peak of the Upper Tatras Mountains in Slovakia. Koller's gallery was inaccessible to reach, so the gallery became a fictive reality and a shared dream amongst artists. This intrigues me as the Tatras Mountains are where my ancestors come from, so this fabled area is my Avalon.

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Musée départemental d’art contemporain de Rochechouart, http://www.musee-rochechouart.com/

Lars Laumann, 5th Berlin Biennial

Lars Laumann, Still, Berlinmuren, 2008, Video, 32 min, English, loop, color, sound Courtesy: The artist, 5th berlin biennial for contemporary art

The 5th Berlin Biennial curated by Adam Szymczyk and Elena Filipovic opens April 5.

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One of the works to be included is a new film by Lars Laumann titled Berlinmuren and which tells the actual story of Eija-Riita Berliner-Mauer, a Swedish woman who married the Berlin Wall in 1979 and also changed her name.

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A brief internet search only brings up a smattering of articles that discusses this woman's erotic love for this concrete wall. They don't explain if she's ever consummated the wedding (or how). Or if this is a post-modern ironic gesture or a real heart-felt sentiment. It looks like she might have a thing for plastic bags too!

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If you know more about this, please comment.

NY Philharmonic in North Korea

The news services are reporting this latest cultural development.


The NY Philharmonic arrived in North Korea today for a performance scheduled tomorrow.




What do you think? Is this an effective form of cultural diplomacy?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23330636/

Add Oil

You may be wondering why the title is "add oil" along with a photo of pumping gas. In Chinese, when you are cheering someone to win the race, you'll shout "jia-you, jia-you" which literally means 'add oil.'

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The Taipei Fine Arts Museum which hosts the Taipei Biennial finally did something that I've been bitching about in print for years. See http://www.culture.tw/ and the Opinion section for my previous comments.

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They finally unstuck their head out of the sand! Recently, the TFAM invited the organizers of the Shanghai Biennial and Guangzhou Triennial to work on a cooperation between all the big biennials taking place in Asia in September 2008. So after all these years, I say "Jia you." Way to go!

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This is also a form of soft politics in which a museum in Taiwan is closely collaborating with two museums in China. This really warms my heart, confirming my belief that art can be a way to peace.

http://www.tfam.museum/ , http://www.taipeibiennial.org.tw/

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Additionally Taiwan's Council for Cultural Affairs sponsored website http://www.culture.tw/ has recently been denied future funding as the pro-mainland KMT-dominated legislature, which decides on Taiwan's budget, deems that the promotion of "Taiwanese" culture is against their best interests. Although, the KMT is not exactly promoting/funding Chinese art here either.

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And remember, Taiwan's history as a Japanese colony that was never a communist state created a vastly different cultural climate from the mainland. Politics aside, personally I think this culture which is nostalgic and wistful in nature is quite fascinating and should be funded and promoted.

Viva Cuba!

Yesterday, Fidel Castro announced his resignation as Cuba's leader. Now whether you see him as evil incarnate or as revolutionary savior, it's a marvel that he stayed alive in power for 49 years.

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Now, this blog focuses mainly on arts. Cuba has a lot to offer the world with its flourishing culture of fabulous music (Celia Cruz) and art, plus the acclaimed Havana Biennial started in 1984.

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Several provocative artists are showing in international exhibitions. Here's a photo of Carlos Garaicoa's candle installation at Sonsbeek 9, 2001 in which a city (if memory serves correctly, of Rotterdam) slowly burns to the ground. He merges photography, installation and architecture to create works that are relevant to our times.

Kosovo's art scene

Declaring national independence can detrimentally affect your local art scene.

According to Reuters http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L07167289.htm

an exhibition in Kosovo needed to be shut down due to opening night attacks. Glad to see that art still has the power to inflame passions.

Kosovo's declaration of independence was warmly embraced by Taiwan. Local papers are reporting (and personifying) that an angry China is scolding Taiwan and saying Taiwan is ineligible to recognize a sovereign nation.