Lee Ambrozy
Gu Wenda, Zhou Yi, “West Heavens”
Gu Wenda, Mythos Of Lost Dynasties - Modern Meaning of Totem and Taboo, 1984–86, ink on rice paper, silk boarder scrolls, 9 x 23’.
Ink traditions may lay fallow in the contemporary art world, but consecutive openings of two retrospectives by Gu Wenda (at Yan Huang Art Museum in Beijing, of early works in a literati style, and at He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, of experimental ink on paper), plus a solo exhibition at Shenzhen’s OCT Contemporary Art Terminal of work informed by literati traditions (lots of human hair––either braided or ground into fine powder resembling ink), flirted with an ink revival. The exhibitions were followed by a symposium on experimental ink painting, held at the University of Chicago’s new center in Beijing and organized by Wu Hung, where Gu appeared one step ahead of scholars and critics alike. Few people versed in the literati tradition concern themselves with the “contemporary” art world, a schism that allows works like Gu’s Pseudo: Modern Meaning of Totem and Taboo, 1984–86, to appear timeless, even new, against a contemporary art landscape.
Zhou Yi’s first solo exhibition in his hometown of Beijing, mounted at C5 Art after Zhou had returned from more than a decade in the US and a thorough indoctrination in American art schooling, represents a new kind of Chinese artist: the kind no longer working overseas in intellectual exile, but returning home to thrive. Zhou is a “foreign” local. His aesthetic is governed by rules rather than a visual value system, and his colorful works are informed by his knowledge of color theory and rooted in play—hence an installation/creation scene including a mural and filled with crumpled painted paper, stackable erasers, and strange shapes made from dried acrylic paint. Zhou’s form of abstraction is categorically ambiguous but fascinating to behold.
Advancing the current China-India conversation, “West Heavens” (at various venues in Shanghai) introduced Indian artists to the Chinese art landscape, bursting through the reigning self-reflexive mentality that tends to see China as the axis of the non-Western art world. “West Heavens” included Nilima Sheikh and Raqs Media Collective as well as Chinese artists such as Qiu Zhijie, and was accompanied by a lecture and publication series. As the first major show to introduce arts from greater Asia, it exceeded an outdated China/West dichotomy and explored common issues. Significantly, half of the works occupied a former dormitory for British monks in an old Shanghai concession neighborhood near the Bund, forming a new postimperialist conversation on the ruins of a former ideological fortress.
Lee Ambrozy is editor of artforum.com.cn. Her first major work of translation, Ai Weiwei’s Blog, is forthcoming from MIT Press.
