798

Day 8: Work continues in the morning. We have some time off after lunch and most of us head over to 798 (Dashanzi factory district) to see the newly opened Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA). Established by Belgians, Guy and Miriam Ullens, both art lovers and avid collectors of contemporary Chinese art, the center opened it's doors this November with the aim of promoting contemporary Chinese art both in China and internationally. The first exhibition, '85 new Wave - the Birth of Contemporary Chinese Art, is an overview of the work of Chinese artists from the 80's and early 90's. The chronology that accompanies the exhibition is fascinating and definitely worth taking a look at. I was happy to find it on the exhibition web site, as it was absent from the catalog (see site link above).

Starting with the death of Mao in 1976 and the end of the cultural revolution, when China was not only cut off from the rest of the world, but was also forced to disown and renounce its own culture, the late 70's and early 80's in China is marked by the arrival of some 50 years of western art history. Walking into the exhibition you feel time vertically, a pilling up of different periods and influences. For some artists the influence of the heavyweights of modern art is clearly visible, while a few groups or collectives plunged right into a conceptual and activist approach. Still others took to the more commercial approach of 80's pop art, yet despite these influences, it's not a copy paste culture you feel, but rather one of appropriation, self-reflection and for the most part, a subversion of the western trends. The result are works that dialog with traditional Chinese arts on the one hand and with the Western canon on the other.