Contemporary Asia Thru Postcolonialism: Reinventing China Through Body Art

REINVENTING CHINA THROUGH BODY ART
Contemporary Asia Thru Postcolonialism
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Abstract
China has always been – remains to be – misunderstood by outsiders and a new emerging generation no longer connected to a slipping past. Culturally, China is stereotyped as exotic, if not incomprehensible, by and in Western art and exhibitions. In more recent decades, contemporary Chinese art has been undergoing radical changes in an attempt to reclaim, or perhaps reimagine, China. In a postcolonial, post-Cultural Revolution period, however, Chinese art is hard pressed between official claims on country’s historical art, actual or imagined, to project a New China, and genuine experimentations spearheaded by leading avant-garde artists. Zhang Huan epitomizes a new wave of Chinese artists who, in unique subversion of conventional cultural and artistic conventions, redefine Chinese art (and cultural history) for international audiences eager to “decipher” a puzzling China, now in purely native voices. Using body as a strong mode and medium of expression, Huan recaptures a China, in diaspora and locally, long dismissed, intentionally or not, in a postcolonial understanding of China’s art and, by extension, culture. Specifically, Huan, one leading Chinese avant-garde artist, is discussed in a context of a postcolonial lens according to which native, not Eurocentric, approaches to modernism are adopted and increasingly promoted. This paper offers a broad overview of underlying dynamics in contemporary Chinese scene, proceeds to present an understanding of postcolonial art in Chinese context, provides an in-depth analysis of origins, influences and meanings in Huan, particularly in using body as and for art, and, finally, wraps up by a general conclusion.
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Outline
Title: Zhang Huan: Reinventing China Through Body Art
Thesis: This paper explores use of body art in Zhang Huan, a leading contemporary Chinese performance artist and a post-Tiananmen Square avant-garde experimentalist rising to prominence from early 90s as part of Beijing East Village art scene, to reinvent a new China informed by postcolonial, non-Eurocentric sensibilities. I. Introduction.
Offers a broad overview of underlying dynamics in contemporary Chinese scene.
II. Zhang Huan: Post Colonialism in Context
Present an understanding of postcolonial art in Chinese context.
III. Zhang Huan: The Body Is & For Art
Provides an in-depth analysis of origins, influences and meanings in Huan, particularly in using body as and for art.
IV. Conclusion
Restates main argument.
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The growing profile of China as a global international power has repositioned Chinese art of the 80s and 90s in uniquely avant-garde, contemporary perspectives. More specifically, contemporary Chinese artists, particularly ones exposed to Western artistic experiments, can be said to be leading a new cultural revolution. Informed by local origins and inspired by increasingly diverse non-Chinese artistic influences, a growing number of Chinese artists have been reshaping Chinese art scene (and influence) for years. For current purposes, and informed by a postcolonial lens, one artist is selected to highlight emerging patterns in contemporary Chinese art in a post (Old) Cultural Revolution period: Zhang Huan.
Having modest, rural origins in Central China, 1 Huan has come to represent a new breed of Chinese artists now reshaping China’s artistic face to a world, in and out of art scene, eager to understand and appreciate Chinese art via a native eye not mediated by a European approach to Chinese art, usually exotic. The performance art Huan has continued to produce independently and collaboratively since his official debut, according to many accounts, in 1993 by posing naked for Angel exhibition, an exhibition received in mixed response to China’s political (i.e. recent June Fourth massacre at Tiananmen Square of 1989) and social (one-child policy) oppression 2 – is representative of a changing Chinese art scene. Set up at National Art Gallery in Beijing, Angel, a group show, featured Huan naked, his body covered by a jar filled with red food coloring and disembodied baby doll parts largely interpreted, at least by original audience, as a counter argument to recent Tiananmen Square events and China’s arbitrary one-
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1 “Zhang Huan,” The Art Story, n.d., /artist/zhang-huan/.
2 Ibid.
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child policy. 3 To put matters into perspective, a closer look of Huan’s work and influences in context is required. This paper explores use of body art in Zhang Huan, a leading contemporary Chinese performance artist and a post-Tiananmen Square avant-garde experimentalist rising to prominence from early 90s as part of Beijing East Village art scene, to reinvent a new China informed by postcolonial, non-Eurocentric sensibilities.
Zhang Huan: Post Colonialism in Context
In essence, art is performative. Indeed, art uniquely spearheads cultural and social movements of change. In so doing, art is not only a mere expression but, more important, a critical shaper and influencer of cultural and social changes. From a postcolonial conceptual perspective, looking at some key artworks have highlighted long-standing oppressed systems, identities, ethnicities, and cultural heritages. In China, art, particularly in post Cultural Revolution period and on, continues to inform increasingly emerging modes of expression in order to, among many issues, bring forth a native Chinese artistic face. Thus, if postcolonial art could be referred to as an “art produced in response to the aftermath of colonial rule, frequently addressing issues of national and cultural identity, race and ethnicity,” 4 contemporary Chinese artists, particularly Huan, do not only recast Chinese art into native lights – as all postcolonial artists do, particularly in countries of long colonial history in Africa and Asia – but, more important, combine native and modern (mostly Western) modes of artistic expression in ways
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1 “Zhang Huan Artworks,” The Art Story, n.d., /artist/zhang-huan/artworks/.
2 “Postcolonial Art,” Tate, n.d, /art/art-terms/p/postcolonial-art.
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inexperienced by outsider (Western) sensibilities.
This is, perhaps, best shown by addressing Huan’s place in art scene. Coming of age in a post-Cultural Revolution China, Huan, and his contemporary avant-garde artists, so called “New Wave,” has less to do with a past now bypassed by China’s new establishment and more to do with new, emerging realities. 5 Specifically,
This [i.e. China’s ambition to modernize] extremely compacted process of modernization resulted in rapid commodification of virtually everything, including art. An ultra-fast-paced lifestyle was also promoted for Chinese people. In contrast, Zhang always called for a slower pace for contemporary life. At least until recently, Zhang and other avant-garde artists were unconcerned with commercial trends and generally considered artistic values much over commercial values. 6
By early 1980s, also when performative art (Xingwei Yishu in Chinese) was more widely introduced (from West) 7, China was speeding into a more intensified version of a material Western society now in a matter of a few decades. The growing urban stress major rapidly industrializing cities, coupled by mass immigration from rural areas, has only given rise to a China not only unrecognizable to older, pre-Cultural Revolution generation yet, more importantly, to Huan. In response, performative art, at odds with a Confucian convention
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1 Yishun Li, “Prospering in Resistance: The Performance Art of Zhang Huan from the 1990s to 2000s,” Masters thesis, University of Southern California, 2019.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
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emphasizing reserve and conformity 8, came to fit in exactly what Hunan – and, for that matter, a long string of contemporary New Wave artists – perceived as a means, mediated by art (soon to be body art) of resistance. In a sense, Huan could, in a postcolonial interpretation, be said to have been – still is – seeking a Chinese identity not bound by suppressive, collectivistic norms of a distant past nor effaced by sweeping Western influences.
The question of Chinese identity is, indeed, particularly fundamental in understanding Huan’s use of body as a vehicle for resistance and, more importantly, as a performative materialization of self and collective identities (see Figure 1 in Appendix). The “Chineseness” of artistic and cultural experience has, in fact, been a subject of extensive scholarly and artists debate. For instance, Davidson explores artistic authenticity by examining “Chinese contemporary art,” including bodily-oriented video works argued for as an update to Chineseness as a performative identity. 9 Interestingly, performance – and, by extension, performativity – becomes less about art per se. Instead, performance as in Huan’s body work – and as shown in My America (Hard to Acclimatize) in next section – becomes an act of self expression (long suppressed by a collectivistic culture) and, perhaps more importantly, an act of resistance against a culture gone in disarray.
The use of body, discussed shortly, by Huan to express personal and national struggles
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1 Yishun Li, “Prospering in Resistance: The Performance Art of Zhang Huan from the 1990s to 2000s.”
2 Jane Davidson, “Chineseness as a theoretical, historical, and political problem in global art and exhibition,” in Staging art and Chineseness: The politics of trans/nationalism and global expositions, 24-29, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2019, https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526139795.00007.
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over political, economic, cultural, and social issues captures, now in new emerging native expressions, sensibilities long exclusive to Western understanding – and exhibition – of Chinese art. 10 Put differently, in lieu of an exotization, i.e. a representation of Chinese art in Western exhibitions as something exotic, alien, if not completely comprehensible, Huan, a leading expression of post Cultural Revolution China, dismisses a Eurocentric approach to modernity and, in stead, introduces a “Chinese avant-garde” mode of artistic expression. 11 In so doing, a new mental image is constructed of China’s art and, by extension, culture. Debuted into art scene in early 1990s, Huan epitomizes a generation of contemporary Chinese artists who, using unconventional (to Chinese) sensibilities modes of artistic expression such as graphic corporeal images, reclaim Chinese art, not so much for a historically “local” audience, but, given country’s rise, to international audiences, expert and lay, for a more native appreciation and consumption.
Zhang Huan: The Body Is & For Art
The current state of art affairs increasingly emphasizes a steady rise of Chinese art in international art scene. Historically suppressed and maintained at a low key, Chinese art is now used as a means of cultural diplomacy and a form of soft power reflecting country’s emergence
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1 Franziska Koch,“China(’s) images and the tensions of postcolonial art discourse and
practices: Contemporary Chinese art and its Western reception in the medium of exhibition,” PhD proposal, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, n.d, Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies, ...