Text / Chen Dong
Abstract: Taking Borges's bookstore's experience as an "independent space" as an example, this paper proposes the necessity of continuing to "do things themselves" in the current situation, and at the same time affirms the significance of social participation replacing individual will according to the development of the times. The "outdated concepts" of "grassroots" and "masses" mentioned in the article reflect from a practical perspective that the service objects cannot be ignored in the promotion of contemporary culture. This point is precisely due to the fact that the flow economy cannot really stimulate creativity, and the reflection on the phenomenon of involution of consumer groups for a long time in the past.
Keywords: Borges bookstore "do things themselves" target consumers consumption
The concepts of "locality", "southernity", "art ecology" and "Greater Bay Area", which are in vogue at the moment, are habitually avoided from the mainstream discourse, and I will replace them with outdated-sounding concepts such as "locality", "grassroots", "masses" and "soil". While this is related to the environment I am in at the moment, it is also the culmination of the experience accumulated over a long period of practice – if I agree to be classified as an "independent space". This practice may have been synchronized with the development of contemporary art, perhaps a little earlier, in short, it was not inspired by contemporary art, but at the same time it was closely related to contemporary art. That is, from the point of view of "independence", this practice is a kind of indigenous cultural supplement through the cultural exploitation of the West, and at the same time it is not completely independent (i.e., it does not originate primarily from the whims of individuals), at least it has only begun under the guidance of the mainstream media. Such mainstream media pioneered the cultural emancipation of the mind, what we then called "make-up classes", and all aspiring cultural youths were deeply affected, some of them became prominent artists in "our generation"—borrowing from Xiao Quan's photographic themes—and some became cultural promoters, exploring what we call "modernity" today through media, space, or writing. In a sense, it is only through this advanced or fashionable stance and attitude that we can say that we have intervened in the times. Even when we revisit traditional Chinese culture, this era has set us up with a topical context of "comparing Chinese and Western cultures", and in the end, all of this has been given universal and in-depth legitimacy by the concept of "globalization".
A corner of the Borges bookstore (Times).
The hanging book model points to the bookstore's spiritual source, Midnight Press, and the title itself alludes to the nature of the bookstore's promotion of contemporary culture: a silent battle is going on at all times.
Judging from the cultural identity and the results of its operation, which has been losing money, Borges Bookstore is indeed an "independent space". Although it is more closely related to the daily life of self-employment, as an operator, my artist persona does not make it just a business. It can also be said that from the very beginning I did not think of it as a business (even if its cultural high-end would have exempted me from the label of "businessman"), but only out of the childlike consideration of opening a window, because at that time such a window could be said to be almost non-existent, and even the concept of "space", which was both material and beyond material, did not exist (at least not in popularity). But then again, if Borges Bookstore had not been a formally registered cultural enterprise, but had simply done a lot of "alternative space" work in those years, such as exhibitions, lectures, publications, and international exchanges, it would have gained historical fame and status, but it would probably not have survived to this day. In other words, its "legal qualifications for industry and commerce" to a certain extent ensure that it must operate, rather than whether it can be operated or not. Of course, emphasizing that it "must work"—or "persistence"—is still related to my personal circumstances or personality. To put it mildly, it is a bit unfounded, thinking that retreat will inevitably lead to disillusionment of the people, which is undoubtedly exaggerating its own role and failing to face up to the changes of the times. In the writing of history, the negative effects of self-righteousness such as Borges bookstore are completely ignored, and some of its values are distilled again and again, thus forming the topic we are happy to discuss today: the multiple possibilities of independent art spaces.
This topic is in the future tense, so I am not going to review the history of Borges Bookstore in a separate section, but I will touch on certain points in its past in the narrative to prove that what is being reviewed and hoped for is historically grounded.
The author of this article drew a sketch of the façade enclosing the space of the Shunde Fisherman's Wharf that will be entered
The workers' movements were taken from the demolition of the building during the second relocation of the bookstore, and later used as the book's purchase stamp.
There is no doubt that we are no longer in an environment where resources are relatively scarce 30 years ago, whether it is spatial resources, information resources or conceptual resources, there are selected, optional and alternative, and the core of the problem has therefore become the reasons and conditions that support any one (or more) choices, and the basis for forming these reasons and conditions is also different for practitioners at different starting lines. For Borges Bookstore, its foundation is a literary fantasy that has been consolidated through practice and output, specifically the fantasy of building a large literary society that activates people's creativity through narrative. This fantasy arises on the basis of the characteristics of the production, promotion and consumption of literature, and is also consolidated by the innovativeness of modern literature. In our slogan of "making art in a literary way, making literature in an artistic way", anyone can read that its focus is on literature, and even from the perspective of art, it seems to say that only art that can be literalized is real art. This slogan, which may be unacceptable, has undoubtedly formed a certain degree of absence in contemporary art today, that is, at this time, both practitioners and promoters of contemporary art have encountered a difficult practical dilemma, although it is concentrated in the pause of capital, but I believe that the problem, like a person's illness, is caused by many aspects. Even if the bookstore is small, Borges admits that it has been dragged down by this dilemma, but if we only think about how to build a good operating model, and do not return to the "thing itself", that is, the "fantasy" mentioned above, then the motivation to try to get out of this dilemma will automatically fade as the dilemma intensifies.
Group photo of readers of Borges Bookstore's "Mid-Month Reading Meeting" during the Spring Festival in 2024. That night, I read the script of Buñuel's film "An Andaru Dog".
So, if 30 years ago we were primarily concerned with the attributes and quality of our products – books, lectures, and other public welfare activities – in the future we will focus on the people these products serve. It can be said that in the past, the service objects were automatically generated, that is, large or small circles composed of the same or similar personas. For a certain period of time, this circle is relatively stable; Over time, socio-cultural influences and the professionalization of university education have made such circles both unstable and requiring various commercial means to rebuild. As a result, breaking the circle became a top priority, and the "grassroots" and "masses" mentioned above appeared. But what we need to be wary of is that if the "grassroots" and "masses" only form traffic data to attract the support of capital, then the situation is no better than in the past, and even more worrying.
The author of this article is an advertisement for Borges Bookstore's regular literary exchange event. This event is held every two weeks to encourage amateur writing.
Leaving aside the slogan mentioned above, Borges Bookstore's experience as an "independent space" may be limited to the "doing things themselves" mentioned earlier. Since it is not clear what the "thing" is, this experience may be worth promoting and learning from. "Doing things themselves" can still be generally classified as a kind of "way of management", which belongs to the higher-level concept of "the art of management", which is "Tao", so it is not arbitrary, and all the persistence comes from this "obedience", that is, respect for the thing itself. How do we understand the "thing itself"? Technically, it may be synonymous with "quality assurance". To give a few examples: when a book distributor is doing the promotion of each book, he first reads the book and then uses his own experience to promote it, which is "doing the thing itself", which is higher in quality than only doing mechanical promotion based on the recommendation words written by the editor, and of course it is more moving; An exhibition curator who studies each of the artist's works before writing a foreword, even though it does not necessarily mention any single work, is of higher quality than writing a theoretical essay that only has a general understanding of the work; Reducing operating costs through layoffs in an independent art space is no match for the turnaround that can be achieved by improving the professionalism of its staff, albeit at the same time.
The Amateur Performance Troupe of Borges Bookstore "Savannah Troupe" poses for a group photo at the Guangzhou Outdoor Art Festival
The troupe has already staged three different versions of "Little Street" in the same venue.
Borges's work on the "thing as it is" also includes the elimination of all commercialization, such as not selling so-called bestsellers, not discounting books, and not having a membership system. If these "no's" are another commercial gimmick, then the reward is precisely the reader's recognition of its style, and at the same time, the number of these readers is becoming smaller and smaller. Therefore, it reflects the various problems of cultural promotion in today's conditions, the most prominent of which is the problem of the target (or recipient) of the service object, in other words, how to avoid excessive involution, how to avoid the circle of the minority in the known range. In our view, the minority should be a genre concept, not a regional concept, which does not contradict the "locality" or "locality" proposed by people in the development of contemporary art. It is at this point that we discover that literature has an advantage over niche regionalization – we have a universal readership. Marketing based on this is technically possible to be as open as possible, and working for this is also "doing things themselves".
A recent performance by the Savannah Theatre Company at the Guangzhou Outdoor Arts Festival, set against the backdrop of a bookshelves hand-painted by the author of this article.
In another "independent space" of the soon-to-be-expanded Shunde Fisherman's Wharf, the above issues will be more urgently placed in front of us in the relationship of opposition and unity. This space, supported by local social organizations, is undoubtedly more focused on the "operating model", and whether this model is conceived out of thin air or generated in practice seems to have automatically become the other side of the objective dilemma - more possibilities and hopes. The new production may have replaced the "operating model" to some extent, and only by going deep into the grassroots and getting close to the masses can it be possible to understand where the adjustment of the "operating model" is. In fact, this supportive, rather than automatic, spatial expansion program effectively pushes us to the front end of a truly social one. In other words, the experience we gain from it is more negotiable than the independence we had 30 years ago, because it is not something that can be determined by the will of one person. At the end of this article, I mention this future "independent space" in order to illustrate a basic idea that has recently taken shape: the era of individual heroism is a thing of the past, and the socialization of literature or art must not only be satisfied with their inherent consumption characteristics, but must also pay attention to the role played by all social functions in this socialization process. Therefore, the effect of the "mass movement" made on this basis does not refer to the empty alleys or the flow economy, but as a cultural promoter, it must really play a magnetic role, so that the masses with creative attributes can find their true home.
Chen Tong is a retired teacher of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and the founder of Borges Bookstore
(This article was originally published in Art Observation, Issue 4, 2024)