As an objective social phenomenon, the "north drifting tide" has gradually become a hot spot of media attention in recent years. How does this phenomenon, combined with the social environment, affect the art world? Its direct role is related to the place where an artist works, and indirectly affects where an artist goes after graduation, and the latter can get some clues from the data provided by the graduate employment quality research report published by the Central Academy of Fine Arts from 2016 to 2019.
In 2016, 76.8% of the graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts chose to work in Beijing. Among them, undergraduate students have the highest expectations for employment in Beijing, with a proportion of 84.9%, and finally implemented 81.8%; 71.15% of graduates in the class of 2018 stayed in Beijing; and by 2019, among the 2019 graduates who have been employed, the number of graduates who choose to develop in Beijing has dropped rapidly to 51.17%. [1] The high cost of living and living, the social economy and the movement of people slowed down due to the epidemic and other objective factors brought about by the social environment have led to some "North Drift" artists may have another choice, which invisibly also makes the creative group that tries to develop their artistic careers in beijing face a more "wild" and more unpredictable future.
The second pop-up biennale "The future without me" exhibition site
01
Stepping out of the "Three Realms" is not in the future
On October 9, 2021, the second pop-up biennale "The Future Without Me" was held at the Nine Art Museum in Zhangxin Village, Liqiao Town, Shunyi, on the east side of Beijing Capital Airport. "Flash Mob" refers to a group of people gathered at a specified time and place, after making a specific action in a short period of time, similar to the tone of the "flash mob" behavior, this time the style of painting is slightly wild and jumpy, emphasizing intuition, primary and non-utilitarian, and does not care about chaos and disorder of the biennial, is Wang Chunchen, Sheng Wei, Duan Jun three curators "side oblique out" of the latest attempt at the boundaries of the contemporary art circle. The 65 artists participating in the exhibition are partly open solicitations, some are spontaneously invited by artists, mainly based on young artists in Beijing and surrounding areas, with a total of more than 100 exhibited works.
Exhibition site
The first pop-up biennale held in 2019, "The History of The Flow of Beijing Studios", is actually a "history of the struggle of domestic contemporary artists in Beijing". The first biennale, which began with the Yuanmingyuan Painters' Village, which emerged in 1990, revolves around the nearly 30 years of the beijing art district's fluid journey, paying particular attention to the real and rough realities of the so-called "art life" behind the artist's seemingly beautiful profession.
The first pop-up biennale "History of Beijing Studio Rheology" ©️ nine art districts
Continuing to go back, in 2014, the exhibition "Outside the Three Realms: The Absolutization of Concepts", also curated by Wang Chunchen, Sheng Wei and Duan Jun, hopes to break the solidified operating modes such as creative forms, display forms, viewing modes and commercial returns that have been formed in the domestic contemporary art industry by allowing artists and non-artist groups to link in the exhibition.
In 2014, "Beyond the Three Realms: The Absolutization of Concepts" exhibition site ©️5 Art Center
One can fully see the connection between the "Three Realms" in 2014 and the two pop-up biennials held in 2019 and this year in terms of curatorial ideas. If the "Three Realms Outside" 7 years ago emphasized "not looking at art to see the feeling" [2] (Wang Chunchen at the "Three Realms Outside" exhibition site), the first pop-up biennale examines the 30 years of artists in Beijing who have pinned their careers in the studio, so as to observe their changing mentality in space, time and creative mentality, then the second pop-up biennale pays more attention to artists, especially the life and creative state of young artists in the local area - the former may be precisely the purpose of this biennale beyond works. To put it more clearly, with the implementation of Beijing's "13th Five-Year Plan" social governance plan and the receding tide of the "North Drift", what kind of appearance does the "opposition" artist group that has not yet left appear?
02
Ten thousand years is too long, only to fight for the day
Against the background of the previous article, the theme of this year's pop-up biennale "The Future Without Me" contains more room for interpretation.
In the curator Wang Chunchen's personal "solution", the "I" in "the future without me" also has a philosophical consideration, which means that "there is no 'me' of today, only the future of the ta; 'I' is the subject, and the future is the future without the subject." Because the future of art is the future of post-conception, the subject's 'I' must disappear into the invisibility of time. The original intention of planning the second pop-up biennale is very simple and direct, "is to gather a group of idealistic and aspiring young curators and young authors, with the original intention of art, with their own strength, through participatory activities to show artists to break stereotypes, jump out of the existing framework, express their attitudes, express their views on art." [3] The types of works displayed at the Biennale cover various forms such as acts, installations, videos, paintings, sculptures, etc. The six themes of history, presentness, self, body, technology, and identity can almost cover most of the discussions in the context of global contemporary art, so that the exhibited works show a chaotic overall view, looking at the pluralistic perspectives of each person.
"The Future Without Me" exhibition site
The exhibition does not have a specific opening link, but is performed by Liao Bangming's "Kicking Us from Songzhuang to the Art Museum" and B.People, Xu Qi, Zhang Xinxin, Jia Qianfu, Wang Danyun, Chen Yuxin's performance work "Implantation" as the "small introduction" of this biennale. The successive unfolding of the two performance works can also be interpreted as the handover ceremony of the first to second flash biennale, and also completes the entire closed loop of the exhibition from geography - from Songzhuang to Shunyi, to intergenerational - from the Yuanmingyuan with 60 and 70 as the main body, Songzhuang artists to Z generation as the main artist, and also lets the theme of "The Future Without Me" touch the realistic level of the question it asks.
Liao Bangming, "Kicking Us from Songzhuang to the Art Museum"
B.People, Xu Qi, Zhang Xinxin, Jia Qianfu, Wang Danyun, Chen Yuxin, Implant
At the first level, China's art education has shifted from elite education to the expansion of student enrollment, so that The country has formed a huge art education system, as Wang Chunchen said. He said frankly, "Including training classes and cram classes outside the college system, it is not impossible to call it an education industry." After graduation, graduates continue to engage in art education or enter the art ecology such as exhibition, logistics, exhibition, printing, publishing, media, auction, etc., which is bound to be related to economic development. And the relative turmoil in an ecosystem has to do with the economic adjustments we all face. "In the case of the Academy of Fine Arts, about 1,000 graduates enter the society every year, and nearly half of them choose freelance occupations, including graduates who try to make a living from art. It is also data that shows that more and more graduates affected by the big environment are beginning to have more "realistic" considerations - in 2016, the three types of employment that CENTRAL American undergraduates expect to prefer are: other (31.0%), public institutions (29.5%), private/private enterprises (28.3%); time has passed, and in 2019, public institutions (36.84%) have become the preferred employment units for graduates. 【4】
Hoss, "Rubbing the Body"
Liao Bangming, "Defending a Thousand Well-offs"
The second level is about the social environment in which we live. From the dual perspective of art industry practitioners and educators, Wang Chunchen believes that it is the change in social structure that makes the new generation of artists and the artist groups active in the 80s and 90s face a "temperature difference" in a similar appearance, but in fact different environments: "As long as the previous generation of artists have ideals and are willing to endure hardships, everyone's life actually tends to be average, and their lives and creations are not like the new generation of artists facing the pressure caused by changes in social mechanisms such as marketization." The superposition of various real environments and objective factors also makes "The Future Without Me" have a layer of self-deprecating attributes, and most of the participating artists also respond to their own creative state through their work plans.
How many of them represent the future of art is unknown. This is not the question that this exhibition is trying to answer, Wang Chunchen believes that only by asking questions and paying attention to the present may be the solution - "The existence of art in society is not easy, although we have ten thousand reasons to give up, in turn, there are ten thousand reasons not to give up." The development of the entire social civilization must be accompanied by the diversified and rich development of art. How do you keep your enthusiasm in the midst of hardship? Why is it called the future? I believe that if everyone insists on doing things, the future will have us, and if nothing is done, there will be no us in the future. ”
It is inevitable that the questions will resonate, and this biennale has also triggered some follow-up dialogue and discussion. As One of the participating artists, Liu Xianghua, wrote an article on countermeasures against the exhibitionist Sheng Wei said, "The rough and wild state of this exhibition can trigger nostalgia for the wild state of Chinese contemporary art in the 90s." A personal response from the artist was given, with Liu Xianghua arguing: "... It can be seen that Chinese contemporary art has been 'wild' for a long time. Social new things are mostly spontaneous and wild at the beginning, and the prosperity and creativity of contemporary art in a civilized society must be the result of the long-term continuous input and output of its entire social and cultural mechanism. Without the support of the local social and cultural system and resources, the chassis has been driven around for many years and the chassis has been dismantled and dry food has been brought with it, and it is obviously unsustainable to do the basic public welfare research cause of social creativity with enthusiasm..." [5]
Yu Xuan, "Tumbler"
"Evoking nostalgia for the wild state of Chinese contemporary art in the 90s" is actually an objective description of this exhibition, which is undoubtedly reminiscent of the art ecology of the 90s, and is also a painter's village era that many artists who participated in the "flash mob", especially those who have never experienced with Gen Z artists. Whether the effort of three mature curators to deal with the "future" in a way that is close to contradictory rhetoric, "retro", looking for some kind of future factor in the reproduction of the "wild" state of the 90s, whether this effort can arouse people's interest in the contemporary art world today is not yet known, at least it has aroused the creator's thinking, such as Liu Xianghua's response to this desire, he wrote: "'Wild' is also in line with the law of survival of the laws of nature..... Olive trees cannot grow in the Baltic Sea, no fish are produced on the Pyrenees, and art is fundamentally determined by social ecology. ”【6】
This is a question raised from the perspective of an actor, and it is more clear to say that "domestication" has its laws, but what is the survival law of "wild"? This is a common problem that artistic successors have. At present, a certain situation can be compared with the built-in symbolic meaning of Yu Xuan's exhibited work "Tumbler", that is, lying flat can not solve the real problem, lying flat is still difficult, but also requires conditions.
Wen 丨 Mengxi
Live photography 丨 Wang Chunyuan
Resources:
[1] [4] Cafa Academy of Fine Arts announced the annual report on the employment quality of graduates in 2016-2019
[2] "Beyond the Three Realms: The Absolutization of Concepts" Opens in 5 Art Spaces
http://roll.sohu.com/20140609/n400618727.shtml
[3] "The Future Without Me - The Second Pop-up Biennale" Project Preface
[5] [6] "Wild" is not a long-term solution: a "flash biennale" from the perspective of social ecology" https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vjpZZG3aZq4jWQCsWxwlcQ
Exhibition information
Exhibition Title: The Future Without Me – The Second Pop-up Biennale
Organizer: Nine Art Museum
Address: Beijing Shunyi Liqiao Town Zhang Xin Village
Exhibition time: October 9, 2021 - December 12, 2021
Curators: Wang Chunchen, Sheng Wei, Duan Jun
Producer: Hou Qijun
Exhibition Director: Duan Yan'an
Exhibition coordinator: Xu Qi
Curatorial team: Chen Yuxin, Lv Weimin, Xia Xiaoyan, Yuan Zhongshu, Zong Yuqi, Wang Jingyuan, Cao Zhengping, Wang Danyun, Sun Yingxia
Visual design: Wang Jingyuan
Participating Artists: Qiyi, Ma Wenyi, Wang Ziming, Wang Yuanmo, Wang Yanrusi, Wang Xun, Wang Jiadong, Wang Jingyuan, Niu Dun, Deng Ting, Ye Yong, Shen Shubin, Main Ma Iselman, Lan Jinbin, Wu Cong, Liu Xianghua, Liu Yitong, Mi Yuming, Xu Qi, Lao Zhongyi, Li Yakun, Li Yanghua, Li Xue, Yang Fengyu, Yang Jing, Wu Zechun, Wu Luchao, He Si, Yu Xuan, Yu Mengtong, Gu Ziyang, Wang Jiajia, Shen Jinghao, Song Hongnan, Zhang Zixiao, Zhang Junqing, Zhang Xiaoxue, Zhang Yun, Zhang Lu, Chen Zhi, Chen Mingjing, Chen Dingqian, Chen Yong, Zhou Jinghui, Meng Jiabao, Meng Baishen, Meng Mourning Siqi, Zhao Lianlian, Zhao Xiaoxiao, Duan Xi, Jiang Yuhan, Yuan Yihang, Ni Xuemin, Guo Yujian, Huang Ziyue, Huang Jiao, Huang Xiaoke, Meng Xing, Fu Mingxi, Liao Bangming, Tan Yi, Zhai Minghui, Miao Xiaochun, Li Jiayi, Yan Chenghan, B.People