Curator Cui Cancan's new exhibition "Be a Better Man - A New Generation's Working Method" at Shanzhongtian Art Center opens with a clear meaning and takes "individual" as the basis for opening the plan, which indicates that it must be quite personal, multi-meaning, and lack of unity. This is one of the directions that artists have pushed since modern art.
Modern art opens, and the artists' creations become a confrontation between objective and subjective. Art history is objective, and the artist is the highest level of subjectivity.
The exhibition brings together artists, designers and architects - Chen Tianzhuo, Ezaosha, Ge Yulu, He Xiangyu, Li Liao, Liang Chen, Mei Shuzhi, Ni Youyu, Tong Wenmin, Wang Zigeng, Zhao Zhao, Zhou Yilun, Cinnabar, as well as their various types of creative projects and artistic practices. The exhibition presents an obvious but often overlooked core: the artist's working method. The working method determines the direction of the individual artist's presentation, and once it is realized that all works are pushed to the forefront, the idea of how the artist uses experience will emerge from behind the work. Each artist represents only himself: the experience of the individual, the emotions and intellect of the individual, and the relationship between the artist as a subject and a material. Among them, the performance artist treats himself as a material, which is the process of eliminating the boundaries between the subject and the material. The artist himself is a sample, glued to a white wall.
But on what scale do they encapsulate the term new generation?
Shanzhongtian is a different space from the traditional white box, it blends the complexity and twists of landscaping, so we first saw several exhibitors with architectural backgrounds: the Painting Society (Li Han and Hu Yan), Liang Chen, and Wang Zigeng understood and reproduced it. Unlike artists, the professional habits of architecture often allow the idea of "adapting" and "fitting" to space to bubble up first—but when they present new ways here, it is precisely this inertia that is avoided in the first place.
We will see the logic of their reverse thinking throughout the space and the setting of the work.
At the exhibition site of "Being a Better Person - A New Generation's Working Method" at the Yamanakatian Art Center, the painting "Kyoshi Quantu" by the Painting Society (in cooperation with the School of Architecture of Syracuse University).
This time, the Edukusha Society cooperated with the School of Architecture of Syracuse University to present an imaginary architectural sand table of the "Jingshi Quantu", which was based on the Qing Dynasty Jingshi Quantu, "copied" the basic structure, and partially adjusted. Classic Western architecture was also implanted, blending in with Eastern architecture to grow three-dimensional block models from the planes in the sandbox. A trapezoidal mirror is set up to hang above, and the optical illusion is used to form a neat reflection, and the architectural model is transformed into an installation.
At the exhibition site of "Being a Better Person - A New Generation of Working Methods" at Shanzhongtian Art Center, Liang Chen's "Space Hypnosis" series of works.
Through a series of hypnotizers (actually dynamic light space installations), Liang Chen connects the non-exhibition hall area of the Mountain Zhongtian Art Center as a whole, and the staggering and complexity of the space itself are prompted by the lighting installation, and the shadow becomes a means to show the richness of spatial scale and connection.
At the exhibition site of "Be a Better Person - A New Generation's Working Method" at The Mountain Zhongtian Art Center, Wang Zigeng's work "1994".
Wang Zigeng placed an elaborate box-shaped device on the second floor, and the outer space disappeared, and the space inside the device began to operate. The concept of this work begins with the memory of father and son, setting up the father theater and the child theater respectively, using clever projections to invite the audience into different narratives, and the audience enters them and understands the various forms of human relationship on their own.
Cinnabar "Oral Design"
Cinnabar uses multiple images to tell his work in multiple threads. The multi-threading of the installation should be the same as his own introspection of his own work methods: the scope of work is becoming more and more blurred, always looking left and right, no longer focusing on a single piece of work, and the viewing form is reduced to matryoshka dolls, which can be told layer by layer.
At the exhibition site of "Be a Better Person - A New Generation's Working Method" at The Shan Zhongtian Art Center, Mei Shuzhi's work "Character Exit 2".
Mei Shuzhi's "Character Exit 2" directly uses text as a graphic medium, combining the fun and abstraction of text with space, and directly and invasively displaying it. Chinese changes in details, re-merging with the original meaning, trying to make the form and content have a vague state of coexistence.
At the exhibition site of "Be a Better Person - The Working Method of the New Generation" at the Shanzhongtian Art Center, Ni Youyu works.
Above: Ancient Lightning
Below: Floating Tu (left); l Twilight of giants (right)
Several of Ni Youyu's works range from installation sculpture to a combination of painting and installation. His works reveal his richness and structure in flat space, and deliberately precipitate the complex and subtle textures of history. At the same time, his works make people notice that when two-dimensional space is linked to real space and even imaginary space, there is no need for a real thing, but from the internal structure and dynamics between several.
At the exhibition site of Shanzhongtian Art Center", Chen Tianzhuo's works "Untitled - Manuscript", "33embyw + Tianzhuo Boilerroom Set", "Dust - Dancing Hysteria", "Adaha - Rebirth - nft", "Illusion - nft", "Billion Sand - NFT".
Chen Tianzhuo showcased a series of disorganized works/sound materials such as recent manuscripts, videos, NFTs, and DJ performances at parties. The artist first refuses to look for the intrinsic connection and logical relationship between these works and the material, there is no clear clue in the chaotic world, and random behavior does not need to be attached to a creative motive— this is his way of understanding himself and the world of observation.
At the exhibition site of "Be a Better Person - A New Generation of Working Methods" at Shanzhongtian Art Center, Zhao Zhao's work "Shop Window".
Zhao Zhao set up an autobiographical scene for himself, using a display case to display the source of his creative ideas and the different paths under his feet. The objects are exhibited in the methods of "naturalism" and "archaeology" to illustrate that the most important clue in his work is to reinvent himself and create himself through the transfer of flowers and trees from different civilizations and artifacts.
At the exhibition site of "Being a Better Person - A New Generation of Working Methods" at the Shanzhongtian Art Center, Zhou Yilun's work "Michelangelo's Gift".
Zhou Yilun faked a "mess" after the crowd dispersed: using three groups of Michelangelo's classic sculptures, connecting and echoing each other in different positions. At the same time, t-shirts printed with Jesus tattoos are combined with sculptures to form a new system. T-shirts can be sold directly and taken away. The t-shirts gradually disappeared, leaving only the sculpture itself alone. One of the purposes is to use the museum's large amount of traffic to generate sales.
At the exhibition site of "Be a Better Person- A New Generation of Working Methods" at Shanzhongtian Art Center, He Xiangyu's work "may 14th, july 17th, august 27th".
He Xiangyu's images simulate the difficult challenges of cultural communication. People who don't know each other come together to play games, and artists integrate themselves into it. The scenes are both performative and really difficult.
Ge Yulu, Tong Wenmin, and Li Liao used their bodies and behaviors to demonstrate their methods of observation. Both regard themselves as materials and first perceptions, which are very different perspectives:
At the exhibition site of "Be a Better Person - A New Generation's Working Method" at Shanzhongtian Art Center, Ge Yulu's work "Holiday Time".
Ge Yulu entered the social activities and a certain rhythm of operation to observe. Inspired by the absurd complaints of art practitioners that art is work rather than creation, he does their work for them in the gallery. On display are the diaries generated around Ge Yulu's shift, and the travelogues of colleagues.
The whole scene reflects the absurdity and inevitability of the identity of the social animal. The work needs to be done by a person, and the person should preferably be a stable and continuously responsible role, but the work itself cannot generate the value it needs for the person who can be stable. What about the irreconcilable contradiction between the two? We then create a sense of meaning and value in our work. The sense of value of the work is created, and to some extent the person is created.
Shan Zhongtian Art Center "Be a Better Person - A New Generation of Work Methods" exhibition site, Tong Wenmin's works.
Above: "Let the Wind Blow"
Below: Lawn, Waves
Tong Wenmin is outside the structure of society and human relations. She let the wind blow on the top of the mountain, waited for the wind to blow through her body, or curled up on the beach, waiting for the waves to roll up her body, etc., all her directions were opposite to other male artists, so she became a symbol of an exit. She returned to the body, or to the physics itself, and stopped dealing with social labels. All the washouts and blows reflected in her performance images return to the final movement, and the audience has to look at these feelings. Feelings that are not precious, what is precious is to see how she shows these internal links.
Shan Zhongtian Art Center "Be a Better Person - A New Generation of Work Methods" exhibition site, Li Liao's works.
Above: Abs
Below: "Eight Things a Day"
Li Liao's two works are two sides of the same coin, "fitness" and "learning English" and "insisting on eight things every day will succeed", these are the characteristics of the middle class, he presents the results of fitness, learning and insisting on eight things, taking photos of his abs, making models, and displaying them like advertisements, leading to middle-class life, or the impression of "middle-class life" itself is an advertisement. The work is full of funny and absurd, but at the same time reveals the execution - a kind of execution that belongs to the middle class. One of the works, titled "Be a Better Man," leads to the main title of the exhibition.
At the exhibition site of "Be a Better Person - A New Generation of Working Methods" at Shanzhongtian Art Center, Li Liao's work "Be a Better Person" was presented.
Be a better person. Become a more motivated class. This phrase carries a faint absurdity, a faint pain. "Better" is a new meaning and goal in which the person is nourished, or paralyzed, and can temporarily soothe certain psychological waves. Some sensitive or restless people will eat the bait, pick up and swallow these created meanings. There are also some who can't accept it, so they become artists.
Or, conversely, these artist-creators, in a way that is as completely their own, create themselves, to rub against those aspects of the world's operation, and each become a unique test subject—the sociologist Xiang Biao has mentioned in "Using Yourself as a Method": personal experience itself is not so important, and it is an important way to question personal experience. We care about the world, not ourselves, and the key now is where to start to understand the world, but also to better understand ourselves, to question our own experiences, is a concrete beginning of understanding the world.
It is the opposite of narcissism.
So going back to the original question, on what scale did these artists generalize the term new generation?
In the preface, the curators have already portrayed them as diverse and ambiguous at work, living in a fluid world. There is no place to be reached, and there is no longer a division between the other shore and this shore. There are the same methods, but no same values, no interests. Thoughts are never consistent, and there is not much intersection. What he meant was that they were themselves, and that when each individual appeared, a new generation took shape.
In 1912, Kandinsky wrote The Problem of Form to fully explain why he had pushed the spirit to the highest position, when modernism was on the rise and the artist continued to idolize the individual. He retreated to a dispassionate position and wrote his conclusion: artists succumbed to the zeitgeist, which drove them to take unique forms and relate to each other, and thus have a certain similar appearance... The final conclusion is that whether the form is personal, national or stylized, it is not the most important. Whether it echoes the mainstream movement of the times, whether it is more or less related to other forms, whether it exists completely independently, and so on. On the contrary, the most important thing in the question of form is whether form comes from intrinsic necessity.
Necessity points directly to the individual's spirit, to the abstraction within. Regardless of the specific working methods of each artist, whether they intersect or not, when it is a concrete radiation of an inner core, the method is effective, and the diversity of faces is irrefutable.
Dossier wallpaper* abbreviation w*
Cui Cancan is referred to as Cui
w*: What are the challenges for the space countermeasures exhibition of Yamanaka Sky?
Cui: The space challenge is relatively large, this architectural work is not a traditional art museum space, not a space with multiple "white boxes". It is more like a garden, with many interesting wrong scenes and twists, it is a very independent and complete architectural space. But also because of this "completeness", it becomes very challenging, how to make the work become the "home" in it, not to appear redundant, how to make the space around the narrative of the work, has become a challenge. Specifically, this exhibition has to solve the polygonal lines of the space, very many details, undulations and holes, how to place the works in the exhibition hall without white walls, how to deal with different floor heights, and so on. But these "technologies" are not a problem, what I need is to follow the force of space, imagine it as 13 independent worlds of artists, each with different heights, but they can see each other, related photos, the whole exhibition hall is like a playground or a magic cube, and this era is as fragmented and ambiguous as independence.
W*: The theme is "Be a better person", in your opinion, more important than "better", or "people"?
Cui: More importantly, it's different. "New" does not mean good, but it must represent difference, and old does not mean bad, but it is indeed easy to fall into the worship of the classics. "Being a better person" is more like a wish, a desire to believe in the future. If we are willing to believe in the future, we are willing to believe in the "new", and believe that the "new" may provide everyone with more choices, more paths, spaces and imagination, with these implications that everyone may become better people.
w*: Xiang Biao's "Using Yourself as a Method" mentions a similar problem, "Personal experience itself is not so important, and questioning personal experience is an important method." But for artists, individual experience has always been the internal cause and cornerstone of creation, from a curatorial point of view, what are the criteria for selecting a "new generation" of artists?
Cui: I don't know much about his theory. But for the artist, individual experience is a temporary state, it is always a variable, there is no immutable self. Are we sticking to ourselves? Or create a better self by learning, thinking, and knowing? These are two things. The artist should be an open person, a person who embraces possibilities. And I don't quite believe in the so-called "essential self", the self is often a relationship, especially today, the appearance is the essence, we are in a flux that is neither like this nor that. So, the "new generation" is the new job, new identity, new direction and new life that I said in the subtitle, that is, compared with the traditional artist, professional identity, professional life, they have been doing addition, rather than the past elite subtraction, they have more work, across multiple fields, constantly creating new identities, looking for various directions with possibilities, and having a new life that comes with it.
W*: In this group exhibition, there is only one female artist, Tong Wenmin, has this choice been questioned? How was it first considered from a curatorial point of view?
Cui: At the beginning, several female artists were invited, but due to time and schedule, they could not participate in the exhibition, which is a pity. In my later writing, I'll put in the changes in these artists, especially the changes with the women's art of the past.
w*: As you said, the working methods of the new generation are diverse and extensive, and if there is no uniform standard or characteristic of "new generation", will the meaning of the word be dissolved? The epoch can not be said?
Cui: There is a big difference between this generation, that is, his representation is shrinking, and an individual or event can represent an era and become a weather vane of an era. But today it is difficult, although the center is there, but its radiation surface and decisiveness are shrinking, and it has become difficult to become the "center" of the past. Therefore, the "new generation" is similar but not unified, they each have their own circle, and they are the same as this era, and there is no longer an epochal consensus. If we can still call "now" a complete world, its spiritual character must be division and ambiguity. Different systems, multiple standards, and differentiated values have shaken the traditions and art we take for granted to the greatest extent possible. Therefore, the "new generation" is no longer the model of "each leading the way for three hundred years" in the historical echelon of the past, but a fault line that has been reduced to pieces. We no longer have the wind of collective movement, nor the trend of flocking to it, we only represent ourselves, but there seems to be some commonalities, which make us call "a new generation", but those more important differences really make us self, freedom, and better people.
Author: Wei Kunjie
Editor: Sheng Wenjia
Typography: Alareiks