PART I – Two Days of Immersion in the City
The Shanghai Biennale, which opened this year during the national celebrations of Golden Week, is remarkable for its conspicuous presentation throughout the city. The surge of performances, exhibitions, talks, and other arts programs during the holiday period was exciting– thrilling, in fact, for a ‘cultural worker’ such as myself. What does this flurry of activity signify in retrospect? For me, what lingers most seductively are not impressions of art persay, but a flickering apprehension of the complex ecology of the city itself. Below is an account of two days in motion, my attempt to convey an idea of this general awareness.
Day 1
It is the day before the Biennale’s opening and a small group of academics and book lovers have gathered in the slightly cramped surroundings of XinDanWei to hear about a new series of contemporary art books published in quick succession by the recently hatched Beepub Books (蜂蜜文库). The atmosphere is erudite while not completely eclipsing the former concession area’s tenor of commerce.
Gao Shiming, director of School of Inter-Media Art from China Academy of Art, leads off on the theme “The Book of Action”. During his talk I am struck by the realization that Professor Gao has been curating exhibitions for a decade; ten years ago very few art professors were doing anything so socially active. Boris Groys follows, tackling another seemingly unassailable theme, “What is ‘Contemporary Art’?”. Groys concentrates on the way time is implicated: “Why has this notion of ‘contemporary’ never appealed to people before? Why are we so aware of this ‘contemporaneity’?” His talk parallels an essay of his in which I was surprised to find an imprint of a Song dynasty painting by Ma Yuan with this line of poetry:
“触袖野花多自舞，避人幽鸟不成啼”
(“Shirtsleeves absently brush wildflowers that enliven their dance / Dodging man’s gaze a solitary bird withholds its song”)
This encounter with Groys is full of beguiling contrasts – contemporary art and traditional painting, Western scholasticism and Eastern philosophy. Yet I think that the common experience of the present as replete with mystery connects all the ways we have ever had of making sense.
Roy Ascott was beginning to read from his new book The Future is Now but I did not stay, spurred to action by the promise of another event just a few blocks away. Down a lane off Changle Lu where Feng Zikai(1898-1975) once lived a gathering is taking place at the home of Chris Connery. It is a world apart from the previous academic encounter: a heated discussion in Chinese among the young members of Grass Stage Theater who are planning an urban walking experience. Using ideas drawn from psycho-geography, “巷子戏” (“Alleys Play”) engages participants’ direct perceptions — auditory, visual and olfactory — on a slow tour through the lanes. To accentuate the context the group stages appearances along the route, like a series of small ambushes.
“Everyone arrives here with different motives, but a shared enthusiasm definitely emerges,” says Connery. The artists, actors and scholars are hunched around an old map of the area, charting the course of the tour. Conversation turns to the way walking is depicted in the 清明上河图 (Along the River During Qingming), to the strolling of an urban flaneur, to the passage of the everyday pedestrian, to the self-aware participant in public space, to the aesthetic delight in decay. Throughout, there is a mediation taking place between the purposive, individualistic way of dwelling in the city and the almost meditative opening-out of psycho-geography. For those present, walking affords a way of connecting with layers of urban history, and also of revealing the alienation and schizophrenia buried in the corners where narrow lanes and modern high-rises crowd together.
At the conclusion of the “巷子戏” workshop I proceed to the Goethe Institute to peruse the exhibit “Alternatives to Ritual“. Afterwards I slip outside again and turn in the direction of the Bund. It is the beginning of the official Golden Week holiday, and my senses are keenly attuned to the energy in the street, to the swirl of tourists young and old converging from all over, many wearing flashing bunny-rabbit headgear. A warm glow of familial affirmation and mutual joy to be Chinese envelops the crowd and me along with it. The parade of people casts silhouettes against the austere colonial architecture, traipses merrily over the old war-worn streets and beneath the radiance of luxurious shop windows. In the moonlight I discern the outline of the Palace Hotel — now the Swatch Peace Hotel Art Center — an array of security personnel standing in front, like comical apparitions from the day in 1937 when a bomb struck the building.
Now damp with perspiration, I enter through the building’s massive revolving doors and into the main hall, the old-world charm mingling with the Swatch display lighting. Taking the elevator to the top floor I stride past a bar shrouded in Champagne glasses and out to the balcony which commands an extravagant view. The towers on the opposite bank of the Huangpu shimmer towards the teeming crowds of people below, the river’s muddy waters reflecting a paper harvest moon.
On the terrace, an exotic bartender asks some friends and I if we need drinks. A few participants of the Swatch Art resident artist program who are living on the fourth floor of the building join us, checking their phones frequently, remarking that it is morning in Europe now, their families and loved ones just rising. I glance at them, wondering about how I feel now in their company. I find myself thinking about my family, and a mild sort of austerity. It seems an inherent attribute of art in the city to diffuse the concentrated substance of traditional holidays. Returning by bicycle back to the former French Concession area, I’m accompanied by thousands of others. Drowsiness is sinking in, but just like the song says, “the city comes alive, it simmers in the night, it’s wounded with desire.”
Day 2
It is National Holiday (国庆节) and the bright sunshine puts everyone in good spirits. I return to the Bund in the evening to attend a book-launch party at Glamour Bar. Outside thousands of people crowd toward the bustling Bund, but up on the sixth floor the atmosphere is genteel as guests fill the clean, tranquil space to sip more Champagne and discuss issues of the arts. Institution for the Future is the title of the new book. The mostly-foreigner audience is politely listening to an account of the conditions, designs and achievements of the contemporary visual arts, and the different possibilities for art institutions in the future. Afterwards everyone breaks up to rush to the Biennale opening event. Proceeding downstairs, I spend a long time traversing the 100 meters to Guangdong Road through the throngs of people, to be whisked south to the Power Station.
A large chimney yawns impressively overhead, with neon lights signaling that the temperature is a pleasant autumnal 18 degrees. Up on the rooftop the beaming lights illuminate an opening that is gathering momentum. A few familiar faces burst forth. Professor Qiu is there with his little daughter, goading her like a kid, “have you been missing dad?” She holds his hand in shy embarrassment. Chris Connery is there, prodding me, “you’re late– someone dressed as Xu Jiang just gave a speech.” I understand this is an obscure inside joke as Xu Jiang himself, the president of the China Academy of Art, starts to deliver his address. It is a long speech. Glamorous beauties elegantly officiate. At the end the crowd disperses and bar-room sounds of techno music begin to pulse. We seem like a clique of art animals awakened in perfect night. With this acoustic stimulus the “Biennale” has suddenly turned into a strange and unusual occasion, nothing to do with art, not even to do with entertainment. There on the rooftop, the festival night scene is carried away on the evening breeze. Some members of Double Fly, after getting their fill of sausages and wine, head over to the giant chimney with us. The space, and especially the artwork inside, are not to be missed.
First a note about the space itself. The Power Station of Art is a reincarnation of the former Shanghai Art Museum, which was relocated from the old Jockey Club building in People’s Square for the Biennale. The building is a former thermoelectric plant situated outside the city center, south along the river. Facing the China Pavilion across the water and surrounded by a low-rise industrial landscape, the building’s towering chimney is visible from all around. Transportation is straightforward, with little traffic to contend with and a straight shot down Zhongshan Road toward the chimney. Leaving the Power Plant, however, one must walk out to the main road to find a cab. All this seems consistent with most people’s impression of contemporary art: remote, aloof and a little arrogant.
For his artwork inside the chimney Roman Signer unleashes the mischievous spirit of a grown-up child. The space spirals upward in a tight circle, and the floor is splattered with the evidence of a violent impact. Time itself seems strangely eradicated, and together with the vertiginous height and sealed off space the psychological experience is very confrontational. But one also senses the warm draw of addiction, inside that belly of the industrial age.
…to be continued