Sigg Collection 1990s fearless breakthrough by new emerging Chinese artists
Art in China Sigg Collection Another Story
Strategie en chambre, 1999, painted plaster, plastic and paper, Wang Du
M+ Sigg Collection: Another Story exhibition
Heading into M+’s Sigg Collection: Another Story exhibition, we wanted to know what Chinese artists thought about the changing climate and how they presented these reflections to a global audience.
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The 1990s marked a significant transformation for China’s identity. Economic growth, stability and improved international trade placed the recovering country in the global spotlight.
My things No. 1, 2001-2002, Hong Hao
Commercialisation was an outsized visual marker of this change as Chinese society emphasised consumerism and (appeared to) deprioritise spirituality.
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With other countries eager for eastern dialogue, contemporary artists used their mediums to explore Chinese Socialism, tradition, and modernity, providing a unique discourse in an uncertain time.
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The rise of material prosperity clashed with traditional ideals as societal values struggled between the collective and the individual.
Shop Window – You Cannot Clone it, But You Can Buy It, 2001, chromogenic print, Shi Yong
How would China shape its values to satisfy contemporary commercialism and cultural traditions?
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Many artists examined this crisis of identity and the sensory overload as China became overrun with cheap, mass-produced goods and imagery.
This question hits you the moment you enter the M+ Sigg Collection: Another Story exhibition.
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As your eyes look for the source of a monotone voice rattling off prices, you come across four television screens sitting side by side.
Kan Xuan explored art and life
Images of coins in four currencies (Renminbi, Euro, British Pound and US dollar) are interspersed with merchandise of equal value sourced from budget stores worldwide.
Island, 2006-2009, four-channel digital visual installation, Kan Xuan
The lighting, angles and narration are all reminiscent of nineties adverts for luxury products – only the goods are incredibly accessible, and their value is practically negligible.
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Having worked in the advertising industry, artist Kan Xuan frequently explored the boundaries between art, commodity and life in her projects.
Ultra Realistic The First part of Ma Ke’s Left Index Finger, 2010, felt-tip pen, plaster and wood installation, Ma Ke
Ahead of Kan Xuan’s Islands installation, a wide chromogenic print is framed in black.
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Titled Shop Window – You Cannot Clone It, But You Can Buy It, Shi Yong presents more than eighty identical plaster figurines in neat rows.
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All dressed in the same black outfit with matching hairstyles, Yong put style decisions to a vote, encouraging foreigners online to select their take on what best suited the contemporary spirit of China.
Changing socio-political climate
The artwork’s title is printed in plain white script and placed at the centre of the image, with a copyright mark on the right-hand side noting the portrait as The new image of Shanghai Today.
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The curation of an authentic China at the hands of foreigners is Yong’s open-palmed critique of catering to international standards.
With a layout akin to a marketing campaign, Yong opens a discourse on the commodification of China by non-Chinese.
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These significant shifts in China’s socio-political climate created a longing for calm. Dissent was not the order of the day.
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Still, silent rebellion simmered in the form of subtle interpretations as artists sought ways to reclaim their physical and emotional presence.
Constructed by Stones, 2010, oil and pencil on canvas, Ni Youyu
The body was a clear tool for direct and immediate self-expression, and repetitive actions presented small but vital ways to register and convey every experience and sentiment, providing them a way to ground themselves in a turbulent world.
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This is best exemplified in Liu Wei’s Born 1989 in Beijing (250%). Referring to the Chinese slang for idiot or dope, 250% is not literally present in the work.
Born 1989 in Beijing (250%), 1997, Liu Wei
Instead, it’s represented by graphic and unsettling imagery – four bloated and distorted bald figures positioned at the top left of the canvas, with infant toys, dismembered limbs and peculiar, unidentifiable objects dotting the rest of the work.
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Between the latter images are layers of grey-white scribbles in English of the phrase born 1989 in Beijing.
Liu Wei intended this disjointed, unsettling nature to depict the mental state of himself and his post-1989 generation as they transitioned from a harmful period in history to one under reconstruction.
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Qiu Zhijie’s piece, Copying the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion One Thousand Times, is a much more technical piece focused on the process of its creation.
Copying the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion One Thousand Times , 1990-1995 single-channel digital video (colour, silent) and chromogenic prints, Qiu Zhijie
The study of Chinese calligraphy is noted by extensive copying, with many notebooks and reams of paper sacrificed in the pursuit of the perfect character.
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Well-known calligrapher and general Wang Xizhi penned this particular segment during a Spring Purification Ceremony in 353 CE.
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As Qiu’s work title suggests, he copied the preface to the poem Orchid Pavilion one thousand times on a single sheet of rice paper over five years.
Qiu Zhijie Orchid Pavilion
With each copy, the text gradually became illegible, blurring the poem’s historical significance as Qiu steadily drew focus to the act of writing itself.
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In the 1980s, China was replete with avant-garde art heavily critiquing the limitations of socialist realism and Cultural Revolution imagery.
The Happiness of Long Sleep, 2006, Li Songsong
By the next decade, with Chinese art gaining more visibility, artists recontextualised socialist criticisms to affirm their national identities and consider new approaches to the topic
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Artists Sun Yuan and Peng Yu gave literal movement to their exploration. Electric wheelchairs, fibreglass, silicone, clothes and accessories are certainly not the first thought that comes to mind when considering how to parody socio-political conflict. And yet, it works.
Old People’s Home, 2007, electric wheelchairs, fibreglass, silicone, and clothing and accessories, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Thirteen lifelike sculptures take centre stage in their 2007 piece, Old People’s Home. Designed to resemble political, religious and military figures, these powerful individuals are portrayed as feeble seniors with no control over their movements.
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Each figure has an object. Some are mundane – glasses cases, newspapers – while others are deadly weapons – knives and landmines – rendered useless in their laps.
Old People’s Home, 2007, electric wheelchairs, fibreglass, silicone, and clothing and accessories, Sun Yuan and Peng Yu
Their feeble states and ineffective motion highlight the senseless nature of complex cross-sectional conflict and the mundane horror a select group of global leaders instigated.
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Of all the installations on display, Wang Du’s Stratégie en chambre, in the Sigg Collection, is the most visually thrilling.
Strategie en chambre (detail), 1999, painted plaster, plastic and paper, Wang Du
Basing the title on the French phrase for armchair strategy, Wang’s colossal work presents the war as seen by a distant observer – a form of distinct fascination and morbid entertainment.
An intensely elaborate work comprised of mounds of newspapers, plastic toy tanks, ships, fighter jets, plastic dolls and army soldiers, this gigantic work of art was a direct response to the 1998 war in Kosovo.
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Wang resided in Paris when fighting broke out. Stunned by the different war narratives provided by various European publications, he steadily collected and reviewed daily reports of the frontline coverage.
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This battleground of conflicting truths makes it impossible to determine which version of events is correct.
Strategie en chambre (detail), 1999, painted plaster, plastic and paper, Wang Du
As in war, all battles meld into each other, overseen by looming politicians and misunderstood by the children of the crossfire.
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This glimpse into M+’s expansive Sigg Collection frames a significant moment in modern Chinese history, outlining the adaptive nature of Chinese art with a macro lens focused on the economic boom and socio-political uncertainty that marked 90s and early 2000s China.
Obsessive Memories, 2002, porcelain, Liu Jianhua
These changing times provided Chinese artists with an amazing chance to be noticed by international markets, an opportunity they eagerly capitalised on as they helped open a broader dialogue on what it meant to be part of a generation torn between past and present ideals, how one defined cultural identity in a consumerist society and how different approaches could shed new light on old conversations.
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M+’s Sigg Collection: Another Story exhibition provides a much needed and timely perspective.
Text & Photos Victoria Mae Martyn
