Beijing Voice: Together or Isolated
Pace Beijing, Beijing, China
According to curator Leng Li, Chinese galleries have become ‘a kind of animal greedy for culture’ in a quickly developing country. In this increasingly compressed context, Leng suggests, art spaces in China are moving away from the pursuit of profit towards a more academic bent. Curating has become somewhat of a fidgety concept, one that ‘Beijing Voice: Together or Isolated’ is one of several recent exhibitions to take on. Like Taikang Space’s engaging ‘51m2’ series, in which artists occupied a designated area with works of their choosing, and Platform China’s ‘Jungle’, which entitled artists to their own ‘system’ and avoided an overriding narrative, ‘Beijing Voice’ purports to eliminate an explicit curatorial theme. Instead, it attempts to question how art works can be defined either ‘together’ – as part of a wider artistic environment – or as individual, ‘self-sufficient’ objects. In other words, the premise seems to be: relax, put some art works into a space and see how they speak for themselves.
Hu Xiaoyuan, Wood/Wood (2010)
Pace’s expansive, white interior has a dual effect here: on one hand, its size might leave one seeking more thematic guidance. On the other, it allows each work to have its own discrete space. The latter benefits some pieces in particular. Hu Xiaoyuan’s incredibly subtle Wood/Wood (2010) perfectly suits the furthest corner of the room; the converging walls draw one into the surface – not whitewashed planks as first thought, but wood covered with white silk, the grain painstakingly repainted on top.
Shi Jinsong, Beigao Village (2010)
Regardless of the space, the works that best express the context of their making are Shi Jinsong’s Beigao Village (2010) and Song Dong’s Hutong (2010), in which the materials – fragments of brick molded into freestanding sculptures and a three-wheeled bicycle wedged between hutong-style walls, respectively – are enough to interpret them in terms of Beijing’s urban fabric.
Song Dong, Hutong (2010)
Although the curatorial risk has been minimized here by the choice of strong, prominent artists, the conceptual works are comparatively inaccessible beyond the visual level. Perhaps unusually, it is the videos that seem most ‘open’. Huang Ran’s Fake Action Truth (2009), in which costumed men square up in a spot-lit space accompanied by sexual gasps before kissing deeply to the strains of a retro-romantic track, is at once visual, aural and erotic.
Qiu Xiaofei, Utopia (2010)
Implicit in its deliberate removal from ‘Beijing Voice’ is the assumption that a curatorial theme influences how people approach art works in an exhibition, which is arguably a moot point. It is impossible to decide whether this hands-off approach benefits the artists; its effect on viewers is subjective. A curatorial voice does remain, but at a distance. ‘Self-sufficient’ is also quite an unstable claim relative to a work of art. One might say that Qiu Xiaofei’s depopulated painting, Utopia (2010), is ‘sufficient’ in itself to resonate emotionally with a post-ideological mood. But it is difficult to imagine a firm judgement either way. Despite these reservations – which in fact raise useful questions – the project is an engaging one, and it will be interesting to see how each annual installment unfolds.
Iona Whittaker
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