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level and the structure is going to discuss some
recent trends in art in china and do a device
point that is often used in this area chinese art and particularly brief
period is nineteen eighty-nine particularly that june fourth nineteen
eighty-nine tiananmen square incident
out what happened in
nineteen eighty-nine it was basically
uh... culmination of some kind of um...
and
tensions that were building in chinese society
adult sea
so back up a little bit here in nineteen seventy six
mao ze *** the communist party chairmen and leader at that china from nineteen
forty nine until nineteen seventy six died
and after he died
there was a ten a brief moment of a struggle for power
and then down champagne became the next
ruler of the current leader of the communist party and essentially defacto
ruler of china done shopping was a little bit more of a pragmatist the
mastectomy and he was it
economical liberalize our meeting that he allowed more foreign investment he
allowed and actually his policies of continued
and they'd even gotten since two thousand really been he he
uh... quite some time ago but his policies have continued to be a place in
china to allow
more more economic activity
uh... especially since the two thousand sq
with this economic liberalization there was big here you'd of a little bit more
intellectual liberalization in china friends
saying about nineteen eighty
until
it is the movement comedies in nineteen eighty nine where you have a good number
of students and um... young people who are gathering
at university
and i'm talking about the idea of democracy and in beijing in particular
the capital city of china
underground sensei underground movement pushing for more democracy pressing for
more open society for reform of the government
uh... the start
meeting in public if they start having mast
protests in the streets
and
in beijing in eighty seven eighty eight particularly when um... and very popular
education minister diets and that he had been a popular kenneth
uh... promoter of the idea of more intellectual freedom in china
uh... this movement comes to a head
so in the summer this early this spring and early summer of than in nineteen
eighty nine student protesters start gathering in tiananmen square remember i
was mentioning this it if the chinese class before
tiananmen square is this great public square that is outside of the for dayton
city the old imperial palace in beijing
it is an important please wear
nineteen forty nine when mao tse tung the communist party got control of the
people's republic that's where they made a big announcement it's a major public
gathering space and so
you have in the spring and summer of eighty nine
more and more marches and protests that are promoting the idea of democracy
in june
june fourth of nineteen eighty-nine this comes to a head when there's this
massive
number of people on the street
uh... gathering they have signs they have banners they're shouting slogans a
group of art students from the local university maybe a mock-up of the uh...
statue of liberty and they called her the promise of democracy sitting at his
giant paper missing version of the
statue of liberty that their parading through the streets
the government decides that this is too much they've had too much of this uh...
uh... f
protest and that they need to do something about it so they they really
sentiments into tenements where too
to stop these protesters now the protesters don't have any guns they
don't have any weapons there peacefully protesting adheres quite came inside the
reagan at the top is a shot at the end of the that masses gathered before
the confrontation there at the bottom is a very famous still
uh... allowed eight
videotape that was rolling live on c_n_n_
and people were watching this around the world is that the line of tanks rolling
into tiananmen square and there is any loan student his standing
in front of the tanks
willing then you know daring them to run him over and wanting him to see
wanting them to stop
what ended up happening to that guy isn't known aids imitate he you know it
is not
right over adding we don't see him get run over but we don't know what happened
to him
and people did get run over and showing you here in the right
the photograph of some people who had been run over by tanks in the uh...
in the melee that ensued when the government sensitive soldiers to shut
down this protest
the official members that
of people who were injured or killed in the tiananmen square protest
hat varies depends on depending on whether you talk to you that the red
cross or whether you talk to the of chinese government
the chinese government says
or or it news sources who were there at the new york times i think that the
official death toll there guess it was around four hundred dead
the uh... pub people's republic of china said
not merely you know maybe like thirty people were injured in the protest the
red cross
statements have very big bear guesstimate is up to about four thousand
people dead were injured in this protest so
inferior
public very visible crackdown on student protests in tiananmen square with a
really devastating aftermath
this is a big turning point in chinese society uh... it put an end for a long
time to any kind of organized protest for democracy
or any kind of
above ground
uh... discussing of
the currents
political and uh... intellectual climate in china
it also was one of those moments that rocks
signers uh... abuses of human rights to international attention
when i teach about this people often ask you know that she wanted the u_s_
government to you
the government really didn't do much in reaction to tiananmen square because
we had the normalize relations with china and we had strong diplomatic ties
to china i think the u_s_ government under them
the first president bush issued some kind of statements saying you know we
deplore this act but nothing no real sanctions or anything like happened
because uh... that tiananmen square
what it did do was idk
hi good seems
the discourse and in china and so it became an important
spark
or an important moment that um... inspired and change the way that art is
dealt with
out their own society in chinese art
case in point here is this is the
early nineties heating
called portrait of the artist and his friends the artist's name is weak you
edmondson
that's a photograph of him there on the bottom left in there you can see his
painting he is eight
what is called cynical realists now you may remember if you were in the chinese
class that was talking about socialist realism
this is this um...
style of realistic looking p dean that was inspired in part by the socialist
realist painting of
the soviet union and was often used
as propaganda to
loopnet id
educate the masses about the glories of the communist regime in china u_n_ in
jenin cynical realist intakes that vocabulary uh... oil painting and out
western-style realism
and then puts it to this rather cynical
rather critical purpose here you've got
that everybody in this painting is the same as the women join right they all
have his face they all have that
giant
kind of grimacing fake looking smilin ninja u_n_ engine says
you know the smile the greatest this is really uh... you know this expression
that captures the egg the essence of
he right this kind of
pain that people are feeling after tiananmen square so here
it's the fake smile of cynical of socialist realism yes everything's great
even if you know every things falling apart everything's great
i hear they all dharam
gesturing and and
uh... kind of
making fun of the idea
uh... them
making fun of the idea that everything is alright everything is great
here's an example of the poster from nineteen seventy then it would be in the
socialist realist i'll let you a mention is
thing to do with everybody's smiling everybody happy
their with that enthusiastic slogan across the bottom line live chairman mao
there they are doing
in them
and gathering where everybody's holding up a copy of chairman mao as little red
book
and even the bed
howlett of cynical realism is alluding to this right
gary s uh...
color palette of socialist realism in which read is a very predominant color
because of reading is the color of the communist party
here's another example of socialist realism and you can see where the
synagogue realistic getting their inspiration this is a nineteen fifties
poster
and there is
on the bright a translation of the inscription across the bottom
turn china into a prosperous rich and powerful industrialized socialist
country under the leadership of the communist party and chairman now with
your smiling hasn't
and standing there with industry in the background and abundant fruits and
vegetables in the foreground
this was with ironic about this poster is it was created during a period called
the great leap forward in fifty four in fifty five
when chairman mao
commanded that all the peasants who were farmers should leave their farms and go
to work in factories he said
the only way we're going to become a modern nation is at the everybody
pitches in and helps us to industrialized
sounds great and yes it's probably true that i needed to lead us realize and
modernize however what happened was he wouldn't let people
work farms he wanted everybody in the factories and so
nobody's farms what works
google rotted in the fields at this in the c_d_a_ eight period uh...
famine in which hundreds of thousands of people died
across the country of china
and still you have at disconnect between what is represented in these very
cheerful and insisted a socialist realist posters and what's actually
going on in the country so this is a good example of where synagogue realism
comes from with those reverses
right kind of crazy color palette
with everybody gesturing almost madly
coming from that background of this feeling that there's a disconnect
between
the rhetoric of the government in the visual rhetoric of the government and
what's actually happening in society
so here's another example u_n_ engines untitled this is actually a line of
black and white oil painting it's not a black-and-white photograph but here
again you can see
and this is the dead
broke in uh...
uh... ground there's actually tiles from tiananmen square in there they are he
and his compatriots policy face of the same grimmest
uh... here
unit doing appear in person socialist realism
levinson's continued to work with this grimacing figure and to work with
eames aob individuality and collective identity where everybody looks exactly
the same everybody's grimacing the same etcetera etcetera
this is a more recent example of abt
sculptural version up
you know you might expect to see a group of workers exercising in tiananmen
square under the direction of their factory leaders who hears this kind of
vans cultural version of that
uh... all it is that it makes
uh... yet is nice poster
socialist realist poster there's chairman now comrade mao as the greatest
marxist-leninist at the present aids
and again the same color palette may give you the sense that this style of
the cynical realist are taking a half after
and particularly women shouldn't so here's another one i don't have a title
for this one but it recently obtained by you we mention
and hear the scholars rock series there and i think this is interesting to you
because it's not only cynical realism but then he's also incorporating the
kind of
history of china for those of you and the chinese class then you know going
back to that
those scholar elite the literati of this seventeenth and eighteenth century who
would collect things like scholars rocks to be these uh...
microcosm of the universe
here's our u_n_ mentioned uh... again
and it does
uh... recent sculptural group where you've got these figures
that are in this um... collective kind of socialist realist you happy workers
postures doing exercises everybody's smiling and grimacing
and again at the same kind of that themes of collective
versus individual identity
uh...
relationship between the person in the state and all that is sort of implied
in here interestingly is one of his contemporary terra cotta warriors this
is a recent to see the last couple of years
again it's a figure of them
factory worker who's may be doing stretches into admitting that collective
exercise session but it also is in the title
referencing back too
that
pasti china's m
art mister cast in particular to deep
terra cotta army
at the first emperor of china dating back
two black t ten pcs
and here's another example at sea contemporary terra cotta warriors
they're not terra cotta their actually cast bronze but the title is to
contemporary terra cotta warriors vacancy
all in the same pose
in this sort of new workers exercising in the square posture
uh... grimacing and accessories skis be cynical realist fairness and men
that multitude of them referencing back to the whole
history and chinese art interns civilization and there's just a few that
terra cotta warriors of the first-ever just to remind you
of what it is that
u_n_ agenda is referring back to you
and he's also done a series that engages with the history of western hard sell
you a mentions the pulp from nineteen ninety seven
at if you're in contemporary art class you should recognize this as a
reference to you and to take up not only on diego velazquez day and
seventeenth-century painter but also of course frances speaking needed his uh...
figure with me
eighteen nineteen fifty four
women jen also does this kind of uh... engages with the dialogue about the
history of western hardness makes a really opposed modernist in the very
candid
you know typical
western tradition
here is uh... girl beating a recollect reading a letter by open window
where he has
painting a copy of them an
the premier painting
in which the only thing that he's changed his he's left out the figure of
the girls so you get the setting you get the fruit on that uh... carpet in the
foreground you get the reflection that second skull like look to it
in the window
but the girl herself has been taken out
so here again he's ripping up uh... our historical tradition in this case the
weston seventy east
and there's the original girl reading a letter by an open window cleaner on from
there
uh... just to give you a sense of what it is the thing that women's tennis
referencing that painting he's also correct that shelling not only be knows
the history of art
and in the west as well as the east fifth and also that he's got the
technical chops team do a copy of off of the big
premier painting
okay said also
synagogue i was in any way manjunath another artist that i want you to look
at and uh... i should mention that there are
simple links to websites invent videos of some of these artists tearing this
week says lecture section
now this is shipping zip up from the sky this is it
installation and he's done in multiple locations now
where you can see their arm
laid on the ground there is text
across the back we will all of this an exhibit
there are is texted written are printed on b seats that are hanging from the sky
the interesting thing about book from the sky and this is an installation
achieving originally did in nineteen eighty eight in beijing in an important
contemporary show
that was uh...
one of the places where i was a and show of
contemporary artists in beijing that was one of the places where this talked
about democracy was really getting started and in fact this show this show
that this was originally shown in was shut down by the chinese government
because of that very reason
siblings but from the sky
it's kind of a conceptual installation peace
it is uh...
although
wood block print it
a couple thousand characters that seething himself
design the characters looked like chinese
characters however they are meaningless how he just megan parke
so although you have and
melted to give tax here to look at
none of them are really legible
and shipping actually continues to do work and got away from this week's uh...
lecture
sir from this
from this week's at folder
that will take you to a reason exhibition needed for com book from the
ground in which he's trying to come up with the universal language of symbols
it's a really interesting interactive project
and this is an earlier
example where he's working with
language and if you to libya of language or is in communication
this is another view of a different version of books in the sky this is
uh... have but from the sky being installed in cleveland or as it was
installed in cleveland australia
they have any close-ups of the individual characters but it's again
it's a couple dozen characters attacks
are nonsense characters even though they look like they should be lifted and that
there is there not
now there's a nice close-up of one of the books in books for them
this guy again design of the characters he created out of that secret down he
put them all together so it's a pretty labor intensive process
ended there
really
referencing the history of chinese culture in chinese
writing goes back to the
two thousand species eat
uh...
binding and printing go back to the seven or eight hundreds in china so amin
it's a long tradition here but then again
although there's a slight tradition it's inscrutable unreadable and this is
in some ways meant to be a comment on the way that culture and tradition had
been destroyed during the the great leap forward in particularly the cultural
revolution
and she beings dad had been
re-educated during the cultural revolution so there's a sort of
interesting commentary going on here
uh... there's no deal but from the sky
and there's not a viewpoint of the books were again you can see it looks like a
real book it looks like the jet characters although they're not
and assistance that some shots of book from the ground
and that again and he begged her to go to the website for book for the graphic
you can play around with all the symbols there
uh... ok soc
with another example of a reaction to tiananmen square and kind of recent
contemporary art in china one blondie
the great castigated series this is coca-cola from nineteen eighty-three
where again
he seems to have been looking at the west he seems to have been looking at
art from uh... the pop art movement in this case of particularly guys like andy
warhol
but he isn't doing
a uh... kind of red not only on the west but also on uh...
political propaganda posters of socialist realism that you would
typically find
in china with those three workers with the color scheme their all and that you
know
that's very typical worker i cannot repeat astron forearm in the big hands
uh... that
being combined with that it advertising media in there they seem to be stepping
into that uh...
stepping into that
logo
this is a m
kind of
posts
tiananmen art that gets the nickname
uh... kadhi art
and because it incorporates
western advertising uh...
sometimes it's called political pop art has flopped gotti art or political pop
art
at one point he is that
sorry for most practitioner of this
there's no example more recent two thousand five there you can see
the gag holding the little red book that typical workers hoping samples right
gesturing in your typical socialist realist fashion and combined with the
porch advertising logo
and here's another example political proper karate art
and she way
this is them
doesn't actually reminds me a little bit for those of you contemporary of the
artist jeff
lengths you know
and again cult political art
or political popper dadi r kadhi because it's a like colorful
them and
cheesy looking right
so there's a little red book i'm todd
diet let well i'll talk with the money on the body concede little red book
which is a little he's here to see it is the
learn but his chairman males but it seems that every chinese school kid
would get during the uh... years of the cultural revolution that would be you
know you have to memorize up scenes of chairman mao could be reduced
opened up a little bed and flowers
so it's kind of that
lekin knick-knacks that your grandma my keeping her cabinet you know so it's a
uh...
it's a
what cici
them pop culture
little art
inspiration that's being used here too
that kind of make a commentary on that that presence of little red book in
people's lives
and hear from the
little red book series this is a hundred ninety two books this is a
sculpture with all these teeny bit there really teeny tiny little little read
books that have been piled up here into this at
this culture
again it reminds me a little bit of jeff
who's you know it's a found object or them
turned into sculpture
uh... ok cylinder
more recent example of and i would just say body art is this spam
there's a whole series of these
vincent group of three brothers who trained at at at at the university in
inserted graphic design the well brothers
and this is there
isle of tiananmen square pacing
uh... number twenty nine mississippi
makes media work
in which they have incorporated western advertising
traditional socialist realist propaganda imagery like tiananmen square
little art advertising uh... in from sach hai knees perspective those chubby
little babies are often found on these new year's cards and decorations chubby
babies are sign of good luck and so
you know that the new year you always see
left a little red babies uh... especially on her bed a little web savvy
babycenter red background read
traditionally is actually a lucky color in china as well as that being the color
of the communist party during that uh...
non-communist here
and here you can see
b_-two chevy babies are left him in square
they're standing in front of a little tiny tenement square and they're holding
up a giant burger right at giant what is that double whopper
mhm i don't know
burger king or mcdonald's it's at
uh... melding of these different i cannot griffey's into this
certain new form
here are some examples of these chubby newyear babies i was talking about so
these are the kind of good luck uh... me a little pieper decorations that you
would find around the time the chinese new year
uh... and produced you know mass-produced all over china
immedi go to a chinese restaurant here you can buy them during the year
taking low art at the east and west and uh... you know
socialist realist art and melding them all together into this kind of new
format
it's recent series they did in two thousand six two thousand seven is
called home welcome to the famous brands of the world
in other words welcome
admin came as a double meaning right welcoming them to china
also um...
telling may be telling chinese people hey balkan to having these famous brand
so here you got the chevy babies riding a coca-cola light
those dad one writing a coca-cola like uh... since
basically diet coke
welding a burger
and then the two chevy babies writing goldfish again assemble of good luck for
the new year
in this isn't an actual at produced by coca-cola chinese new year poster where
you've got rooster
for the year the research
made out of culkin's and then of course the red background uh... and you could
just make up for the coca cola but that they're at the bottom of that picture
i mean again really
fusing and playing with those boundaries and i think
for those of you were taking the contemporary classic and see others
assertive
you know
corollary to what's going on in the west in the past few years as well
in the work at the law brothers with this
melding of high and low with that use of historical uh... references with the
kind of playing with boundaries in the usa kits that um...
seem very familiar to step that we put that in the west as well
and there's a statue from the world famous brand series
this one card mining probe for happiness reasons
and he recover more of these uh... you know coca-cola
burgers figuring very prominently
so and lots of chevy babies
from the world brothers there i'm elected like because you can see
tiananmen square at the bottom and then even in the bottom center you can see a
poster of chairman mao there
and here again more uh... welcome to the world famous brand series
and that just one more in this case siemens is the company that speed
celebrated
and then you got restricted dragon signs of gridlock
and so i hope you get a sense here but the low brothers are all about
and i think that look rather is happy
uh... so here's that's part of their prints
and then finally i'll move wanna talk about an artist is also become really
prominent on the scene in their seven
uh... images at of him
you'd see that gambling from this week
that this past year he had a retrospective at the guggenheim museum
in new york that was called i want to believe and its featured some of his
performance says some of its installations from the last twenty years
anti-abortion on has worked with
gunpowder and again this is you know going back to you and me that chinese
invented gunpowder in the night century services you know using it
historic medium and i've been using the idea of cns using the idea of randomness
adhere for example in his gunpowder drawings this is called ron transient
rainbow
this is literally
using uh...
using fed last patterns from and shooting at gun gunpowder
to create an image
found object it's mechanically obsessed assisted it's uh...
spontaneous you know it's keeping the control out of the hands of the hardest
uh... and using that medium
sorry in using the medium of gunpowder and then also being sort of historically
uh... tight to china
adhere this is it proposal for a peace that he actually did in valencia spain
where he was going to have a series of
timed explosions of gunpowder to create this rainbow shape
thirty-seconds over around the city of valencia and it would be a time limit it
kind of peace
so again
has some resonance with things that we've seen going on in the west as well
with the idea about that
one time only
piece you know something that's meant to be seen briefly
uh... setting depends also record site-specific
and something that you can only really recapture through
filled stills and
photographs of film
uh...
and it if you got a wet you can actually see that
actual uh...
event has it was
taped isn't happening palencia spain
this by the way it was a little bit touch-and-go they hit whether he was
actually going to get to do it or not because he had planned to do it
at the end it was going to be scheduled and then and that you may remember this
a few years ago then your word
bombings on trains in the drain
and uh... city in central spain south-central spain
at the largest cities believe
in so
people had been you know had started out the email this to be
in a great inspiration agree project but then that
idea of gunpowder exploiting a city to panic kind of sinister turn after that
uh... trained by means in madrid
and happened what
within six months or so after nine eleven
uh... so
eventually project did go through and and i did get perform but he has
continued to deal with question agreed to continue to deal with
the modern political situation in works like this this is that inopportune
that originally created two thousand four was was reinstalled because behind
going up the central tala or the central eighteen of the guggenheim where as you
can see it says
ellen thanks
mid-eighties chevy think that he's got several of them and then did the there
their arranged as if you're looking at stills from the film
car is kind of flipping in rolling in space inspect these l_e_d_
uh... light sticks coming out of it that
colors and look
a little bit like maybe uh...
fireworks again
something that check the chinese infected or can look like cars exploding
and of course
in the modern world with that concerns about terrorism and with the car bombs
that we've read about all the time in the iraq war
at this has
taken on a couple of different variations of armenians you can see a
little bit of what this probably what this looks like in person if you go to
the you tube uh... videos that i have posted for this week so you can see a
little bit of this thing
invoicing
uh... i think it its
better in person than it is instills unfortunately that doesn't give you a
little bit of an idea of what it looks like
there's a close up of one of the cars
and walking a social etsy so there's kind of go time to put everything in one
of them are artists is a photographer and performance artist i want to briefly
mention
who is also dealing with
sir you know
political issues in china and is that example of that kind of stuff coming out
of time in recent years
son one uses them
documents of performance he did in ninety four cult twelve square meters
and um... this is a
photograph of the proof of the artist himself
what he is done here is he has stripped naked in covered himself in honey and he
sat in a public toilet
in a very poor part of the city of teaching
in and at the center for twelve hours
and during that time he sat there as you can imagine and their filthy public
toilet need to have got covered in bugs
and then after that period of time did he say after you sat there for a while
uh... then he walked from the toilets to nearby lake and walked into the lake to
rid himself off
as online
has said that this performance was
to dry intention to
that flight of that
residents of poorer parts of beijing
uh...
adversely that sort of inadequate public sanitation
and he's also said that this was friendly too
uh... practice in the chinese government that's still seems to go on and that is
it means is a notorious practice right that that one-child policy in china
which says that essentially all couples are limited to having one child
and this has been a policy that's been in place for i think thirty gears now
indeed has
lead in one way it's led to actually some interesting in in
did up-and-coming generation of youngsters you know this kindergarten
classes now have these incredible imbalances where you have thirty boys
and one girl in a classroom
it's led to
young men in their twenties are now leaving china and going to africa to
look for whites to 'cause there aren't enough young women around to mary
habitat
set aside the the thing that he was actually
concerned about his exam
protesting are says he's protesting in this piece is that policy
forced abortions
has taken place in china where um... it eight woman has had one baby
and gets pregnant again
unless you can afford to pay
for a special license exemptions so that you can have more than one child
um... that government can foresee to have uh... an abortion or force you to
be sterilized
and therefore stories about this happening where people would
literally be taking physically to u_n_ clinic in have this done
i don't want it
horror stories about china but this is what's not someone is protesting in his
piece
now okay so performance art
politically engaged performance i got something that we've also seen in the
western at something that is the kind of newt
they're not new but at at trend that has been uh...
developing the last fifteen years in china as well
and here's another document of a performance piece john wind went back to
the village where he grew up
and
uh... engage the citizens of the pillaging this piece which he called to
raise the water level in a fish pond
out where he would only had all the men and boys of the village
walking to u_s_
uh... a local time
with the idea that a
everybody in m if all these people got into the water at the same time there
would be enough displacement of water that it would raise the level of the
water and at this time
to symbolize the idea that we are all connected that we are all matter that we
all make a difference
is that this is just a document from to raise the water level at this time
and again there's a little video that talks a little bit about some
performance artist in china particularly sideline a typo time
uh... that i recommend that you watch just to get a little bit of a sense of
um...
what these guys are doing and what you're thinking about