The Concrete Hour: Kate Downie Solo Exhibition

Iona Whittaker (curator), Kate Downie (artist), Karen Smith (left to right) 

standing in front of artwork by Kate Downie in Caochangdi's Where Where Art Space

Detail

The Gao Brothers

A visit to the private studio of the controversial artists.

Celebrated for their violent, often sexualised renditions of famous political leaders, the Gao Brothers have been exhibited from Russia to the United States though their art is often kept under wraps in their home country where much of it is produced. A busty ‘Miss Mao’ sporting a long Pinocchio nose, a sculpture installation of several 'dear leaders' preparing to shoot a single Jesus, a voluptuously breasted nude with a red dragon shooting out from between her legs – these are works that have made the brothers as infamous to some as they are respected by others. Often associated with the late ‘80s and early ‘90s political and social trends in Chinese art, they have stuck to a recognisably 'Gao Brothers' style and persisted in their dissection of social and political issues. Brave, creative, controversial, unoriginal – how you see them depends on which end of the kaleidoscope you are looking through.


The brothers are most often referred to collectively. Individually, they are Gao Zhen and Gao Qiang, though it is difficult to see where the creative input of one begins and the other ends. In interviews, as Time Outdiscovered during a visit, they do not describe their individual roles in artistic collaboration in too much detail – although it is also clear they have much in common. ‘We don’t really have many disagreements working together, because we have been doing this for more than 20 years,’ Gao Zhen says. ‘If one of us has got an idea, we sit down and discuss it in terms of things like whether it is necessary to even make the work, how to carry it out and so on. We compare possibilities and ideas, then settle on the best ones,’ Gao Qiang adds. Hailing from Shandong province, they cite their father's forced suicide during the Cultural Revolution as a fundamental influence in forming their shared perceptions of and creative input into art. While Gao Zhen seems to speak for them both, Gao Qiang's attention never strays from the conversation and he frequently nods his agreement. 


Aggression and violence is an unavoidable element in much of their work. ‘We don’t intend to promote violence with our work – rather to reflect how others use it,’ Gao Zhen says. ‘It has a strong visual impact on viewers, so that the work will be remembered by them. Our violence points to notions, never at living beings.’

Impact - this is key in understanding the artistic choices the Gao Brothers have made. Sometimes criticised for using obvious faces from history (Lenin, Mao, Sun Yat-sen), the brothers have a clear agenda in making their work instantaneously understood at a certain level. Imagery and historical figures are meant to engage a wide variety of viewers, but on deeper inspection all is not as simple as it seems.

‘The Execution of Christ’ is a case in point. Artistically, they are giving a nod to Manet's politically loaded painting ‘The Execution of Emperor Maximilian’(this painting is in itself a response to Goya's ‘The Third of May 1808’ as well as the politics of its time). However, while they use well-known figures to represent these ideas, the story behind the sculptural installation originates in somebody else's story. ‘The Execution of Christ’ is actually based on the figure Lin Zhao, a Christian poet executed in 1968. The brothers realised during the process of planning the piece that Zhao wasn’t famous enough to get the meaning of the work across so changed her figure to that of Jesus.

As for violence, the piece offers a degree of hope in the human condition. Gao Zhen says that ‘While Jesus is weak, he cannot truly be executed – he will be reborn.’ Gao Qiang agrees. This is their own message, expressed within the realms of art and political history on a global scale.

At the same time, the brothers keep up to date with modern social trends. They check their Weibo and other social internet sites daily, while the role of the media and social issues such as economic disparity also fascinate them. A lot of work uses media imagery or engages with struggling members of society. In a work from 2000 which forms part of their Embrace series of 'occurences',  the Gao Brothers encouraged migrant workers to perform while being photographed. They were asked to hug - usually an act of love, greeting or reconciliation. ‘We went to their employers, asking if any of them were interested in a work opportunity,” says Gao Zhen. “We told them it was acting and promised to pay them a fair market price. So they didn't feel the warmth of hugging, they were just there to make some money which turned the whole thing into an employer-employee relationship... This work was intended to demonstrate that a non-utilitarian action like hugging in a materialistic society can become about employment [rather than love and reconciliation].’ The brothers also observed that when the workers discovered some of the hugging action was to be naked, they went on strike and demanded more money. ‘We found it quite interesting, because they were aware of their rights.’

The studio, which also serves as a private exhibition space and small cinema, houses their recent works. Their most recent oil paintings hang on the walls, large scale portraits based on formal photographs or paintings. Sun Yat-sen, a Ming dynasty emperor and more recent political figures stare out, rendered in a way that blows up the effect of newspaper print – diagonal lines cutting up the smoothness of the portraits.

‘Our recent works are divided into two series,’ Gao Zhen explains. ‘One is about significant figures who appear in modern history, such as Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek (both were presidents of the Republic of China) and Karl Marx, who brought about deep changes in Chinese society. Besides this we also have interesting western figures like Van Gogh. The second series consists of copies of classic art works from home and abroad.’

One face is a recent example of their engagement with ‘the social reality, the changes that take place every day’ that influences their work. The man, whose eyes are concealed by a pair of dark sunglasses, is the imprisoned, self-taught and blind lawyer Cheng Guangchen. The piece serves as a representation of their artistic process says Gao Zhen. ‘Social realities impact on how and what art we create. On the other hand, we think our work has an impact on society… it also embodies our attitude towards art, and is part of the reason we see no need to mix our artistic styles with widespread artistic changes and trends.’

Before we leave, there is time for a gander around the rest of the studio – a space originally intended to hold exhibitions of their own and other artists' work. Paintings are stacked up against the walls and there is plenty of storage space behind scuffed white curtains, while tall ceilings let in plenty of light. It is also a social space – some sofas and coffee tables are arranged at the main entrance, while in the back hides a small make-shift cinema. Based in Beijing for more than a decade, the brothers are clearly in no hurry to leave. 

So what brought them not just to this studio, but to the city? ‘This is the place where we have created and exhibited our work for the past 20 years,” Gao Zhen says. ‘Beijing is an international communication centre. In the first place we worked separately, except that we shared opinions from time to time. In 1989, we co-created a piece of work (‘Midnight Mass’) which caused heated controversy because of its erotic rather than political subject matter. While some people thought we were advertising sexual liberation and trying to be “blasphemous”, we intended is it as a symbol imbued with meanings of sensuality. It was that piece of work that combined us permanently, and we've been working together ever since.’  

Clare Pennington

Originally posted in Time Out Beijing

Gmail Block

People have had problems getting on gmail all over the world for the last few months. But this definitely strikes me as something a bit more local… Screen shot from a few days ago.

A Visit to Beijing's Wedding Market: Understanding the Fantasies and Realities of Marriage in China

“This is a Drag Queen's wet dream” , my friend joked as we trawled through the first rack of dresses. Beijing's Wedding Market is hidden above the Camera Market in Wukesong, in the north-west of the city. Climb up an inconspicuous flight of stairs, and you are crossing into a world of its own making: a world that in many ways encapsulates the Chinese Wedding experience. Crammed with dramatic ball gowns, fantastic wedding dresses, mens' suits and a large variety of wedding shoot props, couples are here given the resources to create a wedding (and the photographs to remember it by) which leaps into the realm of fantasy.

Having made this claim, I have to admit to having only attended one wedding in China. However, pairs promised to each other in marriage posing for their wedding shots even months before the ceremony are not an uncommon sight. In 2008, I visited Qingdao, a city on China's coastline and a former German concession. Many of its beaches are crammed with locals, tourists and the heaps rubbish with which they surround themselves. However, on one quieter sandy beach, the only other people around were a few retired couples and newlyweds having commemorative videos and photographs taken. A bride stood in her white flowing dress, knee deep in the undulating waves as her young husband wrapped his arms around her. Later, she lay with half her body resting on the sand, her lower half in the water, looking into a video camera and whispering “I love you” in English over and over. I kept thinking about the ruined, salt-water soaked dress. Among other sightings, a beautiful and traditionally dressed couple standing in red costume outside Wangfujing's Dongtang Cathedral in Beijing, and a couple posing by a water duct with a tiny patch of green grass surrounding it, of all places, directly underneath a motorway bridge intersection.

I step back into the present that conjured up this host of visions. In one shop, I spot a white dress appliquéd with cut out silver lilies on white gauze, a long train and sparkling sequins. The next shop along carries in its range a red-orange ball gown that opens out at the front to reveal layers of white petticoat, with a plunging neckline and ruffles upon ruffles expanding the bust. One dress reminds me of Terry Pratchett's book Monstrous Regiment, as a full military uniform-come-ball gown is brought into creation in a glaring combination of reds, golds and oranges. Another dress consists of whip-cream like twists in white gauze, shaped by metal wire and streaked with pinks and blues I usually associate with food dyes. The imagination poured into these dresses might not always be couture, but for me, it reflects the ideals and dreams of a new generation stepping into adulthood and family life.

Marriage in China is important, and always been. Father and son, husband and wife, have traditionally been considered amongst the most important and compulsory relationships to people here. Now, with the One Child Policy and laws to ensure volitional unions, marriage still remains the single greatest requirement for any individual growing up in China. Despite laws which forbid men from marrying before 22 and women before 20, women in particular are expected to marry young. In the eyes of the majority, women who have reached the age of 30 are guoshile – “gone off”. A few decades ago in the UK, being “left on the shelf” was a concern for many women approaching their 40s. I have Chinese friends who have fretted for years over finding the right partner within their allotted time frame (while they are still “ripe”). The social pressure is immense. Marriage is also a life insurance for a generation that cannot rely on the state for care in their old age, and hope to be able to lean on future children for support. Strips of white papers float amongst the trees in Peoples' Parks such as the one in Shanghai, where busy-body mothers have posted up advertisements of their children. When mothers meet to discuss the potential of setting up their grown-up offspring, the most important questions involve property ownership, incomes and levels of education. In this context, finding a marriage can become an aggressive and business-like affair, the source of anxiety as much as stability.

So, where does this leave us in terms of the dream-fantasy marriages this market tries to offer? Are weddings which go into all-out dress-ups and props just a thin layer concealing a truly sad reality? Divorce rates are increasing in China, but this has been the case for many countries around the world in recent decades. Marriage is a status symbol across the world, but the case in Asian regions seems particularly acute. Marriage has continued to be a link between families and a way to climb the status ladder, whether this depends on the bride and groom's status as a good communist cadre in the 60s and 70s, or as a wealthy businessman now. I have spoken to Chinese singles in their early twenties who make no secret of their materialistic criteria in any potential life-long mate. I asked one woman in her early twenties about her concerns. Her long term ex-boyfriend had recently married another girl back in their hometown of Dali. She had left only 3 months earlier to study in Beijing. Although she was only 24, she worried most of all that she would not find someone who she could love before she got too old, and that she might have to settle for someone she didn't really feel for. She felt rejected, but also sad that a young man she had loved so much had been so quick and desperate to get married.

What she said was both hopeful and depressing. It reminded me of all that this market stands for. Ridiculous dresses and props can be a way to ignore the reality for many: an unromantic and entirely materialistically motivated marriage. It also expresses perfectly young couples' surviving expectations or hopes to find romance and love in their partnerships, whether they have to build them from scratch or not. As we prepared to leave, escaping the feathered angel wings, puffy dresses and lacy parasols, I paused. It was irresistible: I had to try one of the dresses on and feel the fairytale it represented. Decked in white lace and suffocating under a tight bodice, I felt (if self consciously) for a flitter of a second like a princess, ready to be rescued by her prince charming.   

The UK Riots as seen through the Internet. Is it a UK Apocalypse?

I am sipping a piping hot cup of green tea.  Beyond the cafe window Chinese and Western tourists stroll leisurely past the old style Hutong buildings near Beijing's Drum Tower.  On the BBC's website, images of flaring orange fires and silhouetted riot police cover the front page.  I am certain that the violence is an unpleasant, and for many of those living the UK's major cities where riots have broken out, a terrifying experience.  Seen through a computer screen and constantly updated media reports, it appears almost apocalyptic.  Margaret Atwood, 28 Days Later and several recent zombie films are just a few examples that spring to mind.

A call to a relative in London, and I was reassured that although the violence was "terrible" and "simply out of control", they had been fine because it was "mostly in the black areas".  And so I realised that I would not have to even look online for 'explanations' of the sudden unrest.  The social issues and ignorance which have plagued Britain for years are simply getting even worse.  A woman who has lived in London for 10 years, and still thinks Hackney is just a 'black area'?

Meanwhile, politicians and a host of reporters condemn the looting, rioting, arson and even attempted murder that has arisen over the past few days.  The New York Times and other foreign media have placed UK's riots far down on their headline pages, so that a glancing browser might hardly notice the tiny orange box that is a photograph of the recent fires.  Reportage about Duggan's shooting is so scarce that it seems an event entirely removed from the violence of recent days.  Is this frustration from a society trying to unshackle itself from the controls and patronising language of the government and police force?  Has unacknowledged deprivation in our country left people so uninterested in their own lives and prospects?  I really do not know, but from my quiet cafe on a picturesque street in Beijing, even the closer social upheavals in China sometimes seem surreal.

In fact, one of the most visible and accepted social factors in China is educational and economic disparity.  Standing outside a bar and getting ready to go home after a relaxing evening with friends, a tractor full of middle aged migrant workers trundles past to continue working throughout the night. With free healthcare, affordable housing and free education in Britain, it is easy for the middle class in the UK to ignore the problems many people in our society face. Just because schooling is free, does not mean that it is always successful. If people feel they are in a society which gives them little opportunity or choice, it might be difficult to find a place within it they are satisfied with.  Aware that an arrest will mean for many a first offence, people cannot see into their own future enough to care about it.