Review: As Seen by Karen Smith

Karen Smith is one of very few foreigners who has been able to see the Chinese art scene develop over the last two decades – and she’s still here. Having worked at one of Beijing’s first international contemporary art galleries, she has also curated at the Tate Liverpool, and is best known for her near-500-page tome Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China, published in 2005.

As Seen is the sum of what Smith judges to be the most ‘notable’ artworks that were on show in China in the year 2011. Each of the 41 selected artists is given a few pages, and Smith describes what she considers to be their most important work from their 2011 exhibitions in vivid clarity.

Essentially, the volume serves as an introduction to what is generally considered hot in China’s contemporary art scene, with personal observations injected into each description. Zhao Yao, Ma Qiusha and Zhao Zhao are just a few of the younger artists Smith promotes, while sections devoted to art giants such as Zhang Peili and Zhan Wang are also included.

The book benefits from being a collection of short pieces, which helps lend clarity and purpose to a writer who, at times, struggles for conciseness. Its beautiful pictures, although unfortunately not always matched to the artwork Smith is describing, give a strong impression of each work. The selection of artists contains few, if any, points of serious controversy but the writer adds plenty of caveats to emphasise that the selection is deeply personal to her – just in case you don’t agree.

As Seen will be indispensable to those who were not there to see the exhibitions themselves – particularly collectors of Chinese art living abroad. It captures the zeitgeist nicely, and will undoubtedly become a key part of anyone’s contemporary Chinese art library. The year 2011 was an important one for the development of modern art in the PRC, particularly Beijing, and this book is surely a fitting testament to that. Clare Pennington

Originally posted in Time Out Beijing

Zhan Wang: My Personal Universe

While scientists turn to the Large Hadron Collider to examine the universe’s origins, 39-year-old Beijing artist Zhan Wang takes a more contemplative approach. The love child of the artist and his backer, Louis Vuitton, 'My Personal Universe' marks a new point in what Zhan calls his artistic ‘road’, surpassing anything he has done before. And yet, in the last month, it has undergone something of a devolution.

Dominating the interior of one of the UCCA’s halls until mid-January stood four wall-like screens. Inside this enclosure (subtitled ‘Outer’), visitors were greeted by 7,000 glittering, meteorite-like steel rocks, strung out like a giant baby mobile. The only light came from the screens, which showed a super-slowed video of a boulder Zhan had blown up somewhere in Shandong; six screens played out the blast from different angles. It reached into your chest in a deep, drawn-out rumble – this was the dawn of the universe.

Now the hall is silent. Gone are the screens, which expanded the six-second explosion to three minutes. The sculptures, however, which were moulded upon actual debris from the explosion, have been re-arranged to resemble the first millisecond of Zhan’s man-made Big Bang (subtitled ‘Inner’). The arrangement still links it to the demolition – the fine details from the fragments visible on the moulded metal – but by reference only.

Before, this piece engulfed the viewer with image and form. Now the rocks stand alone, capturing the exact moment they were broken apart by tremendous forces. On the surface, at least, this piece now gets much closer to the simplicity it strives for. Less fun for the casual viewer, perhaps, but there’s a purity to the work now, which the screens to some extent obscured. After all, the aim was always to induce contemplation – amid the pizzazz there was little room for thought.

Yet this exhibition still remains impressive. The sheer scale and glittering, eye-catching blues and silvers are unprecedented in the artist’s work. Zhan has never shied away from using contemporary, flashy materials, even celebrating them to some extent; here, his use of steel draws us back from the dawn of time to the modern age. If this kind of scale and use of mixed media marks a new path in the artist’s journey  – or ‘road’ – it will be interesting to see what he does next. Clare Pennington



Originally posted in Time Out Beijing