Why do critics like Zhang Huan but not his show? Live pigs installation at White Cube 2009 – review roundup

CHINESE ANIMAL INSTALLATION ART REVIEW

Zhang Huan is known for his performance acts of physical and psychological endurance. This time, however, he left that act up to a couple of pigs.

Zhang Huan’s first show at White Cube

Zhang’s first exhibition Zhu Gangqiang at the White Cube Gallery in London (to October 3rd 2009) featured two live pigs in a make shift pigpen. The pig duo were intended by Zhang to stand in for a remarkable pig in China that survived for 49 days under debris after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that killed more than 60,000 people.  Now known as the “Zhu Gangqiang” or “Cast-Iron Pig”, the rescued pig has subsequently achieved celebrity status in China for its miraculous tale of survival.  

Zhang’s exhibition was to pay homage to the remarkable Cast-Iron Pig; critics, however, found the exhibition wanting.  For some, the live pig production was far less impressive than Zhang’s portraits of human skulls and the Cast-Iron Pig that comprised the rest of the exhibition. Here is a selection of their reviews:

Zhang Huan, Zhu Gangqiang, 2009 (installation view) Two Oxford Sandy and Black gilts, straw, wood, plants, soil, DVD projection, DVD, plasma screen, sound and vinyl

Just a headline grabber

Mark Hudson, writing in The London Daily Telegraph, speaking on behalf of London audiences, declared that large-scale ‘playful’ exhibitions like Zhang’s are no longer inspiring to local audiences:  “We’ve grown so used to headline-grabbing fun-art installations,” he writes, “that Zhang’s pigs feel like just another addition to a list that includes Carsten Holler’s slides in Tate Modern and Antony Gormley’s plinth project in Trafalgar Square.”  

For Hudson, the highlight of the show was Zhang’s depictions of the rescued pig made out of burnt incense rather than the live pigs in the pigpen-utopia (where the pigs appear to have plenty of straw, a football and tire to play with, and exotic plants to eat).

The pig portraits demonstrate the most interesting aspect of Zhang’s work to the Western audience, which is, according to Hudson, his “ambivalence with which he blurs Eastern and Western traditions. The way he offsets strategies borrowed — apparently — from Western operator-artists such as Joseph Beuys and Jeff Koons with scarcely fathomable Oriental philosophy is refreshing in a contemporary art scene in which much has become painfully predictable.” 

Hudson concludes the review by cautioning Zhang not to fall into the trend of artists who have exhibited at the White Cube (such as artist Damien Hirst) and have since become “brand over content.”  According to Hudson, the current prices and high profile of Zhang’s exhibition demonstrates that he “may already be in danger of losing his value as a voice from elsewhere.”

Zhang Huan, Zhu Gangqiang, 2009- Ash on linen

 

The London Evening Standard’s Brian Sewell, however, disagrees: “I think him [Zhang Huan] a better, wiser and more contemplative artist than…these Western models.”

Tate Modern berated

Sewell’s review describes Zhang’s remarkable and prolific history of performance art works and details the symbolic force they have had on audiences.  He emphasizes Zhang’s mystical mastery of his work and goes so far as to berate the Tate Modern for not yet having acquired any of Zhang’s work for their permanent collection.

Unfortunately, the glowing description of Zhang’s oeuvre to date ends with his exhibition at the White Cube Gallery.  Sewell highlights the element of the exhibition that troubled most critics: the insincere relationship between the live pigs and their audience. “Visitors are invited to lean on the fence,” he writes, “and like Lord Emsworth in the PG Wodehouse novels and Jay Jopling’s father (once Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food), admire these little Blandings beauties and contemplate. But contemplate what? The leap from the amusing comforts of the urban farm to the tragedy of Sichuan is far too great for me to see in it pathetic fallacy.”

Zhang Huan, Felicity no. 3, 2008- Ash on linen

For the London Times’ art critic, Waldemar Januszczak, it is a similar story of incongruity. He admits that Zhang’s live pigs were “lovely,” but continues that they were, in fact, “too lovely.”

Trite “Greenpeace story”?

After looking at the exhibition in its entirety, Januszczak found himself troubled by how trite and shallow the exhibition’s “contemporary Greenpeace story” seemed to be: “How dare this pampered modern artist, showing in the plushest gallery in the plushest corner of London’s Mayfair, toy so glibly with Buddhism and death, with human survival and the real meaning of the Sichuan earthquake? Even the accompanying video, in which Zhang retells the pig’s story, is so badly shot that it constitutes a disgrace.”

Human skulls better than live pigs

Zhang’s portraits of human skulls were more favourably received.  Januszczak described them as “just about haunting enough to survive their awful familiarity…Zhang’s skulls…are particularly bare and vulnerable.” This positive reaction to the portraits led Januszczak to conclude that Zhang “is a better artist than this show suggests.”

Links: Zhang Huan website

RM/KE

Related posts:

 

• Liquidity propels prices, Chinese Political Pop is back- Sotheby’s Contemporary Asian Art Auction 2009 Hong Kong – Oct 2009 – Many of Zhang Huan’s works failed to sell
• What inspires Zhang Huan and why he is taking a break from performance art – video – Feb 2009
• Zhang Huan’s first show in Russia – Moscow Times – Dec 2008
• Which Asian artists are in the Pompidou collection? – Dec 2008
• Zhang Huan’s spectacle at Pace Wildenstein gallery New York – June 2008

Subscribe to Art Radar Asia for more review roundups and news of Asian artists

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Liquidity propels prices, Chinese Political Pop is back – Sothebys Contemporary Asian Art Auction 2009 Hong Kong

SOTHEBY’S AUCTIONS HONG KONG CONTEMPORARY ASIAN ART

Although called a Contemporary Asian Art auction, this sale was dominated by Chinese artists which was a canny move by Sotheby’s given that mainland liquidity is driving prices of property in Hong Kong to record high prices of US$1,000 per square foot and sending Chinese stock markets soaring. According to Bloomberg, Chinese money supply has grown by 55% since the beginning of 2007 compared with 20% in the UK and US.

Some of this liquidity has found its way into the art market at this auction. Mainland buyers were active and revealed some surprising preferences.

Hong Kong artists back in a second showcase

Sotheby’s followed up its inaugural and successful showcase of 8 Hong Kong artists in the ‘Spring auction earlier this year with an expanded selection of works by 10 artists. Affordable prices meant that all but two of the works found buyers with successful bids mostly coming in around estimates.

Simon Go, Hong Kong Old Shops, Inkjet on Bamboo Paper

Works by two artists, sculptor Danny Lee and photographer Simon Go who were both new to the auction this year, did better than estimates. Danny Lee produces stainless steel sculptures which are reminiscent  – though in a more organic liquid form –  of the stainless steel scholar rocks made by the world-renowned sculptor Zhan Wang  whose works have been collected by institutions such as the British Museum . Danny Lee’s Mountain and Stream IV sold for HK$170,000 against a top estimate of HK$160,000 (before premium). (US$1 = HK$7.7)

Danny Lee, Mountain and Stream IV, Steel wood

Simon Go’s set of 2 photographic works called Hong Kong Old Shops: Wing Wo Grocery and Keng Ming Mirror Shop achieved a price of HK$80,000 against an estimate of HK$30-50,000 (before premium). This lot points to several collector trends. According to Larry Warsh, a New York-based dealer, there is a growing interest in Chinese photography and Wing Wo Grocery ( an image of a family clan in an old-style grocery shop from the colonial era recently shut down in preparation for urban renewal) embodies trends identified at an ArtInsight seminar last month called ‘Trends and Opportunities in Photography” . The panelists identified documentary photography and ‘slice of lif’e’ photography as hot areas for collectors now.

The biggest story of the Hong Kong part of the sale was Tsang Tsou Choi’s calligraphy which saw excited bidding between several bidders in the room and on the phone resulting in a price (before premium) of HK$400,000 which was 8 times the lower estimate of HK$50,000. Work by this artist now deceased was also a surprising success in the Spring 2009 auction perhaps because of local media and public interest in the eccentric behaviour he displayed in his long art career.

Tsang Tsou Choi, Calligraphy, Acrylic on Canvas

In our Sotheby’s Spring 2009 auction post we wrote:

Tsang, Tsou Chin aka The Kowloon Emperor is a Hong Kong legend, famous for his calligraphy graffiti which he painted on public furniture. Undeterred by numerous warnings he roamed the streets for 50 years laying down his family genealogy and his personal history as an emperor in exile in blatant defiance of the Queen and English colonial rule. Deemed a lunatic by some, he was nevertheless recognised when in 2003 he became the very first Hong Kong artist to exhibit at the Venice Biennale.

Cynical Realist artists are back

In the next section of the sale a series of Chinese sixties-born artists, many from the Cynical Realist and Political Pop movements (Yue Minjun,  Feng Zhenghjie,  Zeng Fanzhi, Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang) came under the hammer with hefty estimates of several hundred thousand and up to around $5 million per lot.

Yue Minjun, Hats Series - The Lovers, Oil on Canvas

On a visit to London last month Art Radar heard several Western commentators describing Chinese art as ‘old’, ‘tired’ and ‘done’. This auction showed clearly that there are keen buyers for Chinese artists of this era who are willing to pay robust prices. Room bidders were mainly middle-aged Chinese men, who are perhaps collectors or more likely dealers for a growing middle class market in the mainland. Most lots in this section sold at estimate and some well above. Yue Minjun’s ‘Hats Series – The Lovers’ attracted several room bidders and a phone bidder eventually selling for HK$5.3m against a top estimate of HK$3.5m.

Institution-endorsed Chinese artists of the  fifties and sixties meet price resistance

Wang Keping, Untitled, Wood

It is no secret that Western critics regard some of the Cynical Realist artists as lightweight and lacking in intellectual rigour.  Instead major institutions such as the Royal Academy and British Museum in London have favoured and endorsed other mid-century born artists such as gunpowder artist Cai Guo-Qiang and Xu Bing, famous for his invented calligraphy . These artists sold well at lower price levels but lots with high estimates met resistance and failed. Cai Guo-Qiang’s Money Net No 2, part of Royal Academy of Art Project (estimate HK$4.7m – 5.5m) and Xu Bing’s Silkwom Series – The Foolish Old Man Who Tried to Remove the Mountain (estimate HK$5m – 5.5m) were bought in.

Frowns for part-increment bids

What we did see at this auction was a much stronger resistance by the two auctioneers in this marathon four-and-a-half  hour sale to partial bids. In recent auctions we have seen bidders make counter-offer bids at increments lower than standard. In the recent past these were accepted with alacrity by genial auctioneers. At this auction bidders were left waiting, frowned at and as often as not turned down.

Zhang Huan upset

Zhang Huan, My New York, Chromogenic Print

Zhang Huan

, formerly a performance artist and more recently a sculptor and installation artist known for his works in ash and animal skins had 5 lots in the sale. Despite  backing by big-boy galleries in London and New York (Zhang Huan currently has an installation at White Cube in Picadilly London) four of his works including two sculptures and two chromogenic prints were bought in. The only work which was successful was a chromogenic print (numbered 3/8) recording his early endurance performance art which sees him running barefoot along the streets covered in raw meat. This work exemplifies another trend identified at the Artinsight photography seminar: growing interest in photographic documentation of performance art.

Sculpture mixed

Sculpture had a mixed performance. Apart from Zhang Huan’s two failed lots and one by Hong Kong artist Kum Chi Keung, there was a surprise pass on Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s pink polyester mannequin Self-Obliteration (estimate $550-650,000). Most of the rest of the ten or so sculptures including Wang Keping’s wooden female forms, Zhang Wan’s scholar rocks, kitsch sculptures by the Luo Brothers and Huang Yan and a run of five works featuring sculpted heads  and figures (by various artists) sold at or above estimate.

Li Hui, Amber Dragon, Neon and steel

Two lots by neon and steel sculptor Li Hui (1977) were highly sought after and attracted across-the-room bidding. Both pieces were purchased by an Asian family who were active bidders in the preceding sale of South East Asian art. The family also acquired an acrylic on canvas by Japanese artist Hiroyuki Matsuura and another by Ryuki Yamamoto. Traditionally collectors’ interests cluster geographically and more often than not collectors prefer to buy their national artists though there have been signs of changes. Despite the recession there is still momentum  behind this trend of pan-Asia buying.

Chinese photography fluid bidding

A handful of photographs were scattered through the sale but the bulk was found in an eleven lot run in the middle.  This run featured sixties-born Chinese photographers such as Hai Bo, Hong Hao, Wang Qingsong, Huang Yan, Cang Xin and Sheng Qi who were active in the nineties and many of whom came to international prominence in 2004 with Christopher Phillips’ seminal exhibition Between Past and Future at the International Center of Photography in New York. Since then major US institutions have been collecting the work of this group as we reported in April 2009:

Hai Bo, Red Guard, Chromogenic Print and Gelatin Silver Print

The J. Paul Getty Museum is the latest institution to add works by Chinese contemporary artists to its holdings. Others include New York’s Museum of Modern Art, which recently acquired 28 works for its photography collection, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as global institutions such as the Tate and the Pompidou Center.

“The acquisition of these works (Wang Qingsong, Hai Bo) affirms an important new direction for the Getty,” says noted photography dealer and collector Daniel Wolf, who helped establish the museum’s collection in the 1980s. “It reflects an interest in expanding the collection in this category.”

Prices were affordable and bidding was fluid. While editions were limited to the 8-20 range and many of the lots were made up of multiple images, sales were made at estimates which were surprisingly affordable. Most lots sold for between HK$40-75,000. Wang Qingsong’s triptych photograph Past Present, Future which sold at estimate for HK$260,000 was the exception.  One buyer snapped up several lots.

One upset was lot 765 by Cao Fei which was passed in. Her works are inspired by the internet, video games, role-playing and the virtual world and she has received wide coverage in London and beyond after a recent show at Battersea Power Station organised in conjunction with the Serpentine Gallery.

Japanese and Korean art

The sale was dominated by Chinese artists but there was a run of cartoon-style art, many by young Japanese artists, a third of the way through the sale which sold at prices HK$50-150,000. Heavyweight Japanese artists were priced much higher but did not always sell or meet the estimate.  Yoshimoto Nara’s It’s Everything sold at HK$3.3m compared with an estimate of HK$3.8-HK$5m. Work by Yoshitaka Amano (described by Time Out as ”the Japanese anime legend behind the Final Fantasy video game” and who attracted spirited phone bidding in the spring sale 2009) was passed in. Takashi Murakami was the exception achieving HK$520,000 for an untitled 1/50 edition screenprint carrying an estimate of just HK$50-70,000. Korean works also achieved mixed results.

Long long auction

The final run of 11 lots saw 6 passes despite affordable prices. This result is probably not worth analysing in depth as it likely had more to do with the numbing length of the 4-5 hour 2 auctioneer sale which saw a packed room of 200 or so dwindle away to 30 or 40 tired stalwarts at what felt like the dog-end of the sale. Perhaps Sotheby’s who charged for coffee and catalogues again this year is still in cost-slashing mode. Let’s hope that by next year there will be enough new money supply for a return to more coffee breaks and free coffee.

Related posts:

• Outlook for Chinese art market – Larry Warsh podcast – May 09
• Hong Kong artists showcased for first time at Sotheby’s – Apr 09
• Getty acquires Chinese contemporary photographs by Hai Bo, Wang Qingsong – Apr 09
• Japanese art scene – changes and trends – Apr 09
• What inspires Zhang Huan and why he is taking a break from performance art – video – Feb 09
• Emerging Chinese artist Cao Fei’s first solo exhibition in Germany – Jan 09
• Emerging Chinese conceptual artist Li Hui defies recession Christies 2008 – Dec 08

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Sneak a peak at the Chinese art collection and private residence of dealer diva Pearl Lam

CHINESE ART DEALER COLLECTOR

Famous for occasionally not attending her own dinner parties, larger than life Hong Kong-born Shanghai-based dealer (Contrasts Gallery) and collector Pearl Lam allows CCTV into her private gallery and her residence with a video camera to view her eclectic private collection.

Shao Fan

Her apartment consists of two floors of a building in the heart of Shanghai, one floor is devoted to her private art collection and the floor above it is her residence which is furnished in an eccentric over the top style which leaves noone in any doubt of her overwhelming passion for art and design.  This energetic socialite admits in the video that she is a professional designer ‘manque’.

Usually accessible to only the ‘veriest’ of very important persons, this clip of a visit to her residence is a rare chance for the rest. In the film she discusses her collecting style, Shao Fan’s exploding furniture and Zhang Huan’s ash works.

View the clip of Pearl Lam art collection

Related links: Contrasts Gallery

Related categories: Art professionals, Chinese artists,  Zhang Huan, art videos

Related posts:

• Zhang Huan video – what inspires him and why he is taking a break from performance art Feb 2009

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Altered States video – what inspires Zhang Huan and why he is taking a break from performance art

CHINESE ARTIST VIDEO

Zhang Huan

Zhang Huan, a leading performing artist from China  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This 2007 video covers:

Ash Head series

 

 

• how museums are studios for Zhang Huan
• why Zhang Huan stopped his performance art and his plan to return to it
• how his prints are inspired by martial arts books and astrology
• how  giant sawn off body parts of Tibetan Buddhist relics destroyed during the Cultural Revolution inspire him
• what makes a good artist “A good artist is illogical”

Links: Zhang Huan website, Zhang Huan on wikipedia

Related posts:

• Zhang Huan’s first show in Russia – Moscow Times – Dec 2008
• Which Asian artists are in the Pompidou collection? – Dec 2008
• Zhang Huan’s spectacle at Pace Wildenstein gallery New York – June 2008

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What are latest trends in Chinese art, who are the top two emerging artists? Melissa Chiu video

CHINESE ART TRENDS

Australian curator and writer Melissa Chiu of the Asia Society New York discusses the newest trends from China in a video called Inside The Contemporary Art Scene.

She identifies several emerging changes:

• young Chinese women are emerging as a force for the first time
• new technology is being adopted and young artists are excelling at video and other new media
• China’s experience as a world centre of manufacturing has influenced the scale and construction of art from China and beyond its borders, particularly evident in the activities is Zhang Huan
• influence of artists in their fifties driven abroad by the Cultural Revolution and now returning to work in China
• two emerging artists are singled out : Cao Fei for her work on Second Life and Yang Fudong for his videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhsCDqGb_LE

For more on Chinese art, emerging artists, female art,  new media,

Related

• Cao Fei’s first solo show in Germany January 2009
• Artist to watch Cao Fei September 2008
• Zhuang Huan’s first show in Russia December 2008
• Book by Melissa Chiu – Chinese Contemporary Art 7 things you should know
• Women emerge onto the Beijing art scene August 2008

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Which artists from Asia are in the Pompidou Centre’s collection?

Cai Guoqiang

 

 

MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Helpful sources of objective and rigorous judgement, museums  provide an independent voice in an art world populated by more unscrupulous personalities and poor research than is ideal.  But how can we find out what the top museums are acquiring and what they are holding in their storage rooms?

Public institutions are often happy to share this information if you give them a call though of course this is not necessarily the case with private museums. Some institutions are now giving the public digital access to their entire collections and the Pompidou Centre is one of these. Its collection comprises over 61,000 works by more than 5,500 artist around the world making it the largest collection in Europe of modern and contemporary art.

The collection is dominated by French works (24,000) and there is a substantial group of US works (9,000) with the bulk of the remainder coming from Europe. It seems that the Pompidou has been active in acquiring Chinese, Indian and Iranian works recently. We have made a list of links to some Asian artists’s works in its holdings:

Chinese modern: Zou Wou-ki, Walasse Ting, Xu Beihong and a number of other 1930s born artists

Chinese contemporary: Cai Guo-qiang, Kai Cui, Georgette Chen, Chen Zhen, Cui Xiuwen, Fang Lijun, Huang Yong Ping, Li Yongbin, Liu Wei, Wang Du, Wang Jian Wei, Wang Jin, Weng Fen, Yan Lei, Yan Peiming, Yang Fudong, Yang Jun, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhang Huan, Zhang Peili, Ming Zhu.

Hong Kong: Man Ip

Yuki Onodera

Shadi Ghadirian

Indian: Subodh Gupta, Ansih Kapoor, Sonia Khurana, Satyendra Pakhale, N Pushpmala, Raghu Rai, Amar Sehgal, Tejal Shah, Bethea Shore, Velu Viswanadhan

Indonesia, Cambodia catogories contain works by Europeans rather than by native artists

Iraq: Jananne Al-Ani, Abraham Habbah, Jamil Hamoudi

Iran: Jalai Abbas, Nasser Assar, Shadi Ghadirian, Ghazel, Abbas Kiarostami, Nathalie Melikian, Shirin Neshat, Serge Rezvani

Shirin Neshat

Israel: Most works Ron Arad furniture design

Japan: 16 pages of works including 1960s photography and architectural works and furniture from 1960s to 1980s, Yayoi Kusama, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba, Rika Noguchi, Yoko Ono, Yuki Onodero, Hiroshi Sugimoto

 

Thailand: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

For more on museum collections, private collectors, corporate collectors

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Chinese performance, installation artist Zhang Huan’s first show in Moscow – Moscow Times

CHINESE ART SHOW RUSSIA

Zhang Huan Paintings and Sculptures to January 17 2009 Diehl and Gallery One

German gallery owner Volker Diehl has brought one of China’s leading artists to Moscow for his first personal exhibition. Zhang Huan who was recently signed by impresario dealer Jay Jopling of London’s White Cube has exhibited at major international museums including New York’s MOMA and Paris’ Pompidou Center.Even before the surge in interest in his work this decade, Zhang was difficult not to notice, reports the Moscow Times.

Physically demanding performance art

He first rose to notoriety in the early 1990s as part of the avant-garde Beijing East Village group, staging intensely physical performances that featured him sitting in a public toilet, covered in fish oil and honey, inviting flies to nestle on him.

Move from performance art to traditional media

Recently, however, he has turned towards the more traditional media of drawing, painting and sculpture that are exhibited here. “Performance art is very tiring. It makes me lose good ideas. So I stopped,” he said at his Asia Society exhibition in New York last year. “If I have good ideas, then I’ll return to performance art.”

Return to China and Chinese references

This change in approach also owes much to his return to China from New York in 2006, which saw Zhang re-embrace traditional Chinese motifs in his artwork. His approach to them, though, is new, distinctive and very striking, thanks less to drastic thematic reinterpretations than to his idiosyncratic use of material.

But as a whole, the effect they produce is distinctly Chinese. “I use ash to express and combine all the dreams, aspirations, all the spiritual longings, all the ideas that people have somehow infused into incense ash,” he wrote in an essay for Pace Wildenstein Gallery this year. “It’s the collective spirit and collective thinking and collective wishes of the people in China.”

New pieces from incense ash

Many of his new pieces are made out of incense ash from Buddhist monasteries, which in form can bring famous Western artists to mind — the disfigured sculpture “Ash Head No. 16” is reminiscent of Alberto Giacometti; “Big Ash Painting” bears the influence of abstract expressionism; and “Military Training on the Sea No. 2” even hints at William Turner’s seascapes.

Zhang’s non-burnt new works attempt to reincarnate that same ancient Chinese mentality. The balcony hosts a series of folkloric woodcuts and drawings in ink and soy sauce, some themes from which are metamorphosed into physically striking art objects. Downstairs, a feathered resin donkey climbs a massive wooden log up the western wall, opposite an imposing likeness of the Buddha made out of a cow skin.

Moscow Times for more

See:

Latest events on now, events coming, posts on Chinese artists, reports from Russia, installation art stories, art about human body, stories referencing Zhang Huan

Related posts:

• Zhang Huan’s spectacle at Pace Wildenstein New York June 2008

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