*** Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive *** ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Date]: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 13:57:14 -0800 [From]: Britta Erickson [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet [Subject]: Looking at art from different cultures Hello Christine, Raul, Josette, I have been away from my computer and so have not responded to the forum postings lately. Josette Balso wrote: > >A Chinese artist, GU Wenda, living in New York is preparing a >presentation of his work at United Nations New York for 2000. I have no >details the confirmation of his project, called United Nations,he has >been working with human hair and making installations in various >countries, in some of them raising controversy and sometimes scandal. > >Maybe Britta has more information about Gu Wenda's project. In some way >it is connected with the questions discussed lately. > Gu Wenda's project, "United Nations," involves making site/culture specific installations all over the globe, with the hope of eventually staging a grand event that brings them all together. He originally had the idea of staging the culminating event in 2000, as Josette said, but the project is extended. He is doing "United Nations: Berlin Monument" very soon (now?) at Asian Fine Arts in Berlin. Here is their contact info: ASIAN FINE ARTS BERLIN PRUESS AND OCHS GALLERY Sophienstra=DFe 18 D- 10178 Berlin phone: +49 - 30 283 91 387 fax: +49 - 30 283 91 388 pruessochs@asianfinearts.de www.asianfinearts.de Christine wrote: "thanky for this dialogue on good and bad curators and the pertinent questions of inter-culturality. Your reflections are very important for almost any effort of inter-cultural understanding and dialogue. whereever we deal with encounter of ideas and social/cultural practice, this is the key question: who are the people - from whatever background - who are able to see and make subtextual connections among works and ideas from different cultures. what brings them about - they are like precious pearls - how can this type of understanding and reading be encouraged and fostered." I am curating a solo show for Xu Bing, an artist who is very interested in the idea of communication/miscommunication, and the possibilites that arise when a person of one culture looks at another culture. This exhibition will be at the Sackler Gallery, a fact which is in itself interesting. The Sackler is part of the Smithsonian Institution, a United States federal government museum complex in Washington, D.C. The Sackler is one of the most important institutions in this country for Asian Art, and has recently begun exhibiting 20th century art--a remarkable thing in a country where "Asia" tends to be taken as a magnificent but dead culture. So the fact that the Sackler is having a solo exhibition for a living Chinese artist is an important sign of progress being made to demolish tendencies of orientalism. Xu Bing creates works of art about language. His first important piece, "Book from the Sky," was made up of traditional Chinese books that were printed with characters he had invented. This work caused a sensation in China, and continues to be the subject of much discussion. I was just at a conference on Chinese art and cultural politics where we wound up discussing what it means for a non-Chinese literate audience to look at the "Book from the Sky." People who don't read Chinese are impressed by the formal beauty of the piece. If they read the various explanatory texts that accompany the work whenever it is shown in a museum, then they will understand why it is such an important piece. But however earnestly they endeavor to understand it, and however good a job the curators do of introducing it, they still miss out on the moment that is key to Chinese-literate viewers of the piece. Someone who reads Chinese looks at it, and then looks again as s/he realizes the characters look strange. Then there come a moment when s/he realizes that none of the characters are genuine. There was the assumption/trust that the piece was legible, and then a sudden switch after that trust is demolished. I think this is very relevant to this discussion. We all try our best to understand other cultures, but sometimes we miss something important. Still, that doesn't mean that we do not have a meaningful experience of the other culture--there is just something missing. Perhaps in recognizing that there is something missing, we gain something of equal worth to the thing that we have missed. Xu Bing's latest language works are in something he calls "New English Calligraphy." This is a form of writing that looks like Chinese, but which is really English. He writes each English word in the form of a square, using strokes that resemble CHinese. With this piece, both English- and Chinese-literate audiences have the joy of the moment when their perceptions must shift. The English speaker assumes that s/he cannot read it, until there is a breakthrough and s/he realizes that it is actually English (or it could be another European language). The Chinese reader has the opposite experience. Xu Bing has created something that can give equally special but different moments to audiences from different cultures. The other purpose behind "Square Word Calligraphy" is to create a kind of writing where people who use the Roman alphabet can experience the pleasure of doing CHinese calligraphy. With this kind of writing, you can use a CHinese brush and ink without having to worry about learning to write Chinese characters. This helps to demystify Chinese culture a bit. Someone else in the forum mentioned that there is a tendency for some people to mystify Asian culture, and that is true. "Square Word Calligraphy" can help break that down in a fun and accessible way, instead of overly intellectual way. Yikes! I've written too much. Happy Holidays! Britta -=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D- Britta Erickson 66 Peter Coutts Circle Stanford CA 94305 britta2@leland.stanford.edu Tel/FAX: 650 857-1007 http://www.stanford.edu/dept/art/china/