***  Haus der Kulturen der Welt: Forum1 Archive  ***
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   [Date]: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 14:32:03 +0800
   [From]: Josette Balsa <jobalsa@usa.net>
     [To]: Cultural Exchange via Internet <forum1@herz.kbx.de>
[Subject]: Re: [forum1] Looking at art from different cultures

Hi Britta,

Good to know you are curating a solo show for Xu Bing at Sackler
Gallery. Great, for the reasons that you explained...

I want to inform that we had an exhibition of Xu Bing, installing
himself tables and chairs he made with his own hands at Hanart TZ
Gallery, Hong Kong, for people to exercise on the notebooks he prepared,
to write English/Chinese calligraphy, with Chinese ink and brushes. 
Johnson Chang could send you the catalogue that the gallery printed on
that occasion, as well as comments by visitors. You might be interested
in this material.

What the intentions of the artist are, only the artist himself can
explain, and he could be too polite to be sincere. Mainly if he is
tremendously ironic in a work building a "pseudo" bridge between
cultures, as apart as Chinese and Western cultures are. Xu Bing's works
being experienced at Hanart TZ Gallery could be instruments of mockery
aiming at Westerners, who were happily recognizing letters of Western
alphabet in misguiding "Chinese" characters. - Sorry if I express myself
in clumsy English, Britta. Hope I make myself understood. As sweet as Xu
Bing could be - a quiet, laborious person - his smile seemed to me full
of irony, - not disdain; he simply seemed deeply amused looking at
Western visitors at Hanart TZ gallery. Chinese visitors reacted quite
differently...

What we, viewers, see in a work of art is a personal, individual
experience, that curators and art critics are supposed to express
better, because their background information is broader and deeper than
the common spectator's and their training is a continuous one.
Calligraphic works by Xu Bing and Gu Wenda (former works, not the series
United Nations) are experienced differently, as you say, by people who
know the meaning of Chinese characters, and people who can only
appreciate calligraphy as drawing. Even when the characters are
"distorted" by the artist and they do not mean anything, many
connotations come to mind in the use of writing as an exercise in the
Absurd, a contradiction in the purpose of language and writing - which
is meant to communicate - everyone has his/her connotations according to
his/her culture. Dada is not far from this kind of exercise, with Dada
poems for instance. 

We need a lot of basic information about Chinese civilization and art
history to understand contemporary Chinese artists.  The more
information we accumulate, the better we can approach and understand
them. Having a chance to know them personally and to discuss with them
their intentions and goals helps of course a lot.

The discussion about "appropriation, or "incorporation", is seen
differently in Chinese culture, where copying is a way of learning. The
present big debate at Metropolitan Museum about the painting "Riverbank"
- acquired as a tenth century masterpiece and now considered by some
specialists as a forgery painted by XXth century artist-collector-forger
Zhang Daqian - is something interesting in that is something different
of what happened in the case of the forged Vermeers by Van Meegeren, you
know that case certainly, Britta.

Please send information about date of opening at Sackler.

Regards.

Josette