Arts

Public sculptures that opened more than eyes

By Philip Tinari (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-01 08:21

The news about Osama bin Laden's death had me thinking, paradoxically, about the Chinese art world. I arrived in China a week before Sept 11, 2001. A month later, I saw my first show in Beijing: A collection of public sculptures installed throughout the common areas of a new condominium and office development.

Artists mulled around and the small intelligentsia that constituted the "Chinese Art World" exchanged business cards and remarks over the sculptures. After a decade of art exhibitions held mostly in basements, which were often shut down by the authorities, the burgeoning economy was creating space for art.

From this, I was hooked: Here was a world where increasingly sophisticated Chinese culture met an increasingly interested international community. Even as a 22-year-old with nothing to offer but English skills and enthusiasm, one could witness these changes. I translated articles, assisted curators and wrote criticisms of the new works I was seeing.

As the years passed, the milestones piled up. In the fall of 2002, a few artists and galleries moved into the remote "798" area. I translated the catalogue for Beijing Afloat, the first show there.

The following week, I lived in the Guangdong Museum of Art for two months, working on the Guangzhou Triennial, the first contemporary art exhibition to be supported by the government.

After graduate school, I worked briefly for the auction house Sotheby's, cataloguing its first sale in New York of contemporary Chinese art; it took in $13 million on March 31, 2006 - a sum that seemed unthinkable, only to be topped again and again in following years.

Five years ago, I returned to Beijing as an "art worker". Where my first few years were mostly about helping Western organizations accomplish projects in China, my more recent projects have grown more domestic, culminating with the launch of Leap, the International Art Magazine of Contemporary China, early last year.

The bilingual magazine is the first from China to break into the international scene. In Berlin recently, I saw Leap being sold at the city's best art bookstores. Perhaps this doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment, but when China can open the largest museum in the world (the National Museum of China covers 2 million square feet) but still translate "exit" as "export" on door signs, I think what we do counts for something.

Historians look at contemporary art in China as a movement with its roots around the time China Daily began. The movement continues today, in increasingly subtle and complex ways.

Philip Tinari is an American who has been actively involved in the development of contemporary Chinese art.

(China Daily 06/01/2011 page40)