Cui Xiuwen

3 Betacam tapes: each signed in Chinese and Pinyin, titled in English, dated 2002.5 and numbered 1/8. Each inscribed 180’, 1 minute each 

Three original CDs, each signed in Pinyin, titled in English and inscribed Part I, Part II and Part III respectively

Chinese Century Gallery, Paris 
Acquired by the present owner from the above

‘Media’ and the ‘Self’ in Chinese Video Art
by Li Zhenhua

Before we embark on this discussion, there are some fundamental points and questions to be re-visited. The first one is when video art in China originated. As a medium detached from cinema and photography, video art is an aesthetic system composed of machines: television, video recorder, mini DV, etc. In terms of a point in time, the birth of video art in China can be dated to the 1980s, when television manufacturing first appeared in China, and a wider public visual culture found its ground. The second point is about specific figures who contributed to the origin of video art in China. It is generally acknowledged that Zhang Peili’s work 30X30 (1988), represented elements related to video art’s origin as it discussed the relationships among objects, time and people. The aesthetic form of video art, aside from its object-oriented relationship with machines, also better fits with the notion of ‘time-based’ art.

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and        the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.

－Sol LeWitt, ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’, Artforum, June 1967

What Sol LeWitt was referring to happens to be the artistic or representational methods of a group of Chinese artists. It has strong internal connections with the birth of video art in the 1990s^[1]; what comes first is the conceptual and spiritual methods applied by most people in their protests against the past. This is different from either the art liberalisation of the late 1970s, or the mid-1980s when tendencies emerged that sought social possibilities or social critiques.

Video art has aimed for media innovation, as well as pure artistic language and methodologies. This can be seen in Qiu Zhijie’s work Copying the Orchid Pavilion Preface 1000 Times (1990-1995) (Lot 862). The concept-driven characteristic can be sensed from calligraphy to abstraction, from imitation to minimalism, from classic training to physical output – all contributing to the most significant production of video art in the context of Chinese contemporary art.  This also constructed Qiu’s methodological research in his work and teaching, and practical spirit of bodily endeavours.In the ‘Post Sense-Sensibility’ exhibition curated by Qiu Zhijie at the end of the 1990s, instead of following the route of conceptual art or minimalism, the idea of ‘sensibility’ emerged in the mindset or understanding of Qiu and many other young artists.

As Qiu Zhijie continued with his explorations into artistic methodologies and practices within the academy system, many artists also involved their respective artistic methods in a grander, historic dimension. Different from the sensibility seen in Qiu Zhijie’s works, artist Li Yongbin’s works are relatively logical. His work originated from an experience he used to have, when he projected the portrait of his deceased mother onto a tree, from dusk to dawn. Just from looking, the artist witnessed an unprecedented experience: when dawn arrives, the portrait cannot been seen anymore, however its existence remains. Li Yongbin’s work is derived from natural happenings and realities. His work follows the natural duration of a video tape, from camera ‘on’ to ‘off’. His observation of the ‘self’ is manifested when he embeds natural phenomenon and echoes a natural state in his work. This method is the spontaneous result of his practices, which flow together in his mind. Just like Wolfgang Laib’s extensive process for collecting flower pollens, Li Yongbin has also been continuously engaged in work on his Face Series (Lot 868), ever since the mid-1990s.

From the 1990s, video art evolved into computer-based art, ranging from ‘slides’ and ‘computational aesthetics’, to ‘game art’, this field gradually became increasingly interactive. Hardware-based art, or what was known as ‘CD-Rom Art’, was, in a way, the child of video art, and has led to the development of media art since the mid-1990s. Once, all these varieties fell into the category of ‘video art’. In 1994, Feng Mengbo was representative of ‘video artists’; he only started to be a ‘media artist’ since 2000, a representative shift in terms of categorisation. His work in sound, computer software, game and site-specific performances have contributed to the development of China’s media art. His artworks capture the ever-changing aspects of media in China, and the history of this country.

Feng Mengbo’s artistic decisions, from interactivity to ‘game art’ (‘Q3’ Lot 866), address the most current issues of our time. His personal, historical experience emerges from the intersection of technologies, interpersonal relationships and the backdrop of our contemporary moment. He cleverly translates this personal experience into the realm of public experience, accessible to a general audience. His artworks capture the fleeting and ever-changing aspects of media in China, and the history of this country.

In the post-2000 era, works like Jiao Yingqi’s work Hypertext (1995–96) and Qiu Zhijie’s West (1999) are examples of computer hardware-based artworks that pointed to a forthcoming ‘internet age’.Since 2000, artist Wang Jianwei has brought video art into the context of multi-media theatre, and developed his personal work into theatre, dealing with theatrical relationships. From this moment on, video art transformed from a purely screen-based (computer, television, projection) status into scenes in which space is materialised, into scenes performed by specific people, where spatial experience is shared by and partly composed of audiences. This is the reality of how video art extends into space, as pointed out in Wang Jianwei’s series of theatre works Paravent (Ping Feng) (Lot 865) and Ceremony. This reality, in terms of moving images and their internal relationships, has also influenced Wang’s own work, as well as the work of many other artists. The trend of theatrical performance is also evident in the fact that many artists began to adapt research methods using visual archives; this can be viewed as originating from creating theatre, or as deeper research into the general visual culture, or even as the rise of a new model of thinking. The ‘theatricalisation’, meanwhile, points to how internet art reconstructs other people’s moving images a decade after.

Wang Jianwei’s work, from his multi-media theatre (Paravent, Ceremony), video works (My Visual Archive (Lot 864)), to documentaries (Living Elsewhere), have constituted a grand knowledge system that draws on liberal and narrative abilities, as well as the artist’s unique visual experiences. Wang shows a special ability to grasp the nature of moving time and space, and conveys his complex spiritual status via visual elements that are moving, archival and with historical narratives.

Video art extends into the context of Chinese realities. The prevalence of mobile devices, and the anxiety and curiosity as a product of surveillance, have mutually constructed a working method detached from ‘direct cinema’, and with the abilities to reconstruct societal realities. This method is applied by artist Cui Xiuwen whose work enters the underground stations of urban life, (Underground No.2 Lot 867) enters female restrooms. In his work, the artist transforms the desire to pry into reflections on the reality of female lives.Similarly to Cui, these reflections of moments in daily life are also seen in visual biographies such as Xu Tan’s Made in China at Home (1998) (Lot 860). On the one hand, these works connect with the moment of video art’s historical turn with the arrival of the computer age; on the other hand, they express deep concern about both Chinese social realities and the situation of the ‘self’ within.

Since the moment when Chinese video artists began to appear in their own works, the notion of ‘media’ and ‘identity’ are both reinforced. Video artists, together with their individual attitude and working methods, grow and age as time flows. They turn old in their work, gradually, poetically. In this context, artists are not only purely narrators, but also striking individuals sculpted by time, while presented by reality. 

10 February 2015, written at home in Zurich

1 http://www.bjartlab.com/read.php?178

² http://www.vitamincreativespace.com/cn/?work=xu-tan-loose