Arts Focus: Abramović on the Great Wall

With the closing today of performance artist Marina Abramović's (born 1946 in Belgrade, Yugoslavia) important retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, it seems only fitting to point out one of her performance works which took place on the Great Wall of China. From 1976-1988, Abramović collaborated on many thought-provoking performance works with her then-partner, Ulay (Uwe Laysiepen, born 1943 in Solingen, Germany). Their final collaboration simultaneously marked the end of their relationship. "The Lovers: Great Wall Walk" was staged only after extensive negotiation with Chinese authorities. Abramović began walking at the eastern end of the Great Wall, from the Yellow Sea not far from Beijing, and Ulay began his walk from the western end, at Jiayuguan in Gansu Province. After walking for 90 days, the two met in the middle to embrace and say farewell. Their performance was recorded by Murray Grigor for the BBC and turned into a documentary titled "The Great Wall: Lovers at the Brink."

Marina Abramović's statement about their final performance follows:

The earth is small and blue. I am a small crevice in it.

Huang Xiang, 2nd century

Confessions of the Great Wall

From up here, the earth looks small and blue.

Yuri Gagarin, first cosmonaut

Ulay and I end our relations with this project. The concept is to approach each other from the two ends of the Great Wall of China. He begins in the Gobi Desert and I begin at the Yellow Sea; we meet halfway in between. We each walked 2000 kilometers to say good-bye.

Duration: 90 days. Last meeting on June 3, 1988.

(source: http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/the-lovers/)

This performance was also the subject of a 1999 Ph.D. dissertation by Samantha Krukowski at the University of Texas-Austin titled Performing History: Walking Along Ulay and Abramovic's The Lovers:

http://www.rasa.net/writings/dissertation.html

Information about the Museum of Modern Art retrospective "Marina Abramović: The Artist Is Present" and a link to the exhibition site may be found here:

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/965

Along with live re-enactments by actors of some of her earlier performance pieces, Abramović performed a new work in the Marron Atrium of the Museum of Modern Art in which she sat wordlessly opposite museum-goers. This piece, which ended at 5pm EST today, is her longest performance, beginning each day before the museum opened and ending after it closed, lasting over 700 hours in all.

When the piece was ongoing, a live feed was available on the Museum of Modern Art website. A Flickr set of the museum-goers who sat opposite the artist may be viewed here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/themuseumofmodernart/sets/72157623741486824/

And an article about it can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/arts/design/31diva.html

During the opening reception, Ulay sat across from Abramović, their first performance together since 1988:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/themuseumofmodernart/4422559925/in/set-72157623594227362/

These two works of Marina Abramović, from the Great Wall of China to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, explore themes of human encounter and farewell - the profundity of the space that exists between two people.

Photograph of Marina and Ulay's meeting and farewell on the Great Wall:
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/the-lovers/images/3/

Arts Focus: Shanghai Expo

Following in the grand tradition of the Crystal Palace, World's Columbian Exposition, and St. Louis World's Fair, the Shanghai Expo opened on May 1 and will be open until Oct. 30. Shanghai won the bid to hold the expo on December 3, 2002, the first developing nation to do so. The theme of the Shanghai Expo is "Better City, Better Life." An anticipated 70 million visitors are expected to visit pavilions organized by 200 domestic, international, and corporate participants, welcomed by the mascot Haibao (pictured above).

A photo gallery of the pavilions, some of them truly extraordinary structures, may be found at the following link:

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=210&p=1&id=454#inicio

The official website of the expo is here:

http://en.expo2010.cn/

The significance of the Shanghai Expo to international relations is analyzed in the following article, which also describes the expo as "China's new showcase to the world."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8651057.stm

If your summer travel plans include a trip to the Shanghai Expo, leave a comment!

Arts Focus: Setting "Semele"

This is hardly new news, but the Chinese artist Zhang Huan has designed and directed a production of George Frideric Handel's (1685-1759) opera "Semele" in a project co-organized by Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels and the KT Wong Foundation in London that commemorates the 250th anniversary of the composer's death. Zhang worked with an international team of choreographers, designers, and performers in order to realize the production that opened on September 8. It will then travel to China in 2010.

In the following interview, Zhang discusses the experience of working on the opera in addition to providing a behind-the-scenes view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuGSHjVyXM8

An article about the opera can be found here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/arts/17iht-LOOMIS.html?_r=1&ref=arts

Zhang's set designs for the opera touch upon universal themes of the encounters between gods and humans by using a Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) ancestral temple built of wood for the primary backdrop, which can be seen prominently in an image from the following article:

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=32034

Moreover, his work on this project ties together his early excursions into performance art when he lived in the "East Village" of Beijing during the mid-1990s, and introduces yet another layer of interpretation, from ancient Greek myth to Baroque opera to the 21st century international stage.

Arts Focus: The Fabric of Indian Society

Indian fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee is endeavoring to bring back the use of khadi, homespun fabric, into contemporary Indian fashion. Khadi is made from cotton, silk, or wool which is handspun into threads and then woven by hand. Due to the way it is produced, the fabric has a rougher feel than machine-made fabric.

One of the enduring images of the 20th century is that of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) seated beside a spinning wheel. Throughout the 1920s during the Indian struggle for independence, Gandhi advocated a return to the making and use of khadi, which symbolized self-reliance and a rejection of foreign machine-made textiles. Moreover, Gandhi believed that the separation of production and consumption of consumer goods resulted in the exploitation of workers, another reason for his promotion of khadi.

According to Mukherjee, khadi is "refined, sophisticated, eco-friendly and comfortable" although it "has too long been regarded as the poor man's fabric." In order to bring khadi back into fashion, he is reaching out to Bollywood stars and international celebrities who wear his designs out in public, often to great acclaim. He has also established cooperatives of craftswomen in rural areas across India. Nevertheless, due to the handmade nature of the fabric, his designs are extremely expensive. But the price may be worth it in order to preserve traditional textile-making techniques in India.

An article about Sabyasachi Mukherjee can be found here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8256410.stm

Photograph of Mahatma Gandhi by Margaret Bourke-White, 1946, Time-Life

Arts Focus: Ananda Coomaraswamy

On September 17, Sotheby's New York is due to hold an auction of modern and contemporary South Asian art, as well as six miniature paintings from the collection of Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877-1947). Ananda Coomaraswamy was born in Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon) to a Tamil father and English mother; after the death of his father when he was only two years old, the young Coomaraswamy moved with his family to England, where he was educated. He studied geology and botany at university, and returned to his homeland between the years 1902-1906 in order to conduct research on Ceylonese mineralogy. During this period of time, an abiding interest in the arts was kindled. Coomaraswamy wrote a book on the premodern art of Sri Lanka, having been deeply influenced by the theories of William Morris, a leading figure of the Arts and Crafts movement who valorized handicrafts above machine-made goods. In India, he associated with well-known intellectuals such as Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).

In 1917, Coomaraswamy came to the United States in order to serve as the first curator of Indian art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; he was in fact the first curator of Indian art in any museum in the U.S. He worked at the Museum of Fine Arts until his death in 1947. One area in which he specialized was the study of miniature paintings. For this reason, the sale of six paintings from his collection next week is a significant event.

One of Coomaraswamy's major contributions to the study of miniature painting was his research on Mughal and Rajput painting. The Muslim Mughals, originating from Central Asia, ruled over much of the Indian subcontinent between the 16th-18th centuries. The Hindu Rajputs ruled over the princely states of northwestern India. The paintings produced by Mughal court painters were influenced by Persian painting styles. Over time, the Persian painting styles had an impact on Rajput painting as well, reflecting the political alliances that developed between the Mughals and Rajputs.

The e-catalogue for the Sotheby's auction can be viewed here:
http://catalogue.sothebys.com/events/N08566

Unfortunately, the captions don't identify which paintings are from the Coomaraswamy collection, but the article below on the Sotheby's auction identifies one of them as a painting illustrating a jataka tale (a story of the Buddha's past lives) dating 1780-1790.

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=32819

Arts Focus: Lords of the Samurai

An interesting debate is forming about an exhibit on view until September 20 at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco entitled "Lords of the Samurai." Samurai were warriors in premodern Japan. The title alludes to the Hosokawa clan, who were daimyo, or regional lords who grew to prominence after the establishment of military rule in Japan during the Kamakura Period (1185-1333). The exhibit features artworks such as paintings, tea utensils, armor, and swords from the Hosokawa family collection in Japan.

However, critics of the exhibit who view it as presenting an orientalizing and exoticizing view of Japanese history have established a spoof website. The banner at the top of the main page reads "Asians Art Museum: Where Asian Still Means Oriental." Among the criticisms leveled against the exhibit are claims that the focus on samurai valorizes warfare, presents an uncritical look at bushido, or the way of the samurai, and that it reduces seven centuries of martial rule to "a single Disney-like trope of gentleman-warrior myth."

Without having seen the exhibit personally, all I can comment upon are the original and spoof websites, and offer up some food for thought. Members of the warrior class played a pivotal role throughout Japanese history as patrons and connoisseurs of the arts, as well as establishing a close religious and artistic connection with Zen Buddhist monks. The selection of objects in the exhibit seems to illustrate the multi-faceted role of samurai in Japanese society well. On the other hand, much of the content on the exhibition website appears to focus upon the martial rather than cultural aspects of the samurai, offering features such as "Making a Samurai Sword," "Explore Samurai Armor," and "The Code of the Samurai."

Lastly, Prof. Morgan Pitelka from Occidental College has written a thoughtful blog post analyzing the role played by museums in disseminating information to the public. He writes that "I have long argued that museums are probably the most important scholarly site in the world we live in for mass education about other nations and cultures." Furthermore, he writes that "Most museum professionals are entirely aware of the incredible responsibility they have in putting on exhibitions that often substitute for a nation’s entire history. Curators know that visitors might feel that having visited a show on the samurai, they have in effect visited Japan itself. This is the wonderful power and also the great danger of the museum; it reduces social and cultural complexity, not to mention historical variation and diversity, to a few beautiful objects."

Not having seen the exhibit personally, it is difficult to comment further, but several questions come to mind. First of all, how representative of the exhibit is the exhibition website? Secondly, do museums "package" exhibitions differently for academics than for the general public? Lastly, are the critiques of the spoof website fair or are the critics themselves misrepresenting the exhibit?

Lords of the Samurai website:
http://www.asianart.org/Samurai.htm

Spoof website:
http://www.asiansart.org/samurai1.html

Interview with the critics behind the spoof website:
http://www.8asians.com/2009/08/28/8-questions-for-asians-arts-museum/

Prof. Pitelka's blog post:
http://www.froginawell.net/japan/2009/08/samurai-exhibit-pwned/
(links above courtesy of his blog post)

Arts Focus: Zhang Huan

Zhang Huan is one of the most thought-provoking contemporary artists working today. Born in 1965 in Henan Province in central China, he was part of an artists' collective located on the outskirts of Beijing known as the "East Village," which because of cheap rents had become a nexus for avante-garde artists by 1993. The period of time that he spent in the "East Village" and abroad marked a dramatic departure from the academic training in oil painting that Zhang had undergone at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, from which he earned an MFA. Known initially as a performance artist, Zhang used his body as a canvas, engaging in feats as diverse as locking himself inside a metal case in a simulation of death to walking into a fishing pond with a group of nearly fifty people in an effort to raise the water level.

From 1998-2006, Zhang lived and worked in New York City, after which he moved back to China, establishing his studio in Shanghai. He has been the focus of numerous group and solo exhibitions. In recent years, his worked has turned from performance art to sculpture and installations. In the link below, New York Times journalist David Barboza takes viewers on a tour of Zhang's Shanghai studio and draws interesting comparisons between the nature of art-making and the commercialization of contemporary Chinese art.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/arts/20070903_Zhang_FEATURE/index.html

Zhang Huan's website is located here:

http://www.zhanghuan.com/