What’s Been Goin On: Latter Half of March
That Statue of Liberty is comprised of 18,000 soldiers standing in formation!
Been keeping busy in NYC — the city so nice they had to name it twice. Here’s a brief roundup of for the latter half of March:
On March 14th, went with family friends to Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) for a program of pieces choreographed and performed by students in their ISVP program international program. The highlights were some really nice partnering choreography, and the extended use of the Da Rockwilder instrumental.
March 15th was the Mandarin Meetup at Great Sizhuan restaurant. Overall win-win: two hours of Mandarin convo, good food, new friends.
The screening of Vincent Who? was the first trip of several to the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). While the film — a documentary featuring Asian American activists talking about the effect the beating death of Vincent Chin in 1982 had on them and the formation of the Asian American community — could’ve been stronger, the Q&A that followed was excellent. A spirited dialogue (punching people was mentioned several times) highlighted the cultural differences between an older generation of Chinese who’d grown up tough in New York in the 60s and 70s, and the realities of their children who, growing up sheltered in the suburbs, feel like they’ve yet to experience discrimination.
The 19th was a full day: seven hours of China-related panels at The Left Forum, followed by an excellent Oh Liza Jane gig, and Mr. Fine Wine’s funk night at the Commodore. The highlight of the panels was the one on Ethnic Relations in China. Particularly interesting were the presentations by Grace Cheng and Ying Li. The latter’s talk on Yi-Xia and the role the resurrection of Confucianism plays in framing ethnic conflict in contemporary China was excellent. My notes from the Ethnic Relations in China panel.
Dan Rochford’s “Girls I Have Known”
Ha-Joon Chang’s talk about his book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism at NYU on the 21st was fantastic. I’ve posted notes from the talk, but you really need to just buy the book and see him speak if you get a chance. If he’s not coming to a city near you, check him out on Democracy Now. So far the lectures I’ve seen on economics — this and Pranab Bardhan’s talk on assessing the rise China-India — have been among the best events I’ve attended.
To mark the beginning of Asia Contemporary Art Week on the 24th, the ultra-talented Nadav Benjamin and I went to In a Perfect World at Meulensteen Gallery, Layers: Recent Works by Xiaoze Xie at Chambers Fine Art, and the book signing for Chinese Artists: New Media 1990-2010 at James Cohan Gallery. The book by Xhingyu Chen looks great, and the gallery also had some great drawings of moon phases, rendered in painstaking detail, night after night, with graphite. The Meulensteen show was mixed — the groups of drawings by Zhou Yilun, were the best. The wood patterns on silk by Hu Xiaoyuan were also promising. Xiaoze Xie’s work was nicely presented at Chambers. The large paintings of stacks of newspapers were intriguing, and well rendered. The video installation featuring books burned by the Nazis projected onto a wall of books could’ve used better installation (the projector was at waist level), but raised interesting parallels between the Cultural Revolution and the Nazi experience. The use of the German footage highlighted the amazing level of distance implied by the Nazi’s meticulous documentation of their atrocities, and the consuming passion that seems to have marked the Cultural Revolution.
The 25th was the Dialogues in Asian Contemporary Art: International Biennials panel at the Guggenheim. The topic was the curation of international biennials in Asia. All the panelists (and moderator Joe Martin Hill)were white westerners, a point raised in a question from noted art historian Linda Nochlin — and responded to somewhat testily by the panelists. The presentations by the three curators — Suzanne Cotter, Massimiliano Gioni, and David Elliott — did provide an illuminating look into the different methods used to create these massive shows, and the issues faced with creating a show for the people (biennials are often an element of city branding strategy) in a place where you’re a foreigner.
Peter and I attended Some Day: Chen Jiao at Tallybeck Contemporary on the 26th. The daikon with dots of miso and wasabi hor d’ouvres were, frankly, more colorful and challenging than the work itself. Like many Chinese painters, Chen has no idea what to do with a background (I suspect this stems from the fact that traditional Chinese painting rarely has an actively plainted ground) and there was little going on in the paintings. We chose dinner over Qin Feng’s exhibition at Ethan Coen Fine Art. When I visited Qin’s studio in Beijing a few years ago he was doing similar work, and congee won out over art. Ethan Coen was at nearly all, if not all, of the ACAW events I attended.
Ushio Shinohara
The 28th marked a departure from the China crawl. I attended the Neo-Dada Mix/Remix discussion with Ushio Inohara and Tomokazu Matsuyama at the Asia Society. While both artists are doing interesting work, Ushio-San definitely stole the show. Almost 80, he continues to pursue his avant garde agenda, obliterating large murals like the Michael Jackson/Kabuki piece from 2009 with paint covered boxing gloves, even when he’d rather let it be. (Some pics here)His dedication to pursuing his ideals, even when they’ve failed to garner him much attention or money, was inspiring. A hint of the difficulty of this path was exposed when his wife in the audience answered a question for him, prefacing it with a completely serious, “Sadly, I’ve been married to Ushio for 30 years…” (I saw her the other day in Dumbo looking badass.)
March 30th, photographer Brian Zbichorski and I attended the panel at the Drawing Center featuring Nicholas Frank and a number of French curators and artists, marking the publishing of the Spatial City: An Architecture of Idealism catalog. The catalog and exhibition was curated by Frank and edited by Polly Morris, my mother. Based on work from France’s innovative FRAC — regional collections of contemporary art spread out over the country with mission to respond to the needs of each community and local artists — it toured to Milwaukee, Chicago, and Detroit — growing at each stop. The Drawing Center was also featuring an excellent show of work by artists responding to news photos. The drawings of soldiers and news photos reminded me of my own work ‘back in the days’ when I still made work.
That day we also went to the excellent and highly recommended Glenn Ligon show at The Whitney. Per usual, there was the usual uncomfortable specter of an all-white audience viewing a show which was often about being black, in front of an all-black guard staff. Go see this show.
Pol and I also went up the The Met and caught some great shows there. My fave was Our Future is in the Air: Photographs from the 1910s. Great curation brings together Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz‘s innovative photos with the Dowager Empress Maria Feoderovna’s travel albums from the year before the Russian Revolution, and Girls I Have Known (above) — a compilation of pin up-y photos and essays on meeting girls by tthen-teenage-sportswriter Dan Rochford.
Back to MOCA on the 31st for From Jean-Paul Sartre to Teresa Teng: Contemporary Cantonese Art in the 1980s, a great documentary by Asia Art Archive about the development of contemporary Chinese art in the south, away from the political and cultural center of Beijing. A great panel followed. The emphasis on reading — the flood of translations of Western philosophical texts — was especially interesting. As was the portrayal of a relatively brief period — essentially 82-85 to about June 4th, 1989, when artists were relatively (the meetings of the local art group were closed by the PSB) free.
I walked over a few blocks to Santos Party House to catch Juiceboxxx and my brother Willy D play. A great show as always, they’re moving in a new musical direction that seems to be drawing — intentionally or not — on the Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, Springsteen, Public Enemy (who they toured with last year), and Baltimore club music. Jeff and the Brotherhood and Screamales also made noise.
Normally you’d have two weeks off before the next missive, but Apr 15 is already here. Gonna try to speed these up.
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