Huang Yong Ping: Generally Unconcerned

I recently read The Art Newspaper’s Interview with Huang Yong Ping, whose travelling show is currently on view at the Kunsthallen Brandts in Odense.

In the interview, Huang Yong Ping expresses his general disinterest in the world at large. Reading the article, one imagines the Xiamen, China-born Huang Yong Ping to be practically asleep in his chair during the reporter’s questioning, waving away questions with a flick of the wrist. But really, what does one expect from one of the paramount figures in the Xiamen Dada movement whose incipient work bore the longwinded and noncommittal title of “The History of Chinese Painting and the History of Modern Western Art Washed in the Washing Machine for Two Minutes”?

A few of my favorite quotations from Huang Yong Ping from the Art Newspaper interview:

On his art: “I never feel strongly about anything.”

On the topic of the commercialized, mass-produced “fake” art currently garnering much funding and attention from foreign buyers in China: “By ignoring them they will die out naturally.”

On politics: “An artist should distance himself from power so that he can think independently.”

Although I must express my admiration for the above stated view on the right and necessity for an artist to think independently, reading this interview mainly made me think about how difficult it would be to host a dinner party full of dadaists. They would be so noncommittal.

Fecal Face dot Com

One of my favorite art blogs for fresh art is FecalFace.com. I know I usually blog about the high-end side of art, FecalFace features some of San Francisco’s most talented young artists, and it is a great digital-meets-brutal interface. It seems like no one’s afraid of anything.

‘Russian Schoolroom’ Teaches New Lessons

Norman Rockwell's 'Russian Schoolroom' (Courtesy: Las Vegas Sun)

Norman Rockwell’s “Russian Schoolroom” typifies the artist’s transition from the production of idealistic, dreamlike American scenes to then modern-day socio-political commentary. Today, the same painting has shifted in representation once again: now, “Russian Schoolroom” stands for modern greed and the ever-spinning, circular financial ramifications of art theft disputes.

The lithograph in question features a room of Russian schoolchildren (male) facing a bust of Lenin. It was produced in an era when the Cold War and the Russian Question in general were at the forefront of global consciousness–quite a leap from Rockwell’s characteristic happy-family-and-turkey productions for which he is mainly remembered in modern cultural recollection.

The plot began in 1968, when Jack Solomon, a lithograph company owner who worked with Rockwell during his heyday, purchased “Russian Schoolroom.” In 1973, after Solomon lent the piece to a gallery, it was stolen. In 1988 Judy Goffman Cutler bought the painting (and then sold it to director Steven Spielberg, whose assistant eventually discovered the stolen status of the painting).

“Russian Schoolroom”’s estimated value hovers around the figure of $700,000, but Cutler and Solomon have already collectively surpassed this amount in legal fees through their litigation. The painting is still in limbo, and the year-long argument over the piece seems to have taken over both of their lives.

Of course, art isn’t about monetary value. This Rockwell piece is a piece of history. But isn’t it also true that during the time this pair spends arguing over a piece of history, they are losing critical moments of history in their own lives?

Brooklyn Museum’s Crop of Coptic Art a Historical Farce

One of the earliest Christian carvings, according to Scripture and various Charlton Heston movies, is the Decalogue: the Ten Commandments.  Inscribed by a Divine Hand, the stone tablets revealed a collection of ten laws, including one that the Brooklyn Museum probably wished that their 1960s-era Egyptian art suppliers had followed a bit more closely:

“Thou Shalt Not Lie.”

Before the official revelation of the fake Coptics, Brooklyn Museum was billed as housing the second largest collection of Coptic Art in North America (immediately after New York’s Metropolitan Museum).  With 30 Coptic sculptures, the vast majority of which acquired in the years between 1960 and 1970 from Switzerland and New York, who acquired the sculptures directly from Egypt, the Brooklyn Museum’s collection of Coptics was nothing to sneeze at.

Coptic Sculpture refers to Christian sculpture created in Egypt between the 4th Century Anno Domini and the year of the Arab Invasion, 641 AD.  Carved from limestone, coptic sculpture has served as the artistic bridge uniting the artisan styles of Pagan and Christian cultures.  It is also credited with existing as historical evidence of the continuity of the large-scale sculpture form made standard during the Classical period.

For scholars like Coptic art specialist Thelma Thomas, a professor at New York University, Coptic art represents something besides continuity and cultural conduits–Coptic art has practically become synonymous with “fake,” as more and more supposedly authentic Coptic sculptures, upon closer inspection, prove to be false.

10 of Brooklyn Museum’s collection of 30 sculptures have been officially declared false.  An additional ten have been determined to have been recarved and repainted in the modern era.  The remaining 10 may well be authentic–but the damage has clearly been done.

What is Brooklyn Museum doing in response to the recent official denouncement (rumblings have been heard in the past, but no voice from the mountain had come down quite yet) of the authenticity of their collection?

Why having an exhibition, of course!

On February 13, 2009, the Brooklyn Museum will unveil an exhibition detailing the voyage of the forgeries.  The false sculptures have gleaned their own history from the fraud, and have become valuable in their own right (though clearly  not so much as the 1,000 original, authentic Coptic sculptures which supposedly still exist).

Never underestimate a national art gallery’s ability to spin fraud into profit.

Cydney Payton Moves On

MCA Denver Director Cydney Payton

I’ve followed Cydney Payton’s career for a number of years. It’s always incredible, and perhaps it shouldn’t be, but it is, when a woman of such talent is recognized for her visionary attributes and celebrated.

Cydney Payton took the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver from a collection of exhibits housed in a converted fish market to a stunning edifice designed by Tanzanian-born British minimalist architect David Adjaye.

As director of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver (MCA Denver), Cydney Payton depended on private fundraising (though she admits to first courting the public fundraising angle), a pragmatic switch in financing which not only came more naturally to the museum but also allowed for the eventual showing of more “risky” exhibitions thanks to its private funding.

Cydney Payton’s intricate direction of Denver’s landmark Contemporary Art Museum is illustrated best in the small tweaks she made to her processes. Her attention to detail and consideration of all aspects of a situation make her a remarkable director and an impressive leader in the art world.
It is precisely her sensible realism and practical moves in the art world which separates Cydney Payton from the rest of the pack. When shopping for architects for the new museum building, Cydney insisted that each of the finalists present a public lecture to the community, rather than the traditional closed-door presentations typically requested in these types of deliberative processes. By keeping the community involved, the museum’s planning had a far greater impact, and the greater Denver community felt valued and involved. MCA Denver was also recognized for its environmentally-conscious, progressive design.

In October of this year, Cydney Payton will resign. I hope she will retire to a tropical island somewhere and enjoy her success, but odds are she will probably keep working, subtly tweaking the art world, making it better and better and better.

Discus Throwers Grace China With Their Presence

Photo: EFE / José Álvarez Díaz. (http://www.artdaily.com)

The British Museum allowed a priceless collection of over one hundred sculptures and porcelains to be temporarily exhibited in Shanghai in the months preceding Beijing’s Olympic Games.

The Sisters Koplowitz

Esther Koplowitz is the recluse.  The sister who shies away from media, who keeps to herself, who—even when her Chamartin luxury apartment was burgled in 2001 –refused to speak to the media other than to communicate through a spokesperson that her enviable collection of fine art was uninsured.  Though both sisters married a set of cousins nearly simultaneously and divorced in unison over separate counts of adultery, the similarities between Esther and Alicia Koplowitz are about as rare as the paintings the sisters house in their respective homes.

While both sisters are listed among Spain’s richest individuals, and both are counted among the billionaire socialites of the world, Esther Koplowitz runs FCC, Fomentos de Construcciones y Contratas, and does so remarkably.  Esther’s shrewd business sense has garnered her a position on the board of France’s Vivendi International.

Alicia Koplowitz is considerably more visible in the art world than her sister, recently slated as attending the European Fine Art Fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands.

No Old for Ordinary Countrymen: Bertrand Meunier

Bertrand Meunier’s “Ordinary Countrymen” showcases a collection of photographic images meant to demonstrate the plight of the modern Chinese peasant, uprooted and lost in the shuffle of industrialization and urbanization. It may seem to the casual bystander, however, that this collection of images does little more than turn up a snooty nez at our Eastern brothers.

Take this image, for example:

© Bertrand Meunier - agence Tendance Floue / Musée Nicéphore Niépce

A Chinese man stands with an umbrella in the snow with a dog at his feet. The landscape is barren—frozen over like the peasant’s memories of a happier time. The peasant’s dress is in good condition—not threadbare. His umbrella is of decent quality. He doesn’t look malnourished.

What we have here is an image of quite a normal man in an umbrella, posed and smiling for the camera. This man’s experience seems no different from out own, and what we gain from this photo in terms of information is paltry at best. We see that the man can walk, that he is living during a cold season, and that he’s not afraid of a camera.

Bertrand Meunier is a social historian, and has tracked the progress of the 800 million Chinese peasants over the course of China’s emerging capitalism. The peasant exodus from the countryside is a motif seen often in our international cultural history. The story of China is not a new story: it is a recycled story of what happens when tired political processes rewrite themselves, not necessarily for the better.

The idea of China being an “old story” brings us back to our nondescript photo above. This average photo of this average man and this average dog on this average street isn’t just a shot of nothing. It isn’t just a throwaway snapshot, or a racist glance looking down on the lower class. It’s a statement of the exhausted Chinese story. It’s a demonstration of the way things have been, the way things will be. This man’s face isn’t visibly worn. His clothes are intact. His umbrella is whole. There is nothing in this photo to be outraged about.

But for the 800 million peasants in China struggling to keep afloat, this normalcy and lack of outrage is what keeps the growing country in limbo. Caught in a purgatory between poverty and sustainable comfort, the Chinese peasant class is what this man in Bertrand Meunier’s photo is: still, posing, and waiting for a flash.