AAP 104 REVIEWS CITY: Beijing GALLERY: Ullens Center for Contemporary Art IN BOX: The New Normal: China, Art, and 2017 “The New Normal” is the third iteration of what has become a tradition at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA): to stage a large-scale group show every four years, and present a picture of the current state of art. The previous two, in 2009 and 2013, included only Chinese artists; this year, the four young curators—Guo Xi, Yang Zi, Alvin Li and Wenfei Wang—have cast the net a little wider, presenting the work of 24 artists both Chinese and foreign. While not expressly stated, it was clear that certain events—the ascent of Donald J. Trump; Brexit; the rise of right-wing movements in Turkey, Hungary and the Philippines; plus continued wars in Syria and Yemen—loomed large in the curators’ minds. With anxieties about globalization now commonplace, and subsequent wantonly atomistic reactions coming to define our sociopolitical reality, the exhibition both explores and reflects those feelings. The artworks, predominantly videos, schizophrenically jump from China to Qatar to South Korea to Iceland to the Philippines, and rapidly onward through space (and time). Further disconcertion arose from their physical arrangement; when moving between the 23 compartments—a feeling not dissimilar to slogging through art fair booths—it was easy to get lost. The English and Chinese titles of the exhibition carry different meanings, an early signal of the guiding concerns. In English, “The New Normal” references Chinese president Xi Jinping’s doublespeak regarding the country’s decreasing rate of economic growth, but also functions as a sweeping definition of the art world’s (and entire world’s) current condition. The exhibition’s Chinese title, which translates as “States of Exception,” takes the term from Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who defined periods of societal crisis within which governments feel justified to increase their power beyond accepted norms. Almost all of the art was interesting; whether looking backward or forward in time, it felt fresh and relevant. Zhu Changquan’s vegetation-filled compartment, titled Jump from the Past (2017), saw Marco Polo and Deng Xiaoping engage in an imagined conversation. With Solar Spectrum: the Royal Ballet of the Night 2 (2017), Yao Qingmei presented loud videos of an opera singer and a ballerina at either side of her section, while a third video sees the artist engaging in an erratic deconstruction of some of the other propaganda tools used by the Sun King, Louis XIV. Dropping us back in the present, Chen Chenchen’s video installation The Mercy of Not Killing (2017) seems to place the fate of a group of male laborers into our hands. We enter to find a set of stairs leading to a platform. Images of the men are projected onto the platform’s edge, creating the illusion of them hanging from the ledge. We are in a position of power, seemingly able to push them to their deaths, with foreboding background music appearing to invite this violent act. Yet the metal chains surrounding the platform, their links shaped like interlocked hands, suggest that we should help the hanging men. Ultimately, our actions need to fit the artist’s designs, and we must allow the men to live. Despite being one of the more optimistic works in the show, drawing on a shared humanity that Chen believes is in all of us, the work espouses uncertainty and trepidation. Lawrence Lek rounded out the show with three computer-generated videos, ending on a note that leaves the viewer thinking beyond the exhibition, on potential future norms and states of exceptions. The prophesies presented in Sinofuturism (1839 – 2046 AD) (2016), of a world dominated by endless knock- offs and addictions to videogames, might be incomprehensible dystopian visions for those unaccustomed to certain parts of East Asia, while likely engendering feelings that are less pessimistic from those who are. As such, the exhibition ended with a cultural schism that the show’s title began with. An anxiety-laden exhibition at UCCA should come as no surprise, since that air fills the building, with the owners selling up and many staff jumping ship. Here’s to hoping that this situation has not become the new normal at UCCA, because exhibitions like this one show that they still have much to offer.
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