Opening reception at REDCAT on Thursday, September 16, 6–9 pm

About the Artists

Zhang Peili (b. 1957, Hangzhou) graduated from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou in 1984. He has been called the “Father of Chinese video art” and is a leading figure in the Chinese contemporary art scene ever since the mid-1980s. His influence on his peers and his role as educator of younger generations of artists cannot be emphasized enough. As the main founder of the first new media department in the Chinese art eductation system, his pedagogical engagement has been greatly fruitful. He has had solo exhibitions at Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth (2009); OCT Contemporary Art Terminal, Shenzhen (2008); and Museum of Modern Art, New York (1999). Zhang has also been included in ‘85 New Wave, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2007); China Power Station, Serpentine Gallery, London (2006); Alors la Chine?, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Zone of Urgency, Venice Biennale (2003); Global Conceptualism, Queens Museum of Art, New York (1999); Cities on the Move, CAPC musée d’Art contemporain de Bordeaux and Secession, Vienna (1997-9); Inside Out, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1998). Zhang lives and works in Hangzhou where he serves as founding dean and professor of the New Media Department at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.

Zhu Jia (b. 1963, Beijing) graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing in 1988. He has presented work at Trans Local Motion, Shanghai Biennale (2008); Not Only Possible, But Also Necessary, Istanbul Biennale (2007); World Factory, San Francisco Art Institute (2007); Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography & Video from the Haudenschild Collection, National Art Museum of China (2005); The Second Guangzhou Triennial (2005); Alors la Chine?, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2003); Zone of Urgency, Venice Biennale (2003); Time After Time, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2003); Tempo, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2002); Living in Time, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2001); Translated Acts, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin and Queens Museum of Art, New York (2001); Cities on the Move, CAPC musée d’Art contemporain de Bordeaux and Secession, Vienna (1997-9); Every Day, 11th Biennale of Sydney (1998). Zhu lives and works in Beijing.

*Image: Left: Zhang Peili, Uncertain Pleasure, Right: Zhu Jia, Forever

By Michelle McCoy for the Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, December 2007

Yang Fudong, Honey, 2003, video

Introduction

Located in the hills of La Jolla, a seaside resort community near San Diego, California, the residence of Chris and Eloisa Haudenschild is home to a major U.S. collection of contemporary Chinese video art and photography. It includes the work of roughly twenty-eight Chinese artists, including, significantly, Song Tao’s Life is Wonderful (2003), a large floor-top photo installation; Honey 2 (2003), a video by Hugo Boss Prize-nominated Yang Fudong; and Xu Zhen’s 1999 photomontage Sewer. In addition, the Haudenschild collection includes roughly one hundred and twenty holdings by ninety artists from the Americas, Europe, and other parts of Asia. Notable pieces include a triptych from Francis Alÿs’s series of paintings titled The Liar (ca. 1995), a photograph of Kristof Wodiczko’s Tijuana Projection (2002), and a painting from Komar & Melamid’s Most Wanted series dated at 2000 by the collector.(1)

The Haudenschilds began collecting contemporary Chinese video and photography in the late 1990s, when these mediums were beginning to become as widely used and important as they are today, and just before the beginning of the market’s current boom. Since then, prices for paintings by a few Chinese artists have topped two million dollars,(2) and domestic collectors have entered the market in a significant way.(3) In November 2006, for instance, a Chinese collector purchased a Liu Xiaodong painting at a Beijing auction for $2.7 million, the highest price paid at auction for a painting by a Chinese artist who began working after 1979. (4)

The current overall global art market also finds that contemporary art has, for the first time, “truly begun to rival the historically dominant Impressionism and Modern categories” at auction.(5) Evidence to the overall market’s growth, The Financial Times has recently been publishing how-to articles about art collecting in general and at least one art hedge fund has been established. Situated within this historic global market growth, expansion into China and other regions is seen as having contributed significantly overall. In addition to the work having dramatically appreciated, China has a new class of art collectors, with new levels of wealth among them. In fact, expansion into China and other “new” regions is often used in the case against the market’s potential crash.

Xu Zhen, Sewer, 1998, photograph

Within this, the private collector maintains a unique position. On the one hand, as Britta Erickson writes, “Private collections are well suited to capturing the life of a vibrant art movement, driven as they are by passion, unencumbered by institutional impedimenta.”(6) Not necessarily affixed to any institution or gallery, today’s private collector has the flexibility to build a historically complete collection, so long as he or she has the means and access to do so. On the other hand, private collectors are not under any obligation to remain loyal to any particular mission. As Lu Jie, founder and director of the Long March Project, said, “ . . . we’ve observed that many [collectors] started out building a big collection and ended up selling the artwork in auctions . . . . It really takes time to get to know what the real agenda is that a collector has.” (7) However, there are standards and traditions by which collectors are judged, which the late Jonathan Napack, former Asia adviser to Art Basel describes: to be considered a “collector,” one must have a certain amount of commitment and knowledge.(8)

Chris and Eloisa Haudenschild’s level of commitment and knowledge is evidenced by the way they support contemporary art beyond collecting. The Haudenschild Foundation supports exhibitions and sponsors artists’ and scholars’ projects and programs such as symposia and residencies at the haudenschildGarage. Perhaps their most ambitious project yet was an exhibition entitled Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection, which took place from 2003 to 2005 and traveled to venues in San Diego, Shanghai, Tijuana, Singapore, and Beijing.

Cao Fei’s and Pi Li’s presentation at the Political Equator Garage Talk at the haudenschildGarage, June 2006

In her catalogue essay for this exhibition, Erickson addresses the collection’s strengths: “Representing a personal vision, it has not been expected to present a complete or historic view of the field. Nevertheless, it has captured a major slice of Chinese photography and video, representative of a signal moment”(9) in the field’s entrance onto the global stage. Scholar Martina Köppel-Yang recognized it as the first collection of its kind, (10) and Tina Yapelli, Director of the University Gallery at San Diego State University and the exhibition’s organizer, lauded it as “the most important collection of contemporary Chinese video and photography in the world.” (11) Lorenz Helbling, the Haudenschilds’ longstanding dealer, writes, “The collection is a very ‘open’ collection . . .. It doesn’t aim to fix images people should have of China, or to transmit stereotypes of China. It’s not about ‘signature works’ or ‘trophy pieces’—it’s more about a spirit, about involvement.” The Haudenschilds, he writes, are “great collectors.”(12)

The Collection

To date, in addition to work by Yang Fudong, Song Tao, and Xu Zhen, the Haudenschild collection consists of works by Cao Fei, Chen Shaoxiong, Feng Mengbo, Geng Jianyi, Gu Dexin, Hai Bo, Hong Hao, Hu Jieming, Kan Xuan, Liu Wei, Lu Chunsheng, Shi Yong, Tang Maohong, Wang Jin, Wang Youshen, Weng Fen, Xiang Liqing, Yang Yong, Yang Zhenzhong, Yu Youhan, Zhao Bandi, Zhao Nengzhi, Zheng Guogu, Zhou Tiehai, and Zhu Jia. All of the works in the collection are photography, video/animation or computer graphics, or photo-based installations, except for two oil paintings and one print. The photographs are from editions of one hundred or smaller, with the majority of them from editions of ten or fewer. All of the videos are from editions of fewer than ten. (13)

Yang Zhenzhong, 922 Rice Corns, 2000, video

Of these seventy individual works produced by twenty-eight artists, two of the works were produced by women artists: Cao Fei and Kan Xuan. Three of the artists are thirty years old or younger, while ten are between thirty-one and forty, fourteen are between forty-one and fifty, and one artist is over sixty. Most of them are based in Shanghai, with a few based in Beijing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Yangjiang, Guangzhou, and Haikou, Hainan. Only Kan Xuan maintains a residence both in Beijing and abroad, in Amsterdam.

Eloisa Haudenschild said she is primarily interested in collecting as a way to assist and connect with emerging artists. She explained that when artists have been recognized and supported by other collectors, she maintains relationships with them, but her interest shifts from collecting their work to assisting them in other ways, such as funding projects. With charismatic ebullience, Haudenschild said she has never sold a work, nor has she bought work by an artist she has not met. She has never attempted to acquire work from an artist directly and has always used an agent or dealer. She said she has never asked the price of an artwork. The works have been acquired through studio visits and meetings with artists, stories she recounts with pleasure. Haudenschild refers to the first trips in which she began to acquire Chinese artwork as “my love affair.” (14)

Background

Eloisa Haudenschild, née Rodriguez-Carbornell, was born into an affluent family in Buenos Aires, Argentina, who were involved in real estate and politics. When asked, she said she probably could be considered a third- or fourth-generation collector, and keeps some of her family’s paintings and antiques in the La Jolla estate. She met Chris Haudenschild, an astrophysicst-entrepreneur and native of Los Angeles, skiing in Portillo in 1973. Chris Haudenschild, who has roots in Iowa and Indiana, is a first generation collector. Together they have two daughters, Rita and Anna, whose artwork is also listed in the collection’s catalogue.

Eloisa Haudenschild, Laura Zhou, and Ma Shulin (Deputy Director, National Art Museum of China) at the opening of Zooming into Focus, November 2005, National Art Museum of China, Beijing

Eloisa Haudenschild’s educational background is in psychology. She was involved in dance and choreography before pursuing her interest in contemporary art. She cut her art-collecting teeth in the early 1990s with contemporary work from Latin America. At that time, she was president of the bi-national board of inSite, a network of contemporary art programs and commissioned projects that map the liminal border area of San Diego and Tijuana.

Haudenschild said, “I traveled with the board and the directors to Mexico City every two months or so, visiting artists and studios, traveling with them and having fun. That afforded me the opportunity of meeting some extraordinary artists like Francis Alÿs, a good friend, who together with other good friends have since become international figures in the art world. There, I really got a firsthand experience of the situation. I saw firsthand their need of support.”

When Chris Haudenschild, founder and president of CliniComp, a healthcare information management system, began expanding his business into China, the couple began making regular trips to Shanghai. As she had done in Latin America, Eloisa Haudenschild sought to investigate the local art scene in Shanghai.

Approach

Participants in the symposium “Distance—A Discussion on Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video” at the China Art Academy, Hangzhou, March 2004. Left to right: Pi Li, Eloisa Haudenschild, Waling Boers, Martina Koppel-Yang, Laura Zhou, Evelyne Jouanno, Hou Hanru, Jonathan Napak, Rudolf Stoert, Anna Haudenschild, Chris Haudenschild, Rita Haudenschild, Gridthiya Gaweewong, Wang Gongxin, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Wang Du, Zhang Peili, and Zheng Shengtian

Haudenschild recounts the late 1990s as an environment very different from the art world in the large urban centers of today’s China. “I spent a lot of time looking around,” she said of her first trips. “My husband and I went to the Shanghai Art Museum and saw a show of work by the Corsinos, a brother and sister who live in France. I was so moved by the work, and was bummed about not being able to share it with anyone. It was so nice to see something besides calligraphy and ink washes. I thought, ‘Somebody did this, some curator—someone has this sensibility,’ but I didn’t know who it was. So, I saw this guy walking around [the Shanghai Art Museum] who looked a little like Salvador Dali. I thought, ‘I’m going to ask this guy.’ And of course, it was Dadou.”

Dadou, or Davide Quadrio, founded BizArt, a self-supported non-profit gallery, in Shanghai in 1998. Along with ShanghART, it shares billing as one of the oldest contemporary art institutions in the city.

“I said [to Dadou], I’ve been coming here for three years, where is the artwork?’ He said, ‘Go to ShanghART and see Lorenz.’ So, my husband and I immediately caught a cab and went to [the gallery in] Fuxing Park. As you may know, getting around in those days wasn’t as easy as it is now.”

“I walked into [ShanghART]. Then, I met Laura Zhou,” Mr. Helbling’s partner at ShanghART. “It was genius from that moment on with Laura. . . . We are very close. She calls me ‘mommy.’”

Previously, Mr. Helbling had been showing work at the Portman Ritz-Carlton Hotel, a massive hotel, convention centre and residence in Shanghai. “He used to carry paintings around on the back of his motorcycle trying to sell them, because at that time he didn’t have a space,” recounts Haudenschild. Since then, ShanghART has moved from its Fuxing Park location and expanded into three different spaces within Shanghai. A fourth space opened this year in Beijing.

“I loved the continual excitement. The best part was going to studios and apartments to look at the work,” Haudenschild says. Effusive with praise for Mr. Helbling, she said, “[Lorenz] is so good. If I wanted something and he wasn’t working with that artist, he’d get it for me. For instance Cao Fei. He facilitated that…You know, Lorenz wouldn’t sell to just anybody. He’s not as concerned with making a profit. We work together; he really wants to support the artists.”

She said he has never given her explicit advice, saying, “You know how it is with Lorenz, you never know [what he’s really thinking]. He’ll listen, smoking, with his coffee. And then he’ll say, ‘Eloisa, I think it’s time to think.’” Helbling and Zhou did, however, encourage her to look at certain artists.

After that initial trip, Haudenschild says she did a fair amount of research, contacting and meeting with scholars and curators in the field. She went to Paris and met with Hou Hanru, and exchanged emails with Britta Erickson. Perhaps in testament to the perceived need for a studied, serious, aesthetics-based treatment of contemporary Chinese art, Haudenschild said her queries to these noted curators and scholars—“from me, this little collector”—were enthusiastically received. Meantime, she continued collecting on her regular trips to China.

Yang Fudong, City Light, 2000, video

Collecting Video And Photography

In general, photography and video, like other edition-based media, have traditionally sold for less than paintings. Despite their lower value within the market, however, these media, as previously mentioned, are important to contemporary Chinese art and often become vehicles for highly conceptual projects. Critic and scholar Lu Leiping describes photography and video as the “most experimental and pioneering media today,” and “the media that more strongly maintain the Chinese characteristics.” (15) Indeed, many artists represented in the Haudenschild collection work solely in photography and video, and several are now highly sought after in large international exhibitions and biennials.

Haudenschild describes the process of arriving at the collection’s focus on video and photography as a product of following her own instincts. “You have to trust your eye,” she said. “I just get what I like, and the video and photography were what I liked . . .. There’s no one telling me what to do.” “I did not initially intend to collect video and photography,” she said, asserting that certain works she selected, such as Yang Fudong’s The First Intellectual photographs, did not initially appear collectible. When asked why more people don’t collect video, her response was, “I don’t know. Maybe they just haven’t warmed up to it yet.”

Art: The “Alternative Asset Class”

Mainstream media outlets have described the recent growth in art investment in the overall market. “Art has emerged as a serious alternative asset class in the past few years, in spite of the disdain of art lovers and the skepticism of many dealers and collectors,” wrote Deborah Brewster in an article about art collecting that appeared in the July 13, 2007 issue of The Financial Times.(16) She continues:

“Randall Willette, who advises collectors, says: ‘There are increasingly two types of buyer in the market. The idea that you should buy purely because of your passion is becoming less common. More buyers are coming from a financial background and people want to support their buying decisions with financial information. Increasingly, art is part of the balance sheet of private clients.’” (17)

Indeed, much of the current dialogue surrounding contemporary Chinese art, and contemporary art as a whole, is in the language of finance.

Texas-based venture capitalist and wildcatter oil tycoon Robert Chaney speaks in such financial terms about his extensive contemporary Chinese art holdings. On the eve of the current exhibition of his collection at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Red Hot: Asian Art Now, Chaney described his strategy for “acquiring masterpieces,” using a method that is, in his words, a studied adaptation of the Warren Buffet model for investing. In the meantime, Chaney invited art dealers to sit on a panel in conjunction with the exhibition and encouraged Houston galleries to hold concurrent exhibitions of Asian art. Chaney seems determined to establish himself as an important, involved collector who also vocalizes his financial interest in the art world. (18)

Haudenschild, on the other hand, downplays herself as an investor. “I think I am not a good collector,” she joked, pausing in front of I Usually Wait Under the Arch Roof for Sunshine, a 2001 photograph by Hong Hao, who is well known for his photographs of densely accumulated objects. “For instance, the smart collector would’ve gotten [the accumulated object photos]. But me, I liked this one.”

Mrs. Haudenschild stands apart from the object-focused connoisseur as well, giving importance instead to her relationships with artists and members of the community. “For me, the collecting is just a token, a way to support these young guys . . . . The reward is that I have the opportunity to be part of their path.” She affectionately describes the relationships among the artists represented in her collection, noting that they have maintained their integrity and loyalty to one another as friends in spite of experiencing unequal degrees of recognition. “You know, there are many collectors who are buying pieces and then putting them away until they become valuable—they don’t even show the work. And that is such a waste—these people need exposure,” she said.

Eloisa Haudenschild with Chen Shaoxiong, Yang Zhenzhong, Xu Zhen, Shi Yong, Yang Fudong, and Song Tao, February 2003

Future Of The Market

Speculations on a crash or correction in the global and Chinese contemporary art markets circulate. Commenting on the market in general, Los Angeles-based billionaire collector Eli Broad was quoted in The New York Times in August 2007 as saying, “We’ve seen an unprecedented 68 appreciation of contemporary art in the thirty-five years that I’ve been collecting . . . . We’re bound to have a correction. I don’t know if it will happen at the November auctions, or it will happen next May.” (19) Other recent articles have described the Chinese market as “bubbly,” (20) and the overall market as “overblown,” (21) and “showing signs of a bubble.” (22)

Jonathan Napack wrote of a grim future, with a specific focus on China: “The current ‘boom’ in the Chinese economy is all about positioning and manipulating perceptions to help attain certain short-term goals. This infects the art world as much as anybody else.” He wrote, “It will one day crash, when the speculators who are now blindly following their ‘advisors’ realize prices have started to fall and dump their collections on the market.” (23)

Echoing Broad’s sentiments about the overall market, Eloisa Haudenschild commented on the contemporary Chinese art market’s future, saying, “I’m worried about the market. Will there be a crash or a correction? Hopefully it will be a correction. But [regardless, as a collector,] you either have integrity or you don’t.”

Li Xu (Curator), Zhang Peili (Artist and Director, New Media Department of China Art Academy), Eloisa Haudenschild, Li Xiangyang (then Executive Director, Shanghai Art Museum), and Lorenz Helbling (Director, ShanghART), Shanghai Art Museum Press Conference and Opening for Zooming into Focus, February 2004.

Questions Remain

Art collected by individuals from a different country than the origin of the artist is now a common practice. Today, there are numerous galleries dealing exclusively in contemporary Chinese art in cities around the Western hemisphere. The question of what influence the foreign collector of contemporary Chinese art has on the globalized art world is a complex one.

Lu Jie put foreign collectors in a positive light, saying, “[the artists] feel more confident to have their works sent abroad. They respect the international collectors more and believe they are the real collectors. The local collectors very often use the building of a collection as an introduction or entry into the market. The artists feel safer with their work in foreign collections.” (24) There is also the idea that foreign collectors have helped contemporary Chinese art to be seen as valuable within China. Haudenschild said that the most important works in her collection have been shown at the Shanghai Art Museum and the National Museum of China in Beijing because she knows “how important it was for these young artists to get there.”

“Foreign collectors held out [the] olive branch,” according to critic Lu Leiping, in influencing the establishment of serious interest in contemporary Chinese new media art such as that in the Haudenschild Collection. (25) Jonathan Napack wrote: “That is not to say that there is no real basis for the current foreign interest in Chinese art. This huge country, for so long off the map, is producing artists who can draw on a wellspring of images, concepts, and issues that are totally unique to China and produce works that have that elusive ‘local flavour’ increasingly rare in a globalized world.” (26) However, an often-discussed problem is that the possibility for this “local flavour” is diminished once the artwork is brought to market.

A less-discussed question, whose answer remains to be seen, is, as they become part of the global art market, how are China and other “new markets” for contemporary art changing it? Will contemporary Chinese art be subsumed by the same practice seen in the Euro-American art market of limitation and marginalization of different groups, such as women and minority artists? Consistent with Western art, works by male Chinese artists generally sell for more at auction than those of women. Living Han male artists have appeared much more prominently in the exhibitions of important collections. This also fits with the Western art historical tradition of marginalizing, ignoring, and dismissing women artists within Chinese art history. (27) Just as Chinese art, which has not reached the heights that Euro-American art does at auction, is marginalized by art world regionalism, female Chinese artists may be marginalized even more.

Here again, private collections occupy a unique space. Private collections, “driven as they are by passion, unencumbered by institutional impedimenta” (as Erickson was quoted as saying in the introduction to this essay), are truly private in nature, and do not fall under the type of public scrutiny that attempts to address and confront the gender- and ethnicity-based biases about an artwork’s value that is at work in public collections. In addition, through the funding of exhibitions, the establishment of art centers, and the lending of artworks, private collections may indirectly promote the marginalizing practices of the institutional and historical art worlds. On the other hand, private collections also present the possibility of freely challenging and questioning such biases, which, as attested to by Lorenz Helbling, is perhaps what Eloisa Haudenschild has attempted to do.

The impact an individual collector can have on the market is another question. One of the indicators by which to measure the success of an artist is his or her inclusion in important and well-known collections. It follows that the larger and more important the collection, the more influence on the market the collector has. As Napack wrote of the recent inflation, “It prices younger or novice collectors out of the market, leaving many artists vulnerable to the whims of a few deep-pocketed collectors.” (28)

Finally, it remains to be seen how the market’s inflation will affect the artworks themselves. Napack wrote, “The current infusion of cash into the market brings [first-rate galleries] some short-term profits, but it is also destructive in the long run. It inflates the expectations of artists and makes them even more exploitative of their galleries.” (29) Marc Spiegler of New York magazine wrote, “Historically bad markets tend to produce better art—there’s less pressure on artists to produce and fewer temptations to sell out, and they’re dealing only with collectors and galleries willing to ride out the hard times.” (30)

Haudenschild stressed that ultimately what remains important to her is having the ability to support emerging artists and connect people in dialogue. She said, “The inflation of the market is problematic. When I was starting to collect, it was like these guys could really benefit from my collecting their work . . .. A lot of bad work has come to auction recently.”

She said, “You know, Chinese art has become this kind of cliché.” Gesturing around the garage that houses many of the collection’s significant photographs, including Yang Fudong’s The First Intellectual series of photos (2000), Song Tao’s In Loud Crowds I Dream of Hanging Myself (2002), and Lu Chunsheng’s Water photos (2002), she said, “I’m thankful I was able to get these pieces, but I know it’s become a little bit like a fashion show.” Expressing an increased interest in funding projects, she said, “I’m not even sure I want to be a collector anymore. But I have to make a choice that I can live with.”

——
Notes

1 Plates of much of the Chinese collection can be found in the exhibition catalogue, Zooming Into Focus: Contemporary Photography and Video Art from the Haudenschild Collection, Shi Yong and Laura Zhou, eds. (Shanghai: ShanghART, 2005). Images of the Haudenschild’s other holdings may be found at www.haudenschildgarage.com.

2 David Barboza, “In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism,” New York Times, January 4, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/arts/design/04arti.html

3 “Chinese art is now beginning to be aggressively collected by the Chinese themselves,” said Boriana Song, manager of the Chinese-owned Beijing Art Now Gallery. ”But now Chinese buyers are hungry for culture, and they see contemporary art as fashionable. The market is maturing, tastes are changing, and more than 60% of our clients are local Chinese.” Pallavi Aiyar, “Modern art scene grabbing investors,” Asia Times Online, April 11, 2006, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/HD11Cb05.html .

4 Barboza, “In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism.”

5 Marc Spiegler, “Five Theories On Why the Art Market Can’t Crash (and Why It Will Anyway),” New York, April 3, 2006,
http://nymag.com/arts/art/features/16542/ .

6 Britta Erickson, “Zooming Into Focus, Sliding Into History,” in Zooming Into Focus, 14–15.

7 Lu Jie, “Contemporary Art in Greater China: Under Pressure, A Discussion at the 52nd Venice Biennale,” Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (September 2007), 8–24.

8 Jonathan Napack, “An Art Market With Chinese Characteristics,” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (March 2006), 16–17.

9 Erickson, “Zooming Into Focus, Sliding Into History,” in Zooming Into Focus, 14–15.

10 Martina Koppel-Yang, “Compelling Images of a Distant Life, Video as Expansion of Reality,” in Zooming Into Focus, 71–72.

11 Erickson, “Zooming Into Focus, Sliding Into History,” in Zooming Into Focus, 14–15.

12 Ibid.

13 Information about the collection provided by the haudenschildGarage.

14 Statements by and biographical information about Mrs. Haudenschild based on a conversation at the haudenschildGarage on September 5, 2007, a telephone conversation on September 12, 2007, and e-mail exchange.

15 Lu Leiping, “When Experiment Encounters Classics,” in Zooming Into Focus, 19–21.

16 Deborh Brewster, “Investing in the art market,” Financial Times, July 13, 2007, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/a531d0d2-3153-11dc-891f-0000779fd2ac.html .

17 Ibid.

18 Kelly Klaasmeyer, “RED HOT: Asian Art From the Chaney Family Collection,” Houston Press, September 13, 2007, http://www.houstonpress.com/2007-09-13/culture/red-hot-business/ .

19 Robin Pogrebin, “Volatile Markets? Art World Takes Stock,” New York Times, August 29, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/arts/design/29mark.html, accessed 08/24/07 .

20 Barboza, “In China’s New Revolution, Art Greets Capitalism.”

21 Spiegler, “Five Theories On Why the Art Market Can’t Crash (and Why It Will Anyway).”

22 Sharon Reier, “Contemporary Art: Follow the Money—The Latest Status Investment is Showing Signs of a Bubble,” International Herald Tribune, January 27, 2007, http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/news/news.cfm?doc_id=6894 .

23 Napack, “An Art Market With Chinese Characteristics,” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (March 2006), 16–17.

24 Lu Jie, “Contemporary Art in Greater China: Under Pressure, A Discussion at the 52nd Venice Biennale,” Yishu Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, September/Fall 2007, 8–24.

25 Lu Leiping, “When Experiment Encounters Classics,” in Zooming Into Focus, 19–21.

26 Napack, “An Art Market With Chinese Characteristics,” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (March 2006), 16–17.

27 Marsha Weidner, preface to Flowering in the Shadows, Women in the History of Chinese and Japanese Painting, ed. Marsha Weidner (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990), xi–xiv.

28 Napack, “An Art Market With Chinese Characteristics,” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (March 2006), 16–17.

29 Ibid.

30 Spiegler, “Five Theories on Why the Art Market Can’t Crash (and Why It Will Anyway).”

“Zooming into Focus is the first retrospective show of Chinese contemporary photography and video ever held at the National Art Museum, Beijing. It reveals the changes in social notions and technology in Chinese contemporary art from a different angle. The exhibition showcases the most outstanding and symbolic works from the late 1990s and 2000s which directly reflect the changing cultural and social environment and values of the Chinese people in a booming economy”. -Feng Yuan, Director of the National Art Museum, of China, Beijing

China’s National Art Museum is currently hosting what some are calling ‘its best exhibit ever.’ It’s a stronghold of landmark artworks from the breakout period of the early 90s, and this is a ‘once in Beijing’ opportunity to see them all in one place. Go at once to the art museum, but make it before the 20th of November, when the show ends and art fans sadly walk back to the distant 798-Dashanzi district. – Published in That’s Beijing

The National Art Museum of China presented the exhibition Zooming Into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography From the Haudenschild Collection. The exhibition highlighted the remarkable photography and videography works currently being created in China. The swift transformation of Chinese culture is reflected in the work of each of the participating artists, who comment on contemporary Chinese urban life with intelligence, wit, apprehension and nostalgia.

Noted American art collectors Eloisa and Chris Haudenschild have created one of the most important collections of contemporary Chinese art in the world. Focusing on the work of experimental artists from Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, the collection makes groundbreaking contributions to the field of international contemporary art. The National Art Museum of China, which is China’s national museum for the visual arts, focuses on collecting, studying and exhibiting China’s modern and contemporary works of fine art based on people’s daily life.

Shi Yong, one of the participating artists has his own opinion about getting some local exposure, “I feel very lucky that we can do this exhibition in our home country today. Actually many Chinese artists care more about domestic exhibitions then overseas ones.” – Published by the Siemens Art Program for Culture Times Beijing

Exhibition
November 5 – 20, 2005, National Museum of China, Beijing, China

Organized by Laura Zhou and Zooming into Focus catalog and installation design at the National Museum of China, Beijing by Shi Yong.

About Laura Zhou

Laura Zhou is co-director and co-founder of ShanghART in Shanghai, China. The gallery was initiated in 1996 and it has since grown to become one of China’s most influential contemporary art institutions. ShanghART has established itself as a leading gallery representing established figures whilst continuing to support the work of innovative younger artists. As a gallery, producer, supporter, and point of reference ShanghART contributes as a vital resource to the development of contemporary Chinese art. Being recognized for its importance ShanghART became the initial gallery from China participating in major international art fairs like Art Basel and Fiac, Paris. Since its inauguration the gallery has established more than 70 exhibitions, and it enjoys the great respect of being among the 75 international galleries selected in Thames & Hudson publication international Art Galleries that features 75 of the most acclaimed galleries from post-war to post-millennium (2005). ShanghART represents over 40 of China most talented artists working with different media ranging from painting and sculpture to video art and performance.Today ShanghART works out of three spaces in Shanghai (Moganshan Rd and Huaihai Rd )and one space in Beijing (Cao Changdi).

About Shi Yong

Shi Yong’s work embraces modernization and the ideology of consumerism as the basis for self-imagination and creation. He has produced a series of photo-based works around the concept of the ideal Shanghai citizen. It is an ongoing multifaceted project that explores images of consumption, commodity and the development of the culture industry. One series, entitled “Made in China – Welcome to China” (1999), consists of hand-painted plaster models of a young businessman in a Mao suit, sunglasses, briefcase and waving. The image of the ideal citizen used for the statue was the outcome of an Internet project through which Shi Yong asked volunteers to vote for the ideal way of looking. The individual now transforms the identity of his or her self by following the logic of commodity market surveys. It is a composite image that Shi Yong has repeatedly used in other pieces such as “Longing For” (2000) and “You Cannot Clone It, But You Can Buy It” (2001). The iconic figure is morphed through the agency of the marketplace.

Recently, Shi Yong has focused his attention on large-scale installations and architectural models imbued with an absurd twist of humor. Most notably, his mixed media installation “Flying Q” is of a UFO built with the purpose of opening up the sky. The flying object comes with no additional explanation, but might be recognized as just another signature vision of and interventions into the imaginary world of Shi Yong. His subversive approach pokes fun at architecture based on rules and pre-established schemas. Shi Yong fabricates a colorful and ironic architectural structure that is at once a parody of serious design and its synthesis. In short, his work is an amalgam of Shanghai’s eclectic ‘anything goes’ attitude towards the built environment.

Shi Yong was born in Shanghai in 1963. He graduated from Light Industrial School, Fine Art Department. He resides and works in Shanghai. Shi Yong has exhibited widely since the early 1990’s. Recent shows include Follow Me!, Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2005), Second Guangzhou Triennale, Guangsong Museum of Art (2005), Zooming into Focus, China National Art Museum (Beijing, 2005), Felicidad Indecible, Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art (Mexico, 2005), The Heaven, The World, ShanghART & H-Space (Shanghai, 2004), Shanghai Biennale (2002), Bienal de Sao Paulo (2002) and Bienal de Maia (1999). (ShanghART; Shanghai, China)

“As the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore is committed to showcasing significant trends, as well as the best examples of contemporary art practice, Zooming into Focus was an ideal exhibition for us to organize at the gallery. Not only does it highlight a major trend among contemporary Chinese artists towards the use of video and photography, many of the artists in the exhibition are also internationally renowned, thereby providing audiences in Singapore a rare opportunity to see their works…This exhibition, a major exhibition of contemporary Chinese photography and video, was the first of its kind for Singapore.

This is an important exhibition for highlighting and raising the level of discourse of photography and video in Singapore. Photography and video are still, as yet, relatively new mediums in art practice here. It was therefore useful for artists and the public to see how widely used these media are and also the interesting and innovative ways in which Chinese artists are using them.” -Eugene Tan, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore

Exhibition
August 11 – September 11, 2005, Institute of Contemporary Art, Earl Lu Gallery LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore

Organized by Eugene Tan

About Eugene Tan

Eugene Tan is an art historian, critic and curator. Born in Singapore in 1972, he received a BSc in Economics and Politics from Queen Mary College, London and a MA (Distinction) in Post-War and Contemporary Art from the Sotheby’s Institute, London. He also holds a PhD in Art History from the University of Manchester. Among exhibitions he has curated include Video Invitational at f a Projects, London in 2003, The Last Laugh: Humour and Contemporary Video Art, Painting as Process: Re-evaluating Painting and Jason Salavon: Brainstem Still Life at the Earl Lu Gallery, LASALLE-SIA College of the Arts, Singapore in 2004. He is also the curator for the Singapore Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale 2005 and the co-curator of the 1st Singapore Biennale 2006. He has written extensively for many exhibition catalogues as well as publications such as Art Review, Contemporary, Contemporary Visual Arts and Modern Painters. He has been a member of AICA (Association International des Critiques d’ Art) since 1999. He has also been invited to lecture and participate in panel discussions, on various aspects of contemporary art, in Singapore, Spain, Taiwan and United Kingdom. He is currently the director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts.

“Zooming into Focus was the first contemporary Chinese photography exhibition that took place in the Centro Cultural Tijuana. The quick growth that has characterized our city is also one of the characteristics of the society in which these fourteen Chinese artists have lived.”  -Teresa Vicencia Alvarez, General Director of CECUT

Exhibition
June 25 – August 23, 2004

Organized by Carmen Cuenca (Co-Director, inSite).

Video Dialogue: Shanghai/Tijuana
November 1, 2003

This event was moderated by Norma Iglesias and included presentations by Yang Zhenzhong and Tijuana artists Itzel Martinez (Yonkart), Giancarlo Ruiz, and Salvador Vazquez Ricalde.

About the Participants

Carmen Cuenca

A native of Mexico City, Cuenca graduated in 1980 from the Universidad Iberoamericana with a degree in Art History. Prior to moving to Tijuana in 1989, she served as Associate Curator at the San Carlos Museum in Mexico City. For the past 20 years, Cuenca has been actively promoting contemporary artists and artistic practices in the binational region.

She recently resigned as subdirector of visual arts at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, where for five years she directed the curatorial and programmatic development of El Cubo, the first international-scale museum in Baja California. From 1994 through 2005, Cuenca played a central role in the inSite project, a binational venture focused on commissioning new public projects by artists in the San Diego/Tijuana region. She served as coordinator of Mexican projects for inSite94 and as Executive Director, Mexico, for both inSite2000 and inSite05. During her work with inSite, Carmen Cuenca was responsible for completing over 200 commissioned projects, from site-specific installations to performances to the production of film and video works. Prior to joining inSite full time in 1997, Cuenca served as cultural attaché for the Mexican Consulate in San Diego, and before that as chief curator at the Centro Cultural Tijuana.

Cuenca has served as a board member of various non-profit arts organizations in San Diego, including the Children’s Museum of San Diego and the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library in La Jolla. Cuenca is currently working on the development of several exhibitions of Tijuana artists that will be presented in Mexico City and elsewhere, as well as the planning for the next version of inSite that is scheduled to begin in 2010.

Norma Iglesias

Norma Iglesias is Associate Professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at San Diego State University. She is also curatorial adviser at El Centro Cultural Tijuana. For 21 years she was researcher of the Department of Cultural Studies at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (El COLEF-Tijuana). Her works is characterized by the mix of the academic field and the artistic one. In the academic arena, Norma Iglesias is a member of the National System of Researcher (SNI) in Mexico, (the maximum academic recognition from the Mexican Government). She has a bachelor in Social Anthropology (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City), a master in Communication (Universidad Iberoamericana, mexico City), and a Ph.D. in Communication Theory (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) She has a wide experience working on the U.S- Mexico Border, specially on the culture, identity and media (especially cinema) from a gender perspective. She is the author of several articles in academic journals and books, such as: La Flor más bella de la maquiladora (1985), Medios de comunicación en la Frontera Norte (1990), Entre yerba, polvo y plomo. Lo fronterizo visto por el cine mexicano y (1991) Miradas de Mujer. Cineastas y videoastas mexicanas y chicanas (1998). In the artistic arena she was formed during 8 years in the Center of Creative Activities and Educational Research with José and Azul Gordillo; she studied cinema production, television and photograph in several schools and institutes among them: San Diego State University, and Escuela Internacional de Cine y Television. She was founder and coordinator (1996-1999) of the Centro Infantil de Actividades Creadoras in Tijuana. She was founder and director of the Department of Communication at El COLEF from 1984 to 1989. It has been scriptwriter of several television series about the U.S.-Mexico Border. She produced and directed various television and radio programs, such as: “… Y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos” and “Comentando al sazón: Cocinero al recetario y en el caldo el comentario”. She has been adviser of a great number of cultural productions, member of selection committees in festivals like the San Diego Latino Film Festival, as well as curator of some film and video series like inSITE 2000 (in collaboration with Rita González) and “Fronteras” in MEXartes.berlin (in collaboration with Salvador V. Ricalde).

Yang Zhenzhong

Born in Xiaoshan in 1968, Yang Zhengzhong now lives and works in Shanghai. He graduated from the oil painting department of the China Fine Arts Academy in Hangzhou in 1993 and began working with video and photography in 1995. Yang Zhengshong’s work has showed at major biennales and triennials including Venice (2003), Shanghai (2002), Guangzhou (2002) and Gwangju (2002). Yang Zhengzhong became famous in 2000 with his ten channel video “(I Know) I Will Die” that features short sequences in which a series of people speak the phrase “I will die” to the camera. It is a disconcerting, soberly presented film that confronts the viewer with existential questions. Yang Zhengzhong recognizes that individual participation is the starting point for the transformation of perception. The video “922 Grains of Rice” plays with the interaction of the image of a cock and a chicken pecking grains of rice and the sound of a male and a female voice counting the number of pecked grains. It is a humorous representation of the battle of sexes as well a comment on today’s competitive behavior. The desire to challenge normative notions of social behavior informs the practices of Yang Zhenzhong’s work. He is pre-occupied with China’s intrinsic disharmony and extreme discrepancies and often touches upon taboos such as death and out-dated social norms. His approach is metaphorical rather than narrative. His videos often start from witty ideas, employing image repetition and rhythmic coordination of sound, language and image. “Let’s Puff” (4th Shanghai Biennale, Zone of Urgency, 50th Venice Biennial) similarly starts from the interplay of two images: a young woman puffing and a busy street. Every time the woman breathes, the image of the street moves away from the viewer. The rhythm of the traffic and the angle of perception are altered with the rhythm of the woman’s breath. Yang Zhengzhong’s playful videos are more than visual reflections; they are intelligent comments on the design of contemporary society. In a series of photos entitled “Light and Easy,” he perceives the weight of urban changes as an exterior phenomenon, and literally depicts the process as a weightless factor, turning urban landmarks upside down. “Light and Easy” is based upon a conviction that the lightness of the isolated exterior or interior is a source of interesting material. The successful experiments the artists have executed to formulate connections are exciting, sincere and disturbing. (ShanghART; Shanghai, China)

An International Discourse on New Chinese Video and Photography

January 31, 2004 – San Diego Museum of Art

Organized by Eloisa Haudenschild and Tina Yapelli (Director, UAG, SDSU)

Moderated by Britta Erickson (Independent Scholar and Curator, Palo Alto)

Presenters included:
-Betti-Sue Hertz (Director, YBCA) Performance, Masculinity and Photographic Approaches in East Asian Contemporary Art
-Barbara London (Curator, MOMA) China Now
-Christopher Phillips (Curator, ICP, New York) New Photography in China: Between Past and Culture
-Xu Bing (Artist) Space Between: The Art of Xu Bing

“The exhibition’s lead title, Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photograph and Video from the Haudenschild Collection (2003 – 2005), refers to three major concepts quintessential to the exhibition and the symposium: Chinese artists’ use of photographic and video camera to examine the quick transition in their culture, the incredible pace of growth in China’s urban centers, and the current attention being paid to China by the rest of the industrialized world, especially the West. Most of the artists represented in Zooming into Focus live and work in China’s swiftly expanding southern megalopolises and frequently address those issues that directly affect young urbanites – the social impact of burgeoning consumerism, the meteoric rise of youth culture, the threatening loss of identity amidst the city swirl, the persistent sense of time speeding by. Exploring contemporary Chinese art in light of these concerns, the symposium will provoke a fresh perspective on China’s role in the international milieu.

Zooming into Focus investigated the effects of accelerated change in China through the work of the country’s most talented emerging artists. The swift transformation of Chinese culture is reflected in the work of each of these represented artists who comment on contemporary Chinese urban life with intelligence, wit, foreboding and nostalgia. The works of Cao Fei, Chen Shaoxiong, Feng Mengbo, Geng Jianyi, Hong Hao, Hu Jie Ming, Lui Wei, Lu Chunsheng, Kan Xuan, Shi Yong, Song Tao, Wang Youshen, Weng Fen, Xiang Liqing, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Yang Yong, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhao Bandi, Zheng Gougu and Zhu Jia were included in this exhibition.

Marking many important milestones, Zooming into Focus was the first exhibition and symposium of its kind in San Diego, the West Coast, and Singapore and the first contemporary Chinese photography exhibition at the Centro Cultural Tijuana, Mexico. It was the first time the Shanghai Art Museum exhibited works on contemporary Chinese video and photography from a private collection and most importantly, it was the first retrospective exhibition of Chinese photography and video ever held at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing.

Contemporary art in China reflects the country’s surging influence as an economic, political and cultural force in the global arena. Chinese artists, especially those working in photography and video, are gaining international recognition for their powerful artworks that comment on the consequences of a rapidly changing society.  To encourage awareness and consideration of topics relevant to contemporary Chinese art, An International Discourse on New Chinese Video and Photography brought together world-renowned artists, curators and scholars for a series of presentations and an open discussion.  This symposium provided a new lens through which to better understand China’s transformative development, as expressed especially through the dynamic work of a younger generation of experimental artists. In addition, the symposium enhanced the appreciation of many of the most noteworthy Chinese artist working today. A catalog of the collection, exhibitions and symposia was published.” -Tina Yapelli

About the Participants

Tina Yapelli

Professor Tina Yapelli is the director of the University Art Gallery, a position she has held since 1985. In that role, she has originated more than forty-five exhibitions of contemporary art by regional, national and international artists. Some of the exhibitions have been coorganized in cooperation with other galleries and museums, at which they also were presented. She also has organized a variety of educational programs for the University and off-campus communities, including symposia, lecture series, gallery talks and visiting artists’ residencies. As a professor of art, she offers a course each semester in Gallery Exhibition Design. From 1992 to 1994, during a leave of absence from San Diego State University, Yapelli worked as curator of exhibitions at the Madison Art Center in Madison, Wisconsin. There she originated an additional ten exhibitions. She has appeared on television and radio programs to speak about visual art, and has been a guest speaker, curatorial consultant and exhibition juror at several California art institutions. An advocate for public art, Yapelli has served on numerous public art selection committees in Wisconsin and California. Her writing on contemporary art has appeared in journals in the United States, and in a book published by Telos Art Publishing in England.

Britta Erickson

Britta Erickson is an independent scholar and curator whose work focuses on contemporary Chinese art. She has taught at Stanford University and University of California, Berkley. Her recent projects include a major exhibition of Chinese art at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington and the creation of an award-winning Bibliography of Modern Chinese Art website. She is currently the Festival Director of the Denver Film Society.

Betti-Sue Hertz

Betti-Sue Hertz is the Director of Visual Art at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and served as the curator of contemporary art at San Diego Museum of Art from 2000-2008. Prior, she was the director of Longwood Arts Project, Bronx, New York 1992-1998. Her recent major exhibitions and catalogues at SDMA include Eleanor Antin (2008); Animated Painting (2007); Transmission: The Art of Matta and Gorson Matta-Clark (2006); Past in Reverse: Contemporary art of East Asia (2004); She was adjunct curator of Contemporary Links, a series in which contemporary artists respond to works in SDMA’s collection.

Barbara London

London is a curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She’s been there since 1974, when she founded the Museum’s ongoing Video Exhibition Program. She built an essential context for the visionary statements being made internationally in video and media art by multi-cultural voices, emerging talents, and more established artists such as Laurie Anderson, Gary Hill, Mako Idemitsu, Joan Jonas, Shigeko Kubota, Nam June Paik, Bill Viola and Zhang Peili. Her objective has been to link the electronic arts with the more traditional art mediums. To document, preserve, and support this vital art field, she the Video Study Center and assembled its unique collection of more than 1,000 independently produced videotapes and related historical and theoretical publications. She is also an Instructor at the School of Visual Arts, 1994-97. To further her professional development, London took two sabbaticals to investigate new trends in electronic technologies and the effects on the creation and distribution of the arts in Japan.

Christopher Phillips

Christopher Phillips, curator at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, is the guest curator of the forthcoming exhibition Shanghai Kaleidoscope at Royal Ontario Museum (Canada). Mr. Phillips is actively engaged with many facets of contemporary Chinese culture. With Wu Hung, he co-curated Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, which was originally exhibited at the ICP and the Asia Society in New York. It was also presented to critical acclaim at the Haus der Kulturern der Welt (Berlin) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), and is currently at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art until September 2006.

Xu Bing

Xu Bing was born in Chongqing, China in 1955. In 1977 he entered the printmaking department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) where completed his bachelor’s degree in 1981 and stayed on as an instructor, earning his MFA in 1987. In 1990, on the invitation of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he moved to the United States. Xu currently serves as the Vice President of CAFA. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; the Joan Miro Foundation, Spain; National Gallery of Prague and the Spencer Museum of Art, Kansas, amongst other major institutions. Additionally, Xu Bing has shown at the 45th and 51st Venice Biennales; the Biennale of Sydney and the Johannesburg Biennale amongst other international exhibitions. Over the years, Xu Bing’s work has appeared in high-school and college text-books around the world including Abram’s “Art Past – Art Present,” Gardner’s “Art Through the Ages” and Greg Clunas’s “Chinese Art” a volume in the “Oxford History of Art” series. In 2006, the Princeton University Press published “Persistence/Transformation: Text as Image in the Art of Xu Bing” a multidisciplinary study of Xu Bing’s landmark work “Book from the Sky.” In 2007, Professor Robert Harrist, Chair of Chinese Art at Columbia University, New York, began teaching a graduate seminar entitled “The Art of Xu Bing.” In 1999, Xu Bing was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of his “capacity to contribute importantly to society, particularly in printmaking and calligraphy.” In 2003 Xu Bing was awarded the Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize, and in 2004 he won the first Wales International Visual Art Prize, Artes Mundi. The Southern Graphics Council awarded Xu Bing their lifetime achievement award in recognition of the fact that his, “use of text, language and books has impacted the dialogue of the print and art worlds in significant ways.” “Art in America” listed Xu Bing, along with 15 others, in their annual Year in Review.

“This exhibition explains the importance of re-acknowledging and re-evaluating this hot spot of contemporary art. From the very beginning, contemporary Chinese photography has been closely related to the daily lives of Chinese people. The quickly growing and changing social environment has focused on the created objects of the artists. From these vivid and graphical works, we can witness the exciting poles of this age, experience the active interaction between art and society, and understand the new and unique exploration of these pioneers. Shanghai has always been the essential window to contemporary Western cultural patterns.

From oil painting to photography, from industrial design to video art, Shanghai plays a critical role during this process of communication and incorporation. Therefore, the opening of Zooming into Focus, a preliminary review of Chinese contemporary photography and video, is not only an occasion of chance but a necessary consequence of history. The importance of the exhibition is in no doubt: it showed some truth of Chinese contemporary art to the public and to the cultural circle, and it prodded the Chinese art museum circle to start collecting contemporary video and photography works.” -Li Xu, Curator, Shanghai Art Museum

“Different from traditional art, such as painting and sculpture, photography includes video, together with film and animation. Focusing on photography, this exhibition introduces the history of recent contemporary Chinese art….Furthermore, this collection can be regarded as an objective review on the current situation of Chinese photography. The Shanghai Art Museum is dedicated to the promotion and development of contemporary Chinese art. This exhibition is the first time contemporary photography and Chinese artists are introduced to the public.” -Li Xiangyang, Executive Director, Shanghai Art Museum

Exhibition

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February 18 – March 30, 2004, Shanghai Art Museum

Organized by Li Xu, Laura Zhou, and Eloisa Haudenschild.

Roof Top Performance by Song Tao
February 18, 2004, Shanghai Art Museum

Following the opening of the exhibition Song Tao with other contemporary Chinese artists, presented a multimedia sound and video performance on the roof of the Shanghai Art Museum.

Symposium
Envisioning the Future of Contemporary Art From Different Glocal Positions

March 25 & 26, 2004 – China Art Academy, Hangzhou
Organized by Zhang Peili (Artist and Director of New Media dept., China Art Academy, Hangzhou), Laura Zhou (Director of ShanghART, Shanghai, China) and Eloisa Haudenschild. All participants toured Zooming into Focus at the Shanghai Art Museum and were then transported via bus to Hangzhou.

Moderated by Hou Hanru (Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, SFAI and Independent Curator) and Pi Li (Independent Curator and Founder, Universal Studio, Beijing) with works shown by Bill Voila (courtesy of Britta Erickson; presented by Eloisa Haudenschild), Wang Gongxin, Qiu Zhijie, Zhang Peili, and Yang Fudong.

Presenters included:
- Fan Di’an (Director, National Art Museum of China) Meeting and Traffic
- Hans Ulrich Obrist (Curator, Paris) The Museum of the Future – Art, Architecture, Science and Technology
- Mami Kataoka (Senior Curator, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo & International Associate Curator, Hayward Gallery, London) New Media as New Experience
- Li Xu (Curator, China) The Relationships Between New Media Art and Museum Systems in China
- Huang Du (Ph.D., China) New Events and Culture Space
- Zhang Zhiyang (Professor, China) Where is the Space for Art in the Era of Technological Globalization?
- Rudolf Stoert (Curator, Germany) Switch Media Project in Thailand
- Gridthiya Gaweewong (Curator, Thailand) Regional Strategies and Global Impacts: A Southeast Asian Perspective
- Hu Fang (Writer, China) Pseudo-Machine of Writing
- Evelyn Jouanno (Curator, France) Under the Earth, There is the Sky
- Martina Koppel-Yang (Art Critic, Germany) The Pingpang Policy of Chinese Contemporary Art
- Zheng Shengtain (Curator & Managing Editor, Yishu Journal, Canada) Non-Local and Non-Mainstream
- Karen Smith (Art Historian, UK) The Future: In Whose Hands?
- Waling Boers (Curator and Founding Director of Buro Friedrich-Berlin and Universal Studios-Beijing) Art Between the State and the Market, A Challenge?

Chinese artist Yang Zhenzhong premiered his video installation Let’s Pray at the Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego on January 31, 2004.

This work was filmed during his residency at the haudenschildGarage from October 22 – November 12, 2003.  Let’s Pray was produced in collaboration with Tina Yapelli of the University Art Gallery of San Diego State University. Yang Zhenzhong was invited for the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography & Video from the Haudenschild Collection.

Prior to the video installation premiere at MOPA, Christopher Phillips introduced the video screening, Chinese Video and Film NOW!; Yang Fudong present in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The videos included Song Dong’s My Motherland Made the Scene for Me, 1999; Wang Gognxin’s Fly, 2000; Cao Fei’s Rabid Dogs, 2002; and Yang Fudong’s Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest (Part I), 2003.

Additionally, while in residence, the haudenschildGarage supported Yang Zhenzhong’s filming of the Spanish and English portions of his video I Will Die in San Diego and Tijuana. The ten channel video was later chosen for the 2007 Venice Biennale.

About Yang Zhenzhong

Born in Xiaoshan in 1968, Yang Zhengzhong now lives and works in Shanghai. He graduated from the oil painting department of the China Fine Arts Academy in Hangzhou in 1993 and began working with video and photography in 1995. Yang Zhengshong’s work has showed at major biennales and triennials including Venice (2003), Shanghai (2002), Guangzhou (2002) and Gwangju (2002). Yang Zhengzhong became famous in 2000 with his ten channel video “(I Know) I Will Die” that features short sequences in which a series of people speak the phrase “I will die” to the camera. It is a disconcerting, soberly presented film that confronts the viewer with existential questions.

Yang Zhengzhong recognizes that individual participation is the starting point for the transformation of perception. The video “922 Grains of Rice” plays with the interaction of the image of a cock and a chicken pecking grains of rice and the sound of a male and a female voice counting the number of pecked grains. It is a humorous representation of the battle of sexes as well a comment on today’s competitive behavior.

The desire to challenge normative notions of social behavior informs the practices of Yang Zhenzhong’s work. He is pre-occupied with China’s intrinsic disharmony and extreme discrepancies and often touches upon taboos such as death and out-dated social norms. His approach is metaphorical rather than narrative. His videos often start from witty ideas, employing image repetition and rhythmic coordination of sound, language and image. “Let’s Puff” (4th Shanghai Biennale, Zone of Urgency, 50th Venice Biennial) similarly starts from the interplay of two images: a young woman puffing and a busy street. Every time the woman breathes, the image of the street moves away from the viewer. The rhythm of the traffic and the angle of perception are altered with the rhythm of the woman’s breath.

Yang Zhengzhong’s playful videos are more than visual reflections; they are intelligent comments on the design of contemporary society. In a series of photos entitled “Light and Easy,” he perceives the weight of urban changes as an exterior phenomenon, and literally depicts the process as a weightless factor, turning urban landmarks upside down. “Light and Easy” is based upon a conviction that the lightness of the isolated exterior or interior is a source of interesting material. The successful experiments the artists have executed to formulate connections are exciting, sincere and disturbing. (ShanghART; Shanghai, China)

Envisioning the Future of Contemporary Art From Different Glocal Positions

March 25 & 26, 2004 – China Art Academy, Hangzhou

Organized by Zhang Peili (Artist and Director of New Media dept., China Art Academy, Hangzhou), Lorenz Helbling (Founder of ShanghART, Shanghai, China), Laura Zhou (Director of ShanghART, Shanghai, China) and Eloisa Haudenschild. All participants toured Zooming into Focus at the Shanghai Art Museum and were then transported via bus to Hangzhou.

Moderated by Hou Hanru (Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs, SFAI and Independent Curator) and Pi Li (Independent Curator and Founder, Universal Studio, Beijing) with works shown by Bill Voila (courtesy of Britta Erickson; presented by Eloisa Haudenschild), Wang Gongxin, Qiu Zhijie, Zhang Peili, and Yang Fudong.

Presenters included:
- Fan Di’an (Director, National Art Museum of China) Meeting and Traffic
- Hans Ulrich Obrist (Curator, Paris) The Museum of the Future – Art, Architecture, Science and Technology
- Mami Kataoka (Senior Curator, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo & International Associate Curator, Hayward Gallery, London) New Media as New Experience
- Li Xu (Curator, China) The Relationships Between New Media Art and Museum Systems in China
- Huang Du (Ph.D., China) New Events and Culture Space

- Zhang Zhiyang (Professor, China) Where is the Space for Art in the Era of Technological Globalization?
- Rudolf Stoert (Curator, Germany) Switch Media Project in Thailand
- Gridthiya Gaweewong (Curator, Thailand) Regional Strategies and Global Impacts: A Southeast Asian Perspective
- Hu Fang (Writer, China) Pseudo-Machine of Writing
- Evelyn Jouanno (Curator, France) Under the Earth, There is the Sky
- Martina Koppel-Yang (Art Critic, Germany) The Pingpang Policy of Chinese Contemporary Art
- Zheng Shengtain (Curator & Managing Editor, Yishu Journal, Canada) Non-Local and Non-Mainstream
- Karen Smith (Art Historian, UK) The Future: In Whose Hands?
- Waling Boers (Curator and Founding Director of Buro Friedrich-Berlin and Universal Studios-Beijing) Art Between the State and the Market, A Challenge?

The exhibition’s lead title, Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photograph and Video from the Haudenschild Collection (2003 – 2005), refers to three major concepts quintessential to the exhibition and the symposium: Chinese artists’ use of photographic and video camera to examine the quick transition in their culture, the incredible pace of growth in China’s urban centers, and the current attention being paid to China by the rest of the industrialized world, especially the West. Most of the artists represented in Zooming into Focus live and work in China’s swiftly expanding southern megalopolises and frequently address those issues that directly affect young urbanites – the social impact of burgeoning consumerism, the meteoric rise of youth culture, the threatening loss of identity amidst the city swirl, the persistent sense of time speeding by. Exploring contemporary Chinese art in light of these concerns, the symposium will provoke a fresh perspective on China’s role in the international milieu.

About the Organizers & Moderators

Hou Hanru

Hou Hanru is Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and Chair of the Exhibitions and Museum Studies program at SFAI. He was also the moderator for the 2004 symposium in Hangzhou, China Envisioning the Future of Contemporary Art From Different Glocal Positions organized in collaboration with the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection. A prolific writer and curator, Hou received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Central Institute of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he was trained in art history, with additional work in painting, performance, installation, and architectural research. He is a consultant for several cultural institutions internationally including the Global Advisory Committee of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Contemporary Art Museum in Kumamoto, Japan. Described as a significant international voice on cultural difference, Hou is the French correspondent for Flash Art International and a regular contributor to several other journals on contemporary art including Frieze, Art Monthly, Third Text, Art and Asia Pacific, Domus, Atlantica, Texte Zur Kunst, and Tema Celeste. Most recently, Hou was appointed Curator of the 10th International Istanbul Biennial, which will take place from September to November 2007. Other recent curatorial projects include the second Guangzhou Triennale where he co-curated Beyond: An Extraordinary Space of Experimentation for Modernization; Go Inside, the 3rd Tirana Biennale (Tirana, Albania, 2005); Out of Sight, organized by the De Appel Foundation (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2005); Nuit Blanche 2004 (Paris, 2004); and A L’Ouest Du Sud De L’Est / A L’Est Du Sud De L’Ouest (Villa Arson, Nice, 2004). Hou is one of the first curators and thinkers to examine postmodern issues of nomadic identity, hybridity, globalized mobility, what he calls “in-betweeness,” and artists living in the diaspora.

Laura Zhou

Laura Zhou is co-director and co-founder of ShanghART in Shanghai, China. The gallery was initiated in 1996 and it has since grown to become one of China’s most influential contemporary art institutions. ShanghART has established itself as a leading gallery representing established figures whilst continuing to support the work of innovative younger artists. As a gallery, producer, supporter, and point of reference ShanghART contributes as a vital resource to the development of contemporary Chinese art. Being recognized for its importance ShanghART became the initial gallery from China participating in major international art fairs like Art Basel and Fiac, Paris. Since its inauguration the gallery has established more than 70 exhibitions, and it enjoys the great respect of being among the 75 international galleries selected in Thames & Hudson publication international Art Galleries that features 75 of the most acclaimed galleries from post-war to post-millennium (2005). ShanghART represents over 40 of China most talented artists working with different media ranging from painting and sculpture to video art and performance. Since its founding, ShanghART has supported multiple, international programs and projects.

Pi Li

Pi Li, born in 1974, has constantly changed his career direction in recent years. He was once the Art Director for the Chinese Contemporary Art Award sponsored by Uli Sigg. He also showed up in the Cannes International Film Festival as the producer of the Chinese movie Shanghai Dream. After over one year of operation, the U Studio (now named Boers-Li Gallery), founded in 2005 with curator Waling Boers, has also changed its direction. Now Pi Li decides to develop whole-heartedly the studio into a commercial gallery, and he has opened up a 100-square-meter affiliated exhibition area beside the main hall to promote the experimental solo exhibitions. The once mixed-orientated U Studio finally begins to transform into a professional gallery. The gallery represents a selective group of internationally operating artists. The gallery program is not media-specific, and includes installation, sculpture, painting, works on paper, audio work, photography, video, film, performance, and digital art. Each year, approximately six major solo exhibitions are organized, along with an irregular number of smaller solo and group exhibitions. Boers-Li emphasizes its support for the production of new and experimental work, utilizing its unique position both at home and abroad to open new pathways for artistic development. The program focuses on new developments in international art, as well as on the changing contemporary positions of established or older-generation artists. In addition, Boers-Li participates in a selection of both Chinese and international art fairs. The program also includes the publication of catalogs, both to accompany major solo exhibitions and to offer retrospectives on our artists. Click here to visit Boers-Li Gallery’s website.

Zhang Peili

Zhang Peili (b. 1957, China) lives and works in Hangzhou. In 1984 he obtained his BA in oil painting from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Today he remains one of China’s foremost video artist and his been shown in galleries throughout the world. He has shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and at the Venice Biennale. For a Chinese-born artist who still lives in his hometown, Zhang Peili has been represented in a remarkable number of international exhibitions. In just over two years, his work has been seen in several high-profile Asian-themed group shows–including “Cities on the Move” and “Inside Out: New Chinese Art”–as well as at the Basel art fair and the most recent Sydney and Venice biennials. He also bears the distinction of being the first Chinese artist to have an installation piece collected by MOMA (where he had a project show last summer).

The video installation Let’s Pray was commissioned by the haudenschildGarage and filmed during Yang Zhenzhong’s residency at the haudenschildGarage from October 22 – November 12, 2003. Yang Zhenzhong was invited as part of the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography & Video from the Haudenschild Collection.

Let’s Pray was produced in collaboration with Tina Yapelli of the University Art Gallery of San Diego State University and premiered at the Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego on January 31, 2004.

Prior to the video installation premiere at MOPA, Christopher Phillips introduced the video screening, Chinese Video and Film NOW!; Yang Fudong present in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The videos included Song Dong’s My Motherland Made the Scene for Me, 1999; Wang Gognxin’s Fly, 2000; Cao Fei’s Rabid Dogs, 2002; and Yang Fudong’s Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest (Part I), 2003.

Additionally, while in residence, the haudenschildGarage supported Yang Zhenzhong’s filming of the Spanish and English portions of his video I Will Die in San Diego and Tijuana. The ten channel video was later chosen for the 2007 Venice Biennale.

About Yang Zhenzhong

Born in Xiaoshan in 1968, Yang Zhengzhong now lives and works in Shanghai. He graduated from the oil painting department of the China Fine Arts Academy in Hangzhou in 1993 and began working with video and photography in 1995. Yang Zhengshong’s work has showed at major biennales and triennials including Venice (2003), Shanghai (2002), Guangzhou (2002) and Gwangju (2002). Yang Zhengzhong became famous in 2000 with his half-hour video “(I Know) I Will Die” that features short sequences in which a series of people speak the phrase “I will die” to the camera. It is a disconcerting, soberly presented film that confronts the viewer with existential questions.

Yang Zhengzhong recognizes that individual participation is the starting point for the transformation of perception. The video “922 Grains of Rice” plays with the interaction of the image of a cock and a chicken pecking grains of rice and the sound of a male and a female voice counting the number of pecked grains. It is a humorous representation of the battle of sexes as well a comment on today’s competitive behavior.

The desire to challenge normative notions of social behavior informs the practices of Yang Zhenzhong’s work. He is pre-occupied with China’s intrinsic disharmony and extreme discrepancies and often touches upon taboos such as death and out-dated social norms. His approach is metaphorical rather than narrative. His videos often start from witty ideas, employing image repetition and rhythmic coordination of sound, language and image. “Let’s Puff” (4th Shanghai Biennale, Zone of Urgency, 50th Venice Biennial) similarly starts from the interplay of two images: a young woman puffing and a busy street. Every time the woman breathes, the image of the street moves away from the viewer. The rhythm of the traffic and the angle of perception are altered with the rhythm of the woman’s breath.

Yang Zhengzhong’s playful videos are more than visual reflections; they are intelligent comments on the design of contemporary society. In a series of photos entitled “Light and Easy,” he perceives the weight of urban changes as an exterior phenomenon, and literally depicts the process as a weightless factor, turning urban landmarks upside down. “Light and Easy” is based upon a conviction that the lightness of the isolated exterior or interior is a source of interesting material. The successful experiments the artists have executed to formulate connections are exciting, sincere and disturbing. (ShangART; Shanghai, China)