The Brooklyn Rail

In Spring 2009, thanks to a Fulbright-Luce Lectureship I taught art history at the Academy of Art and Design, Tsinghua University and Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing Academy of Art and Design. During this period I traveled within China, did reviewing for Artforum and the Burlington Magazine, and met Chinese artists. I hoped at one point to write a book about contemporary art in China, but that plan proved to be far too ambitious. A number of better qualified art writers were engaged in that task. But thanks to my marvelous Chinese assistant, I met the Gao Brothers, and spent a couple of afternoons talking with them. (Their English was fluent.) They had a tree house in 798, the Beijing art district. We sat high up in the branches, drank Chinese beer and discussed visual art. But then when I went home, I lost touch with the brothers. I only knew that they were living in America.

Recently Zhen, the elder brother was arrested on a family trip after returning to China. And so, to remind an American audience of their art, I want now to present this very incomplete account. Fuller commentaries are on line. Using my present, no doubt fallible and fragmentary memories. I discuss just two rather different works, their hugging performances, which began in 2000, and are easy to describe; and one large photograph.

The Gaos' hugging performances involve a very simply conception. Men and women in various countries were gathered together. The audience is divided into groups of twos, and upon a signal they hug. And photographic records were made of that scene. The result thus is a survey of national psychologies. Many Americans are accustomed to hugging, while Chinese (at least of the Gao's generation) tend to be adverse to physical contact, as.of course, also do some English people. And once the Gaos assembled a group of Israelis and Palestinians. What these performances revealed was not politics as such, but something more elusive. How diverse, they revealed are the ways that people think of personal contacts with strangers. What, then, do those contacts reveal about political life? That is a question worth discussion.

My second example of the Gao Brothers’ art is a large photograph. It may be useful to offer an account of some details here, for this scene, of a place which is very familiar to anyone who knows Beijing, will be puzzling to others who do not. Tiananmen, the Gate of HeavenlyPeace, is situated on the southern edge of the imperial Forbidden City, a vast site from the Chinese old regime, which now is a major tourist attraction for Chinese and foreigners alike. I attach a photo, to give the context for the Gaos’ photograph. You enter through this gate, or at least you did in 2009, pay for admission and then walk North through the Forbidden City. At the entrance, is a gigantic painting showing Mao, which reminds you that the communist party has replaced the emperors of the old regime. Here we see one of the brothers facing us in Tiananmon Square, in a position which blocks the image of Mao. (The other brother, I assume, did the photograph.) And on either side, as in a Christian scene of the crucifixion, are two guards. This site is heavily policed. Between the time this photo was taken, and when I visited Beijing, the entrance was rebuilt .And now, according to press reports, it’s changed yet again. The penciled inscription at the bottom edge dates this image: 1996.

This is a deeply mysterious photograph, at least for me. The brother looking out towards us is watched, perhaps suspiciously, by guards on other side. How do we read his bodily gestures? And how, then, are we to understand this scene? As you can see, the brother stands in the position which blocks our view of the painting of Mao. Still, even after long experience of this image, I am still not sure what to make of it. Like the hugging performances, this artwork is highly elliptical.

The timing of my semester in China was important, in ways I didn’t understand at the time. In the New York galleries, there was a lively American concern with contemporary Chinese art. Many New York dealers were presenting Chinese works, and some major galleries were showing in China. I had a slight relationship with Artforum, and so when I told them that I would be in Beijing, they took me to a Chinese lunch in Manhattan, showed me the written code of ethics (which I had never seen before), and asked me to review in Beijing. A semester in Beijing taught me that I was not the right person to sustain such coverage, which required linguistic skills, experience and time which I lacked. And now the situation has changed drastically. Right now, according to the news, Zhen Gao is detailed by the Chinese authorities. The international art world, which a generation ago held such promise, is held hostage to larger political forces.