The boundaries of reality are the area of play…

It jumps out of its gentrified, chic daytime envelope, vibrates at a new intensity, shrieks of new textures and emotions audible only to ears attuned to a different language. Images from my nocturnal prowling in Prague and its surrounding area, June 2009:

Jennifer Lin:

I was recently going over some lines of inquiry I’ve previously explored regarding the state of art and I came across something I wrote awhile ago…please feel free to comment, I’d really love to see what you guys think about my question..it would be really quite interesting to me to see what people think, since I am inextricably implicated in the art world, have a read…. again, would love to know what you guys think of the question I’ve posed. xoxo Jennifer

Adorno, Horkheimer and MacDonald, in brief, put forth the argument that popular culture is merely a manufactured commodity; that is, mainstream cultural products like Hollywood movies, music etc. are bereft of any originality and creativity. MacDonald in particular argues that the avant-garde movement escapes the dilemma of commodification, for it “simply refuses to compete”. Furthermore, MacDonald articulates that “[the avant-garde movement] created a new compartmentation of culture, on the basis of an intellectual rather than a social elite” (MacDonald, 63). MacDonald’s point is highly debatable given that modernists like Picasso, T.S. Eliot and Stravinsky belonged in fact to a very exclusive group, that was determined by social and intellectual status.
Furthermore, avant-garde art was made distinct from products of popular culture because they are imbued with originality. Yet T.S. Eliot, an artist who is emblematic of the avant-garde movement was reputed to say that “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal”. So originality becomes a moot point, and a very inconcrete benchmark in identifying creativity and the status of non-commodification in any given cultural artifact. So by what measures in contemporary culture are we able to distinguish between the kitsch and the avant-garde, and by the same token, between the kitsch and academicism, when the lines between these categories potentially overlap? Is it possible to draw the lines between these categories at all? Are not all works that are produced in our culture in danger of being kitschy as long as it had the time to evolve or better yet, digress? Look at for instance, Pollack’s abstract expressionist art, or Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. These previously avant-garde works are now squarely within the domain of popular culture, as they are seen often hanging the the dorm rooms of college students or in the waiting rooms of dentist offices. Is it possible for any artistic or non-artistic works to remain “before the vanguard”?

 

Post Modern China Doll:

The avant-garde movement(s) rises from the spirit of questioning, so for me the earliest avant-gardists were Heraclitus, Socrates… The impulse of questioning is by nature uncommodifiable, however, once the process is objectified/commodified (into an object, a painting, a book, a movie, a record), it is always made so with the intention to enter some sort of circuit/market. Can we draw a parallel to Zen Buddhism and say that the spirit of the avant-garde movement is always in a double bind once it’s articulated?

Contrary to Greenberg, I do not subscribe to the idea that the kitsch is the necessary fate of the avant-garde. It seems either too optimistic or too pessimistic of a view of humanity’s general ability to digest great avant-garde ideas. I’ll have to think about that one.

 I’ve been relatively absent from the blogosphere as I notice subscription rates go up. But really I’m unable to see statistics on this site when I’m in China because of some Internet glitch. Meanwhile, I’ve been busy commodifying (rather shamelessly shall I say) my artistic discourses and yes the book is coming!

I will be in Paris in about a week, then London. I am happy to announce that the English Edition of www.photographie.com will resume under video format, and we will be examining the mutations of the photographic imagery (interviews, discussions, etc) so be on the look out.  In April, Soldiers During the Time of Peace will be showing in Art Shanghai, and I will be there. At the end of May, I will have two workshops with Austrian students from the Vienna Fotoschule-Filmschule school. The art boom is over, but art lives on! 

P.S. Like the mean professor or the masochistic first-year art student, here’s two pieces of reading that I (self) assigned. I really need to read the stuff that I talk about instead of being found furiously photocopying Chinese art magazines in B&W (btw why isn’t there a Reader’s Digest for the thousands of magazines out there?). I suppose this is the gap that’s likely to be left in your education when you went to a film school but picked up the theory bug on the way from sensitometry 102 to creative thesis-related fictional theory write:

Greenberg: Avant-Garde and the Kitsch:

http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html 

New York Times Article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/arts/design/15cott.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&emc=eta1

As the laureate of Mission Jeunes Artistes (Young Artists Mission), I am invited to meet the following professionals over a period of three days in Toulouse in September:

I was selected based on my female genitalia project - Vis-à-vis. I really had trouble finding a space to exhibit this work in Paris. I will be exhibiting it in Arles, along with other more recent work. I also have a ongoing book project with a German editor near Berlin. Does anybody have any advice?

Many thanks go to Franck Maindon, Claire Bras, Linda, Jean-Marc Sanchez, Didier de Faÿs, William Ropp, Maxime Lacolley, Pierre Marilly, Sandrine D., Natacha.., and all the models.

OK I finally got the statement for this project and am departing in the beginning/middle of June with my friend Will. The itinerary will be Paris- Nancy (to meet Will) - Prague (for printing and portfolio boxes, several openings) - Brno - Prague - Berlin (to meet Alex, my German publisher for the book project Vis-à-vis, on the female genitalia) - Nancy - Paris. Schedule problems aside, I am really excited:

STATEMENT

Projekt Derniera is the title of a conceptual art project to be realized in the arms factory Zbrojovka Brno. Ten well-known European photographers will be invited to all work in the same space, each realizing their own concept on the site. The Derniera project procedes from the following conceptual thesis:

The world is an aggregate of monologues, dialogues, and scenes. Each of us is an actor playing a role; sometimes better and sometimes worse, we act in different roles. The Zbrojovska Brno factory is a stage on which for almost a century thousands of people played their parts. This stage, however, did not withstand the storms of time: the actors left, the scenery was sold or stolen, but the site with its incontrovertible genius loci remained.

The Derniera Project is the last staged event that will be produced in this space; afterwards, the site will be demolished and completely revitalized.

The Derniera Project seeks to be the bridge connecting the era that was and the era that will be.

The curator of the Project and the developer investing in the revitalization have concluded that it is impossible to erase, without emotion, the significance of the former industrial site, connected as it is with the fates of a thousand people. Such revision is natural; each way out is an invitation to new retrospection and fresh contemplation.

The documentary value of the project will also be far from negligible, although this is not the project’s priority.

By his support of the project, the redevlopment investor has evinced his sympathetic concern for the fates of the people so closely bound up with this space and the memory of their time there.

The participants in the project are not bound by any conditions except the requirement that each project be realized on the site of the Zrojkova Brno factory.

The opening of the project will be an exhibition of the realized concepts — presumably large-format photographs. An industrial hall from the Zbrojovska site has been chosen as the first exhibition space.

The subsequent exhibitions are also envisioned as being held in untraditional venues — in sites either before or after their revitalization.

The results of the project will be summarized in an illustrated publication.

The results of the project may be used in the investor’s revitilization activities.

Notes toward realization

–Reknowned European artists will be invited to participate
–Leading European photography galleries will cooperate in choosing the participants.
–Participants in the first phase of the project will include, among others: Galerie Vrais Reves in Lyon and Galerie Baudelaire in Antwerp.
–The organizer and technical facilitator will be the Atelier Zidlický
–The curator of the project is Vladimír Židlický.
–The organizers will defray the cost of room and board and cover the costs of production for the participating artists.
–We envision that the individual artists will realize their projects in the course of a 10-14 day residence in Brno, during which time the workspace, supplies, technical facilities and personnel of the Atelier Zidlický will be at their disposal.
–The project will be realized in the summer (June-September) of 2008.
–The participating artists will give one realized work to the project’s sponsor as well as grant reproduction rights — by mutual agreement and to a reasonable extent — for the promotional needs of the project sponsors.

OK I finally finished the editing for my trip in India: Delhi - Agra - Varanasi - Sarnath - Bombay - Hampi - Goa -Cochin - Backwaters - Munnar. As trite as it sounds, a picture is sometimes worth a thousand words …

Hailing from the most lavish monument built in the name of love. Wishing you a 2008 full of joy and light.

Namaste,
Chin-Chin

Currently reading :
The Upanishads (Penguin Classics)

By Anonymous
Release date: 30 November, 1965

 

LES RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE D’ARLES 2007

Projections of photographic series, at the international photography festival in Arles, France, July 2007.
Series by JM Babonneau aka. Better_World_Inc.
and by Chin-Chin Wu aka. Post-Modern China Doll.

We made this video with my coolpix camera and Better World Inc. did the editing. The choice of music is really eerie, which sort of transformed the whole experience for me. I dig it!

OK, this should come as no surprise, but I’ve been busy working on a video on my female genitalia series that we are projecting for the opening week of Rencontre Photographique à Arles.

This is the link towards our exhibition for Arles:
http://europeanphotographers.wordpress.com/

JM is arriving in Paris from Copenhagen on the 3rd of July and we are taking an early train on the 4th to Arles. We are likely to stay until Sunday the 8th. The program afterwards stays open. I think I’d like to see Zhang in the French Riviera, possibly hop to Vienne depending on the concerts this year, and take my Vienne sidekick Philippe’s invitation to Juan les Pins for Nora Jones and Keith Jarrett’s appearances (Attn: Tim!!).

What bothers me is that there’s a 10-day lapse of time and should I just bum around in the South or come back to Paris and get down to work? Or go to Peru and Istanbul? Afterwards, my Greek ex has extended an open invitation for me and Maxime in Athens and in a Greek Isle. Pékinoise is trying to get me to Beijing in September to make a short feature fiction. Meantime, I think I should shut myself off with Sandrine in some abandonned house in the countryside from July to August and finally finish the picture book project that we’ve been working on all year long. Decisions, decisions…

Happy 2007!
Bonne année!

新年快乐！

Peace and love from China Doll
Shanghai, New Year’s Day

沁沁，二零零七年元旦于上海