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Beijing’s Huajiadi community of
contemporary artists may have disbanded, but its impact –
and the commercial success of its artists – have both been
enormous.
 The
figures in uniform chic-black huddled for a photo call on a cold
December evening in Beijing recently looked assured and confident.
A million miles from the geeky, self-conscious graduates that
slipped through the gates of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts
in 1979. The 24-year gap in the taking of the two photos doesn’t
however do justice to the distance the group has traveled since
their bowl haircut days. They had the task of picking up the pieces
after a time of turmoil but the shy-looking artists photographed
in 1979 have become the most important artists of the last 25
years of Chinese contemporary art history.
After a decade in Sichuan art institutions that had remained
stubbornly devoted to social realist painting and traditional
calligraphy the class of ’79 eventually drifted north to
Beijing. Mohammad found the mountain: There they found opportunities
to show their work and to meet like-minded spirits from home and
abroad. They’d eventually gather with kindred spirits in
Huajiadi, an apartment block in a northeast corner of Beijing.
The group’s convergence in Huajiadi symbolized “…the
end of the artist’s plight to the countryside and a return
to the city,” says Tang Xin, an art curator who got to know
the artists when her father’s work unit moved the family
to a flat in Huajiadi. “In Beijing, artists were once again
beginning to play an active role in the city’s cultural fabric.”
The Huajiadi collective didn’t lack for color. Zhang Xiaogang,
a painter from Chongqing, was articulate and fiercely well read.
Cross-dressing performance artist Ma Liuming constantly provoked
the group’s thinking while oils painter Feng Zhengjie borrowed
quietly from foreign and traditional techniques. Today an author
as well as director of the Taikang Top Space Art Center in Beijing,
Tang collected notes from hours of talks with the artists to compile
a recently published book of artists’ accounts of critical
moments during the breakout period for Chinese contemporary art:
1979 to 2004.
The artists leaving the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts stepped
into a post-“cultural revolution” world where contemporary
art was an unknown entity. But in the 1980s China was opening
up many new ideas from the West. “There was a hunger for
learning and new thinking,” explains Tang. For artists and
audience it was a starting over. The artists who’d eventually
cluster at Huajiadi responded to the urges of the masses. “Their
work talked to the Chinese people, it said what they wanted to
say.” An explosion of styles and creativity between 1985
and 1995 saw later forays into computer-based work, conceptual
photography and feminism. The progenitors of Huajiadi were to
the fore throughout. But it was also a very difficult time for
the group: “Not many people understood them. They often felt
lonely. Disparate groups of artists felt the urge to discuss new
ideas and weigh traditional ideas and techniques.”
By 1990 the masses had changed. Money and economic growth were
emphasized over creativity and questioning. The Huajiadi artists
also changed. “Many moved abroad, to the US and Europe. They
wanted to see what was happening and wanted to clarify what they
had learnt.” When they came back foreign artists’ solo
shows were already starting to trickle into Beijing. A visit by
UK performance artists Gilbert and George inspired young artist
Ma Liuming to adopt a female alter ego and cook dishes of potatoes
and jewelry – his Lunch II work – which he placed in
condoms and buried. “Once he saw Gilbert and George he was
convinced performance art is the new medium,” says Tang.
“He took to it with a relish.” Similarly, Qiu Zhijie,
a video pioneer from Hangzhou’s much praised Academy of Fine
Arts was inspired when a German professor came to Hangzhou in
1990 to talk about video art. A 1995 trip to the Venice Biennale
inspired him to organize the first exhibition of video works in
China. “Very few people were then trying it but he pushed
it.”
Video and performance art are no longer the weird foreign cousins
of the Chinese art scene. “Today Chinese artists are invited
to the Venice Biennale and to festivals of video art around the
world… Chinese artists are using video to understand it and
then to explore themselves.” But the ways of thinking and
working of many, like Shanghai-based Yang Fun Dun, remain very
Eastern,” stresses Tang. Deeper ideological engagement meanwhile
came with the New Generation Art and Political Pop movements.
“Cynical realism and feminist art were foreign ideas that
helped shift Chinese art along as it transitioned to an indigenous
art.”
As a curator Tang put together several Sino-German exchanges,
including a 1999 exchange show by three German women and three
Chinese women in Beijing and Cologne. A 2001 exhibition of four
artists in Bremen and Ludwigshafen from the Tongxin Art Village,
another Beijing settlement, was very successful. “We had
200 people on opening day at Bremen City Gallery. We were all
over the local press.” Bremen City was among the first to
show Chinese contemporary art but European and US galleries now
compete to show it.
Foreign audiences are looking for “a kind of cultural connection,”
says Tang. “China is getting stronger and they’re interested
in getting to know China.” Traditional Chinese culture remains
inscrutable to many foreigners “…but modern art uses
the same skills worldwide and therefore it’s easier to understand…
The works are all different but with this generation you see the
political background of China and you can see the societal changes.”
Chinese artists have learned a lot from recent interaction with
foreign artists and collectors. “Ten years ago these people
didn’t have experience of exhibitions. This generation of
Chinese artists has more confidence and financial security than
any earlier one. The market is really good: it’s surprised
people.”
More crucially, perhaps, local collectors are finally beginning
to bite too. “Two years ago only foreigners were collecting
but since last year Chinese have started to purchase local contemporary
works.” Much of the buzz has come from Hong Kong and Taiwan
and from overseas Chinese. Mainland Chinese businesspeople shifting
cash into art are beginning to invest in modern works as well
as the traditional calligraphy favored up to now. Contemporary
art is more accessible in price compared to antiquarian ink works
but many collectors aren’t educated to understand the works,
says Tang. Foreigners too have plenty to learn too: “Many
of them know what contemporary modern is but lack an understanding
of the 20 years which shaped the artists’ work… Without
this background they miss much about how the works and artists
thinking.”
Well-run private galleries from Japan and Singapore are moving
in to show Chinese and international works in a Chinese market
brimming with potential - though, admittedly few proven buyers
thus far. “They’re letting people here know them.”
Prices are going up – too fast last year, says Tang. In 2005
Sotheby’s in Hong Kong offered their first lots of contemporary
Chinese art, and sold out.
The rarefied airs of a Sotheby’s auction room is a new world
for Huajiadi’s artists, for the first time being forced to
balance commercial success with continuing creativity and questioning.
Many have opted to be their own agents – showing work in
galleries but handling sales themselves. “It’s a very
complicated period for them. Now that auction prices are going
up they have to decide if they should push their prices up.”
Artists don’t get any cash from high-profile auction sales
of works previously sold but the publicity is good for the brand.
All have to train their eyes to read to a fast changing market.
“The domestic market is becoming more important, even if
collectors don’t understand the work they want to invest.”
It’s also cheaper to put money into contemporary art –
priced below invariably more expensive traditional pieces.
A handful of the artists with the nervous graduation day smiles
in 1979 have moved on. After years of living and working side
by side, success has meant new apartments and bigger studios,
like Chen Wenbo’s 300 square-meter space in Beijing’s
798 art district. To some extent they’ve joined the establishment
they once parodied. But just as they moved to Huajiadi for a sense
of camaraderie, today the artists seek a sense of home. As most
migrants are unable to get the capital’s prized hukou or
residency permit, “They buy apartments to have some sense
of home,” says Tang, who decided to write her book in 2003
as the artists began to leave Huajiadi. “They needed a bigger
stage.” An oral history, the book collects the artists’
views on the past and predicts a future for the ideas they pioneered
in a brave new China. “We feared Huajiadi would disappear
and everyone there feels it was a very special experience and
would like to have exhibition for these artists. I wanted more
than just a show. I wanted some kind of voice for ideas that moved
us all.”
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