比利安娜·思瑞克｜情境策展：书籍作为艺术创作媒介

程新皓、杨圆圆、郑国谷、鸟头作品于展览现场

陶艾民、郑亦然、刘窗作品于展览现场

李牧作品于展览现场

The book as artistic medium

Drafted by Biljana Ciric

Research into the medium of books within artistic practices in China started around a decade ago, in the mid-2000s. Its point of departure was an interest in understanding and learning about artistic practices that challenged exhibiting rituals. I was drawn to practices that asked the following questions: besides exhibitions, are there other places we can create to share our own thoughts and practice? What kind of place is that? Some of the artists I had early conversations with included Wang Luyan from the New Measurements Group and Zhang Peili. These conversations with artists planted seeds for this exhibition's conceptualization.

What kind of public space can we continue to nurture in order to share our ideas without limitation and fear is a question that lingers within all of us. What are the ways and strategies of coming together, learning, reading, sharing, and allowing space for multiplicity to co-exist—this is our challenge.

What we can learn from historical works is that artists' books were a way to connect, share, and distribute ideas. The fact is that after the COVID experience, many artists turned to this medium. This exhibition and the thinking around it give an intimate insight into the struggle, but also the pleasure of survival, with the joy that these historical and current practices carry within.

The artistic practices that questioned exhibition as a format often used books as a medium and as a way to actively reconfigure exhibiting rituals. This underlying urge to escape can be located in the problematics around local art production and its distribution, as well as the discourse at the time, which proposed different ways for engagement. Together, they are an attempt to create an active relationship with the official system, including the system of art institutions, while also questioning its values and the very understanding of art—its protocols as a form of critique from within.

These very gestures of “going public” questioned the rituals and values around the idea of objecthood itself as core to exhibiting, wherein these artists’ actions merged with the everyday and thus shifted the notion of objecthood, problematizing the perception of art. Furthermore, the importance of the original work of art also required re-examination.

The research starts by looking at the period from the 1980s, having the important symbolic point of Cultural Fever, with the beginning of DuShu publishing and its leading article “No Forbidden Zone in Reading.” This moment greatly influenced Chinese intellectuals and marked the beginning of a period of translating Western thought, alongside a publishing fever during the 1980s that influenced many artists and their ways of thinking and going public.

These moments that describe different ways of going public have a number of things in common: they were all organized by artists themselves; their economy and the way of making them happen were costs borne by the artists; they attempted to address a specific audience, or the gesture of going public had a targeted group; the relationship to the materiality of the object was counter-museological, colored with an activist nature; and moved away from the value placed on objecthood by museums and its distanced presence as a principle of the Western art historical narrative.

Some of the most notable works of that time were Huang Yongping’s The History of Chinese Painting and the History of Modern Western Art Washed in the Washing Machine for Two Minutes (1987). Huang Yongping used two art history books—Wang Bomin’s History of Chinese Painting and Herbert Read’s A Concise History of Modern Painting—as the raw material for this work (the latter being one of the few introductory modern Western art books to be translated into Chinese, and one that at the time had an enormous influence in avant-garde art circles). He put the two books through a two-minute wash cycle in his washing machine at home and afterward placed the pulplike remains atop a wooden box. At the time, the artistic community in China was grappling with how to reconcile traditional Chinese culture and Western modernity; this work was Huang’s answer.

In the same period, Xu Bing (1988) created his seminal work The Book from the Sky (1987)—4,000 pseudo-Chinese characters, made by moveable type printing blocks hand-carved by the artist, that are impossible to read, challenging the understanding of reading and the power of books.

The Brown Cover Document No. 1 (褐皮书一号) (1988) by Zhang Peili is one of the first attempts by an artist to consider the distribution mechanisms of artworks and the conditions around an artwork going public. The work was completed between April 20 and June 21, 1988, and included clear instructions and other materials (like medical gloves), alongside the procedures. Zhang Peili obtained a list of all the students at the Central Academy of Arts, including undergraduate and master’s degree students, except for the first-year undergraduates and foreign students. He sent them a letter. The names of the letter receivers were selected through a lottery process conducted by his assistant. Each selected name received a letter from Zhang Peili containing a piece of the glove, or a whole glove, and a letter that stated:

1.According to the guidelines you have been determined to be a gift receiver.

2.Other gift receivers are all around you.

3.This gift doesn’t have anything to do with the good and bad of your past.

4.Do not transfer this gift to another person.

5.Do not seek other receivers of this gift.

6.Do not look for the gift sender.

7.Do not look for the one who was entrusted to send you the gift. 

8.Carry on as before.

In this case, the artist showed great interest in the environment and setting for the reception of the artwork and how this produces meaning—in particular, its relation to the everyday experience of being a receptor of information, willingly or not. He selected the postal system to distribute the work as a trial to see if it might be possible to work through the existing state apparatus. The artist also gave power to the letter receiver to develop their own understanding of the letter, whether it was art or just a simple prank. This again was part of a critique of the Central Art Academy and its students, challenging their openness to the new artistic experimentation that was taking place around the country.

It is important to keep in mind that the Central Art Academy at that time was one of the main institutions of art education; many artists who went on to develop their international careers in the 1990s graduated from the school, and many of them received Zhang Peili’s letter.

One of the most radical gestures toward reconsidering the format of an exhibition and its relationship to a work of art came from the New Measurements Group, established in 1988 and active for seven years. The group initially worked under the name 解析 (Measurement Group) in 1988 and later changed the name to 新刻度 (New Measurements Group). Although the collective had many members at the beginning, toward the end, due to the rigorous method by which they produced work, only three members remained: Gu Dexin, Chen Shaoping, and Wang Luyan. Their fundamental principles were:

·No paint

·No use of the paintbrush in any way

·The only tools allowed were pencils and rulers

·The work must be small, A4-sized (this was the result of the artists’ observation that big works are about visual experience while small-scale works provide more of a reading environment)

·And most importantly, the abolishment of any artistic personality.

During the first years of the collective, the artists worked toward developing clear instructions to abolish each other’s personality in the making process. In one of the first experiments, called 解析一, they removed their own names and instead identified themselves as A1, A2, and A3. Initially claiming that A1, A2, and A3 were not the same, they later determined that A1=A2=A3 (each member was represented by a color in the process: A1—black, A2—yellow, A3—red). They started from a single point on a sheet of paper with the instruction that each produce a 4.5-centimeter line at a 45-degree angle, one by one. When the line left the paper, the work was considered finished. Each movement was clearly documented based on the instructions.

The first series of works was exhibited in 1990 in Wang Luyan’s apartment in Beijing (Dong Wang Dou Zui Hutong number 17). This took place in a small room that was also the Group’s working studio. Works were hung on the wall and it was a semi-public event. The three of them invited only critics and curators, as they were not confident that the rest of the public would understand the work.

After this first exhibition, the members realized that their work needed to go beyond the exhibition walls, and it was necessary that they rethink their method for going public. In 1991 they participated in a group exhibition in Fukuoka, curated by Fei Dawei, titled China Avant-Garde Artists: Exceptional Passage, and presented their work in a book format in the gallery space.

After this exhibition experience, the members of the group realized that the gallery space was not an appropriate setting for reading, but rather a space that enabled visual appreciation. Their approach required reading rather than a purely visual experience. Therefore, placing the book in the exhibition space and providing tables and chairs for people to read did not satisfy the demands of their work. The gallery space offered a different experience of their work, but it fell short of what they needed. This realization became a significant challenge for them. Utilizing the book format also necessitated the abolition of the original artwork as a form of final presentation within the art system.

In 1995, in Spain at the Santa Monica Art Center, they participated in the exhibitionCountry from the Center: China Avant-garde Art, where they managed to abandon the gallery space and instead exhibited their work in the museum’s bookshop. As Wang Luyan put it, “the work refused to enter the gallery space and was shown in the institution’s bookstore.” The book didn’t have an ISBN number, nor did it have any official distribution channel, yet it escaped becoming a mere object in the gallery.

From 1988 until 1995, the New Measurements Group produced five books. Starting in the early 1990s, they were included in a number of international exhibitions abroad that focused on China’s avant-garde movement. These opportunities allowed them to experiment with alternative ways of going public. Eventually, though, the New Measurements Group came to an end according to their own logic:

·They abolished artistic individuality.

·They abolished the original work of art through the use of the book format.

·They abolished value when the market tried to embrace them.

In 1995, when the Guggenheim approached them for a solo exhibition and they were in the midst of discussions, they decided to disband and destroyed all their works, leaving only the story behind to relay to us.

Books as a Way of Connecting Communities and PracticesDuring the 1980s in China, travel was not very affordable, and printed art magazines and journals played a major role in informing artists about what was happening in the rest of the country, as well as developments in contemporary art discourse abroad. The huge significance of the usually black-and-white reproductions in these magazines served as a reference point for how “proper” exhibitions should look, based on a few early exhibitions of Western art presented in China during this period.

In the 1990s, a number of artists initiated platforms in the format of books that not only connected communities within the country but also introduced global art contexts. One such example was the seriesBlack Cover Books (1994), Grey Cover Books (1995), and White Cover Books (1997).

The idea for the firstBlack Cover Book was developed by Ai Weiwei and Xu Bing in late 1993. The aim of the publication was to “provide an opportunity for Chinese artists to publish, explain, and exchange their experimental art.”

The Black Cover Book (1994) consisted of four sections: an interview between Xu Bing, Ai Weiwei, and New York–based artist Tehching Hsieh; a section featuring photographs of recent work and sketches, statements, and plans for new pieces by twenty-eight artists; reproductions of twentieth-century artworks by Marcel Duchamp and Jeff Koons, among others; and translations of existing art-historical and critical texts.

At the same time, artist Geng Jianyi initiated two projects inviting artists from different cities in China to participate, create work, and later produce a publication together:Agreed to the Date 26th November 1994 as a Reason and 45 Degree as a Reason (1995).

For the first project, Agreed to the Date 26 Nov. 1994 as a Reason, many artists chose to complete their artworks in public spaces in the cities where they lived—Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Beijing. On the day of the project, each artist completed an artwork at their respective location. One of the most important breakthroughs of this exhibition was its decentralization: it did not have a real physical space for the exhibition, and there was no single site where all the artworks were present.

Each artist documented the process of their artwork to be used later in the production of a publication. The publication took the form of a book of postcards, with the content consisting entirely of neutral, objective descriptions of the artworks, without any critical essays, curatorial notes, or forewords. The content was unified, including pictures and documentation of the artworks, basic artist statements, the locations where the works took place, agreements related to some of the artworks, and other such materials. All photographs of the artworks were in black and white.

The project 45 Degree as a Reason followed the same method. The publication was slightly larger but also unified in terms of content, with no introductory essay. Each artist was given two pages of content: one page for a color photograph of the completed work and the other for black-and-white sketches, tags, and case descriptions. For both publications, the artists provided clear sketches to Geng Jianyi to guide how the artworks should be presented in the publication. The artists also funded the printing themselves. Because both publications used a postcard format, there was no beginning or end.

Similar strategies were used in projects such asChinese Contemporary Artists' Agenda (1994) and Wild Life (1997). While many publications from the 1990s shared only sketches and ideas for artworks, very few led to the actual realization of the works and their presentation in publication format.

Agreed to the Date 26 Nov. 1994 as a Reason and 45 Degree as a Reason recall a series of exhibitions held in the 1960s by New York curator and agent Seth Siegelaub, such as the 1969 exhibition One Month, which invited 31 artists, each to complete an artwork on a different day to be presented in the resulting publication. Siegelaub’s organizational method challenged the dominant exhibition model in the Western art system at the time, in which institutions held primary authority. He often promoted the idea that galleries were unnecessary for exhibitions.

It is quite possible that Geng Jianyi and other initiators were unaware of Siegelaub’s practice, but their projects and Siegelaub’s emerged in different environments and with different goals. To a great extent, Siegelaub used his exhibitions to promote conceptual art within the market, while Geng Jianyi’s aim was to document the experiments and ideas of artists working in different cities. His two projects attempted, under the specific political conditions of the time—when artists had few opportunities to exhibit together—to connect ideas and practices across locations, creating a network for exchange and affirming their presence.

The Internet and the Changing Landscape of Artist Publishing in ChinaInternet usage in most urban areas of China began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, leading to a proliferation of internet-based media and platforms for sharing ideas. Art-ba-ba was established in 2006 by a group of artists from Shanghai—Xu Zhen, Huang Kui, and Jin Feng—and was conceived as a free forum where comments were immediate and unfiltered. Art-ba-ba provided an open platform for criticism, which was a fresh and challenging alternative to the traditional authority of art critics and the conventional modes of publishing at that time. Today, Art-ba-ba functions more as a standard media platform than an artist-led initiative.

In 2012, Li Mu, Lu Pingyuan, and Hu Yun launched an online journal calledPDF, which was more structured in both content and appearance. They released a new issue every month for one year, featuring conversations, texts, and various contributions. The PDF journal was distributed through art-related internet platforms and email networks.

Feng Huo Magazine from Guangzhou was established in 2013 and remains active, appearing on a monthly basis. It is entirely hand-produced using a DIY approach and a home printer. While it is one of the few platforms that still exists in the format in which it was originally established, it rarely reaches a wider readership beyond the local community in Guangzhou.

Since the 2000s, the rapid commercialization and institutionalization of art in China have left very little space for the artist book as a medium to be explored and nurtured. Artist books—typically more affordable than other forms of artwork and supportive of the democratization of art—found limited traction in China’s highly competitive market system. As a medium, the book was neither recognized nor addressed in exhibitions by art museums or galleries. However, a small number of artists continued to embrace it in their daily practice.

Among them was Geng Jianyi, who left behind an astonishing body of work related to artist books. Others, including Cheng Xinhao, Yang Yuanyuan, and Zheng Guogu, while exploring diverse media, valued artist books as a form of storytelling and a means of sharing research at a slower, more deliberate pace.

However, initiative of ABC art book fair that started in 2015 as well as independent publishers such as Jia Zazhi who worked and existed on margins of contemporary art system have made great contribution to the growing interest among certain communities in paying attention to artists books and bridging collaboration with international publishing. Although ABC art book fair rubbed the shoulders with contemporary art system it wasn’t fully embraced by it.

Covid experience have led many of us to rethink importance of artists books and its pathway towards healing and resistance with joy. Artists books again gain momentum as we think what kind of public space artists book are and how we can actively continue to share ideas and disseminate them to the communities that we hope to stay with trouble together to use Donna Harraway words. Liu Ding work presented within the exhibition is one of these examples where artists book format serves as a space to contemplate and reflects on larger political changes within the world and life as a day to day gestures stretching space between public and personal.

As our reading and social habits evolve, artists’ books continue to offer us physical and tactile interactions that digital screens cannot provide. On the other hand, artist continue to expand understand of books as a format and way of disseminating its ideas. Artist Li Shuang, rewritten Grapefruit by Yoko Ono using internet experience but continues to give its physical trace through being shown in the different situated settings responding to site and invitations. This sharing is always partial as full work in never rarely shown. 

This research and exhibition has given spatial attention to expanding and challenging forms of literacy when speaking about the books. As Trinh T.Minh-ha reflects writing, reading, thinking, imagining are luxury activities to a privileged few. Through conceptualizing of the exhibition special place for nurturing different forms of literacy  enabled marginal voices  to be heard and acknowledged. Through work of Tao Aimin, Xia Chengwei, Jasphy Zheng, Liu Chuang, we acknowledge act of reading not as a way of recognizing the letters but as passage to open our understanding that there are different forms of literacy and that  literacy that others have, we don’t and vice versa.

As world is not turning better place for sure as a curator Chus Martinez, reflects relevance of our work is constantly being challenged. Thinking and practicing how to create transnational alliances, sharing ideas, way of storytelling, creating modes of resistance through shared gestures is our future. Artist books play important vehicle to stay connected, entangled and contribute to process of healing and walking together as a form of care. 

The exhibition physical experience starts with the work of Qian Weikang that is shown for the first time. The work is called Untitled (1989).Qian Weikang used merbromin to color the pages of the Bible. He worked on one page at a time, waiting for each to dry completely before he moved on to the next. The entire process took him over two years. The artist used medical cotton swabs bought at pharmacy, using them in the exactly same way as doctors and nurses applying merbromin to wounds.

Exhibition borrow this slowness and care from Qian Weikang work as an invitation to slow down, to read and to heal. Reading together is a way of thinking together. It’s a form of care. By giving these struggles a presence in the room by voicing them, we made them public and making things public is a mode of cultural production. These reading encounters provide a space of solidarity to share our trauma through the lives of others. 

Don’t we afraid to read aloud or chant when you visit.

The exhibition ends with Blue Books project by Li Mu ( 2008) in Juvenile Center in Shanghai. The project was part of Intrude 366, Zendai MoMA initiative of presenting art beyond art museum walls. This was probably one of the most challenging projects we have produced as part of Intrude 366. Li Mu created permanent  art book library for young prisoners that was activated through six workshops over the course of one year. The presentation documents process and struggle but also belief in rehabilitation process through arts. 

On situating curatorial

Through this modest contribution, I would love to elaborate on mode of practicing that I call ‘situating the curatorial’, after Donna Haraway’s influential theory of ‘situated knowledge’. I use the ‘curatorial’ following curator Maria Lind’s definition as a way of linking objects, people, histories, discourses, processes and images through the physical spaces of encounter. For Lind, the curatorial is parallel to Chantal Mouffe’s notion of ‘the political’ as a set of practices that disturb existing power relations. 

Situating the curatorial means thatwhat has been shared and how remains dynamic, remains attuned to the needs of the place, time, weather and community around it. By extension, if another The book as artistic medium  were to happen, new processes would need to be developed to reflect the new  situation at that time. 

Haraway claims that the moral is simple: only partial perspective promises objective vision. All western cultural narratives about objectivity are allegories of the ideologies governing the relations of what we call mind and body, distance and responsibility. Feminist objectivity is about limited location and situated knowledge, not about transcendence and splitting of subject and object. Situating the curatorial through this exhibition and research   followed this feminist principle: focusing on a limited location, through situated and partial knowledge. 

This is not comprehensive exhibitions and research, but situated response and invitation to think through questions: Can we re-define the purpose of the exhibitions? Can we practice the exhibition as a learning opportunity that will allow us long-term structural solutions to problems we are facing? What if we need only refuge, not an exhibitionary moment? What new connections and alliances can be created to enhance the art worlds we know already?

Through situating curatorial we also acknowledge that the curatorial position claims a certain power, and that power should sustain a web of connections through solidarity, allowing differences to co-exist. It acknowledged that we are not equal, and the ‘equality’ of positioning is a denial of responsibility and critical inquiry. Situating the curatorial takes this responsibility as an ethics of how to live, work and establish relationships. It is a continuous learning of self as partial, always in making, always in relation to others.