Children Arts Exhibition

Pay attention and support children’s rights and artistic creativity is one of TCG Nordica’s direction and value. Every summer we work through exhibitions, performances and workshops to present children’s work. We also wish our adult could return to the children style through their art work.

This summer, TCG Nordica gallery is going to present a children art exhibition on 5th of June. All drawings made by Jiasu Art Studio(加速艺术工作室)’s children, there will be 139 drawings.

Program:
13:00-15:00, 5th of June, clay workshop for children.
20:00, 5th of June, Exhibition opening.

Welcome to join us!

Kitchen Events

Lei Yan’s sketch for the project

Kitchen Events

Five Chinese and five Swedish artists meet again after five years.

Last time they worked over a three-year period on a project called Logbook. They exchanged hand-made “logbooks” during one year, which they filled with images and texts about themselves, their different countries and cultures, everyday things and world events. Then they made an exhibitions in both TCG Nordica China, and at Uppsala Museum in Sweden.

In the exhibition Kitchen Events the artists proceed to work from an everyday, personal basis, but at the same time with the possibility to extend to political and moral reflections on food, environment, about how food is produced, etc. The Kitchen as a political arena.
The kitchen as the heart of the home. What can not happen in a kitchen? Stories from childhood and upbringing, from families, stories of controversy and joy. Did the kitchen have a different function in the artists two different cultures?

The outer frame and the main installation will be a long, set table with ten sections. Every artist is responsible for her part, with her own tablecloth and with secrets under serving cups, which the audience can lift in order to see what lies underneath.

The artists thought it was so rewarding, thought-provoking and not at least fun to work with artists from another culture. Getting to know them despite language difficulties, to discover many similarities, and to be able to meet in this way, through work, is a fantastic experience. The arts unite! Their contact did not end when the Logbook project ended, but the artists have kept in touch, though sporadically, by e-mail since then. With the exhibition Kitchen Events these ten artists want to reconnect and consolidate their friendship.

Participating artists:
Swedish: Annica Danielsson Almén, Eva Källander, Gudrun Westerlund, Kristina Jansson, Ragnhild Brodow
Chinese: Fu Liya(甫立亚), Jiang Jing(姜静), Lei Yan(雷燕), Shen Qin(沈沁), Tao Yini(陶宜妮)

Webste of Kitchen Events: http://konstomat.tumblr.com/handelserikok (Swedish only, and you need proxy for visiting in mainland China)

Soil for the Cultivation of Values

Soil for the Cultivation of Values

Luo Fei, TCG Nordica Gallery Director

Through thirty years of reform and opening, China is now the world’s third largest economy, and is expected to overtake Japan next year to become the world’s second largest economy after the United States. While this rapid and effective economic growth has brought the richness and convenience of the material life for many people, haste and competition have left deeps wounds in many places; the crisis of social and individual values is a wound that is festering quite viciously. A series of shocking public incidents in 2008, including tainted baby formula and poorly built schools and dormitories in the Sichuan earthquake zone sounded the alarm of a crisis of values for those people nonchalantly riding the rocket of the rise of a great nation. In a column for Lianhe Zaobao newspaper published on June 9, 2009, Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asia Insitute at the National University of Singapore, said he believes this is a reflection of the “disintegration of China’s social trust”.

Naturally, reforms that placed economics ahead of governance as well as the rapid pace of economic development over the past thirty years cannot take all of the blame for this crisis in Chinese social values. Frequent wars since the turn of the twentieth century, all kinds of disastrous political movements since the establishment of the People’s Republic and cultural confrontations between East and West have all led to confusion and a lack of confidence in traditional values, manifested in either self-consciousness or blind confidence about traditional culture, a lack of trust for other people or the rampant violations against others, blind worship of outside culture or outright xenophobia, or a lack of courage when faced with true faith, to name but a few phenomena. The crisis in values is not unique to contemporary China; it is a universal symptom of modern societies (especially postmodern societies) that follows the disintegration of traditional values systems. High divorce rates, high crime rates, family relations centered around consumption and the carnal city life have become the reality faced by every nation.

The values crisis also affects artistic trends. Since the New Wave in art, art forms led by political pop, cynical realism and kitsch art have garnered massive success on the art market, turning them into archetypes and models for success in contemporary art, but the spiritual character and the ways of life among artists over the whole art world in the past twenty years have revealed naked emptiness and cynicism. There has been no sacred or profound undertaking in the construction of values. As a result, since the rise of the art market, the exploration, discussion and practice of art have been superficial and fruitless. It was only last year with the rut in the art market that people finally got off of the highway to riches and returned to plowing the fields of art, and that more and more individuals and groups began discussing values issues.

The exportation of values has always been the historical imperative of responsible, economically powerful nations. The pursuit, reconstruction and maintenance of values must first take place on one’s own native soil before their export can be considered. They cannot be just blindly snatched from one’s ancestors. The efforts of folk-based groups have become an extremely powerful force in the reconstruction of values. Just as the broad international success of Chinese contemporary art was the result of folk-based efforts and all international exchanges and presentations of contemporary art began through folk-based channels, the importance of folk-based exchange platforms to the renewal and exportation of values cannot be denied. The folk realm is where values take root, grow and bear fruit, the soil for the cultivation of values, where organic, non-abstract cultural dialogue can be realized, where the concrete work of values restoration can be carried out, as opposed to simply moving troops around on paper. The folk sector is where values and beliefs are translated into action, and the place where values come to rest.

This essay will share the case of Kunming’s TCG Nordica International Culture Center in its work related to the restoration of values in the values soil that is the folk sector. The reason that TCG Nordica has been selected for exploring local values construction is because TCG Nordica’s values vision and work methods have had an undeniable impact on the local cultural arts environment. I have had the opportunity to take part in this work, and have an acute sense of the meaning and challenges involved. This essay will share the experiences of TCG Nordica on three levels: values vision and cultural exchange; the local art environment; and social responsibility.

The TCG Nordica International Culture Center is a non-profit international art gallery and culture center. The locals simply call it Nordica, and that is what we will call it in this essay. Officially established in 2000, and invited to move into the Kunming Loft Artists Community in 2002, it was one of the first folk-based art spaces to rise in Kunming. Today, it is still Kunming’s only platform for art and cultural exchange between China and the West.

Vision

Nordica’s values are expressed in the following statement: “Stimulating Reflection on Human Worth as Expressed in Various Art Forms”. From this statement it is easy to see the founders’ acute awareness of the contemporary crisis in values. In another important Nordica text, there is an explanation of the term “human values”: Respect, Friendship, Honesty, Integrity, Mutuality, Care and Openness. This implies that this is a cultural arts organization based on human relations and dedicated to the ideals of reconstructing community values. That is to say that cultural and artistic exchange and presentation is not the goal, but a way of rethinking values. Art events are not the most exciting part of it, it is about human stories. For all of Nordica’s art and cultural events, values come first, whether it is for cultural exchange, art exhibitions, music concerts, theater events, educational programs, poetry festivals, English corners, cultural tourism or team building. Such a concept has laid a universalist foundation for this region-based international exchange organization, one which permeates every aspect of its work.

It bears mentioning that in the countless art and cultural exchange events over the past decade, the principle of putting values first has not led them down the slippery slope of moralizing or evangelical dogmatism. Instead, it has laid rich soil and an ideal space for people, cultures and arts to encounter one another, and to help restore broken links between them. Prejudice disintegrates in the face of respect; enmity retreats in the face of friendship; coldness is transformed in the face of empathy; isolation unfolds in the face of openness; perplexity becomes potential through creativity…. This space is not just for the exchange and exhibition of arts and cultures, it is for fermenting culture and art, placing it into people’s hearts, and allowing the values within art and culture to spread to the community and inspire new ideas.

This concept did not arise out of desperation from the market rout of recent years, it was a vision that arose from deep insight into human nature and history. What will amazes people of the future will not be the fluctuations in the art market, or the eastern and western shifts of the center of world culture, or the rise and collapse of the globe’s superpowers; it will be the silent crumbling of values and the massive, towering, dazzling Tower of Babel with its rotting inner core.

Cultural Exchange

Cultural exchange between China and the West is the most central and most textured component of Nordica. Nordica has erected a bridge between China and Scandinavia, and over the past decade, the majority of international cultural and artistic exchange events in Kunming have taken place at Nordica. Examples include the exchange between famous Swedish symbolist poet Tomas Transtromer and local Kunming poets such as Yu Jian; projects such as Log Book, Sugar and Salt and Love Protection, which entailed cooperation and visits between local and Scandinavian female artists; a residency program that brings dozens of artists from Scandinavia and other regions to Kunming each year; arrangements for inviting many local artists to participate in exhibitions in Scandinavia; the ten to twenty Scandinavian youths who come each year to study Chinese culture and history and work as part of the Nordica team; the many local youths who come to work in Nordica, taking part in specific cultural exchange projects, and creating a third culture out of contact and cooperation between two cultures; the ties of cooperation and trust that Nordica has worked to establish between the government of Yunnan Province and various regions of Scandinavia; cooperation between Nordica and the embassies of the Scandinavian nations…. It could be said that every aspect of what Nordica does, both on stage and behind the scenes, takes place within the context of international exchange.

Cultural Exchange is no longer the cold mutual translation between two vocabularies, discussion between the cultural representatives of two nations, show games between two national teams, tributes or clashes between two national TV stations. Because of the deep and rich participation of many local youths, cultural exchange turns into stories with a heartbeat, and those stories are brought back to us, and brought out to the distant Scandinavian Peninsula. No longer is cultural exchange a secret war of cultural permeation between the soft power sets of nations; it is now the process of people coming to know and trust each other. Eva Taitai brought me a bag of fermented chili beans to boil into a hot-pot and save me from the paucity of flavor in the Scandinavian palate; Anna Mellergård helped us to clean the dust from those corners of the gallery that the Chinese could never find; the Scandinavians hung up long white scroll-paper banners of Tomas Transtromer’s poems, and the neighbors thought we were holding a funeral; Janeric Johansson met five Chinese girls in Kunming…. Because of these stories, Janeric Johansson told Kunming artist Tang Zhigang, “I don’t believe that China and Scandinavia could ever go to war, because we know each other too well. Our friendship will be a lasting one.”

Because of Nordica’s persistent efforts in cultural exchange, local artists have had far-reaching contact with western art and artists, and learn that in western art, aside from Germany, Great Britain and America, there is also Scandinavia, where artistic methods stand apart from the western mainstream. These long-term observations showed Tang Zhigang a universal problem in art today: as art becomes increasingly international, where are the differences between individuals and between regions?

Local Art Environment

If it can’t inspire a strong passion for local culture, then an international platform becomes nothing more than a place to find a blonde-haired boyfriend; if it can’t inspire a sense of responsibility in the reconstruction of local values, then an international platform becomes nothing more than a diving board to jump out to the creature comforts of the western world; if an international platform can’t provide nourishment for culture in the local art environment and work together with local artists to explore regional humanist values, then where is the value in having a regional international platform?

Since the New Wave in art, Yunnan art has had a unique character that has been a source of inspiration in China for its focus on the individual state of existence, the relationship between living consciousness and nature, and on Yunnan’s unique geography and multi-ethnic culture. As one of the first folk-based art spaces there, Nordica has witnessed the passion and transformation of local art, from the first exhibition of Yunnan installation art at the T Café Gallery (Nordica’s first incarnation) in 2000, to such large scale exhibitions of new forces in Yunnan art as the “Physical Exam” and “Here Come the Sheep” exhibitions in 2002; from witnessing artists’ explorations in image methods to their first-ever exhibitions at Nordica; from the first-ever solo exhibitions in China for Tang Zhigang and Mao Xuhui to the Swedish tour of the Chinese Contemporary Art – Identity and Transformation exhibition; from artists organizing their own exhibitions and holding a creative market, to Nordica’s curation of local themed exhibitions; from artists born in the 1950s to artists born in the 1980s….The majority of local artists have exhibited their works at Nordica, and Nordica is always looking for new forces out there. Averaging one music concert a week, one art exhibition a month and one large-scale event every two years, Nordica continues to be the most vibrant cultural arts center in Kunming, providing the people with a fresh and eclectic cultural scene.

Aside from focusing on the local art environment and individual cases, and supporting new artists and female artist groups, Nordica also works in the field of art education, holding regular exhibitions to foster and encourage creativity in children, providing free guidance to local schools, including the international ones, and helping people to know art and its joy and value.

I think that if you water and care for a plot of soil, not to grow vegetation that is suited to the locality, but to grow Scandinavian berries, then it is no longer a plot of land that you are cultivating, but a botanical garden that has no value beyond appreciation. It takes many years of cultivation and labor before one can gain a sense of its true value.

Here it must be noted that all soil is local in nature. There is no international soil hanging up there in the sky. If there is, it’s only good for tourist souvenirs. The work of refreshing values and establishing people’s faith and belief in values, however, must be carried out in a specific place. Interestingly, when we look back at all of the Scandinavian art communities or museums we’ve come in contact with over the past decade, such as Vestfossen, the so called art capital of Norway, the FOLK outdoor art festival at the Lista Fyr Gallery, the biennial-scale art international art festival at Mriannelund in Sweden, the museum at Uddevalla or the collection of wild Yunnan mushrooms at the Bohusläns Museum, none of them are in major cities. Some of them are even in little villages of just one to two thousand people that don’t even have their own police department. Those art communities in little villages aren’t neo-pastoral constructs, they are international-level art communities in their own right. While the international field of vision has provided local communities with a window on a diverse world, international art has gained an opportunity for rethinking, deepening and modification in local soils. While the internationalization of art has made it easier for the people of the world to understand art, and made it easier for artists to travel abroad, does it also imply that a unifying world is whittling away at local cultures and their essences? Can we find valuable components inside? An artist once referred to the Kunming Loft, a flexible art space adapted to local characteristics, as an “alternative space”, using a central yardstick to lower the status of a unique method of growth. I think that the ten year history of Nordica can at least affirm that this is actually an “irreplaceable space”, because its methods and values are perfectly suited to this unique soil.

Social Responsibility

As a local enterprise and cultural center, we are concerned with the question of how to carry our values vision into social groups, rather than just to people in the cultural arts field. Aside from encouraging people to come to this community to sit down for a cup of coffee, look at art and listen to music, is there some broader effort that we can engage in? How do we bring the needs of marginalized groups into the hearts of artists, and take the richness and power of art to these marginalized groups, rather than keeping the two separate? As a public platform that builds relationships between individuals, between individuals and groups, between people and governments and between disparate groups, cross-field activities are taking place all the time. The act of caring naturally moves from the humanistic to the humane.

Out of concern for the serious trends in AIDS infections in Yunnan, and out of care for AIDS sufferers, Nordica spent three years implementing the benefit project “Contagious Love: Artistic Reflections on the HIV/AIDS Situation in China”, drawing people’s attention to the AIDS problem, in the process establishing a bridge between culture workers such as artists and poets, AIDS workers and AIDS sufferers, promoting mutual understanding. We held a series of events such as AIDS seminars and discussions as well as interactions with AIDS sufferers and drug addicts to dispel a lot of the fear and misconceptions artists had towards AIDS, and used actions by cultural workers to bring joy and hope to the lives of AIDS sufferers. In the end, the project was presented in a series of art exhibitions, poetry events and music concerts, and enjoyed broad support from local and international artists, governments and organizations. Through the cultural arts, this project altered the coldness and ignorance of many people including ourselves, and we were greatly moved by the diligence of these artists who creatively explored ways to break the chains of prejudice and open the gates of love.

Aside from the AIDS project, we have also engaged in many other similar efforts, such as establishing interscholastic ties between a school for handicapped children in Sweden and the Kunming Huaxia Vocational School; since 2004 we have been using the Christmas Market to provide poverty-alleviation organizations and weak social groups with more opportunities; the 2007 “From the Polar to the Valley” project brought together ethnic minorities from Sweden and Yunnan, focusing on ethnic rights; then there was the 2005 project to promote children’s rights in honor of the 100th anniversary of Astrid Lindgren’s birth…

I believe that these actions are more than just activities for the public good. They’re more like local applications of Joseph Beuys’ concept of social sculpture.

Conclusion

Actually, Nordica has done so many things that I’ve only been able to list a few of them here. As a cultural arts organization that has maintained non-profit operations, in its move from a supported organization to an independent one, it experienced more than just the dazzling spectacle of one cultural event after another and the steady accumulation of accolades; there was also the hardship of Anna Mellergård and Wu Yuerong and the daily efforts of every team member, their bravery, wisdom and love in breaking through the obstacles before them. But every living thing is reshaped, modified and refreshed through exchange. The soil goes from hard to soft, from strange to familiar. It has become the motivation for everyone to pick up the plow, and a cause for celebration.

“Micro-variation” has become the basic method for folk-based action, as opposed to massive, one-time banner raising efforts to push drastic change. When one repeatedly cleans one set location in a filthy city, repeatedly wipes the dust off of a single table, that table becomes respectable, and many people will sit at the table and get to know each other. That is the meaning of cultivation.

The experimentation on each plot of soil is indispensable. Each action carried out with values and beliefs brings the possibility of renewal to withered land. The restoration of values does not need to wait until total collapse happens to begin. Just as we can’t just plant seeds today because we want to eat an apple tomorrow, the cultivation and renewal of values requires a place and sufficient time, and attentive people to feed the soil. Cultivation and maintenance is not a one-time effort; it comes with challenges and concern, miracles and disappointments, hardship and patience. It is because of this that the work of restoring values inevitably becomes an everyday, local and normalized working mechanism that spreads to every corner. What really needs to be cleaned, watered and refreshed, the real soil of values is not the city, the village or the art community, but our own hearts.

Completed on December 9, 2009 in Liangyuan, Kunming

translated by Jeff Crosby

Photo from “Contagious Love 2006″

via http://blog.luofei.org/archives/2140

Albatross Wings and Other Things–Freedom of Joy

Date: 22nd May , 2010 Sat 8pm
Add: Xi Ba Road No.101 Chuang Ku/LOFT
Admission：15RMB
Tel：4114692

“It’s going to rock!”
—— Kenny Stubblefield！

vocals and guitar Daniel Nikles

Lead guitar Dylan Searsy

Drums Timothy Shorey

Bass and backup vocals James Park

Graduation exhibition 2010 of Wenhua College

Graduation exhibition 2010 of Fine Art Department of Wenhua College of Yunnan Arts University

Opening time: 20:00, Tuesday, 25th May, 2010
Exhibition Duration: 25th of May–1st of June

Summer is coming, it’s the time for art students’ graduation. On next Tuesday evening, 25th of May, TCG Nordica is going to present a big graduation exhibition by Fine Art Department of Wenhua College of Yunnan Arts University’s students. There will be 12 students’ works from sculpture studio, and 17 students’ works from painting studio. All of the works will be shown both in main gallery space and UP gallery space, welcome to visit!

Dance club-Latin Dance

TCG Nordica will continue with dance lessons, after our Swedish teacher Mimi has left. There will be new Latin dance lessons available with teacher Zhang Rui. The first lesson will be your try out!!! Please bring your friends and dance together with us.

Adult Latin Dance: Every Tuesday 8pm – 9pm
Price: 25 RMB per lesson
Tel: Zhang Rui: 13708884104   Nina Cheng: 15288405910

At : TCG Nordica in Kunming LOFT

Rachel Getting Married–Movie Night

14th May 2010, 7pm
Free Admission!
This month’s movie will be the drama “Rachel Getting Married” from 2008. The movie is directed by the American director Jonathan Demme, starring Anne Hathaway as main character.
The movie is striped down and filmed by handhold camera – leaving all artificial surpluses behind, revealing a very strong story about family. Kit, an young drug addict released from rehab for a few days, has just returned for her sister’s weeding. The family has for years been growing apart, trying to forget and overlook the reasons, but the weeding forces them together, to talk, to get angry and maybe heal the breach.
This movie is a strong, moving film – so please bring friends to enjoy it with us.

2010 Farewell Concert

15th May 2010, Sat 8pm
Xi Ba Road No.101 Chuang Ku/LOFT
Free Admission!

Eight months ago eight students arrived in Kunming, bringing with them eight stories, eight personalities and three teachers. Today their experiences, exhilarations and efforts have been put into a new story, that they will reveal to the world on May 15th.
The Wizard of Us is a story of strangers in a strange land, in a new world where anything is possible, and at the same time their personal farewell to the land they have grown to love. Only at Nordica. Based on a true story.

Monthly Program 2010 May

Sat, 2010/5/1 Empty
Mon, 2010/5/3 English corner: Drought and Charity
Sat, 2010/5/8 Empty
Mon, 2010/5/10 English corner: How to propose
Fri, 2010/5/14 Movie Night: Rachel is Getting Married
Sat, 2010/5/15 Farewell Concert
Mon, 2010/5/17 English Corner: Meet the Swedish movie director Linnea Widén
Sat, 2010/5/22 Albatross Wings And Other Things – Freedom Of Joy Band (Young Musicians Project)
Mon, 2010/5/24 English Corner: Goodbye to the Scandinavian Group
Sat, 2010/5/29 Empty
Mon, 2010/5/31 English Corner: Poverty

Notes:
* English corner will have a special beginners group every time. We offer free advice and a possibility to practice.
* The last week of May will have a students’ graduation exhibition from Yunnan Institute of the Arts, Wenhuaxueyuan. The time is not settled yet, so please check our website later to stay informed.

Interview: He Libin

He Libin
(Interview with the artist in his studio. 30th May 2010. Present: He Libin, Luo Fei and Anders Gustafsson.)

I once read a text by Jeff Crosby, where he emphasized that Kunming historically did play an often overlooked role in China’s road to modernity: from it’s time as a French outpost, to its role as a refuge for Chinese intellectuals during the Japanese occupation, Kunming often led the way for China’s embrace of modern ideas. I guess the South West Art Research Group should also be mentioned here. Do you see Kunming’s art community building on this heritage, or should we declare it dead and buried?

– It is building on that tradition. Compared with other citites, Kunming woke up early in relation to modernity. The first Chinese art community started here (Chuang Ku/Loft, 1999). It was influenced by the Western world. During French and Japanese occupation, this influence was forced upon us. The Han culture didn’t have such a big influence here, so Kunming could accept different cultures.

– It’s actually quite interesting that many Kunming artists are rather lazy, or very relaxed anyway. This also means they’re very free. So if there’s an interesting opportunity, the artists can easily gather. Chuang Ku is an example. Another case is the Jiang Hu-project 2005-2006 (a project supported by Lijiang studio). It influenced lots of young artists and was awarded a price for being the second best art project after the Shanghai Biennal in 2006.

But isn’t the Kunming art community more scattered now than say four-five years ago?

– Yes, definitively.

But is that a sign of the artists cooperating less? Or of something else?

– We cooperate more, actually. There are more opportunities and possibilities. Four years ago, there was only Loft. The exhibitions were more simple at that point. Now we have more art spaces, which results in more cross over art.

I’ve noticed that people in Kunming often remind us foreigners about the minorities influence on the culture of Yunnan. You are of Naxi heritage yourself. Do you see any influence from the minority cultures on contemporary art?

– Personally, the Naxi culture doesn’t attract me. I’m mainly living with Han-people. Even though Yunnan is a minority province, Yunnan’s main culture is Han. Just look at the menues in the restaurants. The minority food is often there more like a decoration.

– Another important thing is, that in the 20th century, even if we have many minorities, we where occupied by Western countries. That influenced us. Minority culture is maybe more influential in song and dance, but not so much in the visual art where the Western influence was stronger.
As far as the art academies educational tradition is concerned, the visual arts relates mainly to the Western system and the Chinese traditional painting: More precisely, the Western tradition of realism and the Chinese one where the students copy old masters and paint plants. So the influence on contemporary art is marginal, in my opinion.

– In early 1980′s there was an art wave, the Heavy Colored School and the Scenery School, who were influenced by minority culture. All the artists were Han-people, and they combined minority culture with western influences. Most of the minority art is more utility based, for religios ceremonies and so on. But it doesn’t reach independent or fine art. Different minorities have different religions. This means that they are enclosed in there own circles; it doesn’t spill over to other cultures.

– If you compare original minority art, with the Heavy Colored School and the Scenery School art, they are very different. The latter are landscape paintings with strong colors. But already in the 90′s they were less influential. They were hardly scratching the surface of the minorities cultures. It never dealt with the feelings of the individual, and it never acccounted for the individual’s experiences.

– When I watched them, they all looked the same. Soft, beautful, like a poem. I’ve lived with minorities, and I know that this beautiful side is only part of the truth. There are sorrow and suffering too. That kind of life is never covered by those paitings, and they don’t show these people’s real life.

– I think that the government knows and likes the Heavy Colored School and the Scenery School art, and those artists use this style to present a romantic idea about minorities to Westerners. They want Yunnan to be the biggest tourist province in China, so they portray it like the Garden of Eden.

It’s not only the minority cultures that distincts Yunnan from other provinces in China. It’s also the geographical proximity to Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. Myanmar is Yunnan’s biggest trading partner, for example. Is this influencing the Kunming art scene?

– The cooperation with these countries takes plcae within the economical sphere, but very rarely on a cultural level. So if we look back on the past years’ culture events, very few of them are in any way connected to these countries. (Even if the day before this interview an exhibition from Thailand opened at Yunnan Arts Institute).

– In recent years, we’ve learnt that the differences between art in Yunnan and, say Laos and Thailand, are really big. So we influence each other only to a small extent, if any. Their art education, exhibitions, collectors and foundations are all of Western origin. This will continue, I think, and the main reason for this is that in rescent history they were occupied by Western countries.

Mao Xuhui talks about your “anxiety”, reflected in the loss of the traditional landscape conquered by the destruction of modernity. Do you agree with this?

– Almost all Chinese have anxiety, it’s only on different levels… Personally, I don’t see myself as an intellectual. My anxiety is mainly about lifestyle. Being caught between on one hand my dream of a pure and simple life, on the other hand the modern life’s with its speed and its urges. So I’m almost afraid to go to the super market, it’s a big waste of products and resources. I’m afraid it’s all about desire. Maybe I would have preferred to live the simple life of minorities.

– The traditional Chinese intellectuals lead divided lifes. They wished to join this world and at the same time escape from it. So I don’t see myself as an intellectual. I can not totally embrace the traditional intellectuals’ opinions or feelings. My culture and knowledge system is only slightly influenced by Konfucianism. Deep down, I much more prefer daoism. Daoists usually live in forests or mountains.

I find your project, Recording Shenzhen, particularly interesting. You and some volunteers painted the city’s sceneries, but used water instead of colour. The art work lasted for a maximum of two hours. Isn’t that quite Daoistic?

– No idea, I hadn’ t thought of that, haha. But probably. Just like my recent works, where I only used water, air and other simple resources. Another important element in my work is about time.

Time… Isn’t there some similarity between the ephemeral or unreachable nature of this vaning waterdepictions of a hypermodern city, and the traditional landscapes of some of your other paintings? I mean: Aren’t we often projecting our contemporary thoughts and worldviews on a distant past that in some sense is unreachable?

– Yes. I always try to reach for it, but it disappears. It makes me sad, and if you lift up this feeling, it’s somthing like impermanence (a Buddhist term). And you can’t really know it or control it.

It looks to me that you are speaking the same language in The Forgotten Views and The Lost Writing; there you are using newspaper as material to depict traditional landscape or calligraphy. Newspapers as a material are ephemeral, even if not as much as painting in water.

– Yes. But as you know, I’m not the person who plans everything. In this progress I tried different materials, but finally I choose newspaper. It’s cheap, actually it doesn’t cost me anything. And it’s a good material, easy to work with. All the newpapers came from friends, they’re for free. I can’t finish it, cause people always ask me if I need more newspapers…

– During the works I found newspaper as a material has its limits. Time will change it, it won’t last. I tried with other materails as well, like sand and metal. Mixed material. Time will change everything. Deep down I’m a pessimist. Impermanence, is a word I really understand and can identify with.

TCG Nordica is celebrating its 10 years anniversary. Please give me your thoughts on which role it – and Chuang Ku – has played through the years.

– They’ve played very different roles. Chuang Ku was established by Ye Yongqing and Tang Zhigang. In the beginning it was like creating an enclave. They were idealists, in a way they wished to build Utopia. With enclave, I mean they wanted to create a life style that was quite different from other citizens. Their land was sort of up in the air, it didn’t land.

– But because of these artists’ hard work, Kunming’s art events became more and more a part of the city’s daily life. There was a distance from the public, maybe. But art became more and more a part of daily life for artists, with exhibitions, platforms and so on. Before Chuang Ku, the opportunities to see or particpiate in an exhibition was very limited . It was limited to the official museums.

– In Chuang Ku there was a thinking mode that it’s “us” inside Chuang Ku, and “them” outside. To make a difference between them and the artists supported by the authorities. “We are Chuang Ku(Loft) artists, they are outsiders”. Maybe Western artists see it more as “I” and “you”, rather than “us” and “them”?

– When I read the last generations diaries (like Mao Xuhui, Ye Yongqing and so on), it was a lot about us and them. They were different, that also went for the relation to society. Today it’s a big difference. The boundaries have been blurred. And this is because of their success. They have become accepted, before they were a more heterogenous group.

And TCG Nordica?

– I see Nordica as a bridge. The founders wanted to share different kinds of culture with everyody. This sharing was not to make everybody be the same. In fact, it makes everybody different. This is the biggest difference between Nordica and Loft. Nordica was not just only for “us”. Instead it made us realize our differences. I think this is a culture difference. For Westerners it was I and you. For Chinese it was much about us and them; us always eating and drinking tea, playing cards together, for example.

– I think Nordica is the most inportant place at Loft. Without it, Loft would be a local community. There would be no dialogue, no conflict.

– According to Nordica’s vision, there’s still a kind of idealism, But it’s not Utopia. It has a positive view on everybody’s life style and culture. If the art community thinks: “Let’s build an alternative life style”, it’s more utopian. It makes everybody look the same. Like communism; everybody are the same.

At one point in a discussion woth the Loft artists, we tried to explain how we at Nordica work more with a flat organization, rather than a hierarchial one. One of the artists ironically exclaimed: “Ahh, you are the real communists!”

– Actually, even when there’s a cooperation with Nordica, everybody still have their individual work.

So will this – and should it – change for the future, in your opinion?

– I think Nordica shouldn’t change their role much in the future. I wish Nordica can just go deeper in their communication between different cultures. And also, I wish there could be more communication.

Other cultures, not just Scandinavian-Chinese, you mean?

– No, my point is that we need build more communication in Kunming, with other culture areas. Not only art, but literature and so on. It’s not only the Nordica staff’s responsibility, but everyone’s.

Can you give a concrete suggestion?

– For example the HIV-project. That was a very good example of a sort of cross-over project, where people meet on a bridge. I wish we could move further, where artists take responsibility for society. In the past years, the art scene has been more profound than the other culture areas.

So, for example, we arrange a concert and let artists and poets create from their experiences during it?

– Yes, and artists could cooperate with scientists.

And how about the future for Loft?

– There are many, many problems with Loft, and everybody knows that. But I think it doesn’t matter if it’s there or not. The most important is how the artists work in the future. I think that even if there’s no art community, it’s not important. If the artists bring art into the daily life, it’s something that could happen everywhere.

– The art communities in China was probably a phenomena related to a certain period of time. The artists needed to make themselves known, needed to gather energy from each other. When or if the artists become stronger, and aren’t considered as being on the edge of society, I think the communities will dissappear naturally.

– Even if Loft disappears, it’s not necessarily a big problem to Nordica, who can still continue their work. All the artists in China have found that the art communities haven’t been the most important thing. The organisations have been more important. Within each art community, there has been a maximum of one or two organisations that have done most of the work.

In one discussion I had with Jonathan Kearney, we both agreed that Kunming’s culture life is different than what you find in the coastal megacities. Kunming can maybe not claim to be The Real China, but that it can claim to be A Different China.
If you agree with this, what is the main contribution of the Kunming art scene, that makes it stand out from the rest?

– I agree. A different China. The Director and founder of Lijiang studio Jay Brown even made an exhibition in Germany with that name. I think all the events happening in Kunming contributed to the whole of China. Some of them had much influence. Generally speaking, the Kunming art scene even made Kunming different from other cities.

In what way, more precisely?

– There were some cases with big influences. The New Concrete Group in the 1980′s influenced many cities. Also, the Chuangku/Loft influenced other cities. Another one was Jiang Hu (The before-mentioned project in Lijiang). It was tightly connected to the local experience, it could never have happened anywhere else. It was a village project outside Lijiang. Invited international artists to connect with the local experience and culture.

– And then there’s Nordica.

– Most of Chinese contemporary art is about an urban experience. In Yunnan the contemporary art connects with experience from nature. Those who come here find other influences and raise other questions, in relation to nature. Yunnan can give the artists inspiration for “slower walking”.

– These things make art life here stand out from the rest of China.

The current party secretary, Qiu He has personal ambitions for Kunming’s future. The universities are moved to Chenguang, outside Kunming. A new airport, China’s 4th biggest, should be ready next year. Rail lines linking Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Chongqing will be upgraded. Construction of a high-speed rail between Kunming and Shanghai is already underway. Improved roads to Hanoi and Bangkok will shorten the time between Kunming and these cities drastically.
How do you think such changes will affect the Kunming art scene?

– It’s hard to say. I haven’t thought about it that much. I think it won’t change a lot for the artists themselves. They mainly focus on peoples’ hearts and experiences. But there might be changes in the patterns and structures, relating to the city’s enlargening. I haven’t seen any action from the government towards the art community, so the change might not be so big.

– The small art communities might spread out in different places, because of the economic development strategy. It will hardly make art develop faster, though. In order for the local art scene to stay healthy, it will need local curators, collectors and galleries. But that will take a long time.

You have chosen to stay here, although many artists follow the money to the coastal region. And it’s not that you haven’t seen the world. You have travelled to Scandinavia, for example. So what’s most attracting for you here?

– My family. Maybe I could earn more money in some other place, but I enjoy life here. I don’t want to leave my loved ones: parents, wife, daughter. The daily life is most important to me. Only then comes art.

Interview by Anders Gustafsson
Photo by Luo Fei

For more information about artist He Libin, please check his CV, and the tag on our website: He Libin, thanks!