Chinese Culture Doesn't Need the West Says Albermarle Gallery's Tony Pontone
Chinese Culture Doesn't Need the West Says Albermarle Gallery's Tony Pontone
Albermarle Gallery has just opened "China: Memories & Imaginations," a group show of Chinese artists including deft photo-collage appropriations of art historical landmarks by Shi Guowei, golden Manga-like figures by Hung Tunglu, and chilling group portraits of North Korean children by Chen Liangjie. A few days after Chinese president Hu Jintao warned against the nefarious cultural influence of the West on his country, ARTINFO UK met exhibition co-curator and Albermarle Gallery director Tony Pontone to talk about realism, market boom, and cultural war.
Could you tell me about the origin of this project?
I have known Iain Robertson, who is the Head of Art Business Studies at Sotheby's Institute of Art, for many years. In the last few years, I've been strongly cultivating the Korean contemporary art market, and Ian is also an acknowledged expert in that area: emerging markets from Asia and the Orient. Initially, he came to me with a project involving Chinese brush painting. I recognize that, in China, it is the most ancient and a well-respected mode of expression, going back hundreds of years. I loved it, but I wasn't quite sure I could deal with that on a commercial level, so we decided that it was perhaps just a step too far.
Ian also has several associates who are travelling with Chinese associations linked to both public and commercial entities out in China. He asked them to get together a number of artists, which they did. Ian presented the work of artists who he felt would be appropriate, and from those artists, I chose artists whom I felt instinctively might work. I didn't know these guys. So, to me, it was all about the work. I saw these artists and I thought: wow! The social commentary going on here, the political overtone in some of the works, it's not easy work, it's serious.
The idea of realism, or realist painting, is quite key for you, isn't it?
The strength of the show is probably based on this, and of course that links in to my perspective as the Albermarle Gallery. Over the years, I've certainly been strongly promoting realist painting. I think it needs to be supported. So the project was already ticking my own boxes, and I thought: "you've got to give these guys a chance."
None of these artists has already shown in the United Kingdom, two or three have shown in Europe. They are all very fresh to the market, but I think it's what they have to say that comes across. There's fantasy, there's dreams. I love this photographer [Shi Guowei]; his take on these classic, iconic Western images is wonderful.
A few years ago the Chinese contemporary art market boomed. Where do you see it now?
When the market was flooded, it was a question of what the market was flooded with. How many times do you want to have Mao Tse-tung shoved down your throat? Some artists have done quite well on the back of that. One guy, Chin Yi Fei I think it was, sort of spawned a generation of painters, but they are all like clones. I think there was a view, probably in Chinese terms, that the West was rich, and I certainly sense that this first wave was like: "these guys, they are ready to be taken to the cleaners, they are stupid." There was probably some truth in that, but I think it has changed. Along with the good came a lot of crap. Common sense went by the wayside a little, but I think it came back.
A few days ago, Chinese president Hu Jintao warned against Western cultural influence in China. Is this something you've had a chance to discuss with some of the artists exhibiting in the show?
I haven't discussed it because I can't communicate [with them]. For me, the artists in this show are all being very honest. There's a strong aesthetic, the work is provocative, it's challenging, and I don't think they are looking to [the West]. You could argue the photographer [Shi Guowei], has looked at the West and said: "yes, that's a great painting, I'm going to do this with it."
The Shi Guowei's photographs you are referring to are very much about a dialogue between the West and the East, but what President Hu Jintao did was to declare a cultural war against the West. How do you think this is going to affect what's happening in Chinese contemporary art in the future?
I think he's being quite clever. I suspect [they probably feel] they don't really need that tradition. We can stand up for ourselves now. Why do we need to relate to the West? Can't we just be true to ourselves? Someone like Edward Lucie-Smith sees that the influence of the West is no longer playing the role that it did. Look, there's always going to be those on the contemporary side who will try to make waves. They can see how, within the Western areas, the controversial, the conceptually strong — arguably strong — works that is produced is something that they may want to aspire to. But I think [President Hu Jintao] was right to say what he did. They don't need the West. They have enough character, they have enough culture in their own history. It may be limited in the historical context of art such as we know it in the West, but nevertheless, I think they are a force to be reckoned with.
Comments
poor Tony, he probably doesnt realise that to our eyes, he's been seduced, in this exhition at least, by the chinese and their culuture, and they've got him busy doing their work for them
poor Tony, look at him dance...
he so funny...
Sounds like a nice bedtime story, but how does it mesh with the reality of today's China and that of the past 400 years. And why is there even such a perceived competition between China and the West? The West basically started in the Middle east, anyway. China has been influenced by contact with Western nations for about half a millenium or more, depending on what you call influence. Four hundred years ago, Yuan Chong Huan learned military tactics from the West and almost saved the Ming dynasty from being uprotted by the Manchu Qing. Tea has been a European, mostly British, tradition for about the same length of time. In the 1800's, Western art, impressionism, was influenced by Eastern, and, after it's initial introduction by the Qing Emperor in the 1700's, the Cultural Revolution of the final Qing emperor encouraged the integration of Western art on Eastern art with a full introduction of the Western oil painting techniques that the West had developed several hundred years earlier. During the Cultural Revolution of Mao, much of the Chinese culture was obliterated to the point that I know more about past Chinese history and philosophy than most Chinese do. So, first we have the reality that, if not for the Western art devices, like oil painting or the camera, there would be no art show for you. Moreover, the reality, in China, today, is that the people crave things from the West. They believe that Western products and ideas are better than those they can get within the country: rue the day when the Yuan trades at the proper value vis-a-vis foreign currency. It is to the point that they even prefer Western art, just because it's imported, another reason your artists are in GB, instead of China, doing a show. When one finds a better way to do things, one embraces it, if one is inteligent and not so self-centered. What makes the U.S. strong is its embracing of many different cultures. Indeed, that is how the West evolved from its beginnings, thousands of years ago. Although the politicians are always trying to encourage nationalism, here, they lost their audience many years ago. Chinese to Chinese people means pork with problems, milk with problems, vegetables with problems, water with problems, air with problems, political and corporate leaders with problems. Kind of difficult to make a case for let's promote Chineseness.