{"id":49005,"date":"2016-09-09T21:28:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-09T20:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/modernartoxford.org.uk\/cms\/?p=49005"},"modified":"2022-02-24T22:13:04","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T22:13:04","slug":"the-archive-new-art-from-china-part-1-silent-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.modernartoxford.org.uk\/cms\/the-archive-new-art-from-china-part-1-silent-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Archive: New Art From China, part 1: Silent Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this latest Channel post, Professor Craig Clunas from the History of Art department, University of Oxford, reflects on the impact of the innovative exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, \u2018Silent Energy\u2019 held at Modern Art Oxford in 1993.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To refresh my memory of this ground-breaking show, the first time \u2018contemporary Chinese art\u2019 was shown in the UK, I went back to the review I wrote for the Times Literary Supplement<\/em> in 1993, and which the sub-editor titled \u2018The refusal to be exotic\u2019. The axe I was grinding then, and have pretty much gone on grinding since, could be summed up as, \u2018The refusal of \u201cthe East\u201d to be exotic will have to cause a rethink in \u201cthe West\u201d\u2019. Some twenty-three years later, has this rethink happened? Can an artist born in China now get by in the world without having to be identified as \u2018a Chinese artist?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In 1993, by coincidence, Ai Weiwei (b.1957), the one artist to have achieved today the kind of global fame which was then still far away from all those exhibiting in Oxford, returned to Beijing after twelve years in the United States. He features as a marginal presence in \u2018China Avant-Garde\u2019, Part II of \u2018New Art from China\u201d, shown at Modern Art Oxford later that same year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Silent Energy\u2019 showed work by eight artists, seven of whom were in 1993 living outside the People\u2019s Republic. Some have continued to do so, like Huang Yong Ping (b. 1954), whose installation \u2018Yellow Peril\u2019 was made specifically for the Oxford show, and which was responsible for an absurdist moment, when its tents full of live locusts and scorpions brought down on the gallery protests from the public about potential cruelty to animals. In my memory (this episode is unfindable on the Internet, so you\u2019ll have to trust me), the protests involved Johnny Morris (1916-1999), once a popular presenter of children\u2019s TV programmes featuring talking animals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s striking today about almost all the artists exhibited in \u2018Silent Energy\u2019 is their canonical status; as examples, Huang Yong Ping, Cai Guo-Qiang (b.1957), Chen Zhen (1955-2000), Yang Jiechang (b.1956), Zhao Bandi (b.1966) – these are still major names. A tribute to the foresight of the show\u2019s curators certainly, although there\u2019s still work to be done here on the relationship between lasting fame and early success outside China, the effects of recognition and validation by the \u2018international\u2019 art world. Some of this research is currently under way, by Philip Tinari among others. Now itself a historical event, the 1993 Oxford show stands as an important point of reference, important in both acceptance of and resistance to that then newly-globalising \u2018art world.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Craig Clunas has published extensively on the history of art and culture of China. He worked as a curator at the V&A Museum, London, and taught art history at the University of Sussex and the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. Most recently, he co-curated the exhibition \u2018Ming: 50 years that changed China,\u2019 at the British Museum from Autumn 2014.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this latest Channel post, Professor Craig Clunas from the History of Art department, University of Oxford, reflects on the impact of the innovative exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, \u2018Silent Energy\u2019 held at Modern Art Oxford in 1993. To refresh my memory of this ground-breaking show, the first time \u2018contemporary Chinese art\u2019 was shown in… Continue reading The Archive: New Art From China, part 1: Silent Energy<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93,207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-past-event","category-the-archive-2","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Archive: New Art From China, part 1: Silent Energy - Modern Art Oxford<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Craig Clunas (University of Oxford) reflects on the impact of the innovative exhibition of contemporary Chinese art, \u2018Silent Energy\u2019 at the gallery in 1993.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Archive: New Art From China, part 1: Silent Energy - 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