China's censors may not fully understand contemporary art, but they know what they don't like. Since the start of this month, police and propaganda officials have launched their biggest crackdown on Beijing's counterculture hothouse -- Dashanzi art district -- where at least three galleries have been ordered to remove politically sensitive works.
On their orders, down has come an oil painting by Gao Qiang (
Residents say there has been nothing like it in the three years since Dashanzi began its transformation from an old arms factory into one of the world's most fashionable contemporary art centers.
The Xindong Chen gallery was among the first to fall foul of the censors, when its exhibition, "Charm and Strength -- Mao Zedong and the Chinese Contemporary Artists," was abruptly closed last October.
"I was surprised because, after 25 years of economic reforms, I thought China was ready to accept creations like these," owner Chen Xindong said. "These are great contemporary artists. Their work is shown all over the world. Why not in China?"
That clampdown reflects the dramatic changes in the Chinese art world. An increasingly confident generation of artists is pushing at the limits of acceptability, as foreign galleries open branches in Beijing to cash in on the boom in Chinese contemporary art. The authorities, meanwhile, are struggling with a new desire to promote alternative culture and an old instinct to control it.
The censorship rules seem unclear. If there is a pattern, it is that private and commercial freedom is almost unlimited, but anything public and political is subject to controls. Galleries in Dashanzi openly display nudity and sexually explicit pictures. But even a flat image of political leaders seems to make the censors queasy. One of the pieces that had to be removed is a grey painting of the current leadership all in the same dark suits and ties with the same hairstyle.
The Gao brothers (
"We felt it was important to create an opportunity for artists to express themselves on subjects that are part of our history," Gao Zhen said. "But we were very cautious. We put the most sensitive works at the back of the exhibition room, where fewer people were likely to see them."
Within a week, however, police ordered the work taken down.
Despite the crackdown, the Gao brothers said the climate was improving. From 1989 until 2003, they were on the government blacklist and forbidden to leave the country. But they are now part of a new wave of Chinese artists wowing galleries abroad. Next week, they will visit Nottingham, England, to recreate their renowned work, Hug, in which they persuade strangers to embrace.
Many of today's leading Chinese artists grew up during the Cultural Revolution, were students during the 1989 democracy protests and have long explored these topics in their work. But it is only recently that they have found public outlets for their more politically sensitive pieces. Much of the work by Huang Rui -- one of the founding fathers of Dashanzi -- uses wordplay and sexual imagery to mock propagandist slogans.
Overseas, it is well-known, but in China it rarely gets out of his studio. His exhibition piece in Dashanzi, Chairman Mao 10,000 RMB, lasted only a few days this month before being closed.
"We're at a delicate stage," he said. "The government is trying to find a balance. I think they want to develop Dashanzi to improve the city's image. But some in power are old-fashioned and want to use traditional methods of control. We must push our ideas. [President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤)] talks about creating a harmonious society. That means having more culture."
Brian Wallace, whose Red Gate Gallery was the first foreign-owned space for contemporary art in China, said: "Before Dashanzi, there were only three of us, so 99 per cent of artists had no way to show their work to the public."
His business has been affected by the censors. Two years ago, officials ordered the closure of an exhibition by Sheng Qi (
But the ban aroused the buyers' interest. In the next few months, Sheng was the gallery's bestselling artist.
But compared with the first years after he opened the Red Gate Gallery in 1990, Wallace says that the atmosphere is actually improving.
"Ten years ago the officials would have been rude and taken the pictures away. Now they are polite and ask for pictures to be withdrawn from public view," he said.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS