EDITOR'S NOTE

The first four texts in Yishu 34 tackle different topics and concerns, yet it is striking how certain issues—the postcolonial, cultural hybridity, the Chinese diaspora, and the ongoing negotiation between the local and global—resonate among them. These issues are by no means unfamiliar, but as regions such as Asia assume a more visible and self-sufficient presence, they are becoming increasingly complex and contentious, taking on new as yet unformulated and provocative directions—and Yishu intends to continue to be a means to voice them.

In a review of the 53rd Venice Biennale, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker references the 2008 Guangzhou Triennial’s theme of “farewell to postcolonialism” as a jumping off point to explore how the representation in Venice of artists of Chinese descent, both from mainland China and the diaspora, exhibits more self-determined identities than it did during the past decade. Gao Shiming proposes the necessity of nudging China into “building a new home, a different system” in order to develop a stronger domestic cultural identity and critical discourse. Ryan Holmberg brings into question the work of Huang Yong Ping and his employment of cultural hybridity as a tool for critiquing the West, while Hou Hanru and Michael Zheng discuss video within mainland China, and how its relationship to modernity and the West has resulted in a practice with its own distinct characteristics.

While these issues are clearly important in the evolution of contemporary Chinese art, artists such as Hu Xiaoyuan, Qiu Xiaofei, and Chen Hui-chiao bring other perspectives to the process and product of making visual art. They are less caught up in identity and global politics, instead searching for more internal subjectivities and alternative approaches to what art can represent. Finally, Yishu 34 offers reviews of important exhibitions that take us to Brisbane, New York, Beijing, and Venice, exemplifying the vast range of cultural geographies through which contemporary Chinese art travels.


Keith Wallace

photo: Chen Hui-chiao, Inside of Memories & The Silver Dust, 2006, water, video projection, DVD, LED lights, wall painting, glass. Courtesy of the artist.