关于“中国当代艺术回顾”展览

Since its inception in 1984, the Havana Biennial has established a cultural dialogue with peripheral countries like China. The last two decades were characterized by a new geopolitical restructuring as a consequence to some extent of the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 –an event regarded as consequence and not as cause of political decisions that in this way put an end to the cold war.

 

From that moment on the «domino effect» broke out, extending its tentacles all around the world. Cuba was involuntarily immersed since 1990 in the Special Period, crowned by austerity and recession. China, on the other hand, stands out since then as one of the greatest powers of the present time, holding its arm extended to Cuba in a gesture of fraternity and cooperation.

 

The relation between both countries is historical. The first wave of Chinese immigrants arrived to the island of Cuba in 1847 to work as laborers in the sugar plantations, thus replacing the African slave labor force. One of the greatest artistic exponents of the 20^th century had this ethnic heritage –the Cuban artist Wifredo Lam, who was born in Sagua la Grande in 1902 with Chinese origin from his father and Cuban-African from the mother. When he died in Paris in 1982 he left a vast artistic legacy already acknowledged all over the world. His work, rooted in his own history and in the Afro Cuban tradition, is full of hybrid figures that do not lose current importance.

 

The sample China: Arte Contemporáneo Revista, a special project of the Tenth Havana Biennial initially conceived for the Asian Pacific Weeks Festival of Berlin in 2007 brings to Cuba a group exhibition with six exponents of the Chinese contemporary artistic production. Artists Chen Bo, Qiu Xiaofei, Wang Chengyun, Wang Qingsong, Xiong Yu and Zhou Wenzhong, even though they have independent productions are representatives of Chinese contemporariness–the result of a maturity process in parallel and simultaneously to the evolutionary process China currently enjoys in the social, political and economic spheres.

 

In his painting, Chen Bo praises the cult to trivial characters taken from his everyday life or from the literary tales of his childhood. These leading figures are de-contextualized representations immersed in an intense relation with the painting itself, expressed in long brush strokes full of expressiveness in their own dynamics. Qiu Xiaofei dedicates his painting to the preservation of insignificant details of the national tradition in transition. He rescues scenes and memories lived during his childhood in a country with socialist precepts in force, which today give a solution to a unique cross-breeding of political-social conduct. His paintings have a blurring and representation of recent scenes that, due to the swiftness in the transition of a system assume the aspect of a retrograde style. Wang Chengyun also reveals the Chinese present moment in his painting, creating a parallel between the urban evolution and the consequences transferred to society. After living many years in Germany, the artist returned to China to rediscover a new country –the new architectonic façade disguises alterations in the social behavior as consequence of the existing ambition: many young people dedicate themselves to prostitution as easy access to a higher purchasing power. Zhou Wenzhong represents the Chinese history and scenes through fantastic beings, which appear in a dynamics of their own, as if in a metamorphosis, in order to adapt to the present system. Distant from a social realism rooted in the Chinese academic training, Zhou Wenzhong dedicates himself to scenes crammed with surrealistic nature compatible with his new daily life. Xiong Yu, in turn, also explores a fantastic figure drawn from his fantasy and contemporary influence of the animation designs. Thus emerges an androgynous creature indifferent to the context that wraps it. Its posture is sublime, and beyond trivial issues, wrapped in a unique and fantastic universe. On the other hand, Wang Qingsong makes use of photography and recreates critical and ironic scenes, not only focused on the Chinese context but also his position in the face of world issues. The scenarios are meticulously created in reference to real events that become distorted, replacing China and its people, most of the time represented by the artist himself as one of the greatest protagonists of the present.

 

The exhibition China: Arte Contemporáneo Revista brings to the Havana Biennial a recent clip of Chinese contemporary art based on the effervescent present time in China that is destined to present Cuba, its local and international visitors, with a substantial fragment of that context.