Larry McElroy is neither pierced nor tattooed and his hair isits natural color — but he dons a “Fear No Art” T-shirt as part ofhis gallery guard stint at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art,220 E. Chicago Ave.
“A lot of people are turned off if you say ‘contemporary art,'”said McElroy, an Evanston native. “This shirt is saying, ‘It’s notso bad, it’s not so weird, come on in.'”
Patrons at both the MCA and the University of Chicago’s Davidand Alfred Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood Ave., who dare to”fear no art” will be treated to “Between Past and Future: NewPhotography and Video from China” from Oct. 2 to Jan. 16. As anintroductory placard in the forefront of the collection explains,the exhibit is a joint effort between the two museums and”comprises a host of highly individual responses to the successivewaves of change that have swept through China’s economic, socialand cultural riff.” But it doesn’t solely portray China’s growingcontemporary developments. Rather, it espouses the themes ofcontemporary art that artists and people like McElroy dare toembrace.
Bruce Chang, a Chinese American visiting the museum fromKentucky, said he sees the “People and Places” section of the MCAexhibit not specifically as a symbol of his heritage, but as arepresentation of contemporary art as a genre.
“I don’t know too much about the political implications in thesepieces but they are all very universal, meaning-of-life typethings,” Chang said. “It’s what all generations of art shoulddo.”
Stephanie Smith, a curator at the Smart Museum echoed Chang’ssentiments.
“It’s important to look at this as art as opposed to just anillustration of a specific political or social idea,” Smith said.”Defining it just as Chinese art is going to be a complicatedpreposition.”
“Family Tree,” a piece in the “People and Place” section of theMCA’s portion of the exhibit confirms both Smith and Chang’snotions of transcending Chinese themes, yet artist Zhang Huan stillmanages to impart his feelings toward traditional Chinese culture.”Family Tree” is a photo mural consisting of nine blown-upchromogenic prints of one man’s face arranged in three rows ofthree — the top row depicts the man with black Chinese symbolsscattered across his face; the middle row contains more characters;and in the final photos, his face is covered almost entirely inblack ink. The characters Huan chose represent the words for eitherfamily relations, primal elements like earth and fire or celebratedChinese tales.
Huan conveys how the “demands of society come somehow to bedirectly inscribed upon each individual’s body.” Yet somehow thestubborn, unyielding expression on his subject’s face in each ofthe nine photographs instills viewers with an identifiable sense ofpatriotism, no matter its origin.
Smith hopes patrons of both exhibits will do just that –identify and learn from the art.
“It should provide American viewers with some images that mightchallenge preconceptions of stereotypes that they could hold aboutthe state of affairs in contemporary China,” Smith said. “It’s avery diverse, complex culture.”
Huan’s piece is not the only to explore China’s diverse, complexcontemporary culture while paying homage to its break fromtradition. Bai Yilou’s “The People” is a collection of negativesfrom identification photos of hundreds of peasants, workers andstudents in the artists’ hometown and neighboring villages. Thephoto negatives are crumpled and ironed, then sewn together — thethread acts as a visual manifestation of “the delicate threads thatunite family and community.” While communicating a traditionalnotion, the webbing and diverse faces suggest that today’s China ismore diverse and the interactions of the Chinese people extend farbeyond the familial.
Other memorable works in the MCA exhibit include Hu Jieming’s12-foot plastic canvas maze with 10-by-12-inch negatives fromcontemporary Chinese media — the artist used media and imageoverkill as the work’s intended theme, then added videos ofbuildings being destroyed in China’s growing urban centers andphotographs of events and reactions surrounding the historicTiananmen Square.
The works in both collections of “Between Past and Future”explore video and photography as they are “preferred mediums ofexperienced contemporary artists and stand out for their unusualscope of historical and cultural reference,” as noted in theexhibit. Smith said the artists can use these media to reflect therapid changes in China, whereas oil painting — a medium in whichmany of the Chinese artists were trained — cannot best reflect thespeed of China’s growth.
“(Photography and video) can instantaneously capture informationfrom around the world and provide raw material to express an ideain a quick fashion,” Smith said.
Perhaps “Between Past and Future” will aid acceptance ofcontemporary art in mainstream culture in addition to the Chineseculture it portrays. Perhaps eventually, Chinese, Americans and allcultures in between will “Fear No Art.”4
Medill freshman Amanda Palleschi is a PLAY writer. She can bereached at [email protected].
