Opening tonight is a collaborative contemporary art project at Eastlink Gallery on Moganshan Road which aims to enrich the artistic experience of the whole community, Alison Wright reports
All eyes need not be on the Shanghai Biennale this month. A raw and unique contemporary experience opens tonight at Eastlink Gallery on Moganshan Road with 22 international artists in collaboration with Chinese artists for a project called "Matchmaking at Suzhou Creek."
The project is the brainchild of the gallery's owner Li Liang, who wanted to provide an experience for Chinese artists who rarely have the opportunity to work closely with people from overseas. Li also says he has watched the art scene in Shanghai change over the last few years and it was time to capitalize on the growth.
"Two years ago we felt the heat of the Shanghai Biennale (2002). We saw so many people from other parts of China and the world come to visit us," Li says. "They came for the biennale. The artists here (Moganshan Road) are not so organized and we had never seen so many international curators, almost like a bunch of tourists."
Rather than let another opportunity go by, Li developed the idea of the matchmaking project with his staff at the gallery who all decided to make it work just seven months ago.
"We thought we'd catch a bit of Shanghai spirit, everything is so active and fast so we thought we'd be ok we could do it," Li says. "It's a little bit like blind dating. Luckily so far this dating has gone quite well. This is not some sort of academic, theory-based project. We tried to provide the art community with an experience. Even if people can't finish their work we are gathering experience."
Australian artist Richard Thomas surveys his surroundings at the site of his installation work at Moganshan Road. As an established artist, Thomas has previously worked on two collaborations in New York, the United States and Thailand, and has exhibited extensively in Australia and internationally since graduating from the Sydney College of the Arts in 1985.
For the Matchmaking project, Thomas teamed up with Su Bing who is based in Shanghai.
"The process has been very open and initially I thought they would assign someone to work with us before we came. Su Bing and I met casually and I was very interested in the space above his studio," says Thomas. "Then we started to look at each other's work and it was very similar so it seemed pretty natural that we should work together. I generally work with plants and nature and it just seemed like a perfect spot for what I was interested in, which is injecting change in the urban environment and bringing a little piece of nature to this very powerful industrial and demolition atmosphere."
The ease Thomas felt was reciprocated.
"At first I didn't know what to expect but when I met Richard it was like meeting my brother," says Su.
The pair created an installation using chrysanthemum flowers in a shallow space filled with water. Hundreds of creamy white flower heads were used for the piece which has a 360-degree view.
"There's an absolutely powerful sense of drama and scale to the site and this sense of change in Shanghai, this site epitomizes that," Thomas says. "From it you can see old parts of Shanghai, then you can see demolition and you can also see new towers going up and right in the middle of it are these artists in a very precarious situation here at Moganshan Road."
Su was using the flower in some of his works and in China, chrysanthemums are the flowers used in funerals.
"The work is really about being here and what is happening here. So really all we had to do was find something that represented that fragility and transience," Thomas says.
Su adds: "The flowers represent our whole life."
The pair agree that the language barrier was not a problem.
"The collaborative aspect has been the best and most important part of it. Spending a lot of time with Su Bing and dealing with the language issue has been fantastic actually. I think sometimes it actually adds to your level of understanding, brings things down to a more basic level.
"It's a real challenge to work with other artists because most artists are very definite about their directions and ideas, so to be able to let go of that is a challenge. But in this case it has been amazing, we've worked together without any drama at all," Thomas says.
Contemporary art in China shares similar problems with artists all over the world: the struggle to find a voice, the struggle for funding and surviving the art world. Li says funding was naturally the biggest hurdle for the project.
"We approached the Dutch Consulate General first because we had previously worked together on a project involving five Dutch artists and five Chinese artists. We got very strong support and very good feedback so we started," Li says.
Seven consulates have supported the project.
"We contacted a lot of artists and we received 50 applications, which was very exciting because we were thinking there might not be anyone wanting to participate," Li says.
The works are all very different and explore different themes and experiences.
Mei Ling Hom from the United States and Hang Feng from Shanghai have created a piece based on the Chinese concept of guanxi, or connections. Hom has created a wall installation using thread knitted together and Hang has used calligraphy and painting.
Tilo Kaiser from Germany has worked with Wang Xinwei, another Shanghai-based artist, focusing on the idea of communication. They have created a bar at the entrance of the gallery and reconstructed an office where they will attempt to record dialogue fragments in English and Chinese.
Eric Van Hove from Belgium and Shanghai-based Pu Jie have written on the staircase which leads to the gallery. Their work is in red chalk in Chinese and English.
Thomas says all of the artists have shared his positive experience which has been crucial to the development of contemporary art in Shanghai and China.
"This project is really about artists being here and being together and finding out what makes us different and makes us the same. It's really important for us to recognize our cultural differences and learn about each other's identity. But it's also about being part of a global community of artists," he says.
Date: through October 10, 10am-5pm
Venue: Eastlink Gallery and various studio spaces, 50 Moganshan Road
Tel: 6276-9932