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Shi Jinsong was hanging out on AT CAFÉ’s patio sipping a coffee and juggling phone calls while basking in the glory of his new show across the lane at Marella Gallery. A huge window carpeted with mock Luis Vuitton logos stared back at this dynamic artist. Deeper inside the shadowy space a few white horses were poised with Gucci sunglass- wearing little boys on their backs. As serendipitous as things may seem I am now the Shanghai correspondent for ART FORUM, which doesn’t mean too much save my name in the paper 3 times a year if I’m lucky, but on the website to which I have more access they have a Critic’s Pick column and Shi Jinsong’s show would be one of my picks had I had the job earlier. The show entitled “The Long Wei Elite School” plays off the phenomenon of private schooling for China’s upper class children. The one family policy coupled with an accelerated upward and outlooking population has the private school business rearing in China. While the importance of a better education has been slapped down on a bunch of unsuspecting video gaming tots it’s still a lot of brand recognition and pretense that paves the way for their brighter future. Hence “The Long Wei” like long way to go (a nod to internationalism), or the dragon’s tail, as it means literally in Chinese (which also conjures up notions of military academy might- y’know China the sleeping dragon). Blue prints of the school’s actuall buildings in thick golden frames line the astro-turfed floor of the gallery. The Baroque designs are flanked by fountains and capped with domes catering to China’s burgeoning middle class obsession with bling-bling. The white horses decor take their licks from a combo of Chinese supra kitsch, Matthew Barney, Jeff Koons and Donatella Versace. Overall Shi Jinsong passes the torch of China’s often-misguided excess down to the next generation and displays his own carefree versatility.
So I’ve taken a 3 + week hiatus to straighten things out on the other side of the globe. Nueva York beckoned and I heeded, and I must say “what a time it was” I Heart NY with all my heart especially when I’m just passing through. But in order to catch up as I am continually doing, continually past forwarding… I go back to about a month ago when Christopher Phillips and Victoria Lu look poised for an arm wrestling match… y’know I’m not sure where I’d place my bets if it came to an arm wrestling match between these two curatorial VIP’s but I’d say it’d be a good match. Christopher is currently co-curating, with his friend Sally Wu, an exhibition called “Shanghai Kaleidoscope” for the Royal Ontario Museum’s stunning new contemporary wing. The wing is a mind fuck for any installer or curator and comes to us via another one of Daniel Libeskind’s wet dreams. It is truly impossible to hang art or project art or find an electrical socket close enough to where you may want to place art, you get the picture - just a bunch of haphazardly cantilevered walls made of expensive imported German steels so that the building will always win in the ongoing arm wrestling match with the art it holds. Anyway Christopher is interviewing major players on Shanghai’s contemporary cultural scene for the exhibition. These interviews with architects, artists, designers, curators, etc. will be part of the show- most likely they’ll be presented on pedestals because the only 10ft sq upright wall may be taken by a painting at this point. Victoria Lu is the creative director at the Shanghai MoCA, a private museum tyrannically governed by Jade magnate, Samuel Kung. Victoria, still super-funky after all these years, lets the museum’s young curators run amok in effort to counter the evil leader’s fuzzy dictatorial agenda, sometimes even mounting a comprehensive show in their wake. Victoria is from Taiwan but her family originates from Shanghai- they left with the Kuomingdang when the PRC took over- a street is still named after her grandfather who must have been quite important– like she is today (no street names yet). She feels a particular affinity to Shanghai, speaks the local dialect and gets to go to all the fancy city goverment parties because she is like one of us. She is a proponent of something she calls Animatronix - a mix of the cartoon world and the new media world and she thinks it’s taking over as a major aesthetic shift much like hip-hop is/was or neo-retro is/was or the cool Wolfgang Tillman snapshot aesthetic so well employed by Marc Jacobs ads or was that a Nan Goldin aesthetic, anyway nothing’s taking over, maybe taken for a short ride but …. Victoria was recently interviewed by China Vogue where she disclosed all the juicy stuff about her last three husbands, a suicide attempt, and shopping secrets but not too much about the Animatronic thing. A far more interesting interview to say the least. Christopher shot away from a pre-composed scribbly list of questions and shook his head yes to everything she said. I’m sure a lot of people react that way to her. She is rumored to leave MoCA soon but not Shanghai. Stay tuned.
