PastFowarding: I heart NY, Chris Phillips and Victoria Lu arm wrestling like art and architecture

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.

MoMA, MoCA- Anxiety is everywhere so just eat your breakfast, Anxiety is everywhere so just eat your breakfast

Who said that big museum people are scary? Not true. Sarah Suzuki and Deborah Wye, curators from the MoMA prints and books dept. are the lovliest people in the world not mention to their acute attention to the most important meal of the day. Meeting them for a steak and eggs breakfast after waking up and running around my congested hood at 6am was a pleasant treat. Not only where we perched way up at nose bleed heights above People's Square with Shanghai strecthing out as far as the eye could see and the imagination can muster, but we actually had a fine conversation about, what else?, China Contemporary Art. They are here on an acquistions and basic R&D tour because they feel that the MoMA, as prestigious and super significant it is, has lagged behind in their dealings with the Chinese. One might say that the MoMA is a modern art museum and shouldn't take on the tasks of what a host of other contemporary venues are responsible for... but it just shows you that everywhere, everyone, even that seemingly secure bastion of the canon is anxious about the Chinese art world.. feeling that they've been observing from way too far and that China, in art like economics, etc. may be turning the tides gently gently away from Western shores.. or at least making some new rules.
New Rules- Haunch of Venison (gallery in London who represents Zhang Huan- the only Chinese artist making prints worth mentioning to these two print curators- monumental, phenomenal, unique and masterly works www.zhanghuan.com/) is now owned by Christies Auction house and this too puts the art world's age old tiered gallery>museum struture in slight jeopardy.
Zhou Wenqi The Zhang Studio Driver waits downstairs with a piece of paper clutched between his hands "Zhang Huan Studio"
And off they go for their tour of Zhang Huan's sprawling Art Factory.

I go to The MoCA across the street at the above mentioned People's Square which is a fine example of how museum standards vary considerably in and out of China. "Remote Control" An interactive media show that brings together Western and Chinese artists is better than a graduate show but not (my western centric notion of what is) museum quality. There are some fine works and many fun works which is the nature of the genre, a lot of cell phone, flashlight, and movement induced interactivity. The piece that stands out is Alexander Brandt's (aka FeiPinguo) 13 monitor video installation not only for his ability to procure 13 large flat screen monitors but by his acute observation (and probably personal experience) of fatalistic young couples in China. Dramatic scenes of distress, arguing, fights, suicide attempts and love making loop in silent, black and white video until the viewer stands in front of it and it changes to color accompanied by an audio track. Interactive

So then there was the evening that began with the promise of Shark Paella made by a group of Valencians tucked away in this tremendous apartment complex not far from M50. Shark, not to be found at the Carrefour, was substituted by salmon and octopus as the concotion steamed away on a 24" diameter paella pan imported as checked in luggage from Jose's most recent trip. Wine and olive importers, hash smokers, the hosts kept everybody satisfied until> we go to Suzhou Rd to Peter Sellers Party - a scene that looked like a Versaci double page advertising spread in Vogue- beautiful multiculti people in designer drab slinking way on Phillip Starkesque furniture eating little Italian cheesecakes, drinking champagne and googling ever soo cooly at the exquisite views of Pudong in the distance. a breath of beautiful decadence before> Glamour club with bumbumbum music and sloppy expats falling onto overly made up Asian beauties, a few hundred yuan gin and tonic, some booty shaking, yelling introductions into evertyone's ear and then> Attica, not unlike the NY State prison, is a starker darker danceteria. more sloppiness, yelling booty bumping, champagne, gin, club closesc> After hours at the Dragon Club packed beyond maximum capacity and still people keep coming as the sun keeps rising, offers for blow, Russians falling down in the bathroom, Jose bleary eyed inebriated but still hanging on for dear life but I break away and go home. 6am