Malcolm John Ferris
is participant at
The Interplay of Art and Globalization - Consequences for Museums
Abstract
Toward a critical presentation of non-Western contemporary art
European cultural institutions are engaged in a sharp debate concerning the meanings of modernity in and through globalisation. In doing so they confront a number of seemingly disparate interpretive postures with regards to the critical presentation of non-Western contemporary art.
This paper will explore these dilemmas through the problematic context of contemporary art in China, where a struggle over pre-modern, modern and post-modern cultural imaginaries, and their subjectivities, is occurring as a function of a wider socio-ideological drama: one in which the insolvent narratives of communist state absolutism are being substituted by the absolutism of capitalist exchange-value in the extraordinary social-economic experiment propelling the country towards global superpower status.
Thus rather than glossing Chinese contemporary art as (a) simply part of a trans-cultural global space emerging alongside economic Globalisation; or (b) seeing it as effectively little more than a mirror of Western cultural modernity, this paper underscores the specific historical-cultural contexts that it insists underpin Chinese contemporary art, even though many ‘3rd generation’ artists claim to have renounced clichéd socio-political references.
This is not to regress to that Orientalist fantasy that holds that ‘Eastern’ culture is so ‘Other’ that it cannot be read by ‘Western’ audiences. Instead, this paper sees many of the concrete effects of the Chinese social-cultural context as cognate with our experiences of the modern, thus allowing insight into the art.
Furthermore, it does so in a way that foregrounds the constitutional instability of art with regards to its play with meaning and an ‘aesthetics of appearance’ (Seel, 2002): arguing that it is always more than simply a code for one or other socio-cultural position and – drawing on specific artworks – that part of the genius and success of some of the best contemporary art in China today is its ability to appeal to many, sometimes discreet, positions.
The paper concludes that not only should European museums work imaginatively to develop platforms around the presentation of Chinese art that discursively explore its multiple layers of contextual complexity, they should above all remain confident in the affective power of the best works in and of themselves.
