i don't mean to rant really. haha. there's a group on the facebook called "i'm taking too many units and now i'm f***ed." i would've joint the group if not for the very obscene profile picture. lol.
life goes on with me packing myself to max. even i don't know why i'm donig that.. well. at the same time the temptation of laziness and decent social interaction is like flies buzzing around my head. most of the time deprivation of sleep catches up as fast as school starts. sometimes i confidently think of dropping a particular class and smile at that very glorious decision, in a semi-conscious state when i'm about to pass out or before i fully awaken. only to realize that it is not as realistic as it appeared after i regain my consciousness, together with the realization of the coming of another disastrously prepared midterm to be taken one hour later.
i'll work.lol. i'll work.
on a lighter note, another reason why i'm feeling so slack might be that spring is finally here. well, it's been here for about a month or so, but lately the weather has gotten so warm that people've started wearing dresses and skirts. i love it when girls come out in skirts. :) with the sun and all, it just feels so refreshing. lovely sun...
and our spring has been fun, hiking and all into the warm sun in the montains and deserts near san diego. can't wait for summer to come and rid the place of that ramaining chill!
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Friday, March 03, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Sunday, February 05, 2006
for the first time, i envy those kids born in a country other than their parents'. they are so lifted from their cultural space. they don't have a history because they are not obliged to know any. they thus shed all burdens, which come penetrating into me from my place, my people, my history. i used to think of myself as being fortunate for the exact same reason, but now i don't any more. i envy them instead.
then this thing about cultural and socio-historical niche. i feel that this is what holds me back. nationalism and ethnicity. both hold me back from being completely freed into general objectivity. i cannot shake off prejudices and preoccupations because i was born and have been living with them. continue to fall into the trap of relativism. continue to discriminate. continue to be a hypocrite.
but i try very hard... :(
then this thing about cultural and socio-historical niche. i feel that this is what holds me back. nationalism and ethnicity. both hold me back from being completely freed into general objectivity. i cannot shake off prejudices and preoccupations because i was born and have been living with them. continue to fall into the trap of relativism. continue to discriminate. continue to be a hypocrite.
but i try very hard... :(
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
from the beautifully informative wikipedia:
The name Montparnasse stems from the nickname "Mount Parnassus" (In Greek mythology, home to the nine Greek goddesses — the Muses — of the arts and sciences) given to the hilly neighborhood in the 17th century by students who came there to recite poetry
Like its counterpart, Montmartre, the neighborhood of Montparnasse became famous at the beginning of the 20th century, referred to as the Années Folles (the Crazy Years), when it was the heart of intellectual and artistic life in Paris. Between 1921 and 1924, the number of Americans in Paris swelled from 6,000 to 30,000. In the years between 1910 and 1940, Paris' artistic circles gradually moved from Montmartre to Montparnasse.
Virtually penniless painters, sculptors, writers, poets and composers came from around the world to thrive in the creative atmosphere and for the cheap rent at artist communes such as La Ruche. Living without running water, in damp, unheated "studios" often as not overrun by rats, many sold their works for a few francs just to buy food. Jean Cocteau once said that poverty was a luxury in Montparnasse. First promoted by art dealers such as Henry Kahnweiler, today works by those artists sell in the millions of dollars. (how romantic! i wish i lived there..)
They came to Montparnasse from all over the globe, from across Europe, including Russia and Ukraine, from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and from as far away as Japan. Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Camilo Mori and others made their way from Chile where the profound innovations in art spawned the formation of the Grupo Montparnasse in Santiago. A few of the other artists who gathered in Montparnasse were Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, Ossip Zadkine, Moise Kisling, Marc Chagall, Nina Hamnett, Fernand Leger, Jacques Lipchitz, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, Chaim Soutine, Michel Kikoine, Pinchus Kremegne, Amedeo Modigliani, Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti, Constantin Brancusi, Paul Fort, Juan Gris, Diego Rivera, Marevna, Tsuguharu Foujita, Marie Vassilieff, Léon-Paul Fargue, Alberto Giacometti, Andre Breton, Pascin, Salvador Dalí, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Joan Miró and, in his declining years, Edgar Degas.
Montparnasse friends. In the 1915 photograph in front of La Rotonde seen here, is (left to right): Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Henri-Pierre Roché (in uniform), Marie Vassilieff, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso
Montparnasse was a community where creativity was embraced with all its oddities, each new arrival welcomed unreservedly by its existing members. When Tsuguharu Foujita arrived from Japan in 1913 not knowing a soul, he met Soutine, Modigliani, Pascin and Leger virtually the same night and within a week became friends with Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. In 1914, when the English painter Nina Hamnett arrived in Montparnasse, on her first evening the smiling man at the next table at La Rotonde graciously introduced himself as "Modigliani, painter and jew". They became good friends, Hamnett later recounting how she once borrowed a jersey and corduroy trousers from Modigliani, then went to La Rotonde and danced in the street all night.
The name Montparnasse stems from the nickname "Mount Parnassus" (In Greek mythology, home to the nine Greek goddesses — the Muses — of the arts and sciences) given to the hilly neighborhood in the 17th century by students who came there to recite poetry
Like its counterpart, Montmartre, the neighborhood of Montparnasse became famous at the beginning of the 20th century, referred to as the Années Folles (the Crazy Years), when it was the heart of intellectual and artistic life in Paris. Between 1921 and 1924, the number of Americans in Paris swelled from 6,000 to 30,000. In the years between 1910 and 1940, Paris' artistic circles gradually moved from Montmartre to Montparnasse.
Virtually penniless painters, sculptors, writers, poets and composers came from around the world to thrive in the creative atmosphere and for the cheap rent at artist communes such as La Ruche. Living without running water, in damp, unheated "studios" often as not overrun by rats, many sold their works for a few francs just to buy food. Jean Cocteau once said that poverty was a luxury in Montparnasse. First promoted by art dealers such as Henry Kahnweiler, today works by those artists sell in the millions of dollars. (how romantic! i wish i lived there..)
They came to Montparnasse from all over the globe, from across Europe, including Russia and Ukraine, from the United States, Canada, Mexico, and from as far away as Japan. Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Camilo Mori and others made their way from Chile where the profound innovations in art spawned the formation of the Grupo Montparnasse in Santiago. A few of the other artists who gathered in Montparnasse were Pablo Picasso, Guillaume Apollinaire, Ossip Zadkine, Moise Kisling, Marc Chagall, Nina Hamnett, Fernand Leger, Jacques Lipchitz, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, Chaim Soutine, Michel Kikoine, Pinchus Kremegne, Amedeo Modigliani, Ford Madox Ford, Ezra Pound, Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti, Constantin Brancusi, Paul Fort, Juan Gris, Diego Rivera, Marevna, Tsuguharu Foujita, Marie Vassilieff, Léon-Paul Fargue, Alberto Giacometti, Andre Breton, Pascin, Salvador Dalí, Jean-Paul Sartre, Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, Joan Miró and, in his declining years, Edgar Degas.
Montparnasse friends. In the 1915 photograph in front of La Rotonde seen here, is (left to right): Manuel Ortiz de Zárate, Henri-Pierre Roché (in uniform), Marie Vassilieff, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso
Montparnasse was a community where creativity was embraced with all its oddities, each new arrival welcomed unreservedly by its existing members. When Tsuguharu Foujita arrived from Japan in 1913 not knowing a soul, he met Soutine, Modigliani, Pascin and Leger virtually the same night and within a week became friends with Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. In 1914, when the English painter Nina Hamnett arrived in Montparnasse, on her first evening the smiling man at the next table at La Rotonde graciously introduced himself as "Modigliani, painter and jew". They became good friends, Hamnett later recounting how she once borrowed a jersey and corduroy trousers from Modigliani, then went to La Rotonde and danced in the street all night.
more things to add on to my 1/23 post
come to think of it, i think the translation is crappy. the interpreter might have read too much into the poem, and said too much out loud. thus losing the poem itself. i shall get a dictionary and translate it myself. esp the last verse.
but oh, the more i listen to it the more i love it!
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
i'm editting this post so that i can add in stuff.
the following poem is what i'm singing now. a poulenc setting on apollinaire. the poem talks about a poet, from Leipzig... curiously leipzig was described as "a small paris that educates its people".
why is the poet from Leipzig exploring paris?
of course there's the very familiar concept of the "gaze" which definitely reminds one of "flâneur" and every 20th century french artist. the unpredictableness. the eyes.
but why? where is there anything to do with bearing fruits? planting oneself?
and who is the bearded angel?
Montparnasse
--Wilhelm de Kostrowitsky
Ô porte de l'hôtel avec deux plantes vertes
Vertes qui jamais
Ne porteront de fleurs
Où sont mes fruits? Où me planté-je?
Ô porte de l'hôtel un ange est devant toi
Distribuant des prospectus
On n'a jamais si bien défendu la vertu
Donnez-moi pour toujours une chambre à la semaine
Ange barbu vous êtes en reálité
Un poète lyrique d'Allemagne
Qui voulez connaître Paris
Vous connaisez de son pavé
Ces raies sur lesquelles il ne faut pas que l'on marche
Et vous rêvez
D'aller passer votre Dimanche à Garches
Il fait un peu lourd et vos cheveux sont longs
Ô bon petit poète un peu bête et trop blond
Vos yeux ressemblent tant à ces deux grands ballons
Qui s'en vont dans l'air pur
À l'aventure (goodness! that glissando poulenc wrote! it's enchanting! )
Montparnasse
--Apollinaire
Hotel door, amidst verdure
Verdure never to produce
Vast, luscious bouquets
It must vex me - shall one bear fruit? can one plant oneself?
Hotel door, a lone angel stands adjacent
And issues prospectuses
Virtue's never been so protected
Allocate me a small weekly room for ever
Unusual bearded angel, in truth
An eloquent Leipzig poet
Sent on a momentous quest to explore Paris
Be sure not to step upon lines on the pavements
And dream of
An exquisite Sunday rendezvous at Garches
It turns excessively humid, long-locked
Juvenile poet, jejune and so pale
An unusual gaze resembles a pair of vast, oversize bubbles
Set to venture upon pure, tranquil air
With evasive, quiet unpredictableness
come to think of it, i think the translation is crappy. the interpreter might have read too much into the poem, and said too much out loud. thus losing the poem itself. i shall get a dictionary and translate it myself. esp the last verse.
but oh, the more i listen to it the more i love it!
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
i'm editting this post so that i can add in stuff.
the following poem is what i'm singing now. a poulenc setting on apollinaire. the poem talks about a poet, from Leipzig... curiously leipzig was described as "a small paris that educates its people".
why is the poet from Leipzig exploring paris?
of course there's the very familiar concept of the "gaze" which definitely reminds one of "flâneur" and every 20th century french artist. the unpredictableness. the eyes.
but why? where is there anything to do with bearing fruits? planting oneself?
and who is the bearded angel?
Montparnasse
--Wilhelm de Kostrowitsky
Ô porte de l'hôtel avec deux plantes vertes
Vertes qui jamais
Ne porteront de fleurs
Où sont mes fruits? Où me planté-je?
Ô porte de l'hôtel un ange est devant toi
Distribuant des prospectus
On n'a jamais si bien défendu la vertu
Donnez-moi pour toujours une chambre à la semaine
Ange barbu vous êtes en reálité
Un poète lyrique d'Allemagne
Qui voulez connaître Paris
Vous connaisez de son pavé
Ces raies sur lesquelles il ne faut pas que l'on marche
Et vous rêvez
D'aller passer votre Dimanche à Garches
Il fait un peu lourd et vos cheveux sont longs
Ô bon petit poète un peu bête et trop blond
Vos yeux ressemblent tant à ces deux grands ballons
Qui s'en vont dans l'air pur
À l'aventure (goodness! that glissando poulenc wrote! it's enchanting! )
Montparnasse
--Apollinaire
Hotel door, amidst verdure
Verdure never to produce
Vast, luscious bouquets
It must vex me - shall one bear fruit? can one plant oneself?
Hotel door, a lone angel stands adjacent
And issues prospectuses
Virtue's never been so protected
Allocate me a small weekly room for ever
Unusual bearded angel, in truth
An eloquent Leipzig poet
Sent on a momentous quest to explore Paris
Be sure not to step upon lines on the pavements
And dream of
An exquisite Sunday rendezvous at Garches
It turns excessively humid, long-locked
Juvenile poet, jejune and so pale
An unusual gaze resembles a pair of vast, oversize bubbles
Set to venture upon pure, tranquil air
With evasive, quiet unpredictableness
Monday, January 23, 2006
From wikipedia:
His inclination towards relations with younger men was relatively well-known, the first such relationship having probably been with Robert Ross, who proved his most faithful friend and would be his literary executor. Ross, a boy of seventeen when Wilde met him, was already aware of Wilde's poems and indeed had been beaten for reading them. By Richard Ellman's account, Ross, "...so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce [Wilde]."
the last sentence... i don't know why. there seems to be such beauty in what's described... gave me the shivers when i read it.
His inclination towards relations with younger men was relatively well-known, the first such relationship having probably been with Robert Ross, who proved his most faithful friend and would be his literary executor. Ross, a boy of seventeen when Wilde met him, was already aware of Wilde's poems and indeed had been beaten for reading them. By Richard Ellman's account, Ross, "...so young and yet so knowing, was determined to seduce [Wilde]."
the last sentence... i don't know why. there seems to be such beauty in what's described... gave me the shivers when i read it.
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900). Poems. 1881.
32. Chanson
A RING of gold and a milk-white dove
Are goodly gifts for thee,
And a hempen rope for your own love
To hang upon a tree.
For you a House of Ivory 5
(Roses are white in the rose-bower)!
A narrow bed for me to lie
(White, O white, is the hemlock flower)!
Myrtle and jessamine for you
(O the red rose is fair to see)! 10
For me the cypress and the rue
(Fairest of all is rose-mary)!
For you three lovers of your hand
(Green grass where a man lies dead)!
For me three paces on the sand 15
(Plant lilies at my head)!
from wikipedia: After graduating from Magdalen, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met and fell in love with Florence Balcome. She in turn became engaged to Bram Stoker. On hearing of her engagement, Wilde wrote to her stating his intention to leave Ireland permanently.
this poem must have been written then. i was guessing at the masterclass today that this poem should not be read as morbid, because wilde is such a person who would beautify and romantisize death. looks like it's only an ordinary love poem and indeed should be morbid. but undeniably, i think wilde is romantisizing the whole out of love business, and making it sound more morbid than it actually is. in fact, i read a seduction in the lines. the seduction of death, and a bewilderness, rather than morbidity. well. depends on how you look at it.
32. Chanson
A RING of gold and a milk-white dove
Are goodly gifts for thee,
And a hempen rope for your own love
To hang upon a tree.
For you a House of Ivory 5
(Roses are white in the rose-bower)!
A narrow bed for me to lie
(White, O white, is the hemlock flower)!
Myrtle and jessamine for you
(O the red rose is fair to see)! 10
For me the cypress and the rue
(Fairest of all is rose-mary)!
For you three lovers of your hand
(Green grass where a man lies dead)!
For me three paces on the sand 15
(Plant lilies at my head)!
from wikipedia: After graduating from Magdalen, Wilde returned to Dublin, where he met and fell in love with Florence Balcome. She in turn became engaged to Bram Stoker. On hearing of her engagement, Wilde wrote to her stating his intention to leave Ireland permanently.
this poem must have been written then. i was guessing at the masterclass today that this poem should not be read as morbid, because wilde is such a person who would beautify and romantisize death. looks like it's only an ordinary love poem and indeed should be morbid. but undeniably, i think wilde is romantisizing the whole out of love business, and making it sound more morbid than it actually is. in fact, i read a seduction in the lines. the seduction of death, and a bewilderness, rather than morbidity. well. depends on how you look at it.
sigh
for once i got up for my biochem lab lecture which is frickin at 8am i couldn't find anybody in the classroom... went to the lab no one's there either... i checked my timetable again, no mistake in room number or anything. where would the lecturer hide the class?
so i called for help and was told that there was no lecture on mondays even though it was printed on my timetable cos the excessively naggy lecturer said that she didn't need it--in the first class. the first class was the only class i went for... even then i didn't hear it being said. (and considering how naggy she is she might have said it 3 times.)(well i might as well not go for classes since i don't hear anything.) moral of the story, when i have a naggy lecturer, i shut down. so. must be careful next time when i sign up for classes.
for once i got up for my biochem lab lecture which is frickin at 8am i couldn't find anybody in the classroom... went to the lab no one's there either... i checked my timetable again, no mistake in room number or anything. where would the lecturer hide the class?
so i called for help and was told that there was no lecture on mondays even though it was printed on my timetable cos the excessively naggy lecturer said that she didn't need it--in the first class. the first class was the only class i went for... even then i didn't hear it being said. (and considering how naggy she is she might have said it 3 times.)(well i might as well not go for classes since i don't hear anything.) moral of the story, when i have a naggy lecturer, i shut down. so. must be careful next time when i sign up for classes.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
winter job and internship fair on library walk
microsoft has the biggest banner
ibm
lawrence livermore nat lab only has a piece of paper with name printed
there was also hcbc, hitachi, blah blah
no google, no apple
a guy standing in front of the recruitment booth of "the great seal of the state of california" (what's that?) and made an inquiry, the recruitor replied "teaching chinese? no.. we don't have that...em, what other languages do you speak?" that guy shrugged and answered "er.., taiwanese?"
er, excuse me, that's not a language.
which reminds me of another joke. when i was applying for social security number, i habitually signed the paper with my chinese signature. that officer looked at me and said, no you have to sign in american letters.
microsoft has the biggest banner
ibm
lawrence livermore nat lab only has a piece of paper with name printed
there was also hcbc, hitachi, blah blah
no google, no apple
a guy standing in front of the recruitment booth of "the great seal of the state of california" (what's that?) and made an inquiry, the recruitor replied "teaching chinese? no.. we don't have that...em, what other languages do you speak?" that guy shrugged and answered "er.., taiwanese?"
er, excuse me, that's not a language.
which reminds me of another joke. when i was applying for social security number, i habitually signed the paper with my chinese signature. that officer looked at me and said, no you have to sign in american letters.
Monday, January 16, 2006
I found a copy of Yishu - Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art in the library, published by Art & Collecution Group Ltd in Taiwan. i have seen some of the works in the exhibition of chinese contemporary art in the UCSD art gallery last year. i found them impressive then, and am exhilarated to see them again now.
we can look at some of the works in this and my subsequent entries. today i will look at xu bing's works.
xu bing was born and educated in china, has been through cultural revolution, and received an MFA from the central academy of the arts. after many works had been censored by the central government, he moved to new york, and continued to live and work there till today. he appears to be one of the group of chinese artists/musicians in whom i've newly developed a strong interest, i.e., whose who were trained and were active in the 80's immediately after the end of cultural revolution. (another example will be tan dun.) the clash of completely contradicting values at the interface between eras gave them distinctive world views and philosophy of composition.
the interview in Yishu mentioned a number of his works. one of them is a book from the sky, which was created while the artist was still in china.
(i forgot to bring a camera with me. well i have to type the thing down. but it's worth reading.)
Q: starting from your earliest works, such as the creration of a nonsensical language in a book from the sky, the nonsensical theme has been prevalent in your work. how did you first conceive of this theme, and why were you interested in this notion of "meaninglessness"?
A: Acutally, these ideas arose from my personal experiences in china. for one, i felt a sense of boredom and cultural ennui, a feeling that culture was meaningless. this was at a time when mainland china was going through a period of "culture fever". that was during the eighties, and the cultural revolution had just ended. government policies were becoming more relaxed, and many new forms of culture were flourishing on the mainland. we were simultaneously flooded with new books and ideologies, from traidtional chinese thought to contemporary western culture. this period produced a profound effect on the thining of chinese youth. i was a graduate student who participated in the many cultural debates and popular movements during those days . after attending so many events, i became tired of the process and felt quite disillusioned by culture. during the cultural revolution there was a starvation of knowledge and culture; once the revolution ended, ther was an overabundance of it. somebody who overeats right after severe hunger will end up feeling very sick. there was a huge gap betweeen our expectations for culture and what was received in the end. this resulted in a feeling of emptiness and powerlessness in the face of culture.
Q: when you were a student, what were your thoughts and feelings about the foreign ideologies coming into china?
A: it was a very ambiguous experience because many of the new ideologies were presented in fragments, in little bits and pieces. the ideologies being discussed wer very incomplete. there was no way to ground the ideas, nor was there a clear direction for the future. all we knew at the time was that we were coming out of our old ways of thinking and our old ways of art making. but we had no idea of how to proceed or where the new art would take us. it was a period of chaos and confusion. speaking from my personal experience, it was very easy to feel bewildered and lost.
(comment: i believe, his personal experience is easily everyone else's.)
according to xu bing, the work was censored because the government was over-interpreting it's political message while the work itself had little such intention.
Q: Why did the chinese government censor your works at that time?
A: at the time, the chinese government was still strict in its policies, especially after the events of TAM square. before TAM, the poliecies were more relaxed and therefore many young intellectuals and artists came onto the scene a book from teh sky also appeared at this tiem. yet shortly after, the TAM protests bro out and the poitical crackdown caused an extreme reversal of teh stae's relaxed policies. contemporary artists came under political critique. while a lot of contemporary art appears on teh surface to be whimsical adn transparent, a book from the sky was different because people could not figure out what it was saying, yet it was meticulous, rigorous, and monumental in effect. officials thus assumed that it embodied the most sinister elements of contemporary art and singled it out for public critique. the authorities branded it as one work that embodied all ten wrongdoings of new wave art. (comment: i'm confused here. was there a new wave movement in chinese contemporary art? i've only heard of the new wave mvm in french cinema la Nouvelle Vague.)
Q: instead of exposing the formal structures of language through nonsensical characters, square word calligraphy
creates work with meaning and functional use. can you comment on this departure from your earlier works?
(comment: to clarify, square word calligraphy is a way of writing english words in chinese strokes assembled in a way similar to the square characters in chinese writing. but the words together, reads like an english sentence.)
A: actually, this work involves my artistic experimentation in the contemporary art scenen of the west. i became troubled by the hierarchical relationship between contemporary art and its public audience. when people enter an art museum it is as if they have entered a place of worship. too many audiences feel bewildered by the art they see and react with a feeling of guilt, as if their confusion reflected their own lack of education in art of culture. in fact, many works of contemporary art art lacking in thought and creativity, although they present a shocking appearance to teh audience. i hope that my works are clear and easily accessible to audiences. once they are engaged in it, i hope that the audience can discover the deeper meanings in teh work and become inspired in their own ways of thinking.
Q: How do you explain the hierarchical relationship that has been established between contemporary art and its public audience?
A: i think this relationship is a basic aspect of contemporary art. one can trace it to duchamp, who levelled the relationship between art and life. this was a powerful revolution, however, in the process of levelling the relationship of art and life, he left the artist with a certain privileged status. because i am an "artist", anything i do is automatically given value and maning. this notion actually caused the decline of creative though within contemporary art. since i have this status as "artist", anything i do is vlid. i'm making art if i sweep the floor as a performance artist, and this may be considered different from a regular sanitation worker who sweeps the floor. in reaity, there isn't a whole lot of difference.
(comment: i think his view on the hierarchy is quite objective. i have heard enough of sweeping statements about contemporary art. mainly one side saying that modern art is all crap and the other saying that the first side is illiterate in art appreciation. in fact, there are definitely artists who do not live up to the creative and serious thinking of avant garde, but there are still a great many of them who take the business of creativity seriously, whose works involve a great deal of hard work.)
we can look at some of the works in this and my subsequent entries. today i will look at xu bing's works.
xu bing was born and educated in china, has been through cultural revolution, and received an MFA from the central academy of the arts. after many works had been censored by the central government, he moved to new york, and continued to live and work there till today. he appears to be one of the group of chinese artists/musicians in whom i've newly developed a strong interest, i.e., whose who were trained and were active in the 80's immediately after the end of cultural revolution. (another example will be tan dun.) the clash of completely contradicting values at the interface between eras gave them distinctive world views and philosophy of composition.
the interview in Yishu mentioned a number of his works. one of them is a book from the sky, which was created while the artist was still in china.
(i forgot to bring a camera with me. well i have to type the thing down. but it's worth reading.)
Q: starting from your earliest works, such as the creration of a nonsensical language in a book from the sky, the nonsensical theme has been prevalent in your work. how did you first conceive of this theme, and why were you interested in this notion of "meaninglessness"?
A: Acutally, these ideas arose from my personal experiences in china. for one, i felt a sense of boredom and cultural ennui, a feeling that culture was meaningless. this was at a time when mainland china was going through a period of "culture fever". that was during the eighties, and the cultural revolution had just ended. government policies were becoming more relaxed, and many new forms of culture were flourishing on the mainland. we were simultaneously flooded with new books and ideologies, from traidtional chinese thought to contemporary western culture. this period produced a profound effect on the thining of chinese youth. i was a graduate student who participated in the many cultural debates and popular movements during those days . after attending so many events, i became tired of the process and felt quite disillusioned by culture. during the cultural revolution there was a starvation of knowledge and culture; once the revolution ended, ther was an overabundance of it. somebody who overeats right after severe hunger will end up feeling very sick. there was a huge gap betweeen our expectations for culture and what was received in the end. this resulted in a feeling of emptiness and powerlessness in the face of culture.
Q: when you were a student, what were your thoughts and feelings about the foreign ideologies coming into china?
A: it was a very ambiguous experience because many of the new ideologies were presented in fragments, in little bits and pieces. the ideologies being discussed wer very incomplete. there was no way to ground the ideas, nor was there a clear direction for the future. all we knew at the time was that we were coming out of our old ways of thinking and our old ways of art making. but we had no idea of how to proceed or where the new art would take us. it was a period of chaos and confusion. speaking from my personal experience, it was very easy to feel bewildered and lost.
(comment: i believe, his personal experience is easily everyone else's.)
according to xu bing, the work was censored because the government was over-interpreting it's political message while the work itself had little such intention.
Q: Why did the chinese government censor your works at that time?
A: at the time, the chinese government was still strict in its policies, especially after the events of TAM square. before TAM, the poliecies were more relaxed and therefore many young intellectuals and artists came onto the scene a book from teh sky also appeared at this tiem. yet shortly after, the TAM protests bro out and the poitical crackdown caused an extreme reversal of teh stae's relaxed policies. contemporary artists came under political critique. while a lot of contemporary art appears on teh surface to be whimsical adn transparent, a book from the sky was different because people could not figure out what it was saying, yet it was meticulous, rigorous, and monumental in effect. officials thus assumed that it embodied the most sinister elements of contemporary art and singled it out for public critique. the authorities branded it as one work that embodied all ten wrongdoings of new wave art. (comment: i'm confused here. was there a new wave movement in chinese contemporary art? i've only heard of the new wave mvm in french cinema la Nouvelle Vague.)
Q: instead of exposing the formal structures of language through nonsensical characters, square word calligraphy
creates work with meaning and functional use. can you comment on this departure from your earlier works?
(comment: to clarify, square word calligraphy is a way of writing english words in chinese strokes assembled in a way similar to the square characters in chinese writing. but the words together, reads like an english sentence.)
A: actually, this work involves my artistic experimentation in the contemporary art scenen of the west. i became troubled by the hierarchical relationship between contemporary art and its public audience. when people enter an art museum it is as if they have entered a place of worship. too many audiences feel bewildered by the art they see and react with a feeling of guilt, as if their confusion reflected their own lack of education in art of culture. in fact, many works of contemporary art art lacking in thought and creativity, although they present a shocking appearance to teh audience. i hope that my works are clear and easily accessible to audiences. once they are engaged in it, i hope that the audience can discover the deeper meanings in teh work and become inspired in their own ways of thinking.
Q: How do you explain the hierarchical relationship that has been established between contemporary art and its public audience?
A: i think this relationship is a basic aspect of contemporary art. one can trace it to duchamp, who levelled the relationship between art and life. this was a powerful revolution, however, in the process of levelling the relationship of art and life, he left the artist with a certain privileged status. because i am an "artist", anything i do is automatically given value and maning. this notion actually caused the decline of creative though within contemporary art. since i have this status as "artist", anything i do is vlid. i'm making art if i sweep the floor as a performance artist, and this may be considered different from a regular sanitation worker who sweeps the floor. in reaity, there isn't a whole lot of difference.
(comment: i think his view on the hierarchy is quite objective. i have heard enough of sweeping statements about contemporary art. mainly one side saying that modern art is all crap and the other saying that the first side is illiterate in art appreciation. in fact, there are definitely artists who do not live up to the creative and serious thinking of avant garde, but there are still a great many of them who take the business of creativity seriously, whose works involve a great deal of hard work.)
Sunday, January 15, 2006
because of my mother's recommendation, i watched this film. incredible performance and production: Wit by emma thompson
as professor vivian bearing was diagnosed with and hospitalised for stage 4 ovary cancer, she was caught in the overwhelming battery of tests and treatments, taking tremendous pressure both psychologically and physically. as she makes her way through the daily pain and humiliation, she started to reflect on her fascination with english words, her life as an "uncompromising scholar", her cool and strict teaching, and the meaning of life and death in a concrete way.
the subtlty of the emotions depicted in the film was extraordinary. emma thompson, as usual, was more than apt to act as an intellectual with incredible depth of thinking. moreover, her gradual revealing of the vulnerability of professor bearing and change of her mindset, or even world view from the earlier part of the film to approaching the end was just done to perfection.
wonder why this film was only screen on TV and why it didn't win many awards. anyway, very thought-provoking. worth watching.
"The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death, calling on all forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life.
In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation:
And Death-capital D-shall be no more—semicolon!
Death—capital D—comma—thou shalt die— exclamation point!
If you go for this sort of thing I suggest you take up Shakespeare.
Gardner’s edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript source of 1610, not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar. It reads:
And death shall be no more, comma,
Death thou shalt die.
Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from everlasting life. It is simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause.
This way, the uncompromising way, one learns something about this poem, wouldn’t you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barricades, not semicolons, just a comma."-professor e.m. ashford
religious content aside, this is still true. nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from, well, i would say, death. lol. but yah, this paragraph here was excellently analysed.
as professor vivian bearing was diagnosed with and hospitalised for stage 4 ovary cancer, she was caught in the overwhelming battery of tests and treatments, taking tremendous pressure both psychologically and physically. as she makes her way through the daily pain and humiliation, she started to reflect on her fascination with english words, her life as an "uncompromising scholar", her cool and strict teaching, and the meaning of life and death in a concrete way.
the subtlty of the emotions depicted in the film was extraordinary. emma thompson, as usual, was more than apt to act as an intellectual with incredible depth of thinking. moreover, her gradual revealing of the vulnerability of professor bearing and change of her mindset, or even world view from the earlier part of the film to approaching the end was just done to perfection.
wonder why this film was only screen on TV and why it didn't win many awards. anyway, very thought-provoking. worth watching.
"The sonnet begins with a valiant struggle with death, calling on all forces of intellect and drama to vanquish the enemy. But it is ultimately about overcoming the seemingly insuperable barriers separating life, death, and eternal life.
In the edition you chose, this profoundly simple meaning is sacrificed to hysterical punctuation:
And Death-capital D-shall be no more—semicolon!
Death—capital D—comma—thou shalt die— exclamation point!
If you go for this sort of thing I suggest you take up Shakespeare.
Gardner’s edition of the Holy Sonnets returns to the Westmoreland manuscript source of 1610, not for sentimental reasons, I assure you, but because Helen Gardner is a scholar. It reads:
And death shall be no more, comma,
Death thou shalt die.
Nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from everlasting life. It is simple really. With the original punctuation restored, death is no longer something to act out on a stage, with exclamation points. It’s a comma, a pause.
This way, the uncompromising way, one learns something about this poem, wouldn’t you say? Life, death. Soul, God. Past, present. Not insuperable barricades, not semicolons, just a comma."-professor e.m. ashford
religious content aside, this is still true. nothing but a breath, a comma, separates life from, well, i would say, death. lol. but yah, this paragraph here was excellently analysed.
A Must See Photog Site
a feast of images
i'd always thought the beauty of ucsd campus should lie in its colours, maybe because of the sunny weather, if not in the buildings, at least in the trees and the flowers and the sky. maybe not. from this guy's photos, the beauty of the campus seems to lie in its geometrical appearence, in its angular presence, of not only the buildings, but also the trees and everything else.
and ah, perspective. perspective. always different perspective.
i'd always thought the beauty of ucsd campus should lie in its colours, maybe because of the sunny weather, if not in the buildings, at least in the trees and the flowers and the sky. maybe not. from this guy's photos, the beauty of the campus seems to lie in its geometrical appearence, in its angular presence, of not only the buildings, but also the trees and everything else.
and ah, perspective. perspective. always different perspective.
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