 iu Xiaobo, a prominent writer, interviewed Meng Huang, a Beijing artist about the world of Chinese contemporary art and also how the artist conceives his works. This interview was first published by Galerie Urs Meile, which represents Meng Huang.
L = Liu Xiaobo; M = Meng Huang
L: When did you first come to Beijing?
M: I arrived in July 1999.
L: Hmm, that’s a good six years or so. Before that time, you were painting in Henan Province. So why did you come to Beijing?
 M: I used to teach in Henan, but my lifestyle was rather incompatible with the overall ambience of my surroundings. At that time I had several close friends with similar interests, one of whom went to Beijing. Eventually, I couldn't stay in Henan any longer; perhaps in confined places it’s easy to see what the future looks like.
L: When you first came to Beijing did you have an overall sense of the city's importance within the Chinese art world? My meaning being, ever since the Eighties, one would imagine everyone who was anyone within the art world had established their own niche in Beijing. It was almost as if, within China's political climate, it was vital for an artist to be working in Beijing. For example at that time, the Yuanming Yuan Painter’s Village [a state-funded residential community for artists] was in its early days. It assembled together a bunch of unknown yet promising artists. Now, Songzhuang town in Tongzhou County [on the outskirts of Beijing] has become something of an artists’ haven. So at that time, when you first arrived in Beijing, did you have an understanding of this kind of background or context? Did you come to Beijing to find a more creative environment or to seek future recognition? After all, if you are appreciated in Beijing, you are more or less appreciated throughout the Chinese art world and regarded as being among elite company.
M: At the start of the Nineties, before I came, my parents had already returned to Beijing, so I would often come here to visit them. I also knew that it was definitely possible to get by in Beijing being a self-employed artist. Neither were my parents dead set against me becoming self-employed in Beijing. It’s like you say, Beijing offers a favorable artistic environment.
L: In other words, you moved from Henan, a rather secluded place unsuitable for the life of an artist, to come to Beijing. If you cut yourself off from the greater art community in Henan and devoted yourself to art, it would have been a real struggle just to make ends meet. By coming to Beijing, you could certainly get byand secondly, would have chances to meet people from all sorts of cultural backgrounds. Had you heard of Li Xianting at that time?
M: I’d read a few of Li Xianting’s articles.
 L:Did you know that during the Eighties, up to the Tiananmen incident in 1989, a popular art establishment had existed on the fringes of Beijing society?
M: Yes, in fact I was aware of its existence. A couple of my friends were making livings as artists in Beijing and I was familiar with the art movements which followed the "Star Group" [星星画派/Xing Xing].
L: The "Star Group" first sprang up after the Cultural Revolution, followed by the Democracy Wall Movement and the “Today” literary review. With the arrival of Huang Rui, Ma Desheng, Wang Keping, Qu Leilei, Ai Weiwei, Yan Li, A Cheng and others, the "Star Group" really caused a stir with two exhibitions in 1979 and 1980 and a fine arts magazine put out by Li Xianting featuring art from the Cultural Revolution as well as rural settings. The publication was especially critical of traditional art dating from 1949 and beyond, and it was this criticism which resulted in Li departing from the editing team, initially having worked in public office before becoming an art critic. Gradually, he developed into a figure of authority in the popular art world. At that time, a phenomenon of sorts was emerging, centered in the Jianguomen Wai diplomatic district. It was in this district that the cultural scenes of painting, rock'n'roll and literature were nutured and found a kind of home. Foreigners based in the diplomatic district frequently saw the works of local artists and lent support to those who couldn’t find galleries or buildings to stage performances. The support which the foreign community provided was vital to sustaining pioneering Chinese art during that period of the 1980s. In fact, the same is true of cinema and directors like Chen Kaige, who first found fame and recognition abroad, before returning to widespread acclaim within China.
There was a kind of suffocating atmosphere over the city following the Tiananmen incident, before artists such as Wang Guangyi and later Fang Lijun and Liu Wei made their mark. The initial success of such artists didn’t strictly have anything to do with Chinese audiences. In fact, they were all invited by foreigners to exhibit their works in foreign-run galleries. It was then that my friend Li Xianting played a pivotal role in selecting Chinese works for large scale foreign exhibitions – the types of works which were officially shunned domestically. This was because, at that time, the people in these foreign-run galleries couldn’t turn to officials to select artwork, so they turned to popular critics such as Li Xianting. Li played an invaluable role in promoting Fang, Liu and a host of other artists. In 1993, the Venice biennial exhibition effectively opened the door to the overseas art market. Wang Guangyi, Fang Lijun and subsequently Zhang Xiaogang would no longer have to worry about putting food on the table. From that point on, the Chinese art market experienced a boom; artists multiplied and foreigners witnessed a proliferation of channels into the Chinese art world and Li Xianting's services were no longer one of a  kind. Now, galleries abound and there is a trend towards international exchange, pluralism and the commercialization of art.
You arrived in Beijing precisely in-between these two periods, You didn't need your friend Li to promote your artwork throughout the art world in order to make your mark. Your first personal exhibition in Beijing was at the China Art Archives & Warehouse gallery [CAAW] run by Dutchman Hans [Hans van Dijk, Artistic Director of the gallery]. After coming to Beijing, did you find your own niche within the group dynamic? And how did you get on with other artists? To my understanding, the 1980s art scene was dominated by the avant-garde work of artists associated with the exhibition of the "Star Group". However, the reality was that, amongst the artwork produced during that period, there was very little of any lasting value. Fang Lijun and his contemporaries were actually the second wave and they were different. They had great international appeal. Their paintings sold for high sums - they could almost name their price. Such was the demand for their work that, for their more ambitious pieces, they could come up with the original concept and let their assistants complete the piece. Of course, you followed after these two waves. Do you feel that there are any differences between you and them?
M: When I first came to Beijing, I studied for an on-the-job postgraduate degree at the Central Academy of Art. The Academy was somehow different from what I had originally imagined. Of course, deep inside I’ve always been anti-group by nature. The whole atmosphere at the Academy of Art rather gave me the impression of a bureaucratic institution and the interpersonal communication seemed pretentious. Essentially, the Academy was no different from the mundane provincial school where I had previously studied. I later discovered that the Academy of Art was simply a cog in the system. The artists working there were all so compromised; it was so difficult to maintain one’s individuality. I was better off as a small-town artist; I mean, at least those people revered art, took it seriously. So, before long I stopped attending classes. I was very fortunate to receive the support of my tutor, Mr. Ge Liren, who shared my anti-group sentiments. That left me plenty of time to walk around Beijing. Of course, I spent most of my time at the CAAW, looking at Hans’ collection of foreign and Chinese contemporary artist profiles and artwork; it was so close by. Sometimes, I’d end up staying there for several days, which meant I very soon built up a solid understanding of the foremost Chinese avant-garde artworks since the 1980s, as well as an overview of art history throughout the ages. Later, when I visited Tongzhou County, as well as other artists’ communities, I gradually discovered that no  matter whether mainstream or non-mainstream, official or popular, the form of expression remained the same throughout. The only differentiating factor was the class system within each group. The community I joined lacked artistic spirit; it didn’t ring true with my vocation as a self-employed artist - it was still quite conventional. It was there that a few artists said to me, “no-one talks about art in here, we just come to get drunk.” I simply couldn’t accept the state of affairs there. I later found a job drawing illustrations in a library study close to Beijing University, which meant I could read books and earn some money at the same time. I gradually got to know some writers and discovered that they weren’t like artists at all; they were staunchly independent thinkers.
L: What do you think about the work of artists who emerged during the early Nineties, such as Wang Guangyi, Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun?
M: You have to consider them in the context of the early Nineties. At that time they opposed the institutional movement and the oppression of the whole art establishment. In fact, their artwork was challenging, but once they became rich, their life changed drastically while their artwork stayed the same. Some of them even opened a number of hotels, others shouted out slogans like: “repetition is power”. No matter which way you look at it, I think this was a feeble motif.
L: Of all of those artists, Wang Guangyi is the most representative. Fang Lijun’s style has changed with the times; those bald heads he paints are a visual assault on the senses, only demented people could have the expressions of the figures he depicts. Perhaps the most defining characteristic of Fang's paintings are the colours, so bright and bold and his chosen themes and painting style are also very unusual in the Chinese painting world, with strange birds, longevity stones and dead twigs - similar to the style of early Qing Dynasty painter Zhu Da, but quite different from the very refinded touch of Song Dynasty scholars. That said, he has the makings of a scholar within him; in reality he comes across as having that kind of rebellious temperament, stubborn and unyielding. I was well acquainted with Fang Lijun at the end of the Nineties and in 2001got to witness what his life was like: a big studio with lots of pet dogs running around. After achieving material success, life for them simply involved drinking, playing cards or flirting with the ladies, and of course some painting. Just like [novelist] Wang Shuo wrote: ”thoroughly lacking respectability”: like an out-of-towner, as you said, a provincial artist who  reveres art, coming to Beijing. The subject of their works isone thing, while their lifestyle reflects something else entirely. It’s like their life has no meaning and they no longer revere art. Perhaps this is evidence of China's adverse reaction towards the Tiananmen Square incident. In other words, once a greatly revered ideal is shattered, no matter what the reason, whether it’s a case of the authorities opening fire to suppress the demonstrators, or the cowardly exile of those moral heroes the demonstrators looked up to, such events strike a severe inner blow to idealism, while at the same time provoking a kind of desperation. Generally speaking, the greater the pressure from the world around us, the tougher people become. But deep inside, a person’s aspirations are iust as I mentioned. If a revered ideal should collapse, if one's idol who comes to represent one's world should fall, then it strikes a fatal blow to a person’s idealism. From that point on, the world in one's eyes becomes empty. This idealism, this morality, this intuition, this righteousness – once, it’s shattered, all that’s left is meaningless ranting. That leads to people becoming intent on nothing but profit; to them, only personal gain is truth. Money was used to estimate personal gain during the Nineties. Besides, there was also a sense of disillusionment with the way of the world. “All that counts is having fun. After all, if you can earn all the money you need and live the good life, who needs aspirations?“ This was the collective mood, the mood of the intellectual world, the mood of China at every level throughout the Nineties following Tiananmen. This is because, following the mental breakdown of idealism following Tiananmen, there was nothing to take its place, neither immediately nor subsequently, thusthe irony and cathartic venting in paintings by Fang Lijun and his contemporaries. As you saw for yourself, their living conditions actually reflected the whole mood of society. I don’t know what you think about this issue.
M: From my point of view, the source for creating any work comes from deep inside myself, somewhere mysterious, like my painting, “Paradise Lost”. That reflected my state of existence at the time. It was a kind of impression cast on my psyche resulting from the overall mood of that period. When I painted those pictures, I was in a provincial city, less affected by the goings on in Beijing. At the same time, I can’t comprehend the sarcasm and criticism of these painters’ early pieces. Now, in fact, it’s as if they have come to embody the ironic and derisive figures in their own paintings. Perhaps this phenomenon is the greatest disappointment of Chinese contemporary art. Of course, I can understand that, faced with the circumstances of a particular age, the individual loses control to a degree. However, to be a first-rate artist, an individual thinker cannot merely contemplate the world’s outer  appearance. One’s spiritual needs are very important. That said, one's sense of reverence should not be aimed at any single figure or spiritual leader. Deep down there should be an artistic spirit, a pearl formed by centuries of art history and tradition. Nowadays, many people compile a portfolio and head straight for Li Xianting and Ai Weiwei. They know very well that should these two approve of your work, then in conventional terms, you'll have struck it big time. I’ll let you have your say now, that's my standpoint. You can take this standpoint as a symbol – the symbol of a free spirit.
L: For me personally, I am well acquainted with Li Xianting and Ai Weiwei. I think that Li Xianting really is a fine man. He has played a fundamental role in the development of Chinese avant-garde art. Ai Weiwei later returned to China and began to organise exhibitions and he has a great eye for art. During our time together I’ve chatted with him about films, sketches and so on. As for China’s current artistic climate, Fang Lijun and his contemporaries have become akin to recreational artists. This along with the appetite for political jokes, pop music, the mobile texting thing - I’d call it absolutely soulless, ungrateful jubilation, like the early ironic pieces produced by the earliest New Age singers as well as Fang Lijun and the like. Fang was certainly dissatisfied with society and was venting his criticism. However, society later became commercialised and spiritually cynical. Their work became popular and thus their critical value was lost. This work has become a kind of spiritual recreation, a spiritual massage. It has become completely devoid of social criticism. In this way it has turned into a kind of act of spiritual recreation. Essentially, the irony is gone, just smile and consign it to the past; everything is as it was before. If you have to scheme to get your way, go ahead; if you have to tell lies, go ahead; if you have to be unscrupulous, go ahead. Any initial resistance, whether against selling out at the faintest notion of profit, or against the onset of spiritual cynicism, finally lost its cutting edge. Ultimately, everyone just laughed it off and that was the end of that. On a spiritual level, this misshapen society we see in China consumes criticism, consumes resistance and consumes its own darkness and injustice. The recreational side of Chinese society consumes this art, treating it as a spiritual massage, a spiritual “hot tub” of sorts. The extent of this spiritual disintegration is frightening, almost complete and utter disintegration. Against this backdrop, there is a spiritual numbness towards the general state of society. In my view, all art has become a joke, something to feed an indulgent lifestyle. This kind of political joke and artistic irony is easily transformed into spiritual consumerism and spiritual ridicule. I’d like to know what you think about Chinese contemporary art.
M: I’m also quite pessimistic. I once commented to a friend that contemporary art in China is not as progressive as it should be. The works produced by contemporary artists are not essentially different from commercial works of art.
 L:I also took in several bi-annual exhibitions featuring Chinese art, as well as works in other exhibitions. At the moment, China still noticeably lags behind so-called Western postmodern society. On a spiritual level, our artists' works and critics' essays are complete imitations, taking a postmodern approach. They have lost all standards - anything goes. It doesn’t matter what you express; you can just take someone else's words from the West. In reality, this also demonstrates the split within Chinese society. For example, those people outside of Beijing’s suburbs essentially live in pre-modern conditions; as for the prosperous circles of society in the heart of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, their way of life and the language they use, the standards by which they judge something are completely based on Western postmodern standards. Nevertheless, the vast majority of pre-modernist society and the miniscule rich circles of society follow the West’s every move. As long as they have it in the West, they can talk about it.
M: A few years ago I painted a few paintings, called, “International Face”, which were all about this theme.
L: Nowadays, what problems are we facing? I feel that the elite spheres of Chinese society, from officialdom to artists, exist in a kind of “Sister Furong” phase (1) a so-called lack of self-knowledge. “Sister Lotus” isn’t very pretty, she can’t dance well, but her knowledge of self is thoroughly admirable. She didn’t worry whether others would laugh at her. At this point in time, the whole mood of China is like this. We talk about the rise of a sleeping giant, economic growth, our blissful existence; "Sister Lotus" can actually represent the extent to which we know ourself as a nation. Now, that the Chinese art market is fairly big, the price of paintings has sky-rocketed. Previously, buyers tended to be Westerners. Have things changed much now?
M: Apparently, many entrepreneurs with successful real estate businesses are now beginning to collect artwork, mainly calligraphy works.
L: In terms of artistic technique, have oil paintings changed much since the 1980s?
M: Comparatively speaking, the style of 1980s oil paintings was quite uniform, whereas nowadays, there are a variety of styles. Oil painting is flourishing, at least on the surface. In truth, the paintings of today are not as sincere and from the heart as those of the 1980s. Of course, there are excellent artists here; it's just that their paintings lack any lasting value.
 L: It's like that all the time. Of all the artisans and craftsmen at any given time, only a small portion of their works are worthy to serve as a kind of spiritual heritage for different generations alike. Do you believe that when you initially stick with painting through difficult circumstances, it’s due to a kind of spiritual need; and then later, when there's a market for your work, the change inevitably influences you?
M: Of course this kind of phenomenon has perplexed me in the past. Every time I think of it I ask myself, “Why did I first pick up the paintbrush?“ I think I find the answer when I contemplate the extraordinary lives of the artists we know.
L: Just now we talked about artistic progression, the overriding spiritual climate, and the art market. Now I’d like to raise an issue with you. In this rather unique environment that China represents, I'd like to consider the relationship between art and politics. During Mao Zedong’s time the country was highly politicised. Later, with the advent of reforms during the 1980s, society began to break into different entities and during this time art and politics placed some distance between themselves. This was followed, however, by the highly political incident off Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989, which once again resulted in the suffocation of art's critical voice. I feel that in the West, major political incidents can influence artists’ creations through various channels, resulting in a kind of political artwork. As for China, being such a highly-politicised society the result is a kind of totalitarianism. In such a society, Chinese art, including the "Star Group" exhibitions and the poetry of "Today", has generally been suppressed. After the Nineties, across the board you could see that art had some kind of directly political slant. Even so, up to now the political hardships experienced by Chinese people remain unparalleled throughout the world. Perhaps the reaction in literary works was more noticeable, but in terms of the painting and drawing scenes since 1949, and especially during the Eighties, you never get a glimpse of the kind of environment that Chinese people were living in - these conditions were rarely reflected through painting. During the Nineties there was only a limited amount of film, literature and painting in which artists tried to raise the issue of politics. And due to the peculiarities of the present government, no-one dared raise the subject of Tiananmen. They only discussed the past, the Cultural  Revolution, from the 1950s to the Cultural Revolution, like Zhang Yihe’s ”The Past Does Not Disappear Like Smoke” [往事并不如烟/wang shi bing bu ru yan]. In film and painting, people depicted the general politicisation of Chinese people's lives throughout the 1960s and 1970s, as in Gu Changwei's film "Peacock". The paintings of Zhang Xiaogang adopted a style depicting old photos of the Cultural Revolution. From a certain point of view, what with artists dealing with so much suffering, and a nation facing so many tragic incidents, I feel that Chinese artists have deliberately held back. To express things in their reality would be to invite censorship and to ultimately lose one's market – it's a conflict of interests. So much accumulated suffering yet no corresponding artistic record – what a tragedy. Whether its in terms of politics or in terms of an individual life, that no such work exists to capture the totality of the moment is sad, very, very sad. Chinese people didn’t see suffering for what it was; they didn’t see things for what they were. The ultimate consequence was that they didn’t treat people as people. I often say that Chinese people have no spiritual dimension. Take for example, film-making, Chinese people never make good psychological or spiritual films. That is to say that, Chinese people have no psyche or spirit to speak of. All of our films are so animalistic. What’s more, we make a bad job of describing this kind of animalism because there are no free animals - it’s like life in a big pig sty. At least now we are in a situation where people get enough to eat and don't lack materially: but, if you are looking for spirituality forget it. There’s hope for film because film is an industry, whereas painting is all about individual effort. As long as you produce good stuff, there will be interest abroad, but there’s no way of getting it out there in China. All the while that Chinese people suffered, artists were nowhere to be seen. I feel it’s such a regrettable state of affairs. What is your view on this issue?
M: As far as the problem you mentioned with Chinese artists, yes it really is a big problem. From my own personal experience, relying on my instinct as a moral human being, I have an intensely favourable opinion about those historic pieces which express the nation's great suffering. For example, Lu Xun’s understanding of Chinese culture and Chinese people in his writing, his ability to extract something out of the collective experience. However, when I want to express such issues and create a work of art, I can’t produce a conceptual work of art, I don't see this as being the artist's mission. Maybe he  doesn't directly cry out in the name of freedom, but he can rely on artistic spirit, continuing to make progress as an artist. In this way, he will become a model of freedom. As long as he expresses himself honestly, then his work will definitely resonate to someone having grown up in an environment such as China's. For example, Chinese painters are different from artists in Europe or artists who grew up in the United States. The colours they all use are different. These colours, in fact, are the artist's own kind of politics. Just like the artists you mentioned, perhaps they have spent their whole life growing up in residential apartments in the big cities, living a postmodern life.
L: You just now mentioned “colour” and touched on “the colour of politics". The colour featuring in your own artwork is predominantly black. Even though there is brightness, it’s a gloomy paleness.
M: This is absolutely something for which life played a determining role in my choice. Before, I used to paint in a variety of colours. After I graduated I vented my anger by painting dead animals spattered in blood. However, my overall feeling was that this wasn’t part of me, because throughout my life it's not something that's been in my temperament. As time passed, society began to transform at a rapid pace. Overnight, my classmates around me had become entrepreneurs in interior design; no-one wanted to talk art with me; no-one was interested in hanging around with me. Society’s values were changing ever more rapidly. I almost wanted to stop communicating, I felt so desperate. At that time, I just wanted to resist. I had to express something, somehow. When I was choosing colours, only black served to express the inner feeling I had at that time. Perhaps I was born a fatalist, because even today, my paintings are predominantly filled with black.
L: What is your view of the art village phenomenon?
M: What I'm most averse to is collectivis
 M: the least promising Chinese artists banding together and plucking up their courage as one. Such movements quite easily develop challenging ideas, but it’s just like any major upheaval throughout history. Once the authorities crack down, these once agitated and indignant groups suddenly flee in every direction. This is because from the outset, there is no one who seriously tries hard to think independently, because no one is brave enough to assume responsibility. As a result, later there is no one to rise up and resist the oppression, let alone anyone to question the root cause behind this lack of resistance. There is a classic example of this: right from the beginning, excited people queued up to move into Feijiacun village. They wrote on the perimeter wall, “building China’s biggest contemporary art stronghold”. Allegedly, the artist's compound had not obtained full legal authorisation, so later, when the government sent people in to demolish it, artists could only resort to etching a few ridiculous slogans on the wall of their study, such as “Out of China’s contemporary art stronghold, into a marginal society" and "If you don’t appreciate me, many others will”. As a rule, the most important characteristic of contemporary art is the criticism it expresses. On this principle, these artists’ reactionary expressions had no significant influence on themselves or those who ordered the demolition. I think that first and foremost, only when Chinese artists manage to become independent spirits, can they slowly rid themselves of the deep-rooted bad habits instilled in them by this nation. Only then can they avoid turning into entrepreneurs and gain the credentials needed to build a cultural bridge between East and West.
L: You no longer have material worries in your life. In that sense, do you feel part of the Chinese art world, or are you still an outsider?
M: I personally feel I am an outsider to the art world. Objectively speaking, most of my friends are not artists; they are my neighbours. I’ve lived just outside Beijing for 6 years or more, at the foot of the Western Hills next to a reservoir. All this time, I've always been the only artist in my neighbourhood. When I go into the city, I only visit the bookstores in Haidian District. The way I see it, I'm an anti-collectivist by nature - it doesn't matter what form of collectivism it is. By that, I mean that it has never been my wish to be an artist within the art world. (End) (1) Sister Furong (or Sister Lotus) was a woman from a working-class family who achieved nationwide notoriety in 2005 for her narcissistic Internet postings. Her lack of self-consciousness and, some would say, misplaced confidence in her looks and ability, provoked both derision and fascination throughout China, gaining her cult status as the country’s top blog host.
Special thanks for the courtesy of Galerie Urs Meile Beijing-Lucerne.
English translation by Kirk Kenny
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