PSYCHOANALYSL FACE THE WEIWEI OF CHINESE CENSORSHIP.
Now in my second week, psychoanalYSL collective have begun to concretize their vision for the exhibition, and so we come to a face myriad of hurdles standing in our way.
The London based collective, as I’ve mentioned previously, watched with fascination the media circus surrounding the detention of Ai Weiwei. The art super-star was rendered a martyr by the right-on pr machines at Lisson and Somerset House where his marble CCTV camera and Zodiac Heads became ever more prescient symbols through which British audiences could muse on the political activism which foregrounds the reading of his work. PsychoanalYSL planned to produce an installation in Chongqing which would present to Chinese audiences the figure of Weiwei which has been capitalised in the west; an image of a saint undergoing torture delivered in the current London uber-trendy material: wet clay.
If exhibited in Chongqing, this work I was told would result in investigation by the Chinese authorities. The director of the project, Yanyan would be questioned. Of course it would be the Chinese, not the foreign affiliates of the project who would be sanctioned, encouraging myself as the curator to have the artists retract their sensitive proposed artwork.
Meg Maggio from Pekin Fine Art (Beijing) shook her head when I told her about the concept for the show. She told me about a work by artist Li Songsong at the exhibition ‘Love and Hope’, (a fundraiser for the victims the Japanese earthquake) at 798 which took place during the time of Weiwei’s detention. For the fundraiser Li Songdong produced a modest sized ink on paper with a silhouette of Ai Weiwei and the words ‘I miss you’. Art info reported: “It was no surprise that this was one of the first works sold last night.” This event in its self demonstrates the monetization of activism, conscience cleansing and ego stroking going on here, but Maggio’s point was that Songsong’s work was considered very daring, and it was a far less bold statement than that which psychoanalYSL plan. So, we have the first layer of censorship. I tell psychoanalYSL to come up with a plan B.
PsychoanalYSL (two members of the collective; Christopher Thomas and Benjamin Orlow are in their second of a three year part-time MFA at Goldsmiths) have produced a maquette of the censored artwork for their end of year show which happened last week.
The censorship which takes place here gives one the feeling of entering a country brimming with politics, having left behind the consensual political void of the UK. Watching the dialogue between Assange and Zizek for ‘democracy now!’ yesterday I found myself agreeing with Assange over the situation here in China. He claims that in the west we self censor, which is far more scary in some ways:
“we should always see censorship actually as a very positive sign that a society is not completely sewn up…not completely fiscalised but still has some political dimension to it…what people believe and think and feel and the words that they listen to actually matters” (frontline club)
In another interview he talks about the flip side in the UK:
“The west has fiscalised its basic power relationships through a web of contracts, loans, shareholdings, bank holdings and so on. In such an environment it is easy for speech to be ‘free’ because a change in political will rarely leads to any change in these basic instruments.” (itproportal)
References:
http://www.itproportal.com/2010/12/04/assange-claims-west-has-fiscalised-power-base/
