PROUD TO BE A LONDON GIRL IN CHONGQING
I’ve been doing some thinking about the discussions around cultural exchange with China and the position of activism.
Many UK organisations such as The British Museum and the V&A have been criticised for lending their collections for shows due to open in 2012 including “British Design 1948-2012” at Shanghai Art Museum. Our project suffered a loss of a major partner in the UK as a result of increasing criticism of cultural exchange following the detention of Ai Weiwei. The Art Newspaper reported “Anish Kapoor has cancelled plans to present his sculptures at the National Museum of China in Beijing, in protest against the continuing detention of Ai Weiwei” I tend to agree with the British Council’s commitment to continuing relations on the grounds that boycotting shuts down discourse. “British Council chief executive Martin Davidson believes in “freedom of cultural expression”, but is keen for the programme to go ahead. He commented: “It is through cultural exchange that we best demonstrate the benefits of free artistic expression and build supportive links between people in the UK and China.”
Perhaps Kapoor and others who see a cultural boycott of China as a viable and effective means of protest to the PRC are over estimating their influence. As if China will care. What better way to maintain such a regime than to keep the cultural door closed whilst enjoying the benefits of economic freedom. The delusion of this western perspective also rests on the long fought for principal of freedom of speech. However, over the past year Wikileaks have spewed forth excessive mounds of information not previously accessible, and the escalating events surrounding Newscorp in the UK have perhaps gone some way to exposing the self-censoring which occurs in the West as a result of interests which are bound to suppress information which might be interesting to the public.
Anish Kapoor and others believe that showcasing British work in China is immoral, but these same people seem to have no problem showing Chinese artists here. Tibet protestors condemned ‘The First Emperor: The Terracotta Army’ exhibition at British Musum but so called “critically engaged” practitioners such as Huang Yong Ping and Ai Weiwei and welcomed. The curatorial approach to Chinese contemporary art in the West can be associated with a wider phenomenon of “the collapsing distinction between marketing and activism” outlined by Micah White and others. Ai Weiwei’s sunflower seeds at Tate Modern provided not only mass entertainment but a satisfying moral soup.
When I return home after seeing the sunflower seeds to check emails my inbox is jammed with online petitions from 38degrees declaring.
“Dear Helen,
Together, we are deciding what 38 Degrees does next. Thousands of us have shared our ideas and commented on each others’ suggestions. We’ve analysed all the suggestions and now it’s time to vote to decide what we focus on.”
So, activists who don’t even know what they’re fighting for! This is amazing!
Whilst in China I’ve been receiving messages about Murdoch from Ricken Patel of Avaaz.org (reportedly backed by George Soros) who claims their marketing/ online activism is responsible for bringing down the Murdoch media empire.
“Together, we took on the world’s most powerful media baron, opposing the biggest deal of his career, and won!
After seven months of campaigning, 1 million online actions, 250,000 messages to official consultations, 2 polls, 8 stunts, legal threats and thousands of phone calls to our leaders”
According to White “digital activists have adopted the logic of the market place”. The operation of a mobius strip of activist news between blogs feeding one another, generating ‘clicks’ of support seems to be a passive and easily manageable format of insurgency. It reminds me of the idea of dependence of press upon press which is well demonstrated in Michelangelo Pistoletto’s work ‘Twenty-two less two’ at the 53rd Venice Biennial where press of the performance of smashing mirrors created the work.
The point I’m making is somewhere between the wider marketing of activism and the marketing of Chinese contemporary art. It occurs to me that in both cases politics should not be this easy.
References:
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Are-strong-words-enough-to-support-dissidents?/23804
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7303158.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/12/clicktivism-ruining-leftist-activism
