the age of wild ghosts: memory, violence, and place in southwest china : erik mueggler

the age of wild ghosts: memory, violence, and place in southwest china by erik muegglerIn: erik mueggler's powerful and imaginative ethnography, a rural minority community in the mountains of southwest china struggles to find its place at the end of a century of violence and at the margins of a nation-state. here, people describe the present age, beginning with the great leap famine of 1958-1960 and continuing through the 1990s, as "the age of wild ghosts." their stories of this age converge on a dream of community-a bad dream, embodied in the life, death, and reawakening of a single institution: a rotating headman-ship system that expired violently under the maoist regime. displaying a sensitive understanding of both chinese and the tibeto-burman language spoken in this region, mueggler explores memories of this institution, including the rituals and poetics that once surrounded it and the bitter conflicts that now haunt it. to exorcise "wild ghosts," he shows, is nothing less than to imagine the state and its power, to trace the responsibility for violence to its morally ambiguous origins, and to enunciate calls for justice and articulate longings for reconciliation.

landscape of memory : mu xin

landscape of memory: the art of mu xin / june 10 through september 7, 2003 / asia society museum / curated by alexandra munroe and wu hung

conversations with the chinese literati: the work of mu xin (b. 1927) is, in part, a dialogue with the past masters of chinese painting and, thus, with chinese history in general. this dialogue is a key factor in connecting mu xin with the continuous tradition of chinese landscape painting, begun in the 10th century, which is embedded with meanings both personal and profound. emerging from his knowledge and interpretation of past masters, mu xin created paintings that responded to the past while criticizing the future. although in this regard mu xin could be compared with many chinese artists, perhaps the greatest connection can be made with the “yimin” painters of the early yuan period (1279 – 1368) and of the early qing (1644 – 1911).

the yimin painters, approximately translated to “leftover people,” worked in the wake of drastic upheaval and historical change (similar to the post-cultural revolution china of the late 1970s, when mu xin’s “tower within a tower” paintings were created—the series that comprises the exhibition at the asia society museum). these members of the chinese literati withdrew from politics and society in order to seek personal betterment through the creation of literary works and “silent poetry,” their name for painting. they gave their lives meaning, as well as subversively criticized the present, by creating paintings that celebrated the virtues of the past. although addressing issues on a grand scale, the images were still embedded with a deep sense of personal memory, creating a sense of loss of the idealized past. It is this tradition of the chinese literati that mu xin refers to as his “blood roots.”

The work of Mu Xin (b. 1927, fig.1) is, in part, a dialogue with the past masters of Chinese painting and, thus, with Chinese history in general. This dialogue is a key factor in connecting Mu Xin with the continuous tradition of Chinese landscape painting, begun in the 10th century, which is embedded with meanings both personal and profound. Emerging from his knowledge and interpretation of past masters, Mu Xin created paintings that responded to the past while criticizing the future. Although in this regard Mu Xin could be compared with many Chinese artists, perhaps the greatest connection can be made with the “yimin” painters of the early Yuan period (1279 – 1368) and of the early Qing (1644 – 1911).

The yimin painters, approximately translated to “leftover people,” worked in the wake of drastic upheaval and historical change (similar to the post-Cultural Revolution China of the late 1970s, when Mu Xin’s “Tower within a Tower” paintings were created—the series that comprises the exhibition at the Asia Society Museum). These members of the Chinese literati withdrew from politics and society in order to seek personal betterment through the creation of literary works and “silent poetry,” their name for painting. They gave their lives meaning, as well as subversively criticized the present, by creating paintings that celebrated the virtues of the past. Although addressing issues on a grand scale, the images were still embedded with a deep sense of personal memory, creating a sense of loss of the idealized past. It is this tradition of the Chinese literati that Mu Xin refers to as his “blood roots.”



Fig. 2 Mu Xin further expressed this connection to his blood roots in the naming of many of his paintings. The titles often include references to important people and places in Chinese history and, thus, the events surrounding them. Some references, such as in the title Reciting a Tang Poem on the Road to Shu (fig.2), are quite direct. For those familiar with Chinese history, the name instantly conjures up the tale of the death, in 755, of Emperor Minghuang’s (Xuanzong, r.712 – 756) concubine Yang Guifei and the near-destruction of the Tang dynasty by An Lushan.

Fig. 3 Other references are more subtle, such as many of those made to the Wei and Jin dynasties of the Six Dynasties period. The Wei and Jin dynasties ruled parts of Southern China in the turmoil-filled years of 220 to 419. It was a time, however, in which many of the great masters and cultural heroes, such as the poet Xie Lingyun (385 – 433) and the painter Gu Kaizhi (345 – 406), lived and worked. They established a Chinese elite humanistic tradition and are associated with an especially high level of culture and civilization. An example of this reference can be seen in Spring Brilliance at Kuaiji (fig. 3), which alludes to Wang Xizhi’s, “Preface to the Orchard Pavilion,” considered by some to be the greatest calligraphic work of all time. The connection lies in the fact that Wang Xizhi created the “Preface” at Shanyin in Kuanji in 353 and that the Orchard Pavilion takes place in the spring.

Fig. 4


Fig. 5

There are, also, many references to areas in the southeastern Zhejiang province, such as the Yellow Mountains (fig. 4) and the West Lake (fig. 5). Mu Xin was born in this area and the references could relate to his childhood, but it seems likely that they also serve to reference the traditional masters and imagery, since these were the areas the masters were known for painting. Few of these faded images, however, would be recognizable without their titles.

What is unique to Mu Xin is that, in contrast to the traditionally glorious images of the past, his images seem to present a past that is wasting away and becoming forgotten. In the words of the art historian Richard Barnhardt, the images seem to suggest that “everything that represents the great tradition of landscape painting in China for the past thousand years is in the final stages of a long illness.” The lack of the typical sages and pavilions further this suggestion (though the homes of peasants dot the landscape). Despite Mu Xin’s suggestion of loss, through it all there seems to shine the light of the soul or of hope.

Prison Notes and Humanism

It was in the library of a distant relative, Mao Dun, in the late 1930s and 1940s that Mu Xin first became aware of the great works of ancient, Renaissance, and modern Western thinkers. It was through these books, especially those related to Leonard da Vinci, that Mu Xin as a Chinese man of letters and self-taught Western humanist was born. In 1946 he began to study at the Shanghai Fine Art Institute, known for its Western-style art education, under teachers such as Liu Haisu. He became disgruntled, however, because he believed the concepts of the medium and style of Western art were emphasized, while there was no agreement on the issue of creative self-expression. As a result, Mu Xin transferred to the National Hangzhou Arts Academy, where he was a pupil of Lin Fengmian (1900 – 91) who taught there from 1928 to 1949. Mu Xin was inspired by Lin’s humanist emphasis on the artist’s feeling as the spiritual basis for modern art, but he eventually felt dissatisfaction once again as a result of Lin’s and other professors’ limited focus on Fauvist and Expressionist styles.

Mu Xin stands apart from his contemporaries in that he looked beyond the mere style of Western modernity and instead incorporated the morality and values of Renaissance humanism within himself. He made individual self-development a priority and considered virtue to be interconnected with good art, requiring a good artist to live as he sought to paint. It was this very philosophy and ideal that would sustain him through one of the most harrowing periods of modern Chinese history.



Fig. 6
During the midst of the Cultural Revolution forty-four year old Mu Xin was imprisoned for eighteen months between 1971 and 1972 in a Shanghai “people’s prison.” While imprisoned alone in the basement of an air raid shelter he composed a sixty-six page compilation, now known as the “prison notes,”(fig. 6) which he wrote on paper supplied for enforced “self-criticism.” He hid the notes in the cotton padding of his prison clothes. The notes are a testament to his humanistic ideals and many consist of imaginary conversations with men considered to be among the most creative minds of Western civilization. Those who make an appearance include Saint Anthony, Wagner, Rousseau, and Dostoyevsky. Through his conversations with these great minds, and the continued humanistic self-cultivation they brought about, Mu Xin was able to survive his solitary imprisonment mentally intact. This made the life-risking task worthwhile.



Fig. 7


Fig. 8

Mu Xin continued to express his self-defined identity among the Western humanists in the art he created while under house arrest from 1977 to 1979. The images reflect the affinity for da Vinci that was sparked in the youthful hours spent in Mao Dun’s library. Mu Xin echoes da Vinci through his creation of nature in an atmospheric way that is felt, not formed. In the works of both artists the forms that nature takes are not rigid, but instead melt into the world around them. This quality can been compared in the landscape portion of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (fig. 7 ) and Mu Xin’s painting Clear Ripples of a Waterfall (fig. 8). Interestingly, it is probable that Mu Xin’s only exposure to da Vinci’s work was through the intaglio prints, with their soft, monochromatic colors, that appeared in black-and-white art books. It is possible that this is a factor in Mu Xin’s predilection for using very little color in his images.

Technique

Mu Xin creates his art through a process that seems to blend techniques from both East and West. It is hard to be specific about the exact techniques he uses, because, other than characterizing his technique as “controlled coincidence,” he tends to be elusive when it comes to revealing his methods. He generally uses gouache and Chinese ink on xuan paper and his overall technique seems to consist of four elements: a prepared surface; an accidental or mechanical manipulation of inkwash and texture; a suffusing color or tonality (sometimes including opaque white); and an articulating use of brush and ink. Even though it is difficult to pin down what exactly it is that Mu Xin does, many different methods and inspiration for methods have been suggested. Primary among these are the experimental methods of ancient Chinese artists whose ways were not continued and the decalcomania and photogravure techniques of modern Western artists.

One possible inspiration for the development for Mu Xin’s technique is the experiments of the “yipin” painters of the 9th and 10th centuries who used a repertoire of techniques that included staining the surface of their works by rolling their paint-covered bodies over the paper, producing random marks. The marks reminded them of landscape imagery, which they then embellished and refined. In other cases they created the same effect by dipping their hair in paint and then splattering the paper. Later the artists Song Di (1015 – 1080) and Guo Xi (1000 – 1090) (and da Vinci) also embellished randomly produced marks from surface stains, but they produced the marks without the use of their body or hair. Additionally, Muqi (active 13th century) and other Buddhist painters of the Song and Yuan periods poured wet inkwash over paper before they darkened certain areas using densely fibrous or woody material.



Fig. 9


Fig. 10

Another suggestion for the source of Mu Xin’s technique is “decalcomania.” Decalcomania is an effect that is produced when gouache is applied between two sheets of paper, the papers are pressed together, and then the top sheet is removed to reveal a sponge-like effect. The technique became popular among the Surrealist painters of the 1930s because of the exotic and suggestive forms it produced. Max Ernst was credited with its mastery when he transferred the technique to oil paints and created apocalyptic landscapes. One such landscape, Europe After the Rain (fig. 9), seems to demonstrate this techniques as does Mu Xin’s Stone Cave in Desiccated Cliff (fig. 10). Mu Xin’s exposure to decalcomania, however, may have come through his professor Lin Fengmian, who developed the technique around gouache and ink in the 1940s.

Other scholars, however, have suggested a more unusual inspirational source for Mu Xin’s technique. It is thought that Mu Xin may have attempted to duplicate the appearance of photogravure that was commonly used in the art book reproductions he was exposed to. To make images conveying this sensibility he may have used the technique of burnishing, which consists of rubbing together multiple layers of ink to produce a silvery, graphite-like sheen on a paper’s surface.

Whatever the sources and inspirations Mu Xin has used, the thirty-three paintings that comprise his “Tower within a Tower” share, as the art historian Jonathan Hay states, “a fluid atmosphere in which memory, history, and pure imagination flow in and out of each other, crystallizing through the sense of place.”

This essay, by Ada Prieto, is drawn from the exhibition catalogue, “The Art of Mu Xin: Landscape Paintings and Prison Notes,” published by Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, and the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago.

Landscape of Memory: The Art of Mu Xin
The exhibition is co-organized and circulated by the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, and Yale University Art Gallery.

cultural memory underlying the surfaces of history : hung liu

hung liu - artist's statement:i paint from historical photographs, usually those taken of chinese subjects by foreigners. these have included 19th century images of chinese female “types,” prostitutes, child street acrobats, war refugees, and women laboring at such tasks as pulling a boat upriver, operating an industrial-scale loom, and walking in circles (like mules) behind the handle of a millstone grinder.

as a painter, i am interested in subjecting the documentary authority of historical photographs to the more reflective process of painting; i want to both preserve and destroy the image. much of the meaning of my painting comes from the way the washes and drips dissolve the photo-based images, opening them to a slower kind of looking, suggesting perhaps the cultural and personal narratives fixed in the photographic instant.

i also introduce traditional chinese painting motifs into the photo-based field, hoping to enliven and stir up its surface. these include images of birds, flowers, stamps, and landscapes, among others, all borrowed from chinese art history and suspended in the paintings. the traditional motifs evoke a sense of the cultural memory underlying the surfaces of history. in particular, the stylized chinese birds - some from paintings as old as one thousand years - seem like witnesses from china’s past, overlooking and commenting upon events from its modern era. thus, two layers of historical representation – from traditional painting and modern photography – co-exist in my paintings. the result of this overlay is a liberation of the rigid methodology of socialist realism – the style in which I was trained in china – as an improvisational painting style in which the photo-realism used in the service of propaganda dissolves into a fresh kind of history painting. In other words, i convert socialist realism into social realism.

curator statement: Tthe memories of both words and images together constitute the memories of every human being. for many years hung liu’s efforts have been to look for the traces of memories from paintings over the last thousand years, from photos of chinese people taken by foreigners, and from the pictures of china taken since 1949. however, why do so many people suddenly generate such a great interest in visual art?

on the one hand, unlimited cultural and historical treasures are hidden in the ancient time stream of visual images. chinese people can point to the original sources in philology, literature, philosophy, art, music, traditional gardens/landscaping, and so forth. the pleasure of coming across these visual images has helped form special chinese-style paintings. on the other hand, advanced modern science and technology ensure artists use visible techniques and invisible imagination to reveal a totally new meaning for visual images in the current cultural environment. though living in the u.s., hung liu possesses the original inspiration and image sources from her vivid memory of a certain period she experienced in china, from 1948 to 1984, which still shapes her imaginative world.

for example, the suffering reflected in her red river, painted in 1998, about the bitter life of chinese laborers, is not unique to china, but commonly exists around the world. moreover, today what is happening to the "red river" is also happening to the "blue river", and the rivers of other colors. the painting king’s sky, queen’s land borrows from a painting drawn by an emperor of the song dynasty as background to display an extensive landscape, where a camel, a human figure, and flowers and birds are composed together on the canvas to visualize an inexplicably fictitious reality constituted by the combination of images and memory, history and culture, the king’s sky and the queen’s land. The painting cliche: peasant family, set against a bright sun-rise, is a group photo of three members from an ordinary chinese family, which is overlapped with images of scholar's rocks and flowers. their look of dull anxiety reveals the kindness of average chinese people, especially of the peasants, whose faces represent china’s face, since china is a large agricultural country. another revelation is the utterly helpless condition chinese peasants are now facing. through this painting, we are actually looking at our profound inner side. the painting leap depicts three blossoming boys jumping into a river; in the distance, a painted circle is like a shadowy moon luring their leap.

the scene in one thousand miles seems absurd. two strong men bind a swift horse’s legs. then comes the question "once a horse’s legs are bound, how can we expect it to run ground of a moon one thousand miles, even if it is a swift horse?" to reach one thousand miles, either it must imagine galloping in its mind; or, tear away from the bindings and gallop a thousand miles. are human's not the same? In parachute, a dreamy parachute suddenly appears on the left side above an old peasant eating from a bowl, which appears to be a metaphor of the reality of the collision and contradiction between contemporary technology and agriculture. today, as modernization progresses on the ground of hhina day and night, a promising age begins! How will we face our spirituality with material wealth falling from the sky? it’s a question put forward by hung liu.

when surveying hung liu’s paintings over the past few years, it’s apparent that she continues to carry on a love affair with chinese history. she uses her paintbrush to criticize the realities of china, to expose the contradictions within chinese society as well as the collisions within the individual human heart.

thus, although she lives outside her homeland, hung liu's heart remains at the great wall - heavy, anguished, yet passionate. no matter whether her memory of visual images is an addition to or a subtraction from reality, she still gathers all her passion at the end of a paintbrush to create a thoroughly vivid description of her personal understanding of reality in china that touches and compels every spectator.


Zhang Qing
Director of Shanghai Biennale Office
Curator of 2004 Shanghai Biennale

Altogether, I hope to wash my subjects of their exotic “otherness” and reveal them as dignified, even mythic figures on the grander scale of history painting. I am looking for the mythic pose beneath the historical figure - and the painting beneath the photograph.

location and memory : rebecca belmore

statement by rebecca belmore on her work: my way of working is largely based on immediate experience. the performances i have created over the years often directly responded to the place in which I found myself. location and memory are key elements in my approach to making art. i have always had a strong interest in trying to imagine where we have been.

when I was a young girl, our mother took us to a tiny island in northern ontario to show us where she was born. about ten years ago, long after our mother’s death, my sister and I went on a canoe trip with the intent of revisiting this island. navigating by childhood memory we could not find the place. but, it was enough to be in the midst of a beautiful absence.

this journey, driven by the desire to witness again, had a profound effect on my creative process. i recall my mother taking us to a small clearing on this island and showing where the cabin had been. we looked at the ground and I could see where the foundation of her birthplace had rotted into the land. a square was drawn by time like a memory onto the earth.

i like to think that this entire experience illustrates how i work. i am aware of the elusive nature of memory. creating in the presence of the absent makes me a witness. i believe i am just beginning to understand my role, particularly as an artist who has inherited an indigenous history. canada’s official representative at the 2005 venice biennale of visual art

a photograph can't coerce. it won't do the moral work for us. but it can start us on the way.

a photograph can't coerce. it won't do the moral work for us. but it can start us on the way. susan sontag.
brighton photo biennial is proud to present the programme of its third edition entitled memory of fire: the war of images and images of war that will run for six weeks from friday 3 october to sunday 16 november 2008. brighton photo biennial has established itself as one of the most important photography festivals in europe by delivering a challenging and stimulating event for both the general public and art specialists. for memory of fire the provocative writer and critic julian stallabrass will curate ten exhibitions exploring photographic images of war, their making, use and circulation, and their currency in contemporary society. stallabrass will explore the history and diverse scope of images of war using vernacular, documentary, art, digital, montage, historic and contemporary photography. from the horrors portrayed in the vietnam war to the wildly divergent imagery created during the current conflict in Iraq, which takes in state-sponsored military firework displays made for the camera and the online spectacle of bombings and executions. from the oscillation between triumphalism and the melancholy of defeat in latin american resistance movements to the futility of trench warfare in world war I. from the sublime beauty of aftermath art photography to the harrowing depiction of long-term damage endured by civilians and war veterans. from the revealing photographs made by serving soldiers to the mobile phone images of exiled iraqi civilians. given the continuing conflicts in iraq, afghanistan and the middle east, the representation of war dominates the wider culture. the festival will create space for visitors to explore the complexities of war as a theme and how photography is used, with the invitation to make up their own minds and express their own views.

julian stallabrass on brighon photo biennial 2008:
“the title is borrowed from eduardo galeano’s extraordinary book, memory of fire, an epic literary account of 500 years of latin american resistance to imperialism. the book consists of numerous self-contained episodes which can be read in isolation but also combine with their neighbours to produce a larger picture of the book’s subject. similarly, bpb 2008, which covers a long stretch of the south east england coastline, comprises many exhibitions and events, each of which stands alone, but which may
be enriched when other elements are seen. memory of fire: the war of images and images of war takes on various issues as its main themes: first, it examines the production and dissemination of images in time of war, especially the changing conditions from the vietnam era to the present. Images made by photojournalists, both as prints and as published in magazines and newspapers, are shown alongside presentations of online image displays, either on screen or made into wall-bound objects. memory of fire will also illumine through an examination of the media the conditions of conflict, imperialism and expropriation, historically and into the present. By taking in views of the different sides of the various conflicts, radically different perspectives will emerge. memory of fire seeks to frame and inform new imagery with old, and vice versa. In looking at historical imagery alongside the photography of current wars, the biennial elicits intimations of the collective and individual memory of such images, their forgetting and revision, and their rebirth at times of crisis and war. finally, the Biennial looks at the place of the art world in the production of images of conflict, particularly the making of large-scale images of destruction on the scale of the history paintings of old (and like them sometimes commissioned by the state).”

matter and memory

2 moscow biennale of contemporary art / art center winzavod / 3 march 2007 — 1 april 2007
the title “matter & memory” refers to the well-known work by henry bergson which came into this world at the turn of the 20th century. today, when art once again encounters key issues of self-reproduction and the reinvention of its own principles under conditions of a sharply changing reality, young artists feel that the future can emerge from the unused possibilities of the past. if there is no better world beyond discourse networks, this does not mean that it is impossible to imagine one on a kind of nano-level: between artistic communities, in the relations of the artist towards their environment, in the simple acts of human communication. “matter & memory” is a step towards network interface that contains personal blogs as well as public forums: activity in a present time and an intense search for what perhaps later will become the future past of the present.