Shanghai: Yael Zhang in conversation with Don Gallery
She Performs is delighted to introduce our China correspondent, Yael Zhang, who sent us this report from Shanghai’s Art Week …
The sweet osmanthus is the scent of autumn in Shanghai. Every year when the wind blows out the last smell of the golden flowers and the temperature drops, that’s when the annual art week in Shanghai begins.
This year, led by two major art fairs - the West Bund and the Art021 - the annual Shanghai art week officially kicked off on Wednesday 10 November. It is a week of consecutive exhibition openings and duo-fairs happening in the city.
At the Art021 Fair entrance, forehead temperature checked, QR-code of health statement checked, and - finally - ticket checked, we are good to go.
COVID-19 seemed not to be able to stop the expansion of the art market in China. The scale of ART 021, which has attracted 114 galleries, from more than 18 countries and 43 cities, broke the record for number of exhibitors. Despite China’s strict travel regulations, many gallerists from Hong Kong and overseas chose to arrive in Shanghai more than two weeks before the art week to comply with quarantine rules. This year, local galleries have more presence.
In the fair, a great deal of impressive art caught my eyes, including the work of four women artists represented by Don Gallery.
It was a great pleasure for me to interview the gallerist Lai Yuyan from Don Gallery who spoke to me about their represented female artists and their works. The interview covered four Chinese women contemporary artists’ works currently exhibited. They all used very different artistic languages, and for this article, I picked two of them from distinct social-generational backgrounds – the 80s and the 50s – whose work might reflect the influence of their times.
Zhang Ruyi, Individual Plant (2018)
The first artist Zhang Ruyi, born in 1985, grew up in the digital age. Before Shanghai art week, her works have been featured in various major Chinese contemporary art institutions, including UCCA, RAM and Tank Shanghai. Her iconic ‘cactus put on the graph-paper patterned tiles’ has become her signature artwork. However, people totally missed that the inspiration was simply from her original habit of taking care of the green plant.
The truth is that there are not many stories told about the artists’ early career in China, especially when the social period then was a sensitive topic. The art world today celebrates how they are ‘politically correct’ about showing the ‘right’ gender ratio of artists. But the imbalance of gender under the contemporary art context in China still exists.
“[Zhang Ruyi] used ‘cactus’ as a portrait of herself as a female artist struggling in her early career and the whole society.”
Li Shan, Untitled (2006)
“The flowers actually showed a strong rebellious behavior”
The next artist, Li Shan, born in 1957, has been creating art since the 70s and as one of the young members at the 1970s Beijing-based avant-garde art group, No-name Painters, played a vital role in contemporary art development in China. As shown in the photograph below, Li Shan seemed to be one of the only three female artists in the group.
No Name Painters (Source: douban.com)
Of Li Shan’s Untitled (2006), Yuyan said, ‘This [painting] seems to have this very gentle and feminine theme with the flowers. However, by the time the artist was creating this artwork, it was the mainstream of socialist propaganda in 1970s China. The flowers actually showed a strong rebellious behavior.’
A self-taught artist, growing up in a turbulent social period in modern China, Shan has experienced from wild to gentle. As time has gone by, those flowers turned their controversial accent to a daily life theme today. However, the stories behind are forever hidden in the painting and under her sensitive touches.
Speaking of gender representation in the Chinese art world, Lai Yuyan says, ‘The whole world is focusing more and more on female artists, and we actually today have four Chinese female artists presented here among all eight, it’s 50%. It must have been a coincidence … Or maybe it is because of our gallery founder, who is a female herself. She might find that the communication went easier. We did not pay attention to the gender but the artist’s skill and their accomplishments.’
Thanks Lai Yuyan and Don Gallery for their precious time during the busy period of the art fair.
SP Contributor Yael Zhang
Yael Zhang is a curator & art advisor at a private museum, currently based in Shanghai, China.
Photo credits: Courtesy of the author unless otherwise stated.
