Post-Sense Sensibility as a method

Our imaginary foe of the first "Post-Sense Sensibility" exhibition was the notion of "conceptual art." We were averse to how this notion was taking precedence over everything else in the popular art practice. By showing-off your intelligence and knowledge to others, such practice led conceptual art to degrade itself into a kind of "idea art." To a great degree, this is merely a consequence of what the very terminology of "conceptual art" implicates. This term leads our attention to the content of the concept, rather than to the on-the-spot experience of art. Therefore, not only did we oppose bad conceptual art, we fought against "conceptual art" itself. Furthermore, we opposed every art form which had been bestowed in the name of art: the worship of the banal, the worship of extreme simplicity, the worship of the trivial, the worship of seriousness and the worship of humor, to name a few. This time, in the "Post-Sense Sensibility -Spree-," what we ultimately opposed was the concept of "exhibition" itself..... As for the question of how this whole project came about, I can only answer by saying I did not wish it to be perceived as an exhibition, neither did I wish it to become a directed play.

When we gathered to plan this event, it was originally scheduled for November during the Shanghai Biennial in either Beijing or Shanghai. However, we did not wish it to become one of many other additions to the periphery exhibitions happening at the perimeter of the Biennial. We also feared the following possibility: while some peripheral shows were trying to present art that stands outside of the establishment and proclaimed to be underground, progressive, and distinguishable from the conventional and main-stream art represented inside the Shanghai Museum, in our opinion, the exhibition form that they had adopted were still confined to the established system, with not much difference between the two. The exhibition we had originally planned for Shanghai would have been even more eccentric than the "Spree." Since our initial idea continued to develop more bizarrely, and began to lose much relationship with the tradition of exhibitions, we decided to let go of it.

Exhibitions are for showing to others. Two students taking the entrance exam for an art school, putting their works up outside the school gate and sharing their drawings to each other, this is an exhibition. Bringing a scroll or fan under the sunlight in our house, and putting them away neatly into a box afterwards, this is also an exhibition. No! People would say, none of these would count as an exhibition in a conventional sense. A formal exhibition is held in a rather spacious room to attract as many people as possible. The works are categorized into different genres, signed, and priced. In an exhibition catalogue, there is a brief summary of an artist 抯 biography, often accompanied by one or two articles. After an initial commotion by the mass-media, it is then followed by other reports and criticism. In case of an one-man show, it would be categorized systematically: based on the period, media or theme --xx series, yy series, and so on. This is precisely the exhibition format people are accustomed to. The history of such a system is actually much shorter than the history of art itself. It is merely two hundred years beginning in the Paris salon of the 19th century. Prior to the development of such an exhibition system, art possessed other effective ways. From a stained-glass window of a church, a song and dance in the midst of hard labor out in the fields, from inside a cliff deep in the mountains to a personal letter, we used to encounter art everywhere. When the master calligrapher from Qing dynasty, Liu Yan, was studying at the Shouchun School of Calligraphy in Shouzhou, he met a young man named Deng Shiru, and was astonished by his blooming talent. Unfortunately, being unfamiliar with the ways of working, this young genius lacked any means to find exposure to the real masterworks. Liu Yan then wrote a letter of reference and urged him to go visit the house of the major collector, Mei Miao, to widen the young one 抯 perspective. While spending half a year at Mei 抯 household, Deng Shiru incessantly copied the real masterpieces from their collection and became a master himself. ---This too is a type of art 抯 production system, but they have all sank into oblivion.

At least two things take place in a salon-style exhibition. One is the spatialization and materialization of creations, the other, the categorization of individuality under the rules of classification. When we think of Li Shi or He Xiaoqi, we connect the two of them as belonging to the same chain: a type of brush use, a new composition or methodology rather than simply appreciating their individual work of art. An object defines the style, and it becomes a sample of that style. Such a custom in understanding the work based on a certain style has completely penetrated us. What becomes most important here is the method and a set of rules established by that particular work. The House of the Emperor and the wealthy could posses materials, but they cannot "monopolize" the style, it is the particular form employed in a scroll itself that defines its dissemination. An overwhelming majority of literati never had a chance to see the real writing of the Er Wang (Wang xuzhi). By their period, "The Orchid Pavilion" was already sodden inside the tomb in Taizong, and yet, everyone used their brushstrokes to learn from the masterpiece. Under the salon system, an artist obtained space, a wall and a ground surface. He also became aware of the existence of other artists in the space. He began to try his best to define his creativity inside this given space. He started to hope that he will be the one to get the most attention. Based on the solutions deriving from comparison and calculations, he designed the work. To exhibit, especially with a conscious awareness of being exhibited together with other art works, turned into a primary prospect for creative activity. Perhaps one could say this developmental process became an inevitable middle link with the traditional method. After the exhibition, artworks are sold or result in earning the artist a reputation. Such an exhibition cannot avoid fostering a structure based on competition or perhaps working to aggravate the competitive mode of the traditional method. When you decorate a guest room, you have to make a decision of which painting to install on the largest wall and which to put on a less obvious place, you wish all the art works to work together in creating the appropriate ambiance for the space --- this slightly resembles the duty of a curator we see today. In the relationship between a curator and artworks, the curator needs to mutually contend with the rights and intentions of an artist. In today 抯 exhibition, if an artwork is placed in the most unnoticeable place the artist merely seeks to utilize this placement in turn to make oneself appear to be the most special. Competition cannot be avoided, because this type of art exchange has already been institutionalized to lay a concrete fixed straight track for the artists. By thinking of others consciously, and only wanting others to hold his perspective, an artist can no longer confront the inner mind of the self. They are competing with one another at different times with different things; at times whoever appears to be the smartest seems to be practicing the "conceptual art," at other times who appears the most crazy seems to be making "surreal art;" whoever seems to be the most cruel is creating....and so on...... As skyscrapers continue to go higher, the desire to outdo others continue to grow under this competitive system. Perhaps other systems could lead to other possibilities. The present exhibition system works only to foster this type of desire.

Exhibitions are taking place everywhere today. The number of works in an exhibition has also grown large. With such a development, when people go to look at artworks inside an exhibition space -- be it a gallery, a museum, an archive, or other alternative space--- the amount of time one spends in front of an artwork has become shorter. Hence, a competition to catch the attention of people has grown fierce. If every viewer is only able to stop in front of a work for five seconds, then it is within that initial five seconds that the viewer determines your success. Because of this, the artist mobilizes every possible means such as space, sound, and lights, so that these elements would work interactively to create an effective result. Therefore, an indissoluble bond exists between the exhibition system and the installation. It is the nullification of the contemporary exhibition that has nourished the contemporary installation of an exhibition. The original intention of installation was to arrange the display. The question is: if installation was only one among numerous other possible methods in art, why has it grown into such an over-valued and suppressing production and consumption model? Let 抯 say we have a calligraphy scroll in our house, we usually pay minimal attention to the calligraphy, paying a brief look either consciously or unconsciously from time to time, because if we take a moment to really stop and look at it, we would have to stop our lives temporarily. In the course of decades, however, this piece may have created an imperceptible change and may have effectively seeped into our lives. That did not happen within that initial encounter of five seconds. One time, I witnessed a video piece employing a complex camera work in an exhibition. People could not watch it from beginning to the end, hence such boring video piece with mere repetitive lens work turned into the winner in the exhibition. In the contemporary exhibition system, the previously mentioned type of art (exemplified in the scroll) has lost its ground and is completely overlooked. For the sake of such art, and also for other kinds of art that bear the same pressure, we have to call the current exhibition system in question. Furthermore, the relationship between the artists were never this tense historically. A creator in the ancient times did not even desire to hold a signatory right. Under a clear and bright sky of late spring, they would sit on the river bank for a calligraphy gathering. They exchanged rhymes and verses. We must possess other ways of playing a game aside from the exhibition.

Because the competition has become this furious, people make strenuous efforts to be remembered. We have begun to take measures similar to advertisements to manipulate and calculate the responses of the audience. Aside from the "hardware" of an exhibition, such as an exhibition space and a catalogue publication, the "software" of an exhibition also developed: you need to repeat that particular image or that medium, and you even need to repeat showing that particular piece so that it becomes your competitive product (trademark). Your developments have to take place within a recognizable degree. Then you could earn a unique label, finally ready to be compiled neatly into the pages of art criticism and history. Your label has to be simple and neat enough to be readable by the cashier at a supermarket, and to be priced and to be purchased. Such knowledge has already been innumerably passed down to our young artists by the successful forerunners. A kind of self-exposition consciousness has been internalized at last. We see a clear relationship between the contemporary exhibition system and capitalism in this current situation.

As the contemporary model for exhibitions was contaminated by capitalism, its relationship with colonialism is also dubious. We have to bear in mind that the times when the salon-style exhibition came into being exactly coincided with the most vicious period of colonialism. The Queen had to display the glory of the empire to her people. She assembled materials and cultural products from her extensive colonies: Hong Kong, India, Filippine, North America and Australia, to hold a world exposition. At the same time, there emerged the disciplines of modern linguistic studies and cultural anthropology, so that the research and assemblage of experiences in other cultures could be presented and stored neatly under the system of Western-centered mainstream culture ---- today 抯 international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennial, was precisely born out of the model of world expositions. The act of plundering in the colonies built the foundation of the modern museum system, and it became the primary location for generating a model for exhibitions. While there have been international shows with themes that have set cultural pluralism clearly as their theme, going as far as pronouncing its counteraction towards the Western-centered paradigm, nonetheless its flavor of colonialism is inherent in the institutionalized system it is built upon, hence it cannot be changed by the hands of a considerate and conscientious curator. Even if that person is colored or even if this type of exhibition takes place in former colonies such as South Africa or Shanghai, it cannot be changed.

The evil of the contemporary exhibition system and the authoritative new-colonialism represented by the international exhibition has cast a vast dark shadow on art in China. This is obvious to everyone. Hence we began to seek for an alternative model, nonetheless to say, a difficult task. Perhaps many might call our "Spree" as nothing but an exhibition after all-----to that I can only respond by saying I feel ashamed and I send you my best wishes in finding a better alternative to replace ours.

We know that we ourselves have also been deeply poisoned by the contemporary exhibition system. To escape from its power in taking advantage of our position, we decided to set the rules of the game so that the course of action will transcend even the realm of our imagination. Once the situation loses its control, our encounter changes its nature as well. We are no longer spurting along the fixed track heading toward the same goal, our directions will have possibilities for change. Every one of us is creating a junction for others, while we also encounter obstacles and junctions laid by others. We have confronted all kinds of undulatory terrain while we groped in the darkness. In our "fork-in-the-road" style Spree, we did not negate any proposals, nor did we analyze any methods in addressing the whole significance of the event. We sensibly controlled mutual appreciation or repugnance, these were our efforts in seeking the uncontrollability in situations, and to make us not rely on our own value systems.

We are neither competitors, nor are we confederates sharing the same past. However we did strive to create a more fertile time relationship between each artwork: sometimes the continuous transitions worked like mirrors piled on top of one another, interlocking, turning, and reflecting from time to time, and stopping at moments to lighten or darken the black abyss that stands in-between. Most importantly, such relationships were not directed nor accurately planned, so we succeeded in avoiding it to turn it into mere play. No one could predict what was going to happen. With the exposed backstage, Spree developed into a whirlpool involving the audience. If we had confederates, there was no one else but our visitors themselves. They were told to enter the theater before 3 o 抍 lock in the afternoon, the entrance door was closed at 3 o 抍 lock. The TV monitor outside the entrance was the only means to report what was happening inside. Such a design worked to divide the audiences into two hierarchical groups, thus adding more layers to the possible responses from a single occurrence.

iu Zhijie: The main characteristic of the event was its resistance against the completion of works. I myself cannot even acknowledge whether I have made a few pieces of art work during the event, or if they count as one piece together. The degree of everyone's work permeating and interlocking with each other was so great that we have no way of narrating them separately. No appropriate themes could be bestowed either. However, this particular point only becomes critical when the moment comes to label the documentation photographs on various media in the aftermath of the event. The music by Zhou Ren was always there throughout the whole developing process of every situation, now and then running the show, and thus making the myriad of changes taking place simultaneously feel very strange. His music intensified the shade of fiction, like the writings on the pages of picture books. Fiction was another important aspect. The use of hired laborers and volunteers were all meant to play with this type of fiction. Props were not only exposed beforehand, they were all left behind in the scene afterwards. Once it started, Wu Ershan's hung pig, Shi Qing's torturing equipment, Wang Wei's swing, my paper lanterns, always remained on the scene. Liu even hung back the clothes stripped off from the performers, and Zhang Hui smashed his fake head into pieces at the end. We completely did away with curtain falls, leading the objects in the scene to accumulate, further reinforcing the impossibility of repeating or rewinding the event once it began.

This kind of spree can only happen once. This enables the performance to no longer keep its purity {???????This is very confusing when translated into English....I think I understand what you 抮 e saying, but people would think you are trying to say the opposite, or I wonder if I translated it wrong?} Is fiction which can only happen once still fiction? Fiction that can only happen once is the very fiction of reality itself.