Apartment Art 公寓艺术
From ArtSpeak China (ASC) Wiki
Apartment Art emerged in China in the early 1990s in response to the legal restrictions placed on artistic exhibitions in 1989, when conceptual artists had little choice but to retreat to secluded and private spaces to practice their art. The term, coined by art curator Gao Minglu, is now a widely-recognized artistic movement which came to embody the anti-mass-consumer materialization of modern art and culture.
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[edit] Who
Artists who participated in the Apartment Art movement include Xiao Lu, Song Dong, Yin Xiuzhen, and Qiu Zhijie.
[edit] When
In February 1989, artist Xiao Lu transformed her installation, Dialogue, into a performance piece when she fired a gun into a mirror. In response to Xiao’s bold performance, the authorities quickly closed the government-sanctioned avant-garde art exhibition at the National Gallery of Beijing where Dialogue was exhibited. This event marked the beginning of tighter restrictions on social, cultural, and political arenas of contemporary life in China.
[edit] Where
Apartment Art originated in Beijing, but spread to other cultural centers in China throughout the 1990s.
[edit] What
Acclaimed curator and founder of Apartment Art, Gao Minglu, says the movement was made up of “art that responded to the moment, the condition of making art in the early 1990s in China.”[1] What began with artists transforming their apartments and homes into private galleries to compensate for the lack of commercial gallery support, resulted in a full-blown underground art movement. In addition to restricted space, artists were limited to the materials readily available to them. What resulted was a “Dada-influenced movement” that “relied on ready-made objects, performances and Zen Buddhism.”[2]
[edit] Art
Because of the limitation of space and materials, these apartment-confined works of art were small in scale, as well as audience. The small audience that was involved, consisting of primarily the artists themselves, spread news of “exhibitions” via postcard announcements, sent only to those involved in the Apartment Art scene. Because of its intimate nature, Apartment Art inevitably began to reject the commercial art market and instead dealt with the private world in which they worked. Because of its inherent opposition to the mass-consumer materialization of modern culture, Apartment Art generally consisted of unmarketable artworks made from found objects and temporary performances or installations.
[edit] Exhibition & Reception
Had it not been for Gao Minglu, who began to actively track the work of Apartment Artists in the early 1990s, the underground movement may have gone completely unnoticed to the greater art world. However, with his attention to the movement, it has come to be considered among the most important and radical of contemporary Chinese art. Gao has curated exhibitions as well as directed a symposium on Apartment Art.
[edit] References
http://smallswordsmagazine.com/articles/image/apartmentart.html
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cityguide/2008-10/24/content_7138771.htm
http://www.artresearchcenter.org/NewsDetailsEnglish.asp?ID=12
