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| An Interview with Professor Wu Hung |
| By Lynn Zhang |
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 u Hung is a distinguished professor of art history at the University of Chicago. He is also the author of two remarkable books about Chinese contemporary art, "Transience: Chinese Experimental Art at the end of the Twentieth Century" and "Remaking Beijing: Tiananmen Square and the Creation of a Political Space," both published by the University of Chicago Press. While he specializes in ancient Chinese art, he is also active in modern art and resumed his position as the Chief Curator of the 6th Gwangju Biennale in 2006. In this interview, Professor Hung takes issue with the concept that there is something called Chinese contemporary art, but he also says that art from China deserves all the attention it has been getting -- and more. Here are the answers Professor Hung gave to questions posed recently by Lynn Zhang, publisher of ArtZineChina.com.
ArtZineChina: There is so much focus on the prices of art today, but what do you think are the main themes of Chinese contemporary art since the 1990s?
 Wu Hung: When I traveled to foreign countries, many people asked me about the prices; the organizers of this year’s Asian Art Expo and the editors of art magazines all asked me about it. I believe, prices and markets, including auctions, galleries, and the rapid rising prices, all these are issues different from the art itself. They’re the market. The operation systems of all economies should have something to do with art, but they’re not directly related to the development, the content, the style and other aspects of art. And in terms of professional areas, whether the price is proper, and how about its future prospect, all these should be in the study area of economists, not in the area of art critics and art historians, and I’m not a market analyst. (Laughs)
ArtZineChina: What are the big differences between the 1980s and the 1990s in the art world?
Wu Hung: One was the idealistic and modernistic movement of a whole group that evolved into more independent, individual and small-sized groups. And a direct correlation of the interactions between content, style and society had developed out of the mode of the development. The second was affected by globalization, which began to develop into a prevailing trend since 1992 or 1993. There were numerous aspects of that, including business aspects, exhibition issues, development trends of artists, and others. There were many artists emerging, such as Huang Yongping, Cai Guoqiang, Xu Bing and Gu Wenda, who all left China and went abroad, but their practices overseas were closely related to domestic traditions.
 Another very important issue is this: since the 1990s, art critics and organizers have attached more and more importance to the issue of establishing a system, unlike the active forums in 1980s, where all people were concerned with philosophical issues. In the 1990s, people were occupied with very concrete issues, such as carrying out art market operations, the first Guangzhou Triennial, the conditions for contemporary art to survive in China, and other things.
Then, there came new-style art museums and independent curators; contemporary art made its debut in art museums and contemporary art curators got involved in the development of art museums, etc. Art districts developed first at Yuanming Garden, then at East Village, at Song Village, and finally at the 798.
Generally, since 1990s the changing art has involved several different systems. As for art works themselves, the Cynical Realism, New Media and others we frequently talked about haven’t changed much.
ArtZineChina: Have the art themes changed much in the past six years?
Wu Hung: After the year 2000, art itself as a whole hasn’t changed a lot, but when coming to specific artists, they have undergone some individual changes in style. The general change represented as the final success of the efforts to establish a system, which was begun in the middle of 1990s; the success was symbolized by the disappearance of the “exotic” status of contemporary art, from perspectives of both the official recognition and the commercial success. Since the year 2000, the whole art system has grown increasingly mature – such as the development of galleries and auction systems, and the changes in recent years are represented more in these areas.
ArtZineChina: How do you think artists in China integrated into global art world? I mean, are they simply blending a little of the east with west ideas or creating something new?
Wu Hung: In my view this is a “pseudo question”; it’s misconceived out of the little idea of the history. I believe the so-called “blending the east with west ideas” is somewhat misused, because westerners are ready to imagine China as an oriental country that was separate from the world until very recently. Of course China in the “Cultural Revolution” period was in such a state, but China had actually been trying to get in touch with the outside world since the early 20th century when the May Fourth Movement and the practice of sending students to study abroad were carried out. With respect to artists, some integrated elements of the west with Chinese tradition in their works; it was indeed his individual experiment on art. To a greater extent, Chinese artists have always had a global vision; Chinese contemporary art has been set in a global background from the outset, and it has grown out of a global atmosphere, so it didn’t use a language and method different from that of the world. Of course I mean it with respect to contemporary art.
Another question is whether Chinese artists have achieved the highest level in world art scenes. Domestic and foreign critics hold different opinions. Foreign critics know more of Huang Yongping, Cai Guoqiang, Xu Bing and Gu Wenda, who are regarded as world-rank accordingly; domestic critics and curators have more ideas of domestic artists, so there would be different focuses and opinions.
ArtZineChina: Is there anything that sets Chinese artists apart from the modern artists in the rest of the world?
Wu Hung: The major factors should be artists’ growing environment and background.
Because the earliest generation of artists went through the “Cultural Revolution,” they would acquire a bit different ideas and experiences; moreover, most of them received their education and training in a college education system, and that would result in their differences. On the contrary, younger artists would depart farther and farther from older tradition. Because of stronger new art waves and globalization trends they have come closer to world trends, popular cultures and urban cultures. But anyway, due to regional differences such as the difference between foods, traditional cultures and languages, the rapid economic growth and consumer culture in large Chinese cities differ from those in large cities of western countries, we can still distinguish Chinese artists from those in western countries. In general, I believe it’s the constant change of Chinese society, culture, history and education in the past 30 years that has brought about the difference between Chinese and foreign artists.
ArtZineChina: What are seen as the message behind the art?
Wu Hung: I majored in history; a feature of history is we shouldn’t make sweeping generalizations about anything, and usually we start from the specific characteristics of something.
Westerners never begin with a group when doing research on art but do studies of individual artists and draw an outline or trend based on individual cases of a few artists. However, when studying Chinese art, they usually focus on a general phenomenon, and individual artists have vanished. It’s very  strange. I think we should begin to study specific individual artists from now on; we shouldn’t begin with the phenomenon if we will make a complete study of contemporary Chinese art, that is, we should begin with individual artists. For the recent exhibition I planned I had interviewed more than 20 artists, and, as your website always focuses on individual artists, I believe what matters is the individual characters of specific artists, and it’s dangerous to turn them into concepts and abstractions.
ArtZineChina: Do you think Chinese contemporary art deserves all the attention it gets today?
Wu Hung: Absolutely yes, and it deserves more. But we would see what attention it is; I think it gets too much business attention; I also criticize “The New York Times” and other foreign media for their sheer concerns with business aspects and nothing else – they care only about how much money a work can sell. Of course it’s not a bad thing that someone pays attention to Chinese contemporary art, only it’s a very one-sided attention, attention to the price only and too little of other things. Nevertheless, many great western scholars are also doing art kind of work; some of them have got involved deeply in contemporary Chinese art. The problem is there are fewer channels to the understanding of Chinese art; the language problem has prevented these scholars from free use of resources in Chinese language, and it’s a great pity. My cooperation with MOMA to translate the original documents of Chinese art is just intended to remedy such a deficiency; it’s a deficiency in the course of history and it needs the remedy.
 ArtZineChina: You are a historian of Chinese art, can you tell us in the second half of the 20th century, who might be considered the greatest artists? Please give us some names.
Wu Hung: From 1950 up till now there are too many of them; I find it difficult to answer this question, but from the perspective of art history it includes numerous school of artists, like Li Keran, Lu Yanshao and Wu Zuoren in traditional Chinese painting scenes, and they’re critically important; there’s also Dong Xiwen who practiced realistic paintings, and though he’s not often talked about nowadays, he’s very important in art history. Then there’re artists like Xu Beihong who introduced western oil paintings to Chinese …
Actually it’s impossible to list only 10 greatest artists; there could be 50 to 100 of them.
ArtZineChina: While Chinese Avant-garde art is taking off, people also seem to be focusing on same of the giants of the late 20th century, like Zhao Wuji, Wu Guanzhong, Zhu Dequn, can you tell us their standing in the history?
Wu Hung: Like what I’ve said in my answers to the above question, these artists are really very important in art history. What’s more, different collectors’ tastes and different collecting systems are also involved in art collections.
ArtZineChina: Are you optimistic about the young Chinese artists coming up? Are you seeing things that excite you about the future of Chinese art?
 Wu Hung: To tell the truth, because I always stay in foreign countries I do not have much idea of this. To assess the newly rising artists you have to go to investigate in art colleges like what Feng Boyi is now doing. Moreover, from the perspective of art history you should examine their development in a relatively longer period of time, and you shouldn’t rush to a judgment on only one work you saw on a certain occasion. And due to the problems of the market, it’s hard to predict the future development of these newly rising artists. Will they soon find their way into the business and then quickly disappear? It’s hard to say. Besides, I believe it a danger to rush to create “masterpieces” – young artists today are too anxious and they’re always ready to produce great works without any solid foundations; it worries me very much, for no artist has ever turned a master after only a good sleep.
ArtZineChina: Finally, are there any projects you’re working on – curating, in the next year? Will you do anything special during the Olympics in Beijing?
Wu Hung: There’s a great project – a very large exhibition that will be held at the World Cultural Expo in Berlin in March of 2008, called “Re-imagination.” It’s a reflection upon Asian art, and, by extension, a reflection upon contemporary Chinese art. My conception is that it won’t do to ascribe a certain art to only one human culture; “Chinese art” has been a false wording actually … 
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