SHARING DIFFERENCE

Rice is the staple of Chinese people. “Xiang Dang,” Chapter 10 of The Analects, says: "Excess meat does not a winning meal make." This Confucian adage is meant to warn against consuming excess meat and no grains. While these words should be understood from a health perspective, they also allude to the Confucian ethical code and traditional culture of reverence because traditional agricultural society is founded on grain production and the ideal Confucian social establishment is based in the adherence and safeguard of stable ethics and social relations. One of the most obvious differences Westerners arriving in China notice is the staple food. Aside from physical characteristics, language, diet and various other cultural differences, staple food involves the most direct bodily experience. Given the course of China's rapid modernization, few elements whether in dress, diet or lifestyle, remain distinct from the West besides "food." Contemporary China is transitioning from an agricultural society to an industrial and post-industrial society. Eating habits, like written Chinese and its spoken dialects, have nonetheless maintained its traditional form.

Rice occupies a status that is more important than Western bread. It is an example of the difference between China and the West that can be experienced in daily life. Many works in this exhibit, which features 15 Austrian artists, derive directly from daily life experiences in China. For example, Ronald Kodritsch paints the pinyin for rice ("mifan") directly onto his very individualist painting, even making note of the tonal marks. Similarly, in another work, he paints the Chinese characters for beef noodles (“牛肉面”). The G.R.A.M. group presents a set of photographic works in which they appear with Chinese opera style face painting with different Chinese cities as backdrops. Like the artists’ Western facial features that are masked behind Chinese paint and camouflaged amidst Chinese spaces, the work seeks to reveal hidden and potential opportunities for cultural exchange behind and between cultures. While Michael Hoepfner’s work involves a deep and complex concept and process, the end result of his trip to Tibet is a seemingly straightforward set of travel photos depicting locals and tourism sites.

Ulrike Johannsen's piece makes use of the myriad selection of Chinese fashion magazines. Rainer Prohaska remodels and rides a three-wheel pedicab through the streets of Beijing. His interactions with locals during these rides offer a unique view and familiarization with real daily life. There are also the randomly “discovered” Chinese propaganda banners by Ralo Mayer, the “readymade” objects found by Karel Dudesek, the discarded playing cards collected by Kerstin von Gabain, the travel photographs shot with expired Polaroid film by Lukas Birk and more. These are all works created from the artists’ firsthand observations and experiences of everyday people and events in the same environment, China.

The artists also contrast, juxtapose, fuse and mix different cultural elements. The G.R.A.M. group's use of Chinese opera make-up is a direct contrast to Western facial features and contemporary attire. Ulrike Johannsen's piece juxtaposes Chinese song lyrics with Western advertisements found in fashion magazines. In “Chinese Whispers,” Matthias Meinharter and Nikolaus Gansterer “chain” painting originates with a Frida Khalo Self Portrait and gradually recesses or fuses into a series of commercially reproduced copies. Gerald Nestler and Sylvia Eckermann interviews based on Chinese and Western views on art, nature and environment. While the interviewees never meet each other, their responses are edited into one conversation that spans history, time and ideas of both cultures in what the artists refer to as a “paradox conversation.” Rainer Prohaska's pedicab mixes different socioeconomic attitudes on the issue of transportation. Jasmin Ladenhaufen contrasts and mixes the effect of turning a painting into real life fashion and back into a painting. European artists are sensitive to the concepts of time and space. The various meanings that derive from the start point, itinerary and end point often manifest in their works. Rainer Prohaska made accurate maps of his pedicab journeys across Beijing.

Michael Hoepfner documented the evolution of his thoughts and emotions throughout course of his Tibetan journey. Upon arriving in China, the G.R.A.M. group used dramatic make-up and physical displacement to emphasize both time and place. Dafen, a village in Shenzhen renowned for mass produced oil paintings, is the location of the work by Matthias Meinharter and Nikolaus Gansterer. Physical displacement is a significant element in Karel Dudesek's work. An object that is removed, replaced, or slightly altered takes on a new meaning.

Artists in China today, whether hailing from the West or the East, are producing under an increasingly global backdrop. The disappearance of tradition and rapid transformation in the environment, lifestyle and value systems have reached an alarming degree. The significance of temporal and spatial displacement in Lukas Birk's work is very apparent in this context. His photos distort the sense of time to explore and develop a reality that is hidden by the rapid changes currently underway. Kamen Stojanov's rap song takes a humorous approach to discovering the localism behind a backdrop of global economic trends. In the introduction of Michael Hoepfner’s work, he writes about the unique experience of walking into a historic space and confronting the predicament of a vanishing tradition along with the doubts raised towards development and progress. Ulrike Johannsen's standpoint toward magazine advertisements is clearly a critique of the clash between mainstream fashion and individualistic style. Despite the fact that Ronald Kodritsch's paint style is common among Chinese artists – something that has much to do with Western art education and exposure – his work possesses an individual flair dissimilar to most Chinese art that is often, invariably, burdened by social and historical changes. In "China Whispers," Matthias Meinharter and Nikolaus Gansterer use the example of a painting

factory to critique the global manufacturing chain and its various systems and manifestations such as the value of labor, manual labor, and cultural differences. Gerald Nestler and Sylvia Eckermann edit interviews conducted in a global format and context in an individual style. The works of Michael Hoepfner, Ralo Mayer and Rainer Prohaska challenge the notion of globalization by highlighting elements of labor and culture, particularly in outlying regions, that remain confined to the local.

Artists perpetually explore the meaning of art and new art forms. Artists who work extensively in physical formats are always sensitive to experiences that are different from their own cultural backgrounds. This form of confrontation and experience goes along with artists' process of the continuation, fulfillment, development and even transformation of artistic thinking. Matthias Meinharter and Nikolaus Gansterer use the concept of an error as a tool to explore and expose the ways in which various power structures use inherent and cultural traditions to condense and expose a hidden reality. As Rainer Prohaska's pedicab project developed, it became a vehicle for exchange and both a challenge to and an interpretation of reality. Given a context in which semantics fails, Ralo Mayer's banners find expression in sameness. Karel Dudesek finds and alters or displaces “readymade” objects as opposed to making or purchasing objects.

The works in this exhibition represent an array of experimentation and contemporary meaning. They reflect the artists' multi-faceted experiences and revelations during their stay in China – through direct bodily experience, food, spoken and written language, popular culture, place, daily life, cultural symbols, the exchange of thoughts and feelings, an exploration of an ideology and other themes. Chinese viewers can see the deepened sense of exchange and interaction in the works, as well as the more realistic and inherent meaning and influences they produce. Exchange is reciprocal. I hope that the Europe-bound Chinese artists can also express their experiences as colorfully and meaningfully to contribute to progress in human culture and development.

Oct, 2009