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randian: The section you organized \u201cArmory Focus: China\u201d will present 17 galleries and works by 20 artists, and a lot of them have had shows at UCCA where you\u2019re the director. On which principles did you select these artists?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Phil Tinari<\/strong>: No, not at all. In this show about half of the galleries are delivering specifically solo presentations because it\u2019s younger artists from what we might call the \u201cOn\/Off\u201d generation. And the other half are doing two, three or even four artist presentations that hint at different trends or different moments in this 35 year long story of contemporary China. So it was about striking a balance between those two. In terms of the actual galleries, they do decide that they want to be there and they do assume a huge fee as they do for any fair. It was really a very mutually selecting process. I made the rounds to the usual suspects amongst our friends and long-time collaborators. There are some who felt, for whatever reason, that it wasn\u2019t right for them to do this show, and there were a few that came over. But the nice thing about it was that it wasn\u2019t really a selection process in the way that Art Basel is, where 900 applications are sorted by a committee that\u2019s been to China twice. It was really more like a dialogue process of seeking out the galleries and either saying \u201cI think this part of your program would be very interesting to take to New York,\u201d or in some cases me thinking I would like to see these artists there and seeing if they are willing to play ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n randian: What aspects of Chinese contemporary art do you think these artists illustrate or represent?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n PT<\/strong>: Among these younger artists\u2014He Xiangyu, Li Shurui, Zhao Yao, Lu Pingyuan and Liang Shuo\u2014I think you see a sensibility that I\u2019ve been very interested in lately, which is art that speaks to a Chinese situation and conditions but doesn\u2019t actually look Chinese on the surface. That\u2019s I think a defining method for this younger generation, the so-called \u201cOn\/Off\u201d generation. I have also included work that goes back to some moments from earlier in history, so for example 10 Chancery Lane Gallery is doing a booth that puts Wang Keping and He An [together] and Huang Rui also, who will present a group of paintings from the mid-80s\u2014some abstractions based on the geometries of courtyard houses that have never been shown before. So that\u2019s two key figures from the Stars. And Meg Maggio is doing a three-man presentation of Wang Luyang, Chen Shaoxiong and Zhao Liang, which is looking back to the new analysts and post-sense-sensibility. Or what Osage is doing, which is a Northern Salon of painters from Dongbei [Northeast China] and Northern China for example, who are taking that idea of a sort of updated socialist realism in different directions\u2014and that display will also rotate. So, I hope that different threads will be visible from socialist realism and its academic systems to various avant-garde movements that have happened after different points in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, to the advent of very real-time, present work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n randian: As this is your first director job, in what ways is your experience at UCCA shaping your understanding of Chinese art, and what are the challenges so far?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n PT<\/strong>: Coming from this institutional place now, I see it very differently from when I was editing a magazine. Simply because magazines are looking for things to laugh at and make fun of or cast a critical light on, and then when you are on the other side you are trying to build things that can at least stand up for a little while. So yes, as we\u2019ve done different shows and had to work indirectly with these different galleries. You just get a better and deeper understanding of where the overall ecology is\u2026Many of these artists for the Armory have [had] shows at UCCA at one point or another in some way or form, and so this sort of becomes a report on the work we\u2019ve been doing at UCCA\u2014of course mediated through the galleries, but, you know, it\u2019s the same artists. To bring it to New York in this necessarily quick manner is exciting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by \u4f5c\u8005\uff1aRan Dian \u71c3\u70b9 translated by \u8bd1\uff1aF … Continue reading