Illusion and Bubble

Contemporary Tibetan Art I
May 18 - July 31, 2020
Illusion And Bubble: Contemporary Tibetan Art Group Exhibition I - Curated by Gade

Gade 嘎德(b. 1971), Landscape 风景, 2016, acrylic on canvas, cloisonne, 17 3/4 x 39 3/8 inches (45 x 100 cm)

Contemporary Tibetan art has gradually entered the international horizon since 2000, and every exhibition, whether large or small, is constantly refreshing and reshaping the outside world’s stereotype views on Tibetan art.  When coming to understanding Tibetan art, people generally think it refers to Thangkas and traditional Buddhist arts. By the Tibetan artists’ rising, the public are slowly improving their perceptions on Tibetan art, their hypothetical modifications on Tibetan land, culture and people, and narrative perspectives by the others.

 

The development of modern and contemporary Tibetan art can be divided into four stages. The first stage, from the beginning of 1950s, was the celebration of the slaves(serfs) feudalism’s liberation and the socialist constructions. The artistic conception mainly focused on revolutionary historical subjects, which people was the master. The second stage, from 1980s, was after the Cultural Revolution and opening of China. The production of the arts focused on the Tibetan local customs, the polar wasteland, the purity and the devotion from Tibetan people. The third stage, from 1990s to 2000s, began with the description of the oriental mysticism on Tibet as the land of Shangri-La (Shambala). In the fourth stage, since 2000s, with the acceleration of globalization and the popularization of internet, local Tibetan artists have gained more opportunities to exhibit, exchange and learn at home and abroad. This opening greatly expanded the artists’ horizons. Simultaneously, the artists paid more attention on the innovation and transformation of their own ethnic arts. They hope to express Tibet by their own perspectives instead of being expressed by the others. The artistic expression forms are diversified. The artists got rid of traditional medium expressions, such as Chinese ink, oil painting, prints and engraving, to begin making installations, performance art, earth art, conceptual photography, new media art and the other various art forms.

 

Gendu Choephel Contemporary Art Collective was founded in 2013, its significance lies not only in new art forms, which has been introduced before, but also in the cultural awakening of local artists. Gendu Choephel Contemporary Art Collective focus on the relationship between the overall cultural situation and individual lives.  They start to express contemporary Tibetan art in the global vision of the cultural interconnectedness. During this period, contemporary Tibetan art no longer played the role of painting an exotic culture but embarked on a widely participation in mainstream international and domestic exhibitions such as La Biennale di Venezia, Biennale of Sydney, Dojima River Biennale (Japan), Art Basel and more. International and domestic studies of contemporary Tibetan art, in monographs, articles and papers have reached more than dozens. It means that the contemporary Tibetan art dominated by the mainland artists’ expression is transforming into the expressions by native Tibetan artists.  This opens up a new era – a new age led by Tibetan ethic modern and contemporary artists. 

 

New generation Tibetan artists wish to introduce the traditional Tibetan visual languages within the context of contemporary art. They continuously activating the long-disrupted traditional Tibetan artistic mother tongue system.  They realize that the sources of any ethnic art developments come from its own rooted cultural heritage.  Therefore, contemporary Tibetan art shall not be considered as copies of western contemporary art.  In fact, it has its own language and value systems.  This is not to advocate the ethnicization of art. 

 

Nineteen Century European intellectuals and artists established the modernism, that was, each person as a member of his/her own nation and ethnicity. Use the British artist, as an example, his cultural idealism does not limit to his own cultural identity, but rather as a British national to create a new culture for mankind. What matters is not that the English’s contribution in culture and arts with British characteristics, but their creation of human culture. Only the universal human culture is created by the British, and its glory belongs to the British nation.

 

Similarly, today we shall create an interconnected culture, rather than each nation doing its own characteristic culture, and we shall avoid narrow nationalism.  On a macro level, the nation has its own cultural identity, but the culture is not fixed and born with it.  The culture is constantly changing and evolving to solve problems in reality. Thus, the emphasis on the distinct native language expression is not to emphasize the national character, but to express a culture in diversity under the universal framework of the world culture as an entirety.

 

I understand contemporary art is the “true presentation,” to express one’s own experience and cultural situation. Take Tibet as an example. What is Tibet? Everyone has different views and various experiences. However, the various answers constitute a real Tibet.  Tibet is not just limited to the "blue sky and white clouds", or "snow-capped mountain and grassland".  Besides, after our generation has undergone the disruption and discontinuation of language, writing, history and culture, our expression is unilateral and fragmented.  In this sense, no one can express Tibet. One only can express one’s personal narratives and views. Fortunately, artists are capable of using arts to enlighten and awake people so that they can make free choices. Contemporary art offers a vehicle for Tibetan young artists to approach reality as closely as possible, to experience the daily life, to show life, and to enlighten the mind and follow the heart within.

 

We are introducing eleven artists in this exhibition.  Most artists were born in the 1980s and 1990s, with a few were born in the 1970s. They are the youngest generation and the most active Tibetan contemporary artists in Tibet. As a whole, their works always focus on the relationship between the social changes in contemporary Tibet and their own personal situations, as well as their anxieties about their own cultures and environments.  They constantly reconciling the tensions between the tradition and the modernity, and the conflicts between the religious belief and the social reality. Especially in the context of the great era of the social and economic transformation, changes in secularism and globalization sweeping, every artist lives in Tibet is going through an unprecedented soul changes and belief conversions.

 

Tibetan artists are not confined to use easel paintings, but they also involve in installations, conceptual photograph and video arts.  Tibetan artists’ creative environments and conditions are still extremely difficult. They have to raise funds and establish their own art groups to support each other and keep warm.  Most of the participating artists are from Bocun Contemporary Art Group. They continuously holding self-funded exhibitions every year at their own art space. The group is the only and still active private contemporary art group in today’s Tibet, under the situation which is lacking market and lacking any government or other supports.

 

I often compare the artists, who engage in the contemporary art in Tibet, to Don Quixote, who fought the windmills with a spear. They dream that the art can make differences.  But the real situation usually pulls them back to the reality.  Although the direction of efforts is deviated from reality, they don’t want to compromise.

 

The name of the exhibition, “Illusion and Bubble”, originates from the scripture of Diamond Sutra: “All phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble and a shadow; they like a dew and a lightning. Thus, should you meditate upon them”.  Using the phrase of dreams and bubbles to reflect the state of the contemporary Tibetan art is the most appropriate description.  There has never been an era as dreamy as today, our lives are progressively depending on the virtual internet, where we gain awareness, produce and record history. Perhaps two thousand years later, when historians study our generations, the internet is the giant transparent medium. The trivial or remarkable records of the virtual world will be like the bubbles suspend over this era. When something is erased from the virtual world, maybe it is its historical demise. Perhaps the world we live in, the dream we persist and the art we create are just a dream bubble from the beginning to the end.

 

Gade 嘎德
April 9, 2020

《梦幻与泡影 - 西藏当代艺术 I 》文/嘎德 Gade

Gade 嘎德(b. 1971), Landscape 风景, 2016, acrylic on canvas, cloisonne, 17 3/4 x 39 3/8 inches (45 x 100 cm)

        西藏当代艺术从2000年开始逐渐进入国际视野,每一场大大小小的展览,都在不断刷新改变外界对西藏艺术的固有看法,比如普遍认为西藏艺术就是唐卡及佛教艺术的看法。随着藏族当代艺术家群体的崛起,也逐渐在改变公众对西藏艺术的以往的认知。即对西藏风土人情的外在假想式的修饰及他者化的表述视角。


       西藏近当代艺术发展历程可以分为四个阶段,第一个阶段:从50年代起开始的歌颂翻身农奴解放,社会主义建设,人民当家作主人的革命历史题材为主导的艺术理念。第二个阶段:80年代改革开放后,西藏乡土风情、极地荒原、纯净与虔诚等的描述。第三个阶段:90年代至2000年的对西藏香格里拉式的东方神秘主义描述。第四阶段:2000年至今,随着全球化进程加快、互联网普及,西藏本土艺术家有更多的机会去国际国内参展、交流、学习,大大拓展了视野。同时也更加注重本民族艺术的创新与变革。他们希望用自己的视角来表达西藏,而非"他者"的视角。同时艺术表现形式上多元,脱离国油版雕及布画单一的表现手法,开始运用装置艺术、行为艺术、大地艺术、观念摄影、影像艺术、新媒体艺术等各类型艺术形式表达。根敦群培当代艺术群体于2013年成立,其意义不仅仅是用新的艺术形式而更重要的在于本土艺术家的文化觉醒。他们关注整体文化的处境与个人生活的关系。开始把西藏当代艺术放在全人类文化共建的视野下去表述。这一时期西藏当代艺术不再扮演一个异域文化的角色,开始广泛参与国际国内主流艺术的展示。比如威尼斯双年展、悉尼双年展、日本堂岛川双年展、巴塞尔艺术博览会等等。国际国内上研究西藏当代艺术的专著和论文已达几十篇。标志着之前由内地艺术家为主导的西藏现当代美术已经转向由本土艺术家特别是以藏族艺术家为主体时代的到来。


         新一代的西藏艺术家们希望将西藏传统艺术语言引入当代艺术的语境当中,不断激活中断已久的西藏艺术的母语体系。并认识到所有民族的艺术史的发展其根源于自身的文脉传承。所以西藏当代艺术不应该成为西方当代艺术的翻版。它有自身的语言系统及价值体系。但这并不是在提倡艺术的民族化。19世纪欧洲的知识分子和艺术家确立了一个很好的现代观念,即每个人作为所属的民族与国家的一员,比如他是一个英国艺术家,他的文化理想不是为了做本国的文化,而是作为一个英国这个民族创造人类的新文化,重要的不是英国人做英国特色的文化和艺术,而是创造人类的文化,只不过这个普适性的人类文化是由英国人创造的,它的荣誉归英国这个民族。同理,今天应该创造人类共通的文化,而不是每个民族做自己的特色文化,应避免变成狭隘的民族主义。宏观来看,民族是一种文化认同,然而文化不是固定不变的,与生俱来的,文化一直在解决现实问题而流变。所以注重母语表述并非强调民族性,而是在整体世界文化的普适性框架下的多元文化表达。


        我理解的当代艺术就是"真实呈现"。把自己所经历的状况和文化处境表达出来。比如西藏,什么是西藏,每个人都有不同的看法,每个人有着不同的经历,正是这些一个个的不同才组成了一个真实的西藏,而不仅限于表面看到的"蓝天白云”或"雪山草地"。何况我们这一代在经历过语言、文字以及历史文化上的断层后,表述也只是片面和碎片化的。从这意义上来说,谁都无法代表西藏,他只能代表他自己的个人表述。好在艺术家的工作可以用艺术来帮助人们思想启蒙与觉醒,以便可以做自由意志的选择。而当代艺术给西藏年轻艺术家提供了一个工具,用这样一种的方式尽可能地接近真实,体验日常,展现生活,启蒙心智并遵从内心。


      此次参展的11位艺术家,除个别生于70年代,大部分都是80后及90后艺术家,应该是目前活跃于西藏的最年轻的一代藏族当代艺术家,整体来看他们的作品,始终在关注当代西藏社会变迁及他们个人处境之间的关系。以及对自身文化与环境的焦虑。并在不断调和传统与现代,宗教信仰与现实社会的矛盾冲突。特别在社会经济大变革,世俗化进程及全球化席卷的大时代背景下,每一个生活于西藏的艺术家们都在经历前所未有的心灵变迁与信仰转换。手法上不止局限于架上绘画,装置、观念摄影、影像艺术都在尝试表达。然而他们的创作环境与艺术处境其实依然非常的艰辛,他们自筹资金,建立艺术团体,抱团取暖。本次参展艺术家大部分来自"博存当代艺术团体",他们坚持每年在他们自筹资金建立的艺术空间里举办展览,在缺乏艺术市场运作,又无任何资金扶持的状态下依然在坚持当代艺术的创作与展览,是目前整个西藏唯一依旧活跃的民间当代艺术团体。

 

        我总是把在西藏从事当代艺术的艺术家比喻成举着长矛与风车战斗的唐吉柯德,梦想着艺术能改变些什么,但真实情况却总将他们拉回现实,虽然努力过,但努力的方向都是与现实偏差,但又不愿妥协。就如同本次展览的标题,"梦幻与泡影",来自《金刚经》中的一段经文:"世间一切法如梦幻泡影,如露亦如电"。用梦幻与泡影映照西藏当代艺术的状态,是再恰当不过的。从来没有一个时代像今天这样梦幻,我们的生活越来越依赖虚拟的互联网。在虚拟中获得认知,生产和记录历史。也许两千年后的历史学家研究我们这一代人类的时候,互联网就是那个巨大的透明介质,那些虚拟世界中琐碎或重大的记录,如悬浮在这个时代上空的泡影。当一个事物在虚拟世界中被抹去,那也许就是它历史意义上的消亡。也许我们生活的世界,坚持的梦想,创造的艺术自始至终只是一场梦幻的泡影。

 

嘎德

2020年4月9日