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020 Issue # 11/11 : PublIc Issues
85 New Wave (1980 — 1990) 7
Reality diverges slightly from the accounts of the former
curators and organizers. The china/Avant-Garde exhibition
in the National Art Museum included over 200 Chinese
artists from different groups, like the Northern Art Group
founded in 1985 by Wang Guangyi, Shu Qun, Ren Jian and Liu
Yan among others, or the southern Artists salon, or indeed
Xiamen Dada. Other participants were artists or groups
from the organizers' social circles.
The 85 New Wave can be seen as an extensive mass movement,
initiated through the people, intellectuals, and students.
It no longer bore any kind of relation to the Cultural
Revolution. As more information on modern and contemporary
art was obtained from abroad, cultural ideologies and
activities experienced an unprecedented development. The 85
New Wave was a potent and democratic movement, a huge cul-
tural trend that had sprung up in all provinces and cities.
It concluded with Tang Song and Xiao Lu's perfor-mance
Two Gunshots Fired at the Installation: A Dialogue, which
marked the end of the china/Avant-Garde exhibition in 1989
(Berghuis, 2006). Its effect was not only the termination
of communication between the people and the government, it
can also be seen as a metaphor for the subsequent student
movements.
At the exhibition entitled '85 New Wave: The Birth of
Chinese Contemporary Art', curated by Fei Dawei at the end
of 2007, the movement was described as follows:
"The 85 New Wave was one of the most important
art movements in China's 20th century art history,
it created a new era, defeated the instrumen-
talism and monism of art and made the first step
for China's contemporary art. Many groundbreaking
works were also created during this period [...]."
The exhibition took place at the UCCA (Ullens Center for
Contemporary Art). Eighteen years have passed since its
exhibition at the National Art Museum in 1989. However, if
we compare the locations, the former represents the sacred
halls of China's institutionalized art, whereas the latter
is a private gallery in Beijing's 798 art district opened
by Guy Ullens and his wife.
Shanghai Biennale and Guangzhou Triennale (1996 — 2010)
The first Shanghai Biennale took place in 1996. Until the
second, it tried to cut into Chinese contemporary art, but
the effect was only very minimal. Neither exhibition is
mentioned in official reports. Most people learned about
the Biennale in 2000. Because of its international team of
curators and artists, its record-breaking expansive exhi-
bition space and media coverage, contemporary art reached
a level of extreme publicity. This directly influenced
the sudden increase of biennales across the country: one
after another Chengdu, Guizhou, Nanjing, and Guangzhou all
held biennales or triennales. The Guangzhou Triennale,
which started in 2002, is especially noteworthy as it made
the greatest contribution to improving the image of ex-
perimental art.
The absence of Western curators from the 2010 Shanghai
Biennale aligns to a certain extent with predicated future
trends. But the transfer of Wang Huangsheng from the
Guangdong Museum of Art to the CAFA Art Museum (Museum of
China Central Academy of Fine Arts) might spell the end of
the Guangzhou Triennale. At the same time, however, bien-
nales and triennales across the country are continuously
being founded and disappearing again, so no clear tendency
is visible. Moreover, these developments directly affect
the government's understanding of contemporary art.
7
On the 85 New
Wave, see http://
www.artspeakchina.
org/mediawiki/
index.php. The New
Wave Movement of
the mid-1980s was
a continuation
of the past era.
It was based
almost entirely on
the theories,
conceptual ideas,
and visions of
Western modernism.
It consisted of
regional, folklo-
ristic art
groupings that
mobilized a
national modernist
art movement on an
unprecedented
scale. Some of the
noteworthy groups
with a certain
kind of continuity,
size, and
theoretical
approach were the
Northern Art
Group, the Jiangsu
Neo-Primitivism
Group, the Red
Brigade (Nanjing),
the Pond Society
(Hangzhou), Xiamen
Dada, Tribe·Tribe
(Wuhan), and the
Southwest Art
Research Group.
8
See the Beijing
Art Zone map at
http://www.ionly.
com.cn/nbo/news
info3/200708291/
1635091.html.
Yuanmingyuan, Songzhuang, East Village, 798 Art Zone,
Caochangdi, and other art districts (1984 — 2010)
Yuanmingyuan artist village came into being in 1984, pro-
viding a home to several hundred art pioneers. Especially
after 1989, this area developed into a meeting place for
artists, poets, writers, stage and documentary directors,
until the forced eviction of the whole area in 1995. After-
wards most of the artists scattered around Beijing and
moved to places like Huajiadi, Songzhuang, Mudanyuan, Tong-
xian, just to name a few.
Around 1993, the East Village, which was located in today's
Eastern part of the Third Ring Road, turned into an im-
portant location for performance art (see Annex). Ma Liuming
and Zhang Huan's live performance Dialogue with Gilbert
and George in 1993 foreboded for one thing Chinese contemporary
art's future relation to the world; for another,
it showed in a certain sense a continuity with the china/
Avant-Garde of 1989, as both took place in the National
Art Museum, that is, the sacred halls of Chinese institutionalized
art. Unfortunately, the East Village only ex-
isted for two years before it was banned by the government.
As for Songzhuang, due to its remote location, which is an
estimated 30 minute drive from the district town of Tong-
zhou, the two thousand resident artists have managed to
create a stable working and living environment that still
exists today.
798 was discovered in 2002, whereupon artists gradually
started to move there. In 2003, it was almost demolished
due to reconstruction plans of the local administration.
From 2003 to 2006, while continuously accommodating
artists and galleries, the question of the area's future
demolition and renovation were still on the table. In
2008, 798 became a government promoted trendy art district,
which eventually turned into an important location for the
official creative industry. Only thereafter was its ex-
istence secured.
With the opening of UCCA in 2007, people took notice of
the arrival of foreign funds, while at the same time
Chinese contemporary art reached its second peak upon
entering the auction markets. Through its location next to
Huajiadi art district and the CAFA, 798 naturally expanded
in a northeastern direction, assimilating the villages and
creating today's Caochangdi and Huantie (circular railway)
art districts and also a bit further away, the Feijiacun
Artist Village, as well as the 1 Art Base and Beijing 318
Art Garden among others. 8
All these art districts, studios, galleries, and private
museums provided enough exhibition space, technical and