The Monograph Project, Band 4–6

PRELIMINARY NOTE
THE
MONOG APH
P OJECT 4
THE EDITOR
This is the fourth book in a series of six, which
altogether form one monograph, though it might
be surprising when looking at all issues. The monograph
is structured alongside key issues and key
projects the artist has done over the past eighteen
years. Formats, papers, covers, printing techniques,
and even the name of the artist change: from June
Young, Yang Jun, Tun Yang, Jan Jung to Yi Chuan,
and Jun Yang.
According to its general definition, a monograph is
a specialist work of writing on a single subject,
usually by a single author. This is only partly the
case here: the subject is indeed the work of Jun
Yang, it is overseen by one editor but many authors
contribute. At any rate, The Monograph Project is
not an overly ambitious monograph that celebrates
one artist’s work—on the contrary, it challenges the
genre of monographs, monographic and biographic
writing centred round the persona of one artist
and his oeuvre. By varying the name of Jun Yang
different artists are evoked. Monograph and bi -
o graphy turn themselves into subjects of examination.
Although different in content, format,
materiality, design, and—not to forget—the slightly
changing name of the artist, the single books are
interrelated: projects, aspects, and visual elements
are taken up time and again, reframed and rediscussed
from different angles. Gaps are deliberately
produced to keep the entire monograph as
fragmented and fragile as the issues related to it.
The concept for this and the other books has been
developed by Jun Yang and Barbara Steiner, and
translated into a visual format by Oliver Klimpel.
The monograph has been published in two parts,
with three volumes each, in 2015 and 2018.

I’m neither a political activist nor a social activist.
I am first and foremost an artist who nevertheless
wants to criticise, comment, and influence what
is going on in the world around me.
Of course as an artist, I hope that my work has an
impact. And I think, even if this sounds naive and
very romantic, this aspiration offers me — or maybe
all of us — a chance to dream and imagine how the
world could be, no matter how realistic our
considerations may seem in the here and now.
Imagining that art has an impact on the status quo
and makes the world around us a better place
drives me.
Jun Yang
2

3

12

JUN YANG:
WORKS p.16
WORKS IN PUBLIC SPACES p.58
UNREALISED PROJECTS p.78
BARBARA STEINER:
INDIVIDUAL MATTERS AND
SHARED CONCERNS p.86
CLAUDIA BÜTTNER:
ON CHANGES IN THE
CONCEPTION OF PUBLIC
SPACE, ART IN THE PUBLIC
SPACE, AND PUBLIC ART p.94
JEFF LEUNG:
CREATIVITY IN THE STREETS –
A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD p.102
13

HOLGER KUBE VENTURA:
AGAINST ART THEORY.
THE QUESTION OF THE
POLITICAL CHARACTER OF
ART p.108
MARTIN FRITZ:
FROM EATING AND DRINK­
ING TO SPEAKING OUT AND
TAKING ACTION! p.116
CREDITS p.122
BIOGRAPHIES p.124
14

15

2002 – 2004,
Video 4:3, 16 min. 33 sec.
Camouflage – LOOK like them – TALK like them is a story
about a person named X, who is an illegal Chinese
immigrant in Austria. The narrator (my own voice)
explains X’s constant fear of being caught and his efforts
to blend into the mass—thus to camouflage himself
to avoid being “visible” to the police and getting arrested.
The story was written in New York after the September
11 attack on the city, following newspaper articles about
how people who looked Arab were being singled out
and detained for seeming suspicious.
Camouflage deals with these visual codes and how
to read, misread, or manipulate them.
What is the purpose of your stay?
How long are you intending to stay?
What is your profession?
SCRIPT
In fact this time they asked:
Wo wohnen Sie?
Was ist der Grund für ihren Aufenthalt?
Wie lange haben Sie vor zu bleiben?
THE SCRIPTS
ARE PRESENTED HERE
IN THEIR ORIGINAL,
UNEDITED FORM.
this is routine
they check — to see whether I speak the language — according to my passport…
I got used to it already…
quite normal
quite routine…
I just arrived here a few days ago
a place, an atmosphere of paranoia or at least hyper sensitivity…
everybody becomes suspicious
everybody beyond the given standard
or because everybody fitting into a certain standard,
a certain image…
18

like in the airplane coming here
reading an article
an interview with a spokesman of the Muslim community
a lot of their members now cut their beard
women refraining from wearing head-scarf
all — to make their lives easier —
to avoid being stared at
or being suspicious…
daily the news reports similar cases
people arrested
innocents accused and insulted
Later that day I joined a dinner conversation with a few relatives
A: How long have you been here now?
B: more than ten years…
A: Aren’t you eligible for citizenship then?
B: Well — I went there in fact… but then they asked me for this test…
I don’t speak any German. — didn’t understand anything — In the end
they told my daughter I should come again when my German is better.
So she got it — but how am I supposed to learn German now…
C: But why didn’t you send somebody else.
B: Yes now I think I should have…
C: Yes — what was his name again… — anyway — when they asked him
for the interview — You know what he did? He simply sent his friend
NEW YORK
a plane diverted
or
a suspicious looking actress taken into detention
she and a group of friends looked suspicious
the airplane gets escorted by two jets
the group of Indians are taken into questioning…
— They don’t recognize anything — anyway…
B: For them — all Chinese look the same...
The New York Times September 14th 2002
False Alarm in Florida
3 innocent medicine students detained;
Spiegel Magazine September 2002
all citizens under suspicion
German interior minister is thinking of new system registering
all foreigners…
This is short story on X — In fact his real name started with an X.
But in this case — X becomes the synonym for many in his situation…
X came the other saying:
X: can I ask you something…
Y: What is it?
X: I found this textbook.
Learning German …
But there wasn’t any cassette to it.
I was wondering whether you could perhaps read them out
and tape it …for me…
Y: Let me see…
I’ll see what I can do
All right?
X: Alright… thanks…
Ni HAO
Guten Tag
page 2
page 3
Wie geht es Ihnen?
Ni hao ma?
member of bomb squad searching their car,
after a woman said she had overhead the talk of terror attack…
X didn’t need to learn German for gaining Austrian citizenship —
he doesn’t even dare to think of something like citizenship.
X is illegal here… He doesn’t have any permission of residency.
He got smuggled into Austria.
For the Austrian government he does not exist — since he shouldn’t be
here anyway…
For the Chinese government he does not exist either — he shouldn’t
have left the country…
For X language was another means of survival
of fitting and disappearing
X was once caught
X was walking on the street — he saw a bus coming — so he rushed — to
catch it. In the same moment — a police car was passing by — they saw
him — they stopped him — wondering why he was running
He didn’t speak the language
He got taken into interrogation
Since he had no papers
no permission to stay
no passport
no identification papers
— nothing
he was illegal
19

2005,
Dual screen video, 4:3, 35 min.
Produced for The Experience of Art,
La Biennale di Venezia
VENICE
HERO – this is WE is a two-channel video installation that
explores the notion of nationalism in historical, cultural,
and political contexts. How are nations built, defined, and
symbolised? How do we know if we belong to them and
how do we express this feeling of belonging? What
characterises a great nation—is it history, people, culture,
cities, events, wealth, influence, achievements, heroes?
In HERO – this is WE, the flag is shown as a symbol
of national existence, pride, and self-identification. In par -
tic ular, the US flag serves as an example of how a group
of individuals uses a symbol to define itself as a “we”, and
how the prosperity, power, and self-confidence of that
group broaden the reach of that symbol.
The video is mainly composed of TV news footage,
showing mass gatherings of celebrations or protests
in the year leading to the Biennale exhibition—such as the
Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, the election of a new
Pope (Benedict XVI) in the Vatican, or the Orange
Revolution in the Ukraine. In one video, a voice-over
narrates a story about how China appropriates mass
media sources to illustrate the country’s rise. The second
video collects slow-motion footage of various scenes of
people waving their nation’s flag. These flags are rendered
white; thus, their affiliation and purpose are erased or
censored, blurring the meaning and distinction between
images of celebration and clips of protests.
HERO – this is WE was produced as a contribution to
the official exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2005.
This was the same year that the People’s Republic of
China officially took part as a nation for the first time,
thereby causing Taiwan’s contribution to be renamed as
a “special event” to the Biennale instead of being
featured in the nations’ section.
26

chapter 1
flags everywhere
everywhere i drive
everywhere i look
hanging from their windows
of private houses
apartment blocks
at entrances
in one’s garden
at the shopping mall
on street-corners
from the highway
in the middle of nowhere
or hanging from the highest buildings
everywhere
inescapable
inevitable
SCRIPT
china — with the difference there it was almost limited to structures
and channels connected to the government — this too started to
change —
here on the other hand — it seemed not just propaganda — but people
choose to display them privately — if this is something that the
chinese or any other country’s propaganda tried to achieve — i guess
it really worked here...
people seemed to have internalised the idea of the flag
if i would encounter almost the same number of flags in any other
country
— let us say in europe —
or just here in vienna
all of a sudden
— i would definitely be quite frightened
it would be quite intimidating
“reminiscence” — recalling images of the past...
what’s going on...
what’s going to happen...
there are, though, certain days where one can encounter this image
a day to show the flag
surrounded by red white blue
one is constantly confronted
in situations one wouldn’t associate it with
on numerous occasions
that most people don’t even pay attention
it is omnipresent and therefore becomes almost part of the landscape
it blends into the townscape
it becomes an empty phrase or decoration
belonging to
clinging to the flag
like clinging to an illustrated idea
— declaration to separate oneself from the other
defining oneself by stressing one’s symbol
exchanging the i with the we:
this is we
we are
in no other country in the western hemisphere have i encountered
that many flags
in fact, come to think of it, the only other country i have been to, that
displays flags in this number was china - the peoples republic of
on national holidays —
still even then it is quite restricted to public places, buildings
anything connected to the municipal or governmental
it is rare even then to see it on private homes
red, white, red banner fluttering in the wind
throughout town
city squares
from poles in the park
from windows
and rooftops
in fact there is one particular day in the year i remember since i was little
each year on may 1 st the austrian social democratic party organizes
a march — demonstrating, walking from each district’s
headquarters — to the city hall — where all flags meet
red flags flowing down the streets accompanied by... (music)
since i didn’t really live my life according to the austrian calendar or
somehow didn’t really pay attention to it — or didn’t really understand
what holidays were —
i always forgot until early morning when i got woken up by the distant
sound of the brass band coming closer
i happen to live on the street the parade passes by
27

2008,
Iron stand, tinned iron letters with paint
Five red Chinese characters, which are made
of metal and mounted on a frame, resemble ad ­
ver tising slogans that can be found on top of
high-rise apartment complexes. These phrases
use the same rhetoric and aesthetics as
propaganda slogans across China.
Tomorrow will be even better was produced
as part of the Paris Syndrome series of works
in Guangzhou 2008.
40

GUANGZHOU
41

Chinatown Graz was created at the invitation of the art
space , when Graz—Austria’s second biggest
city—was European Capital of Culture in 2003. A Chinese
gate, which seemingly marks the entrances of a Chinatown,
serves as a sign of a global city where Chinatowns
have become popular tourist destinations.
The gate stood on a traffic junction in an ethnically
mixed neighbourhood, facing drivers on their way to the
inner city. The gate sits on a “non-place”—and either
announces something to come or recalls what’s left from
a different time.
Yet, on closer inspection not only was the location
of the gate misleading, but the gate itself was also rather
unreal. It had only one right side, which faced those
entering the city; the back was completely black like
a theatre prop. Usually symmetric, the gate was missing
a dragonhead on one of the pillars. Moreover, it was out
of proportion and a bit too small. In fact, it was a piece
of decoration taken from the former entrance to a Chinese
restaurant my family once owned.
2003,
Gate, public space in Graz
Produced with the exhibition space for the
exhibition Real Utopia on the occasion of Graz 2003 —
Cultural Capital of Europe
Temporary installation
GRAZ
60

61

82

83

1 Claudia Büttner, “On Changes in the Conception of Public Space, Art
in Public Space, and Public Art”, in this book, p. 101.
2 Holger Kube Ventura, “Against Art Theory: The Question of the Political
Character of Art”, in this book, p. 115.
Volume 4 looks into Jun Yang’s “political projects”. The
works in this book cover a broad range of subjects:
xenophobia (Camouflage – LOOK like them – TALK like them,
Camouflage: X-Guide); nationalism in historical, cultural,
and political contexts (HERO – this is WE); gentrification
(A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow will be even better); Chinese
hegemonic power in the East China Sea (Phantom Island);
historical and recent revolutions (Revolutions); and China’s
one-child policy (The Center of the World). Moreover, they
examine all of Yang’s realised and unrealised projects in
public space, by addressing topics such as commonality
(Things we have in common, Unser Haus), collective remembrance
and memory politics (White Light 1 , Ivy
Soldier, When trees grow together), and the possibilities
of living together (Landschaften). Thus, this book spans
social, political, economic, and communal issues under
the umbrella “political”.
The question of whether an artwork is or can be political
continues to stir heated debates. Yet, there is not one answer
to this question and Volume 4 illustrates this quite
well. The contributions in this volume examine ongoing
debates about autonomous versus political art, various
notions of public space, and the role art institutions play /
could play in this connection. In her text, “On Changes
in the Conception of Public Space, Art in Public Space,
and Public Art”, Claudia Büttner considers how the
public sphere has been transformed from an idealised
space for everyone, to an increasingly segmented, fragmented
space, and how artists have responded to
these developments. She sees some danger in the fact
that the “[public] institution and its private counterpart
are hardly distinguishable from one another” and is
convinced that “basically, everything is dependent on
utilisation interests and financial power.” 1 In “Against Art
Theory: The Question of the Political Char acter of Art”,
Holger Kube Ventura addresses the role of art theory
in attributing features of “political” or “non-political” to
art and artists. In his view, “theories on art and political
art generalise and instrumentalise… They have nothing
to do with the question of what a specific political /
artistic practice in a specific context has generated (or
could generate).” 2 To him the “either / or” situation (the
distinction of political / non-political) “exists exclusively
in theory — certainly not in the practice of any kind of art
and not in the everyday running of any kind of institution
3 Ibid.
4 Jeff Leung, “Creativity in the Streets: A Double-Edged Sword”,
in this book, p. 107.
5 Martin Fritz, “From Eating and Drinking to Speaking Out and Taking
Action!”, in this book, p. 121.
6 Ibid.
7 Yang, “On Plural Singularities and Singular Pluralities: Jun Yang
in Conversation with Barbara Steiner”, Volume 5, p. 89.
within the art scene.” 3 This is exactly what Jeff Leung
and Martin Fritz focus on in their contributions: the
practice of artists. In “Creativity in the Streets: A Double-
Edged Sword”, Leung explores — as the title already
suggests — the ambiguity of artists’ works in the streets,
which can be easily lost: “The government and bus ­
inesses have jumped on the bandwagon of promoting
creativity on the streets, turning it into an urban renewal
strategy and encouraging the flow of people… it could
also become a community bulldozer, encouraging more
intensified gentrification.” 4 In this regard, his considerations
meet with those of Claudia Büttner. In “From
Eating and Drink ing to Speaking Out and Taking Action!”
Martin Fritz looks into institutions of contemporary art
and “how artistic critique within the structures of the
institution and the expansion of the institutional space
have finally led to self-organisation and activism.” 5 He
concludes that “the artistic approach to the institutions
in one’s own field is always linked with the necessity
to leave one’s ‘own’ places behind and search for new
constellations and new alliances, in order to discover
new ways of attain ing sustainable social effectiveness.” 6
The four authors essentially describe a discursive field
in which Jun Yang’s practice can be located. The artist
himself introduces contextual information of the works
featured in the book, describing the circumstances of
creation and providing background knowledge.
When Yang started his artistic career, he worked with
his body and voice to explore the world around him, to
scrutinise his relationship to what was next to him in a
physical way. For Yang, “it was a statement, a search, it
almost amounted to finding a position within an artistic
and social context.” 7 It is actually the relationship of
subject and society that has driven him over the years,
even if the emphasis has shifted from his persona to
collective subjects; the works in this book can be seen
against this background. In HERO – this is WE 2 , Yang
looks into nationalism or how nations are built, de fined,
and symbolised; he asks what creates the feelings of
belonging and how this is expressed. It is no coinci ­
dence that Yang conceived this two-channel video
for the Venice Biennale’s international section, which
1
2
90

8 Phantom Island is another video, in which Yang addressed China claiming
hegemonic power, the role it plays in the “islands dispute” in the East China
Sea, and its relationship to Taiwan. See, Yang, in this book, p. 41.
9 Yang, “On Plural Singularities and Singular Pluralities: Jun Yang
in Conversation with Barbara Steiner”, Volume 5, p. 376.
10 Ibid.
complements the national pavilions. With his contribution,
the artist responded both to the concept of the Biennale
still being based on the representation of nations, de spite
all of the criticism, and to the first official participation
of the People’s Republic of China as a nation. For his
two-channel video, Yang used TV news footage that
depicted mass gatherings of celebrations or protests in
the year leading to the Biennale — such as the Athens
2004 Summer Olympics, the election of a new Pope
(Benedict XVI) in the Vatican, or the Orange Revolution in
the Ukraine. One channel shows these scenes combined
with a voice-over, which narrates how China appropriates
mass media in order to serve the country’s rise. 8 The
other channel mainly depicts flags, some of which were
taken from the same scenes but rendered white (kind
of censored) and set in slow motion. There is no sound.
The use of footage runs through the artist’s work: in his
early videos, it helped to distance him from the expectations
connected to his persona and to deliberately
complicate notions of authenticity attached to artistic
creation. Later, Yang primarily used footage to extend
his narratives and to weave them into the wider sociopolitical
realm. In Camouflage – LOOK like them – TALK
like them, Yang’s story around X — written in New York
after the September 11 attack on the city — is accompanied
by news coverage that addresses the suspicion
and paranoiac feelings about people who look different.
It seems consequential that the artist has recently extended
the use of footage to Google searches, while
further pursuing his interest in migration, discrimination,
and social exclusion. In Becoming European or How I grew
up with Wiener Schnitzel , 9 3 the image track is entirely
composed of Google search hits after entering key words
such as “migration”, “refugee crisis”, or “Chinese” — terms
that also all appear in the story written and told by Yang.
Film footage of recent uprisings and protests are also
used in The Center of the World 4 . With this, Yang connects
the individual story of the Chinese protagonist to
political struggles in Greece, the USA, scenes of unrest
in China (Xinjiang) and Hong Kong — i.e. scenes in which
control fails and ruptures in the social fabric emerge.
With this film, Yang digs into China’s one-child policy
and the pressure this generation is facing both from their
families and from society. He pays particular attention
to moments when social bonds disappear and agree ­
ments are about to dissolve — in Yang’s words, “I am interested
in the point at which there is a break in society,
when the ‘us’ begins to waver.” 10 This is also expressed
in the making of the film, because it does not provide
perfect and glossy images, but instead captures moments
when seemingly perfect images begin to slip out
of place. Not by chance, the artist chose an actor who
usually works in the field of television advertising 5 . In
Yang’s film, however, he was asked to play scenes in volving
doubt, sorrow, interiorisation, and reflection — thus,
a character that stands very much in contrast to his
successful media image. From The Center of the World
it is just a small step to Paris Syndrome, A Better Tomorrow
and Tomorrow will be even better — works that look into
promises of social change, the dream of advancement,
the craving for a better life, and the unsettledness that
accompanies disappointment.
What happens when social agreements are completely
abandoned is run through in Revolutions 6 , an animated
film that is presented as both a single-channel projection
and as an interactive installation. It evolves along three
episodes: in the first, the revolution succeeds, in the
second the revolution is being crushed, and in the third
the revolution ends in commodification. Even if Yang does
not use film footage this time, he integrates audio footage
from the Tiananmen Square protests, the Gwangju
Upris ing in 1980, the Arab Spring in 2010, and the 2011
England riots. He also references scenes of historic
uprisings such as Eugene Delacroix’s painting Liberty
Leading the People of the 1830 French Revolution;
the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue during the
Iraq invasion in 2003; and the erection of the Goddess
of Liberty statue or the image of the Tank Man, both
connected to the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. In
the interactive installation, Yang places the viewer in the
midst of the events and turns him or her into a partic ­
ipant playing through historical and at that time
current events. The brutal reality cannot be tuned out
and repressed; it unavoidably slips in time and again
through the audio footage and the visual memory of the
participants in equal measure.
The question of how and where individual and social
agendas collide and how and where they can meet
connects all of Yang’s projects. The meeting of social
3
4 5
91

VENICE
in one’s garden
at the shopping mall
on street-corners
from the highway
in the middle of nowhere
or hanging from the highest buildings
— i would de
it would be q
“reminiscenc
what’s going
what’s going
everywhere
inescapable
inevitable
there are, tho
a day to show
surrounded by red white blue
one is constantly confronted
in situations one wouldn’t associate it with
on numerous occasions
that most people don’t even pay attention
it is omnipresent and therefore becomes almost part of the landscape
it blends into the townscape
it becomes an empty phrase or decoration
belonging to
clinging to the flag
like clinging to an illustrated idea
on national h
still even the
anything con
it is rare even
red, white, re
throughout t
city squares
from poles in
from window
and rooftops
in fact there i
— declaration to separate oneself from the other
defining oneself by stressing one’s symbol
exchanging the i with the we:
this is we
we are
in no other country in the western hemisphere have i encountered
The Question o
that many flags
in fact, come to think of it, the only other country i have been to, that
displays flags in this number was china - the peoples republic of
each year on
a march — de
headquarters
red flags flow
since i didn’t
somehow did
what holiday
i always forgo
sound of the
i happen to l
Political Charac
108

on seller in Kabul. The
t of hope; the vendor
ormalcy” to the children
g for me, because
Afghanistan and other
e current media context.
HOLGER KUBE VENTURA
44
f the
ter of Art
109

118
From Eating and

a’an opened in late 2003. In terms of scale, it wa
ger venue of a bar/club in the basement—the ra’a
the ra’an project was more ambitious. We were in
space that would be accessible for twenty-four ho
and incorporate various functions of day and nig
café, a take-away, a restaurant, a bar, a club.
With its vicinity to Vienna’s main university, ra’a
lunches and take-aways. For this purpose, we wa
take-away box that we had grown accustomed to
series and films (whenever there is somebody at h
she opens the fridge and grabs one of these Chin
boxes with something like fried noodles in it).
Drinking
MARTIN FRITZ
119

Jun Yang 楊 俊
Jun Yang believes in art as a critical voice.
Thus, as an artist he takes a stance on
socio-political issues and creates spaces
for dialogue with the world around him.
This approach has led to performances as
well as gastronomic and institutional
projects that engage directly in economic
and social issues. The range of his work
is extensive: realising gfzk garden and things
we have in common, which deal with the
question of public space versus private /
commercial spaces; co-founding restaurants
with his brother; and engaging directly in
social processes, such as in the founding
of Taipei Contemporary Art Center and his
contribution to DAM—a magazine on /
about/with Daein Art Market at the Gwangju
Biennial.
Barbara Steiner
Barbara Steiner is Director of Kunsthaus
Graz (Austria) and visiting professor for
Cultures of the Curatorial at the Academy
of Fine Arts Leipzig (Germany). In 2012 and
2013, she was artistic director of Europe
(to the power of) n , a transnational exhibition
series (London, Minsk, Łódź, Istanbul, Oslo,
Novi Sad, Brussels, San Sebastián, Beijing,
and Taipei), and from 2001 to 2011 director
of the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst
Leipzig (GfZK).
Besides monographs of artists, including
Jun Yang’s The Monograph Project, Steiner
has published a series of theme-related
books on topics such as the museum,
concepts of space, the relationship between
private and public, and art and the econ omy,
including: Possible Museums, with
Charles Esche, Cologne (2007); Spaces of
Negotiation, with as-if wienberlin (2010);
The Captured Museum (2011); Scenarios
about Europe (2012); Europe (to the power
of) n (2013); Superkilen (2014); and Creative
Infidelities (2016).
Barbara Steiner invited Jun Yang to show
Camouflage – LOOK like them – TALK like
them (2003) and Camouflage: X-Guide
(2004), on the occasion of There is no Place
like Home (2006), art in various public
places in Ludwigsburg (Germany). The
Center of the World (2013) was produced
as part of the Europe n project.
With Jun Yang, she carried out Café Paris
Syndrom (2007 – 2010), Hotel Paris
Syndrom (2011), and gfzk garden (2006).
Under the title, coming home – daily
structures of life – Version D00, Steiner
curated two single exhibitions with Yang at
the Kunst verein Wolfsburg (2000), and at
Museum of Contemporary Art Leipzig
(2001). Together, they published the book
Autobiography in Art in 2004, which was
preceded by the exhibition Writing
IDENTITY—On Autobiography in Art, also
at the Museum of Contem porary Art
Leipzig, (2003). As curators, they not only
collaborated on the autobiography project,
but also later on the occasion of Europe
(to the power of) n in 2012 and 2013.
Oliver Klimpel
is a designer, writer, and lecturer based in
Berlin. Klimpel is interested in design as
a critical and hybrid practice, as well as its
overlaps with artistic methodologies. In
his work he reflects on the discourses of
publishing, display and interiors. He investigates
the means of visual culture that
constitute a public, and the roles that
ambiguous graphic languages can play in
cultural narratives and educational
situations.
Recently Klimpel has been examining the
potential of design in a productive reflection
of cultural institutions and the relationship
to “Institutional Critique”. Klimpel has
collaborated with the Taipei Contemporary
Art Center, leading to commissions for
a contribution to Artist Magazine (published
in Taiwan) and a sculptural work representing
the institution at the exhibition Declaration /
Documentation, Taipei Biennial 1996 – 2014
at Taipei Fine Art Museum, 2016 – 2017. He
is currently working on a group of
permanent display sculptures for the
Kunsthaus Graz, Austria.
From 2008 to 2015, Klimpel was Professor
for System-Design at the Academy of
Visual Arts Leipzig, Germany. In April 2017,
he was Guest Designer in the MFA’s low
residency program at the Vermont College
of Fine Art, US. Klimpel edited the book
The Visual Event—An Education in
Appearances (Spector Books, 2014);
initiated the artist book Super (2014),
a collective translation and appropriation of
a JG Ballard novel; and curated with Patrick
Müller and Marie Lautsch the subsequent
exhibition and performance event Welcome
to Eden-Olympia at KV Leipzig in 2016.
Before his work on The Monograph Project,
Klimpel had previously worked with Jun Yang
on the project Europe (to the power of) n —
which dealt with printed matter and displays
in the gallery space—at Vitamin Creative
Space in Beijing.
124

Claudia Büttner
Claudia Büttner is a historian, curator, and
consultant based in Munich. She primarily
conducts research for the Bundesamt
für Bauwesen und Raumordnung and since
2006 has carried out seven studies on art
in architecture commissioned by privatelyowned
companies and the Federal Republic.
In addition to her scientific research in the
field of art in architecture and in public
space, she works as a consultant for cities
and villages, art competitions, and advisory
boards—including KÖR Vienna since 2017—
focusing on the consistent involvement
of art in planning processes of urban design.
Focusing on art in public space, Büttner has
worked on a number of public art projects,
including Longings and Belongings in Santa
Fe, New Mexico (1993), Skulptur Projekte
Münster (1997), and Dreamcity (1999) in
Munich. From 1999 to 2003, she was head
of kunstprojekte_riem, a programme of art
projects for the urban development area
Messestadt in Munich, where she curated
twenty art projects, culture events, and
a symposium. Büttner was a lecturer in art
history at the University of Art and Design
in Linz (2002), Technical University in
Munich (1999), and Technical University in
Berlin (1990 – 95).
Her publications include kunstprojekte_
riem. Öffentliche Kunst für einen Münchner
Stadtteil (2004) and Art Goes Public.
Von der Gruppenausstellung im Freien zum
Projekt im nicht-institutionellen Raum (1997).
Jeff Leung 梁 展 峰
Jeff Leung is a curator based in Hong
Kong. With an enthusiasm for Hong Kong
art, Leung is engaged in presenting the
variety of Hong Kong art through
exhibitions in various public places. He is
currently an independent curator, after
having worked in the field of exhibition
administration at different art organisations.
These include the Hong Kong Arts Centre
and Para/Site Art Space, as well as
overseas projects such as the pavilion of
Para/Site Art Space at the Gwangju
Biennale (Korea 2002) and the Hong Kong
Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (Italy 2003).
In addition to curating exhibitions, Leung is
interested in the history of exhibitions and
in this context, he often writes about
exhibitions in Hong Kong for overseas art
magazines—e.g., LEAP (mainland China)
and ARTCO (Taiwan)—and regularly
contributes to local media. (online archive:
www.inmediahk.net/user/62484/post).
Leung has curated exhibitions of Hong Kong
art at various sites: C—Alternative Reading
—Exhibition of Artist Book (2005), in an
upstairs-bookstore; the inaugural art show
Arte Hiking (2010) at the K11 Art Mall;
and the portable Wearable Exhibition for
circulating in public (2012).
He was one of the authors for the
publication Does Europe Matter? and with
this, part of Jun Yang’s contribution to the
Europe (to the power of) n project.
Holger Kube Ventura
Holger Kube Ventura, a German curator
and art historian, is currently Artistic
Director of Kunsthalle Tübingen. He was
Director of Frankfurter Kunstverein
(2009 – 2014), Programme Coordinator of
German Federal Cultural Foundation
(2004 – 09), Director of Werkleitz
Gesellschaft (2001 – 2003), and before that
curator on the board of Kasseler Kunstverein.
Among his most important
exhibition projects are Kapitalströmung
(2017), Matters of Time (2014), Powerlessness,
a Situation (2013), Making History
(2012), On the Metaphor of Growth (2011),
The Inner Life of Things (2010), Notions of
the Artist (2009), 5 Werkleitz Biennial (2002),
Falster Versuchsgelände (1999), Sub Fiction
(1998) and Surfing Systems (1996). Kube
Ventura is the author of the reference book
Politische Kunst Begriffe (2002) and of
numerous papers in magazines and journals.
Since 2000, he has served on many
selection committees and been in charge of
various funding programmes.
Jun Yang’s coming home – daily structures
of life was shown at the Werkleitz Biennale
in 2002, for which Kube Ventura was the
director.
US-Letter
Each Book in the series JUN YANG—
THE MONOGRAPH PROJECT uses another
industry standard format.
This book is designed in the format US-Letter.
125

Martin Fritz
is the Rector of Merz Akademie, University
of Applied Art, Design and Media, Stuttgart,
Germany.
Martin Fritz previously worked as an
independent curator, consultant, and writer,
focusing on context studies, institutional
critique, site-specific art and the city, arts
management, and cultural politics. He
studied law in Vienna and started his career
in the arts as an organiser, curator, and
production manager for independent
projects in theatre, visual arts, and film. He
was Director of Operations and Director
of Program Planning for the reopening
of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (today:
MoMA PS1) in New York; Managing
Director of In Between, the art project of
EXPO 2000 in Hanover; and General
Coordinator of Manifesta 4—European
Biennial of Contemporary Art in Frankfurt
(Main). From 2004 to 2009, he was the
Director of the Festival of Regions,
a biennial for site-specific art and culture
in rural regions of Upper Austria.
As General-Coordinator of Manifesta 4
(Frankfurt/Main), Martin Fritz was involved
in showing Yang’s work Jun Yang and
Soldier Woods and from salariiman
to superman. Yang’s a contemporary art
centre, Taipei (a proposal) was presented
in Fritz’s exhibition Beziehungsarbeit—
Kunst und Institution at the Künstlerhaus
in Vienna in 2011.
Inez Templeton
is a freelance editor, translator, and book
reviewer based in Berlin. Her practice
includes clients such as Jovis Verlag, the
Friedrich- Ebert-Stiftung, Akademie der
bildenen Künste Wien, Bonner Zentrum für
Hochschullehre, and the Federal
Foundation of Baukultur. She holds a PhD
in Film and Media Studies from Stirling
University in Scotland, an MA in Media
Studies from New School University in New
York, and a BA in International Studies
and Economics from the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her recent book translations include Gift of
Cooperation, Mauss, and Pragmatism
(2015) by Prof Dr Frank Adloff, Open House
2: Design Criteria for a New Architecture
(2016) by Dr Florentine Sack, Baukultur
Report: City and Village 2016/2017 (2016) by
the Federal Foundation of Baukultur, and
Adventure Jerusalem (2017) by Prof Dieter
Vieweger. Books she has reviewed for
Popular Music (Cambridge University Press)
include Groove Music: The Art and Culture
of the Hip Hop DJ by Mark Katz, Go-Go
Live: The Musical Life and Death of a
Chocolate City by Natalie Hopkinson, and
Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll
and the Racial Imagination by Jack Hamilton
(upcoming).
Anna Gille
is a graphic designer and visual artist based
in Berlin. Together with Timo Hinze she
runs the studio Supercomputer, which
combines an artistic practice with graphic
design and web development. They work
mainly on projects and publications
for artists and art institutions, such as KW
Institute for Contemporary Art,
Brandenburgischer Kunstverein Potsdam,
ZKM Karlsruhe, and Museum der bildenden
Künste Leipzig. In the winter semester
2016 / 17, they taught at the Academy of
Visual Arts Leipzig.
In her artistic work, Gille is interested in the
dualism of nature and technology, construction
and organism, design and actuality.
In 2015, she published Die Übergänge
sind rätselhaft (The Transitions Are Puzzling,
Edition Taube), a book that collects some
of her drawings of various constructions
of nature, including gardens and parks, as
well as imagined or digitally generated
landscapes. In 2016 the book was selected
by Kaleid Editions London and was
acquired by The Museum of Modern Art.
US-Letter
JUN YANG—
THE MONOGRAPH PROJECT 4
Volume 4 – 6
ISBN 978-3-86859-367-9
126

15

2
One

The Monograph Project 5
— Preliminary Note —
This is the fifth book in a series of six, which
altogether form one monograph, though it
might be surprising when looking at all of
the issues. The monograph is structured
alongside key issues and key projects the
artist has done over the past eighteen
years. Form ats, papers, covers, printing
tech niques, and even the name of the artist
change: from June Young, Yang Jun, Tun
Yang, Jan Jung to Yi Chuan, and Jun Yang.
3

12

13

54

55

152

153

As I Saw, 1997 –
A series of performances in which one newspaper image was
chosen each day and recreated within the exhibition space
using that day’s newspapers. The entire process was visible;
after the image was finished I remained in the position of the
installation.
The first performances took place during the exhibition
Progetto Arte in Vienna with the newspaper Der Standard from
12 April to 8 May 1997. They were followed by several other
performances with other newspapers such as La Dépêche du
Midi in Cahors (1999), Le Parisien in Paris (2000), Wolfsburger
Allgemeine Zeitung in Wolfsburg (2000), Leipziger Volkszeitung
in Leipzig (2001), and the Svenska Dagbladet in Stockholm
(2002).
160

161

178

179

252

253

302

303

White Light, 2007 –
This is a series of light boxes that were originally produced for
the exhibition Platform 9 at the former South Korean defence
ministry building Kimusa; on each building/exhibition venue,
white advertising lights were installed on the outside, like a
“secret” code made of these signs. White Light is related to the
advertising lights of Taipei Contemporary Art Center of TCAC 1
and TCAC 2 (see The Monograph Project Volumes 2 and 3).
White Light is also permanently installed on the private house
+o House in Yokohama and on the building set in the film
Seoul Fiction.
340

341

a contemporary art centre, taipei (a proposal),
2008 –
The original series of posters was produced for the project,
a contemporary art centre, taipei (a proposal), at the Taipei
Biennial 2008 in English and Chinese. A new series was
produced for a project by Taipei Contemporary Art Center at the
Art space 3331 Arts Chiyoda in Tokyo and another for Chinese
Arts Centre for the Asia Triennial Manchester 2011.
348

349

Becoming European or
How I grew up with Wiener Schnitzel, 2015
A video in three chapters,
English version: 12 minutes 54 seconds
There are various versions of this work — the first one was
produced as a lecture performance in 2012 for the exhibition
series Europe (to the power of) n and had five chapters including
some material from Jun Yang and Soldier Woods. The visual
material also followed the style of the slide lecture performance.
The work was rewritten and changed to its “final” form as
a video in 2015. In this version, the images are mainly made of
keywords typed into Google’s image search and the respective
results. Depending on the language version and where the
video is shown, the Google search is repeated creating different
images and results.
Gálāzhí, 2016
This is a wallpaper and restaurant placemats with landmarks
of Graz, painted by the Chinese landscape ink painter Lin Jianxun.
These paintings are complemented by stories of the history
of the Chinese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese communities,
with a focus on the history of Chinese restaurants in the city.
The wallpaper was shown as the backdrop of the video
Becoming European or How I grew up with Wiener Schnitzel.
It was produced with the exhibition space as part of the
Steirischer Herbst 2016.
376

377

The Overview Perspective
or How to Disappear as an Artist
I think that, at the beginning of an art
career, catalogues have a particular
importance. They give one the feeling
of having accomplished something,
they are a seal to prove that one is a
real artist, that one’s work is important
in the world. I remember my first (3-
page) feature in a group exhibition
catalogue (Vienna Secession 1998).
I felt very excited as this was my first
international group exhibition in a
renowned art space. I had more of a
feeling of being formally acknowledged
as an artist than when I received my
art degree years later. The first longer
feature written on my work in an art
magazine made me quite proud. I think I
even bought ten copies of the issue. (*It
was in fact written by Andreas Spiegl
for Eikon magazine in 1999 – an author
who contributed to volume 5).
56

Even in today’s digital age, the printed catalogue
remains important; there is still the feeling that an
exhibition is incomplete without a catalogue. Today,
having worked on The Monograph Project, I am filled
with a sense of having wrapped up some of the past
works.
However, as a young artist, the chances of making a
catalogue are rather slim. There are various reasons
for this, such as budget, or the fact that one tends to
participate in group exhibitions or work with smaller
institutions. Later on in my career, when I had the
opportunity, I started to question the necessity
and the reasoning behind creating a catalogue. Too
often, the catalogue is something that accompanies
something else – an exhibition, an award, etc. It felt
as if the catalogue was the re-production of the
exhibition, the transfer of the white cube exhibition
spaces onto the white pages. They followed the
same logic of narration and representation that was
present in the exhibition space, and thus were often
designed in the same way. Besides, they were part of
the museum’s logic of publication, and not necessarily
a part of the artist’s working logic. For all those
reasons, I have seized the chance to produce my own
catalogue, which is a project in itself.
It was around the time when Barbara Steiner and I
were working on the book Autobiography with the
publisher Thames and Hudson. Originally, the book
was to be published in 2002. While working on it,
Barbara and I thought it would be interesting to
create an accompanying exhibition at the Museum of
Contemporary Art Leipzig (GfZK), of which she was
the director at that time. Our idea was to create an
exhibition with the same contents and structure, but
this time the catalogue would come first. It would be
a reversal of the traditional situation – and therefore
one could perhaps deal with the relationship between
the space and the printed matter in a different way.
The exhibition had the same title, and was scheduled
for June 2003. Unfortunately, after we had finished
editing the book, the printing was greatly delayed, and
Autobiography in Art, 2013
Museum of Contemporary Art
Leipzig (GfZK), Leipzig
Curating and exhibition design
together with Barbara Steiner
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