Daily Blog
Saturday, 29 May 2010 07:05
Written by JFK Miller

---

"You never know the boundaries until you cross them"

These sage words are from the curator of Shanghai's OV Gallery in Shaoxing Lu, which now holds the dubious distinction of the first forced closure of an art gallery in the city since 2000.

OV's 'Re-visioning History' exhibition was shut down yesterday by the Culture Bureau. Not just the exhibition, but the whole gallery. Shuttered. Locked down. Closed. There is no word on when the gallery will be allowed to reopen, but OV management hopes it will be within a few weeks.

Now, I saw the show on its opening night. It is a small exhibition (OV is not a huge gallery), and features the works of nine artists, notably Ren Hong and Zhang Dali, both based in Beijing. The rest were a mix of foreign and local artists. One of the reasons given by the Culture Bureau for the closure is that the gallery did not have a license to exhibit these foreign artists. But, of course, this happens in every gallery without any detrimental effect when there is an innocuous show going on. A further reason given by the bureau is that the gallery was selling catalogs without a license. But, again, this seems like small beer. So what was it about this exhibition that the authorities found so offensive? In a word: History.

This exhibition challenged the official CCP view of history. As the exhibition’s promotional material states: "'Re-visioning History' seeks… to look at how history is written, taught and consumed." I suppose it did not help to have the word ‘history’ in the exhibition title; a literal red rag to a very bullish Culture Bureau which is particularly sensitive during Expo time when Shanghai is on show to the world. Ren Hong - who for me was the showpiece of the exhibition - has taken Cultural Revolution images and overlaid them with intricate patterns (see above pic). The other headline artist, Zhang Dali, in a project entitled ‘Second History,’ has taken versions of photographs which were published in various print media throughout Chinese history, including the Cultural Revolution, and placed them alongside versions of the same photographs, which have been altered for propaganda purposes. Cult Rev art is nothing new. In fact, it's rather old hat. The Chinese are especially bored by it, even if we Westerners are not. But that did not stop the Culture Bureau seizing Zhang’s catalogs from OV. They also confiscated a print of one of the foreign artists, Shanghai-based Ben Houge, who uses video to capture the layering, erasing and re-construction of history.

To put the closure in perspective, as Shanghai-based art writer Lisa Movius points out, this is the first art censorship in Shanghai since works were removed from the ‘Made in Middle East' show at ShanghART nine months ago at the request of the Israeli Consulate working in tandem with the Culture Bureau. Movius, who has written about the art scene in Shanghai since the late 90s, says this is the first time in her recollection that an entire show has been shut down since 2006, and that the last time an entire gallery was closed down was Eastlink Gallery for Ai Weiwei’s now infamous ‘Fuck Off’ exhibition back in 2000.

Movius doubts whether there is any Expo connection since OV was allowed to exhibit a provocative Expo-critical show in January without incident. However, I do think the two things are linked. Expo is a showcase time for Shanghai and China, so the idea of a show that challenges the orthodox CCP view of history, particular one as sensitive as the Cultural Revolution, cannot be discounted. Leading credence to this theory is the efforts the authorities went to during Olympic year to close down other Cultural Revolution exhibitions, even ones are far away as New York.

< Prev		Next >