Synergy and Joint Authorship Through Socialism

Tamen, Paradise Lost No. 2, 2009

October was dedicated to finishing my thesis (titled: SYNERGY AND JOINT AUTHORSHIP THROUGH SOCIALISM: Exploring the Practices and Work of Post-Mao, Contemporary Chinese Artistic Collectives) and finishing up my masters program at Sotheby’s. The whole process was grueling/rewarding. I learned a lot about contemporary Chinese art, which was my initial aim and I got to research a lot of artworks that were outside of the parameters of my program’s basic curriculum. It was a great way to wrap up my grad school experience, although it was a bit draining at times.

Shao Yinong and Mu Chen, The Assembly Hall—Yangjialing, 2002

Here’s my abstract:

The trajectory of contemporary Chinese art has a drastically different arc than that of its Western counterparts. In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, artists working in China today are still attempting to reconcile their conceptions of identity in contemporaneity. There has been a persistent Western inclination to celebrate the artist as a “genius creator,” and praise the unique art object while condemning the copy. Since these capitalist notions, rooted in copyright law, previously had no basis in China, copying practices and the active embracement of a collective past have long been prominent in Chinese art. Using the art of contemporary Chinese collectives while comparing and contrasting their work and practices with those of both Russian collectives, coming from a similar socialist background, and Western collectives, this study examines the objectives of contemporary Chinese artists working—under joint authorship—through socialism in the context of our current state of late global capitalism.

Wang Guangyi, Coca Cola, from Great Criticism Series, 2004

The conclusion I reached was a bit grim, but it was basically (in a nutshell) that these contemporary Chinese artists were working as collectives in order to work through the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution and art making in tandem served a cathartic purpose AND that the art market is basically feeding into this singular, international monoculture. I framed my argument in the context of Chinese copyright law (China adapted its own version of Western copyright law in order to comply with the WTO so that it would be able to be admitted for trading purposes) and the Buddhist/Confucian views of the copy. I also argued against the concept of the artist as a genius, or some divine creator who creates singular art objects. In Buddhism, copying scripture gains one merit and copying practices, say for the sake of repetition of a mantra, are glorified. For Confucius, an individual’s awareness of this past was integral to understanding how to properly adhere to these fundamental relationships. That’s only scratching the surface of it all, but contact me if you’d actually like to hear more.