Writing / research · 2023 · 中文
Review of Art Criticism of China in 20222022年艺术批评综述
一、艺术批评的缺失与新态
在近几年的艺术媒体中，总有关于“中国没有真正的艺术批评”的声音。2022年7月，一篇在公众号“fARTaround”匿名发表的文章《没有艺术批评，只有艺术软文》[1]被许多业内人士转发，作者以戏谑口吻点评中国艺术媒体的乱象——公式化套用学术理论，粗糙翻译国外评论，机构和画廊不接受批评，文本主要是为了满足市场需求，等等。与詹姆斯·埃尔金斯（James Elkins）在2003年发表的《艺术批评怎么了》（What Happened to Art Criticism）中哀叹的西方艺术批评文章成为展览惯例却少有严肃读者不同，这篇文章哀叹的是大陆地区的艺术批评写作者已经自行“摆烂”，也就是不生产真正内容，文本不成逻辑。
针对这篇文章，时任M+高级策展人的皮力在接受《艺术新闻中文版》采访时提出，中国艺术批评的衰落有几个特别的原因，其一是社交网络中的自媒体欠缺传统媒体的严格发稿流程而导致错误频出；其二是中国艺术媒体往往服务于艺术市场和画廊；其三，在传播生态方面，简中互联网生态以微信公众号而非网站为依托，但微信公众号并不适合系统、严肃的内容生产。不过他也指出，“艺术批评已死”这样每隔几年便会重回舆论场的题目，恰恰标志着艺术行业中总有新一代从业者对现有情况不满。至少人们还会不满，这便是积极的征兆。[2]
另外一边，2022年，研究者徐志君受邀担任《画刊》的客座编辑，辑录了一期特刊“艺术批评的回归”。徐志君观察到艺术批评近几年有一些“新的状态”。正如皮力所说的，对艺术批评发出不满声音的是新一代年轻的从业者，徐志君谈到，现在活跃的艺术批评写作者大多出生于1985年后，而且，不同于此前艺术批评大多由美术史论、美学哲学系科班出身的研究者持笔，新出现的写作者知识背景丰富多元，常有西方留学经历。徐志君也发现，不同于从前艺术批评主要围绕艺术形式和作品的美学特征，集中关注艺术家和其工作室内的工作，现在“写作者与写作对象的临时性相遇或素不相识是普遍的情况，写作的第一现场往往在各种展示空间。评论性写作与艺术实践的密切程度在减弱，同时写作中的研究性在增加；写作的性质越来越偏向于‘知识生产’”[3]。这样的写作正是有自发性的、离行业需求相对较远的批评性和思辨性（speculative）写作，写作者常常把当代艺术现场当作复合的文本和症候作为分析和再创作的材料。例如年轻的写作者张煜航解读香港艺术家李继忠基于日本占领东北时期的殖民经历而创作的文章《无限列车》[4]，并未对作品或者展览现场进行充分的描述，反而是一场以巴拉德“欲望机器”为底色、与艺术家作品同频的写作试验。
那么在2022年，艺术批评究竟是“已死”还是“回归”？回答这样的问题，需要我们重思“艺术批评”的所指。吕澎曾借寥内洛·文杜里（Lionello Venturi）的《艺术批评史》指出，任何艺术现象、写作现场、批评现象，都应放在特定的历史语境之中去理解。[5]而每个时代的艺术创作探讨的是当时当地的从事艺术的人们面对的具体问题，这赋予了当时的艺术批评以时代特征。比如吕澎谈到在20世纪70和80年代，艺术“批评的激烈性”“解决的是如何通过批评文章让一种新的艺术现象具有时代的合法地位”。[6]而在如今的中国大陆，艺术创作面临的是什么样的问题？在诸多媒介和形式已然获得合法性的情况下，艺术系统目前面临的最明显的问题是市场独大的畸形状态，但这一畸形却并非商业性画廊造成的，导致艺术批评缺位的原因也包括其他艺术语境、系统、个体的失声和萎缩。
在《没有艺术批评，只有艺术软文》中，作者直指大多数艺术媒体已经没有批评性写作的空间，因为画廊、机构都无法承受良性的批评，而与画廊、机构的关系则是媒体赖以维持生计的必要条件。更赤裸的原因则是写作者窘迫的生存境地。虽然随着1990年代艺术市场崛起、2000年代国内院校设立实验艺术系，早先的批评写作者迎来了更多发挥作用的机会，成为外国藏家和机构聘请的咨询专家，或是成为策展人、大学教师等，批评文章的话语权转化为具体生活保障，但今天艺术市场中的批评写作者（许多也是策展人）大多并没有独立于艺术市场和机构之外的长期经济收入，他们可能并不直接受雇于画廊或者私人美术馆，但其事业上升（例如未来成为某个机构总监）、收入增长，仰赖于与画廊、美术馆维持长期合作关系。作者在写作时常需小心翼翼，既要显露出写作者被期待拥有的独立、批判立场，又要照顾好各方人情。[7]在众所周知的内容审查之外，依靠言说生存者必须处理的是艺术生态内部黏稠的情态和加速简化的市场需求。更何况，“行业评论”本身便需要服从发布平台对内容的要求，对文章的体例、字数、语气等均有限制，以达成内容产品的稳定性。
主流生态如此情形下，有一些艺术实践者选择另辟蹊径，主动边缘化自己。徐志君在“艺术批评的回归”特辑中选择了几个艺术批评实践小组，如“夹山改梁”“空白艺论”“歧路批评”等。这些组织并未依靠主流美术馆和画廊生存。其中的写作者，有的是从实践出发，不得不写。比如陈逸飞说“夹山改梁”的写作是从自己感受到的一些压迫或困境出发的，“写作都是自己面临的、最想解决的、最想探索清楚的话题”。“夹山改梁”大部分内容的作者为陈逸飞、孙逸飞、方政，内容是他们对自己的艺术实践、到访过的艺术现场的介绍以及对西方理论的翻译。虽然少有外部作者，但他们的目标是生发出与主流不同的替代性生态。分享自己的创作、观点、所见所闻便是联通更多同道者的方式。2022年，他们刊发的内容更多的是自己和朋友的创作、展览、活动或者翻译，艺术评论较少。可以说，“夹山改梁”更希望透过传播，让更多人了解主流视野之外发生的事情。而像创立于2021年的“歧路批评”这样接受公开投稿的平台，则把“缩水的思考空间”当作一个社会性问题，认为不能依靠出类拔萃、拥有特权的个体去推动批评，而是希望推动更民主的艺术写作，“召唤没有被自我审查和自我怀疑压制的言说、更多共同的思考、更多对彼此的鼓励和提醒”[8]。（利益披露：笔者为“歧路批评”编辑团队的一员。）除了公众号之外，“歧路”也搭建了网站，以期协助中国大陆之外的读者。“歧路”在2022年开通了播客“夸夸歧谈”，围绕写作和展览进行更多的临场讨论。“空白艺论”的公众号由徐旷之在2013年设立，该公众号一开始刊发展览介绍和评论，后来将工作重心放到欧美艺术批评文献和理论的翻译，以及和国内评论从业者的访谈上，至2023年出版了五本合集。
其他值得留意的艺术批评的平台还有《黑齿》杂志、“岛聚daoju”和“I N G”公众号。《黑齿》[9]是创立于2020年的中英双语在线杂志，主要内容为艺术批评和论述。因为有美凯龙艺术中心的资助和艺术行业内富有经验的编辑担纲，《黑齿》甫一开始便显露出成熟面貌和广阔视野，每周更新一篇双语文章，以艺术批评和论述为主要形式。因为是双语杂志，《黑齿》可以邀请中外作者，并且开设了对e-flux上理论性文章的翻译专栏。《黑齿》刊发的文章有强烈的作者性，风格突出，偏向艺术化的写作。但很可惜，在2021年底，《黑齿》停止了更新，并未向外界透露原因。“岛聚”[10]则由万丰（Chris）在香港发起，主要以Instagram和网站作为平台，专注于以艺术评论记录香港艺术现场。“岛聚”广泛覆盖了香港的展览和现场，并且万丰本人的评论十分犀利。而编辑团队位于上海的“I N G”微信公众号从2022年7月开始频繁更新，其中也有许多不同作者对艺术展览的评论或者并非完全是评论文体的随想。
毋须讳言，如果以传统艺术批评从某个艺术现场或者艺术趋势出发，在描述、细读中提出作品或展览的新颖或者缺陷之处等这样的体例来衡量，在以上被提及的平台和实践里，能称得上“艺术批评”的文章也绝非多数。这些有关艺术现场的写作包括艺术化的写作、理论性的写作、民族志式的写作、随笔式的写作，甚至像btr在《上海胶囊》[11]中那样将展览写成小说的写作。但我想这些游离在行业边缘的新兴平台最重要的共通之处是，它们逐渐发展出了清晰的位置意识，去回应、关心当下自己所在的艺术现场。它们之所以出现，是因为关心艺术的人们——或者说“观众”——的背景更加多元，他们在体验、理解、分析作品和展览的同时带入了自己的视角和方法。我们是否可以称之为替代性的艺术批评，还是以更中性、没那么抢眼球的“艺术写作”来称呼它们，我想这取决于读者是否感受到文字中是否提出了新的价值和方向。而在谈到写作中的价值取向之前，我想先谈谈艺术写作中目前要面临的另一个问题，即交叠着的语境。
二、语境交叠中的艺术现场
艺术业内人士常常谈及的“艺术批评已死”或许反映出人们对于作品或展览有没有“过线”，是不是陈词滥调，相较以往有无创新这样的明确判断的怀念——毕竟以前这些论断常被拿到台面上来讲。其实这些判断从未缺席过，只是现在大部分在朋友间的私下讨论里，可能发生在展览现场、艺术家工作室或餐桌上，或者在大胆直言的藏家的小红书账号上。但我想提出，这些判断在正式发表中的缺失，除了市场无法养活专业艺评人等前述的经济原因之外，还有一个传播意义上需要考虑的情况：今天的艺术，尤其是当代艺术，早已不是只有前卫艺术家的小众领域，它不仅填充起众多建筑精良但馆藏寥寥的美术馆，也和消费、娱乐、旅游、科技等商业领域结合，进入大众的日常生活。这样便有一个困难之处：当代艺术作品常常会回应或挪用具体语境、社会问题、历史材料，以稍纵即逝的过程作为作品本身，等等。当作品从私人领域（如艺术家工作室）进入美术馆或者不同社会现场遭遇公众时，很多观众会觉得看不懂，或者被“冒犯”，而相应地，现在的当代艺术媒体承担的工作常常是报道、解释作品，还原作品或者展览语境。
人们在哀叹今天没有艺术批评时，也需要看到当下艺术资料的丰富。每当有新作面世，在展览之外，作品介绍和梳理、展览报道、艺术家采访、专业人士间的对谈等都是公众接触和理解艺术创作的方式。文笔好的写作者常常受邀为艺术家、机构、画廊做文字整理工作，用文章解释作品和展览的来龙去脉。这些资料的出现，反映了艺术家、机构、画廊已经意识到作品和展览植根于具体语境，也说明了行业专业化程度的增加。这些被称为“通稿”的新闻稿，以及受邀作者的采访、写作，其实更像艺术创作进入公共视野时的“画外音”，是创作获得公共性的辅助手段：当统一、共享的艺术语境已经消失时，人们目前要做的首先是理解和自己语境不同的艺术家为何以及如何创作，以及艺术到底是以何种方式在发生着。“打边炉”公众号这几年逐渐增加的影响力，正是因为其深度采访满足了人们对一手信息的需求。[12]正如“普遍手册”的主编王欢在其《批评不是……》中提到的：“艺术界长期以来对批评过剩的诉求，导致批评时常扮演的却是一个工具化的角色。”[13]王欢谈到的，便是批评文章常常服务于提供作品和项目的现象。
而艺术批评今天的工作之一，或许是在纷杂的艺术争论中，分析各方处于何种语境，站在何种立场，运行于何种系统，依据什么做出了判断——这才能让沟通有可能，让争论变得有意义。接下来，我便以两个与语境紧密相关，同时也是2022年讨论最多的艺术活动和其接收到的关注作为例子。
2022年，两个事件/展览引发了艺术和文化界的广泛讨论。第一个是4月23日至5月7日，新裤子乐队的乐手庞宽在北京星空间画廊进行的自我隔离及全程直播。这一活动一开始被称为“一次为期14天的现场加直播的行为艺术展”，正式名称则为新裤子的一首歌的歌名“拜拜迪斯科”[14]。另一个则是明确的展览。从9月到12月，上海明当代美术馆的“胡小芳与乔小幻”展出了艺术家胡尹萍的两个长期项目：“小芳”项目中，艺术家委托朋友假扮商人“小芳”，以较高价格收购母亲和老家当地阿姨织的毛线帽子，并且不断提出新的特定要求，让阿姨们用毛线进行自我表达、转化想象；而“乔小幻”项目中，胡尹萍扮演的潮流雕塑艺术家以迎合商业市场的作品，赚取了让胡尹萍能支持“小芳”的金钱。
庞宽在星空间的行动当时引发了全网热议。一方面，新裤子和庞宽的粉丝以及网友热烈参与其间：庞宽的活动发布微博被转发超过8000次，乐迷们自发拉了微信群追踪直播中庞宽的动态，庞宽的“屎尿屁”成了大众讨论的焦点，直播中的他的表情截屏变成迅速流通的表情包。另一方面则是当代艺术和剧场艺术从业者的尖锐批评。对庞宽的批评集中于两点：1. “直播隔离”是作秀、哗众取宠，尤其当时正值上海封城，一些批评者认为庞宽和画廊是在消费苦难，浪费人们的注意力；2. 庞宽在这14天中衣食无忧、懒散怠惰、套路“过时”，从行为艺术的角度来看，绝对算不上精彩之作。“Hi艺术”在《庞宽14天隔离直播，是艺术的反思还是虚假的作秀？》这篇微信推送中集合了艺术行业人士的观点，一些策展人抱有更加宽容的态度。正如唐泽慧在其中所言：“只要没有刻意消费苦难，有什么不可以呢？”[15]
而我想借此指出的是，“拜拜迪斯科”从一开始就有两种不同的语境交叠着——一边是娱乐为先的大众传播和流行文化，另一边是强调批判的当代艺术体制。因此它同时也是两种活动，一种是互联网中面向粉丝和普通观众的表演，另一种则是宣传中被误认的当代艺术中的“行为艺术”。在庞宽发布的微博里，他称自己要做一个“行为艺术展”，这也是这次事件引起争议的导火索之一。比如“界面”在报道时，就以《躺着玩手机何以成为行为艺术？》[16]为题。然而，“行为艺术”这一词汇在庞宽和画廊主办方的讨论中其实从未出现，庞宽当时使用的“艺术事件”更加准确。而因为这一行动要在画廊发生，“事件”就迅速变成了“展览”。当庞宽带着戏谑口吻宣布这场实质上的大众娱乐表演为“行为艺术展”时，便会被与当代艺术尤其是行为艺术中的经典作品比较，也会被质疑其作品中缺失对社会和艺术系统的批判。
在围绕庞宽这一隔离直播的争论中，不同的艺术从业者处在非常不同的立场上。庞宽的公众人物身份和乐手经历、敏感的审查环境、观众的参与，和当时人与人之间的隔离状态，很少被考虑在内。围绕这一作品的讨论尤其有一个盲区，即直播的大多数很年轻的观众是被困在高校中的学生，他们在庞宽的直播中感受到了陪伴，也陪伴了彼此。常常在灾难里被用作统计救援信息的线上文档，被网友们用以接力写作《庞宽14天行为艺术观察记录》。这些参与以及社会语境很少被放入对作品的判断里，而在我看来，这些网友的关心和参与转化了庞宽作品中的虚无和轻佻的部分。[17]
如果说庞宽的“拜拜迪斯科”是一场对当代艺术系统未经深思熟虑、依赖直觉的行动，那么展览“胡小芳与乔小幻”呈现的则是胡尹萍这十几年来在深刻体会、利用艺术系统的规则和限制之后，在社会现场的一次艺术实践。她虚构的“乔小幻”身份服从了当代艺术中“展览-收藏-市场”这种传统艺术家的职业道路体系。在虚拟了一系列展览和潮流雕塑作品之后，乔小幻获得的市场利润让胡尹萍可以有资本去做市场规则之外的艺术创作。如策展人钱诗怡所言，胡尹萍通过写实雕塑赚取了留在北京继续生活创作的成本，也资助了她去做“小芳”项目，能有经济能力去用“善意的谎言”邀请母亲和小镇上的阿姨用毛线织帽子，完成她刁钻的诸如“如果坏人来了，你们用什么样的武器保护自己和家人？”这样的订单。2022年，“胡小芳与乔小幻”展在主流媒体、当代文化艺术杂志、小红书、微博和微信上被广泛报道和评论，例如《人物》杂志刊登的《织吧，妈妈》[18]以及“随机波动”播客制作的《是人也是艺术，是我也是她们》[19]。但很吊诡的是，这些广泛传播的内容有两个特征：其一，大多数报道基本是对“小芳”项目的故事性介绍，鲜少深入讨论“小芳”和“乔小幻”之间的关系；其二，大量报道都使用了胡尹萍的第一人称自述。
“小芳”项目获得广泛关注当然有项目中涉及母女关系、手工劳动者、善意的谎言等原因；最重要的是，这个艺术项目是一个好故事。这正是策展人钱诗怡所说的胡尹萍创作中的“包容性”：“她的作品放在社会语境下能够形成再生产的开放度。”[20]但除了钱诗怡的文章之外，很少有对“乔小幻”项目以及胡尹萍和当代艺术生产系统之间的关系进行深度分析的。而对第一人称自述的依赖则说明，虽然这个展览进入了大众的视野，但却缺乏重新理解、重新叙述胡尹萍艺术实践的语言、知识和衡量标准。其实，当代艺术业内的批评也在此乏力，少有人深究胡尹萍概念艺术、参与式艺术实践中的伦理问题，以及“故事”之外泥泞的细节。唯一提及这些问题的，是策展人张涵露的一番评论：
如果我不解风情地将“小芳”项目理解为多少包含参与的成分，如果阿姨们的主体性当真如讲故事的人所说在项目中得到了释放和巩固，那么我就会对项目中的更多细节产生好奇。譬如，小芳这个人物在和阿姨们打交道过程中，沟通是否有受挫的时刻，是否曾遭遇价值冲突或道德难题——可以想象一定有，阿姨们被“赋权”后她们的人生是否有微妙的变化……无论是真是假，这个故事还有更多没讲的。[21]
以庞宽和胡尹萍的艺术事件/展览为例，我希望说明的是，今天的艺术批评需要做的早已不仅仅是图像志分析，也不只停留在展览上。它需要考察艺术在实践过程中的问题，也要观察艺术实践从私域转化为公域时的手段，以及不同语境之间的互动和误读，思考哪些维度在实践和讨论中是缺失的。运营“空白艺论”的徐旷之认为，中国大陆艺术批评话语的失效是因为“中国根本就没有自己的批判理论传统，更没有形成可以反思批判理论自身境况的学术系统”[22]，而他参照的是美国的《十月》杂志。徐的观点当然有其道理，特别是目前艺术批评的研究仍然以西方学院派为主。但我认为，形成对此时此地的艺术实践的有效批评，最重要的是对艺术的生成方式和其所在的不同语境的理解，并且形成作者独立的价值判断——这里的价值判断不是一件作品好或者差，而是写作者认为什么价值是艺术创作中重要的。张涵露能够对胡尹萍做出这样的紧要分析，恰恰是因为她本人长期进行参与式艺术的工作，伦理问题对她而言也一直是重要课题。在这个意义上，我同意芭芭拉·罗斯（Barbara Rose）所说的：“批评的行为就是价值判断。其他的则是[一般性的]艺术写作。”
批评者的工作，一面是去理解艺术的发生，一面则是不断去问自己相信什么。在这样信息泛滥、语境多元而分裂的时代，我也认为批评是一种自发的关心和行动。“批评”本身意味着一种方向，即一个（组）主体尝试理解、分析另一个（组）主体/现象，并可能以此提出新的观点。这其中可以强调批评者的独立性，也可以强调两者之间的关系（relation）。独立，即意味着作者的自发和主动，而关系则意味着作者即便形成批判的、不满的意见，也是付出了时间、精力去理解之后的关心——相对应地，那些只是为了批评而批评、吸引流量的“檄文”，其实并不能算立得住脚的批评。
三、看不见的艺术批评
艺术批评有几条很少被讨论、被视为既定事实的特性，其一是文字为媒介，其二是公共性，其三是往往由单一作者书写，具有自发性。如果批评可以不是文字，不具有公共性，甚至不是单一个体作为作者，那么批评是什么？近年来，我越发感受到艺术批评发生的方式有很多种，而且常常是朋友之间的私下讨论最为激烈、诚恳、有效。我将在这一节讨论艺术批评的这几条特性。或许它们已经超出了这次文献原本计划涉猎的材料范围，或许不能算“艺术批评”。但是，哪些批评者的观点不是在讨论中激发出来的呢？价值难道不是在对话中才会变得更为清晰吗？
近年来，有关艺术的讨论以更多现场的方式不断涌现出来。除了刊物、公众号文章、出版物等，关于艺术的讨论超出了文字，变为视频、音频（播客）等，比如呈现艺术家创作的“泡卡司Powcast”、讨论展览的“艺术叨叨”、关注游戏研究的播客“落日间”、有时评价艺术现象的哲学播客“翻转电台”，等等。这其中涉及的讨论当然不如文字正式，这些声音是流动的、有机的、带着错漏的，但这些公共讨论能慷慨地展现出思考过程以及不同思考者之间的彼此补充和辩论的过程，恰恰能帮助观点在形成中的听众意识到艺术批评不是高高在上的、学院里的工作，而是随时随地、谁都可以开始做的事。
而那些在公共视野之外、在互相信任的朋友之间、在有平等氛围的社群里以及一些特定的网络中发生的有关艺术的、具备批判性的讨论，可能没有被发表或记录，却是当下最有生命力、最常发生、最未被审查和禁锢的有关艺术的思考。在艺术生态、语境多元的情况下，不同群体可能面对截然不同的境况和问题，但朋友之间往往彼此了解，有一些信任的基石、对艺术的共同认识，此时的讨论和批评大多能真正帮助到实践者。我自己就经历过许多这样的对话。这样的对话或许在2000年代曾经发生在美术同盟或者Art-ba-ba的公开论坛上，但是到了2010年代，它们在公开视野中逐渐销声匿迹。我想下一步需要讨论的，恰恰是私人的写作、基于友谊和彼此认同的对话如何再度浮出水面，转化为公共的知识、共同的关心，形成更大范围的讨论。从这个角度，我们也可以理解策展的兴起（以及艺术批评的衰落）。策展作为一种行动，相比起文本，可以更直接地去构建艺术和社会的具体语境。
在未来有关艺术批评的研究中，我们是否需要扩大视野，去关注艺术的讨论如何更多地发生？是否需要从艺术家的角度出发，询问对他们而言，艺术批评在哪里发生、是否被需要？我想这里最重要的是，艺术批评的写作并不是让写作者成为权力的拥有者，而是让批评成为下一次真正对话、讨论和改变的开始。
《没有艺术批评，只有艺术软文》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BKpjmU-G2qcdsF9rypl4IQ，2022年7月22日。 ↩︎
叶滢、皮力：《专访皮力：社交媒体时代艺术评论的衰落与新一代的身份觉醒正同时到来》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/5Gl7cODKpnEx2FtOCQsYNQ，2022年7月29日。 ↩︎
徐志君：《艺术批评的回归》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ytgOPChwg1UeG0A3o4qWgg，2022年5月24日。 ↩︎
张煜航：《虚无乡的死亡迷宫》，https://www.qilucriticism.com/post/deepsealabyrinth，2022年11月25日。 ↩︎
吕澎：“历史语境中的中国艺术批评”讲座，OCAT深圳，2014年11月8日。 ↩︎
同上。 ↩︎
赵子龙：《“批评家”正在从行业视野中消失》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/56mqyuZo_q66vIU8bknvEQ，2022年11月22日。 ↩︎
歧路批评（黄梓耘、刘伟田、聂小依）：《为什么要成为歧路》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_BGqZmjOTj88dK2iShg0MA，2022年5月24日。 ↩︎
《黑齿》杂志网站http://www.heichimagazine.org/。 ↩︎
“岛聚”网站https://www.daoju.art/。 ↩︎
btr：《上海胶囊》，北方日报出版社，2022年。 ↩︎
艺术媒体上的一些内容被称为“软文”，其实并非因为画廊、机构聘请了独立写作者来做这项工作，而是这些文章在发表时没有表明写作者和艺术家、画廊、机构的利益相关关系，并发表在看似中立的第三方媒体平台上。这样的写作具有公共性，但没有自发性。 ↩︎
王欢：《批评不是……》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/A5PAtIXT_f9_BAcRBvB6pg，2022年5月24日。 ↩︎
庞宽活动预告微博，https://weibo.com/1977763897/LpwmobiCP，2022年4月21日。 ↩︎
chen_yinn、王晓松、孙策等：《庞宽14天隔离直播，是艺术的反思还是虚假的作秀？》https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yCjYVqRQVgQaPCGud-I5OQ，2022年4月27日。 ↩︎
尹清露：《躺着玩手机何以成为行为艺术？庞宽14天无间断直播的无力与陈旧》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vvMD7U8Vdhu5TW4w7QSByQ，2022年5月7日。 ↩︎
聂小依：《无力者的无聊，无聊者的有力》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pA9z6j5KF9uCox9oiHGPCA，2022年5月30日。 ↩︎
林松果：《织吧，妈妈》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PvdVaN7HUBS-gWYSMqhdOw，2022年9月22日。 ↩︎
随机波动、胡尹萍：《是人也是艺术，是我也是她们》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/iH1d6RBtpM4t067kKWGxhw，2022年12月2日。 ↩︎
钱诗怡：《谎言、分身与边缘：“小芳”背后的多面人性》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9oaDR04zNnh_jMBBwX3mzw，2022年12月8日。 ↩︎
张涵露、贺潇、杨北辰等：《五位策展人对艺术家工作路径的观察：创作的“残局”、“底图”、观看视角和回归具身》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VpAGHMOU8kui-bT2So8KIw，2023年1月18日。 ↩︎
徐旷之：《“批判性”写作与无效化生产——关于当下艺术批评现状的一点思考》，https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9FQeQP3X8iC0wfOZ_NoBRQ，2022年5月24日。 ↩︎
Machine translation (AI) of the Chinese original, not yet reviewed by the author. Please cite the original.
1. The absence of art criticism, and its new forms
In the art media of recent years there has been a recurring refrain: “China has no real art criticism.” In July 2022 an anonymous article on the WeChat account “fARTaround”, “No Art Criticism, Only Art Advertorials” (《没有艺术批评，只有艺术软文》),[1] was shared by many people in the art world. In a mocking tone, the author ran through the chaos of China’s art media – academic theory applied by formula, foreign reviews crudely translated, institutions and galleries that won’t accept criticism, texts written mainly to meet market demand, and so on. James Elkins, in What Happened to Art Criticism? (2003), lamented that Western art criticism had become an exhibition routine with few serious readers. This article’s complaint was different: that writers of art criticism in mainland China had simply given up on their own – that is, they no longer produce real content, and their texts don’t hold together logically.
Responding to this article in an interview with The Art Newspaper China, Pi Li, then senior curator at M+, suggested that there were several particular reasons for the decline of Chinese art criticism. First, self-media on social networks lack the rigorous editorial processes of traditional media, so errors abound. Second, Chinese art media often serve the art market and galleries. Third, in terms of how content circulates, the simplified-Chinese internet runs on WeChat public accounts rather than websites, and WeChat accounts are ill-suited to systematic, serious content. But he also pointed out that a topic like “art criticism is dead”, which returns to public debate every few years, is precisely a sign that there is always a new generation in the art world dissatisfied with the way things are. At least people can still be dissatisfied – and that is a positive sign.[2]
Meanwhile, in 2022 the researcher Xu Zhijun was invited to guest-edit a special issue of Art Monthly (China), “The Return of Art Criticism”. Xu observed that art criticism in recent years has shown some “new states”. As Pi Li said, the voices of dissatisfaction with art criticism come from a new, younger generation in the field. Xu noted that most of the currently active critics were born after 1985, and that whereas art criticism used to be written mostly by researchers trained in art history and theory or in aesthetics and philosophy, the new writers come from rich and varied backgrounds and have often studied in the West. Xu also found that whereas art criticism used to revolve mainly around artistic form and the aesthetic qualities of works, focusing on artists and what went on in their studios, now “it is common for writers to meet their subjects only in passing, or not to know them at all; the primary site of writing is usually some kind of exhibition space. Critical writing is becoming less closely tied to art practice, while research within writing is increasing; writing is increasingly tending towards ‘knowledge production’.”[3] Writing like this is exactly the kind of self-motivated critical and speculative writing that stands at some distance from the needs of the industry. Its writers often treat the contemporary art scene as a composite text and set of symptoms, material for analysis and re-creation. For example, the young writer Zhang Yuhang’s reading of The Infinite Train,[4] a work by the Hong Kong artist Lee Kai Chung based on colonial experience during the Japanese occupation of Northeast China, does not describe the work or the exhibition in any detail. Instead, it is a writing experiment attuned to the artist’s work, with Ballard’s “desiring machines” as its backdrop.
So in 2022, was art criticism “dead” or “returning”? Answering this means rethinking what “art criticism” refers to. Lü Peng, drawing on Lionello Venturi’s History of Art Criticism, once pointed out that any artistic phenomenon, scene of writing or phenomenon of criticism should be understood within its particular historical context.[5] The art of each era deals with the specific problems facing the people making art in that time and place, and this gives the art criticism of the time the character of its era. Lü Peng noted, for instance, that in the 1970s and 80s the “fierceness of criticism” in art was about “how to use critical writing to give a new artistic phenomenon legitimacy in its time”.[6] What problems does art-making face in mainland China today? With so many media and forms having already gained legitimacy, the most obvious problem facing the art system at present is the distorted state of the market’s dominance. But this distortion is not the doing of commercial galleries; the reasons for the absence of art criticism also include the silencing and withering of other artistic contexts, systems and individuals.
“No Art Criticism, Only Art Advertorials” argues outright that most art media no longer have room for critical writing, because galleries and institutions cannot bear even constructive criticism, and relationships with galleries and institutions are what the media depend on to make a living. A more naked reason is the precarious livelihood of writers. With the rise of the art market in the 1990s and the establishment of experimental art departments in Chinese art schools in the 2000s, earlier critics gained more opportunities to have an impact: they became consultants to foreign collectors and institutions, or curators, or university teachers, turning the authority of their critical writing into concrete security. But most critics in today’s art market (many of whom are also curators) have no long-term income independent of the market and institutions. They may not be employed directly by galleries or private museums, but their career advancement (becoming director of some institution one day, say) and income growth depend on maintaining long-term working relationships with galleries and museums. When writing they often have to tread carefully, displaying the independent, critical stance a writer is expected to have while also looking after everyone’s feelings.[7] Beyond the well-known censorship, those who live by speaking have to handle the sticky web of relationships within the art ecosystem and the market’s demands, which are becoming ever faster and simpler. What’s more, “industry commentary” itself has to obey the publishing platform’s requirements for content, with limits on format, word count, tone and so on, to keep the content product consistent.
With the mainstream ecosystem in this state, some art practitioners have chosen to take another path and deliberately marginalise themselves. In the special issue “The Return of Art Criticism”, Xu Zhijun selected several groups practising art criticism, such as “Jiashan Gailiang” (“夹山改梁”), “Kongbai Yilun” (“空白艺论”) and Qilu Criticism. These organisations do not depend on mainstream museums and galleries to survive. Some of their writers start from practice and write because they have to. Chen Yifei, for instance, says that writing for Jiashan Gailiang starts from pressures or predicaments he has felt himself: “the writing is all about topics I am facing myself, that I most want to resolve and most want to get to the bottom of.” Most of Jiashan Gailiang’s content is written by Chen Yifei, Sun Yifei and Fang Zheng, and consists of introductions to their own art practice and the art scenes they have visited, along with translations of Western theory. Although they have few outside contributors, their aim is to grow an alternative ecosystem distinct from the mainstream. Sharing their own work, views and experiences is how they connect with more kindred spirits. In 2022 what they published was mostly their own and their friends’ work, exhibitions, events or translations, with relatively little art criticism. You could say that Jiashan Gailiang is more concerned with using circulation to let more people know about what is happening outside the mainstream’s field of vision. A platform like Qilu Criticism, founded in 2021 and open to submissions, treats the “shrinking space for thought” as a social problem. It believes criticism cannot be driven by outstanding, privileged individuals, and hopes instead to foster more democratic art writing, “summoning speech that is not suppressed by self-censorship and self-doubt, more shared thinking, more encouragement and reminders to one another”.[8] (Declaration of interest: I am a member of Qilu Criticism’s editorial team.) As well as its WeChat account, Qilu has built a website, hoping to reach readers outside mainland China. In 2022 Qilu launched a podcast, “Kuakua Qitan” (“夸夸歧谈”, a pun on a phrase meaning “to talk big”), for more spontaneous discussion of writing and exhibitions. The Kongbai Yilun WeChat account was set up by Xu Kuangzhi in 2013. At first it published exhibition introductions and reviews; later it shifted its focus to translating European and American art criticism and theory and to interviews with critics working in China. By 2023 it had published five anthologies.
Other art criticism platforms worth noting include Heichi Magazine, “daoju” (“岛聚”) and the WeChat account “I N G”. Heichi[9] is a bilingual Chinese–English online magazine founded in 2020, focused mainly on art criticism and discourse. With funding from the Macalline Art Center and experienced editors from the art world at the helm, Heichi appeared mature and wide-ranging from the start, publishing one bilingual article a week, chiefly in the form of criticism and essays. As a bilingual magazine, Heichi could invite writers from China and abroad, and it ran a column of translations of theoretical texts from e-flux. The pieces it published had a strong authorial presence and distinctive styles, leaning towards artistic writing. Unfortunately, at the end of 2021 Heichi stopped updating, without giving any public reason. Daoju,[10] started in Hong Kong by Chris Wan, works mainly through Instagram and a website and focuses on documenting the Hong Kong art scene through criticism. It covers Hong Kong exhibitions and events widely, and Chris Wan’s own reviews are very sharp. And the WeChat account “I N G”, whose editorial team is based in Shanghai, has been updated frequently since July 2022, with many exhibition reviews by different writers, as well as musings that are not quite reviews.
There is no need to hide the fact that if we judge by the conventions of traditional art criticism – starting from a particular art scene or trend and, through description and close reading, identifying what is new or flawed in a work or exhibition – then articles that qualify as “art criticism” are by no means the majority on the platforms and in the practices mentioned above. This writing about art scenes includes artistic writing, theoretical writing, ethnographic writing, essayistic writing, even writing that turns exhibitions into fiction, as btr does in Shanghai Capsule (《上海胶囊》).[11] But I think the most important thing these emerging platforms on the fringes of the industry have in common is that they have gradually developed a clear sense of position, responding to and caring about the art scene they are part of right now. They have appeared because the people who care about art – the “audience”, if you like – come from more diverse backgrounds, and bring their own perspectives and methods to experiencing, understanding and analysing works and exhibitions. Whether we can call this alternative art criticism, or should use the more neutral, less eye-catching “art writing”, depends, I think, on whether readers feel the writing puts forward new values and directions. But before turning to values in writing, I want to discuss another problem that art writing now faces: overlapping contexts.
2. The art scene amid overlapping contexts
When people in the art world talk about “the death of art criticism”, perhaps what they miss is clear judgement: whether a work or exhibition has “crossed the line”, whether it is a cliché, whether it breaks new ground compared with what came before. After all, such verdicts used to be delivered openly. In fact they have never gone away. Today they mostly happen in private conversations among friends – in the exhibition space, in an artist’s studio, over dinner, or on the Xiaohongshu (RED) accounts of outspoken collectors. But I want to suggest that their absence from formal publication has another cause, beyond the economic ones already mentioned, such as the market’s inability to support professional critics. It has to do with communication. Art today, and contemporary art in particular, has long ceased to be a niche world of avant-garde artists. It not only fills the many museums that are handsomely built but have scant collections; it has also merged with consumption, entertainment, tourism, technology and other commercial fields, and entered people’s everyday lives. This creates a difficulty. Contemporary works often respond to or appropriate specific contexts, social issues and historical material, or take a fleeting process as the work itself, and so on. When a work moves from a private space (the artist’s studio, say) into a museum or other social setting and meets the public, many viewers feel they can’t understand it, or feel “offended” by it. Correspondingly, much of what contemporary art media now do is report on and explain works, and reconstruct the context of a work or exhibition.
While lamenting that there is no art criticism today, we also need to see how rich the material around art has become. Whenever a new work appears, besides the exhibition itself there are introductions and overviews of the work, exhibition reports, artist interviews and conversations between professionals – all ways for the public to encounter and understand art. Writers with a good pen are often invited by artists, institutions and galleries to put things into words, writing texts that explain the whys and wherefores of works and exhibitions. The appearance of this material shows that artists, institutions and galleries have realised that works and exhibitions are rooted in specific contexts, and also that the field has become more professionalised. These press releases (known as tonggao, “general copy”), along with interviews and texts by invited writers, are really more like a “voice-over” as art enters public view – a tool that helps the work become public. Now that a unified, shared art context has disappeared, the first thing people need to do is understand why and how artists whose contexts differ from their own make work, and how art is actually happening. The growing influence in recent years of the WeChat account “Da Bian Lu” (“打边炉”) comes precisely from its in-depth interviews, which meet people’s need for first-hand information.[12] As Wang Huan, editor-in-chief of “Pubian Shouce” (“普遍手册”, “Universal Handbook”), says in “Criticism Is Not…” (《批评不是……》): “The art world’s long-standing demand for an excess of criticism means that criticism often ends up playing an instrumental role.”[13] What Wang Huan is describing is the way critical texts so often serve to supply works and projects.
One of the tasks of art criticism today, then, may be to analyse, amid the tangle of art-world disputes, what context each side is in, what position it takes, what system it operates within and on what basis it makes its judgements. Only then does communication become possible, and argument meaningful. Next, I will take as examples two art events that were closely bound up with context, and that were also the most discussed of 2022, together with the attention they received.
In 2022 two events/exhibitions sparked wide debate in the art and cultural worlds. The first was the self-quarantine and round-the-clock livestream by Pang Kuan, a member of the band New Pants, at Star Gallery in Beijing from 23 April to 7 May. At first it was billed as “a 14-day live and livestreamed performance art exhibition”; its official title was “Bye Bye Disco”, the name of a New Pants song.[14] The other was a straightforward exhibition. From September to December, “Hu Xiaofang and Qiao Xiaohuan” (“胡小芳与乔小幻”; in English, “Hu Yinping: Weaving Realities”) at the Ming Contemporary Art Museum (McaM) in Shanghai showed two long-term projects by the artist Hu Yinping. In the Xiaofang project, the artist asked a friend to pose as a businesswoman called “Xiaofang”, who bought knitted hats from her mother and the aunties of her home town at relatively high prices, and kept placing new, specific orders that invited the aunties to express themselves and transform their imaginations through wool. In the Qiao Xiaohuan project, Hu Yinping played a trendy sculptor whose market-pleasing works earned the money that allowed her to fund Xiaofang.
Pang Kuan’s action at Star Gallery set the whole internet talking. On one side, fans of New Pants and Pang Kuan and ordinary netizens joined in enthusiastically: his Weibo post announcing the event was shared more than 8,000 times, music fans set up WeChat groups of their own to track what he was doing on the stream, his bodily functions became a focus of public discussion, and screenshots of his expressions turned into memes that spread in no time. On the other side came sharp criticism from people working in contemporary art and theatre. It focused on two points. First, that the “livestreamed quarantine” was showing off and attention-seeking – especially since Shanghai was in lockdown at the time, some critics felt that Pang Kuan and the gallery were exploiting suffering and wasting people’s attention. Second, that during these fourteen days Pang Kuan was well fed and comfortable, lazy and idle, and his tricks were “dated”: as performance art, it was certainly no masterpiece. The WeChat post “Pang Kuan’s 14-Day Livestreamed Quarantine: Artistic Reflection or Fake Show?” (《庞宽14天隔离直播，是艺术的反思还是虚假的作秀？》) by Hi Art gathered the views of people in the art world, and some curators took a more tolerant line. As Tang Zehui put it there: “As long as it isn’t deliberately exploiting suffering, why not?”[15]
What I want to point out is that “Bye Bye Disco” had two different contexts overlapping from the very start: on one side, mass communication and popular culture, where entertainment comes first; on the other, the institution of contemporary art, which stresses critique. So it was also two activities at once. One was a performance on the internet for fans and ordinary viewers; the other was “performance art” in the contemporary-art sense – a label mistakenly attached to it in the publicity. In his Weibo post Pang Kuan said he was going to do a “performance art exhibition”, and this was one of the sparks of the controversy. Jiemian, for example, ran its report under the headline “How Does Lying Around on Your Phone Count as Performance Art?” (《躺着玩手机何以成为行为艺术？》).[16] Yet the term “performance art” never actually came up in discussions between Pang Kuan and the gallery; the phrase he used at the time, “art event”, was more accurate. And because the action was to happen in a gallery, the “event” quickly became an “exhibition”. Once Pang Kuan jokingly announced what was in substance a piece of popular entertainment as a “performance art exhibition”, it was bound to be compared with the classics of contemporary art, especially performance art, and to be faulted for lacking any critique of society or the art system.
In the arguments around Pang Kuan’s livestreamed quarantine, different art practitioners stood in very different positions. His status as a public figure and a musician, the sensitive censorship environment, the audience’s participation and the isolation people were living in at the time were seldom taken into account. The discussion had one particular blind spot: most of the stream’s very young viewers were students trapped on university campuses. They found companionship in Pang Kuan’s livestream, and kept each other company too. The kind of online document usually used in disasters to compile rescue information was used by netizens to write, in relay, a “Record of Observations of Pang Kuan’s 14-Day Performance Art”. This participation and social context were rarely factored into judgements of the work. As I see it, the care and involvement of these netizens transformed the nihilistic, frivolous side of Pang Kuan’s piece.[17]
If Pang Kuan’s “Bye Bye Disco” was an intuitive action taken towards the contemporary art system without much forethought, then “Hu Xiaofang and Qiao Xiaohuan” presented an art practice in a social setting by Hu Yinping, who has spent more than a decade getting to know, and making use of, the rules and limits of the art system. Her invented persona “Qiao Xiaohuan” submits to the conventional career path of the contemporary artist: exhibition, collection, market. After a series of fictional exhibitions and trendy sculptures, the market profits Qiao Xiaohuan earned gave Hu Yinping the capital to make art outside the rules of the market. As the curator Sam Shiyi Qian has said, through realist sculpture Hu Yinping earned the cost of staying in Beijing to live and work, and also funded the Xiaofang project. She could afford, through a “white lie”, to invite her mother and the aunties of her small town to knit hats, fulfilling tricky orders such as “If bad people come, what weapons would you use to protect yourselves and your families?” In 2022 “Hu Xiaofang and Qiao Xiaohuan” was widely reported and reviewed in mainstream media, contemporary culture and art magazines, and on Xiaohongshu, Weibo and WeChat – for example “Knit, Mum” (《织吧，妈妈》) in Renwu (People) magazine[18] and the episode “A Person and Also Art, Me and Also Them” (《是人也是艺术，是我也是她们》) of the podcast Stochastic Volatility (“随机波动”).[19] Oddly, though, this widely circulated coverage had two features. First, most reports were essentially story-like introductions to the Xiaofang project, and very few went into the relationship between Xiaofang and Qiao Xiaohuan. Second, a great many reports relied on Hu Yinping’s own first-person account.
Of course, Xiaofang drew so much attention partly because it involves a mother–daughter relationship, craft workers, a white lie and so on. Above all, this art project is a good story. That is what the curator Sam Shiyi Qian calls the “inclusiveness” of Hu Yinping’s work: “Placed in a social context, her work has an openness that allows it to be reproduced.”[20] But apart from Sam Shiyi Qian’s essay, there was little in-depth analysis of the Qiao Xiaohuan project, or of Hu Yinping’s relationship with the system of contemporary art production. And the reliance on first-person accounts shows that, although the exhibition reached a mass audience, there was no language, knowledge or yardstick with which to re-understand and re-narrate Hu Yinping’s practice. In fact criticism within the contemporary art world fell short here too. Few people looked closely at the ethical questions in Hu Yinping’s conceptual and participatory art practice, or at the muddy details beyond the “story”. The only person to raise these questions was the curator Hanlu Zhang, in the following comment:
If I am being unromantic and take the Xiaofang project as containing some element of participation – if the aunties’ subjectivity really was released and consolidated in the project, as the storytellers say – then I become curious about more of its details. For instance, in her dealings with the aunties, were there moments when communication broke down for the character Xiaofang? Did she run into clashes of values or moral dilemmas (one can imagine there must have been)? After being “empowered”, did the aunties’ lives change in subtle ways?… True or not, there is more to this story that hasn’t been told.[21]
With Pang Kuan’s and Hu Yinping’s art event/exhibition as examples, what I want to show is that art criticism today has long needed to do more than iconographic analysis, and more than stop at the exhibition. It needs to examine the problems that arise in the course of art practice, to observe the means by which practice passes from the private to the public sphere, and the interactions and misreadings between different contexts, and to think about which dimensions are missing from both practice and discussion. Xu Kuangzhi, who runs Kongbai Yilun, believes that art-critical discourse in mainland China has failed because “China simply has no critical-theory tradition of its own, still less an academic system capable of reflecting on the condition of critical theory itself”[22] – his point of reference being the American journal October. Xu has a point, particularly since the study of art criticism is still dominated by Western academia. But I believe that what matters most in forming effective criticism of art practice here and now is an understanding of how art comes into being and of the different contexts it sits in, and the writer’s own independent value judgement. By value judgement I don’t mean deciding whether a work is good or bad, but what the writer believes matters in making art. Hanlu Zhang could offer such a pointed analysis of Hu Yinping precisely because she has long worked on participatory art herself, and ethics has always been an important question for her. In this sense I agree with Barbara Rose: “The act of criticism is a value judgment. The rest is [general] art writing.”
The critic’s work is, on one hand, to understand how art happens and, on the other, to keep asking themselves what they believe. In an age like this, of information overload and of contexts that are multiple and fractured, I also think of criticism as a spontaneous form of care and action. “Criticism” itself implies a direction: one subject (or group) tries to understand and analyse another subject (or group) or phenomenon, and may in the process put forward new views. One can stress the critic’s independence, or one can stress the relation between the two. Independence means the writer acts on their own initiative; relation means that even if the writer arrives at critical or dissatisfied views, they come from a care that has invested time and energy in understanding. By contrast, the “polemics” that criticise for the sake of criticising and chase clicks don’t really count as criticism that stands up.
3. Invisible art criticism
Art criticism has a few characteristics that are rarely discussed and are taken as given. First, its medium is the written word. Second, it is public. Third, it is usually written by a single author, on their own initiative. If criticism need not be written, need not be public, and need not even have a single individual as its author, what is it then? In recent years I have felt more and more that art criticism happens in many different ways, and that the private discussions between friends are often the fiercest, most sincere and most effective. In this section I will discuss these characteristics of art criticism. Perhaps they go beyond the range of material this survey originally set out to cover; perhaps they can’t count as “art criticism” at all. But which critic’s views were not sparked in discussion? And don’t values only become clearer in conversation?
In recent years, discussions of art have kept springing up in more live, in-the-moment forms. Beyond journals, WeChat articles and publications, talk about art has gone beyond the written word into video and audio (podcasts): “Powcast” (“泡卡司”), which presents artists’ work; “Yishu Daodao” (“艺术叨叨”, roughly “Art Chatter”), which discusses exhibitions; “Luorijian” (“落日间”), a podcast devoted to game studies; “Fanzhuan Diantai” (“翻转电台”, “Flip Radio”), a philosophy podcast that sometimes comments on art phenomena; and so on. The discussions in these are of course less formal than writing. These voices are fluid, organic and full of slips. But these public discussions generously show the process of thinking, and the way different thinkers complement and argue with one another – and this is exactly what helps listeners whose views are still forming to realise that art criticism is not a lofty, academic job, but something anyone can start doing, any time, anywhere.
And then there are the critical discussions about art that happen outside public view – between friends who trust each other, in communities with an atmosphere of equality, and in certain particular networks. They may never be published or recorded, yet they are the most vital, most frequent, least censored and least constrained thinking about art happening today. With an art ecosystem and contexts this diverse, different groups may face utterly different situations and problems. But friends usually understand each other, sharing a foundation of trust and a common understanding of art, and so their discussion and criticism can mostly be of real help to practitioners. I have had many such conversations myself. In the 2000s, conversations like these may have happened on public forums such as Meishu Tongmeng (“美术同盟”) or Art-ba-ba, but by the 2010s they had gradually vanished from public view. What I think needs discussing next is precisely how private writing, and conversations built on friendship and mutual recognition, might surface again and be turned into public knowledge and shared concern, leading to wider discussion. From this angle we can also understand the rise of curating (and the decline of art criticism). Curating, as a form of action, can build the concrete contexts of art and society more directly than text can.
In future research on art criticism, should we widen our view and look at how discussion of art can happen more? Should we start from artists’ point of view and ask where, for them, art criticism happens, and whether it is needed? What matters most here, I think, is that writing art criticism is not about making the writer a holder of power, but about making criticism the start of the next real conversation, discussion and change.
“No Art Criticism, Only Art Advertorials” (《没有艺术批评，只有艺术软文》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/BKpjmU-G2qcdsF9rypl4IQ, 22 July 2022. ↩︎
Ye Ying and Pi Li, “Interview with Pi Li: The Decline of Art Criticism in the Age of Social Media Arrives Alongside a New Generation’s Awakening Sense of Identity” (《专访皮力：社交媒体时代艺术评论的衰落与新一代的身份觉醒正同时到来》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/5Gl7cODKpnEx2FtOCQsYNQ, 29 July 2022. ↩︎
Xu Zhijun, “The Return of Art Criticism” (《艺术批评的回归》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/ytgOPChwg1UeG0A3o4qWgg, 24 May 2022. ↩︎
Zhang Yuhang, “The Death Labyrinth of Nowhere-Land” (《虚无乡的死亡迷宫》), https://www.qilucriticism.com/post/deepsealabyrinth, 25 November 2022. ↩︎
Lü Peng, lecture “Chinese Art Criticism in Historical Context” (“历史语境中的中国艺术批评”), OCAT Shenzhen, 8 November 2014. ↩︎
Ibid. ↩︎
Zhao Zilong, “‘Critics’ Are Disappearing from the Industry’s View” (《“批评家”正在从行业视野中消失》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/56mqyuZo_q66vIU8bknvEQ, 22 November 2022. ↩︎
Qilu Criticism (Cindy Ziyun Huang, Weitian Liu, Nie Xiaoyi), “Why Become Qilu” (《为什么要成为歧路》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/_BGqZmjOTj88dK2iShg0MA, 24 May 2022. ↩︎
Heichi Magazine website: http://www.heichimagazine.org/. ↩︎
Daoju website: https://www.daoju.art/. ↩︎
btr, Shanghai Capsule (《上海胶囊》), Beifang Ribao Press, 2022. ↩︎
Some content in art media is called ruanwen (“soft copy”, i.e. advertorial). This is not really because galleries and institutions hire independent writers to do the work, but because these articles are published without disclosing the writer’s interests in the artist, gallery or institution, and appear on seemingly neutral third-party media platforms. Such writing is public, but not self-initiated. ↩︎
Wang Huan, “Criticism Is Not…” (《批评不是……》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/A5PAtIXT_f9_BAcRBvB6pg, 24 May 2022. ↩︎
Pang Kuan’s Weibo post announcing the event, https://weibo.com/1977763897/LpwmobiCP, 21 April 2022. ↩︎
chen_yinn, Wang Xiaosong, Sun Ce et al., “Pang Kuan’s 14-Day Livestreamed Quarantine: Artistic Reflection or Fake Show?” (《庞宽14天隔离直播，是艺术的反思还是虚假的作秀？》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/yCjYVqRQVgQaPCGud-I5OQ, 27 April 2022. ↩︎
Yin Qinglu, “How Does Lying Around on Your Phone Count as Performance Art? The Impotence and Staleness of Pang Kuan’s 14-Day Non-Stop Livestream” (《躺着玩手机何以成为行为艺术？庞宽14天无间断直播的无力与陈旧》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/vvMD7U8Vdhu5TW4w7QSByQ, 7 May 2022. ↩︎
Nie Xiaoyi, “The Boredom of the Powerless, the Power of the Bored” (《无力者的无聊，无聊者的有力》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/pA9z6j5KF9uCox9oiHGPCA, 30 May 2022. ↩︎
Lin Songguo, “Knit, Mum” (《织吧，妈妈》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PvdVaN7HUBS-gWYSMqhdOw, 22 September 2022. ↩︎
Stochastic Volatility and Hu Yinping, “A Person and Also Art, Me and Also Them” (《是人也是艺术，是我也是她们》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/iH1d6RBtpM4t067kKWGxhw, 2 December 2022. ↩︎
Sam Shiyi Qian, “Lies, Doubles and Margins: The Many Sides of Human Nature Behind Xiaofang” (《谎言、分身与边缘：“小芳”背后的多面人性》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9oaDR04zNnh_jMBBwX3mzw, 8 December 2022. ↩︎
Hanlu Zhang, He Xiao, Yang Beichen et al., “Five Curators on Artists’ Working Paths: The ‘Endgame’ and ‘Base Map’ of Creation, Ways of Seeing, and a Return to Embodiment” (《五位策展人对艺术家工作路径的观察：创作的“残局”、“底图”、观看视角和回归具身》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/VpAGHMOU8kui-bT2So8KIw, 18 January 2023. ↩︎
Xu Kuangzhi, “‘Critical’ Writing and Ineffectual Production: Some Thoughts on the Current State of Art Criticism” (《“批判性”写作与无效化生产——关于当下艺术批评现状的一点思考》), https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9FQeQP3X8iC0wfOZ_NoBRQ, 24 May 2022. ↩︎