The main hall of the exhibition center. This picture happens to have Plaza 66, my office building, in the background; it's the tall building to the right. This really doesn't do the Exhibition Center justice, since the building is far larger than this, and filled with ornate details.
Every day I go out to lunch with my coworkers. After lunch, we often go for a walk. Specifically, I go for a walk with my coworker James, who is a graduate student finishing his dissertation in Shanghai. James is from Shanghai and he’s taught me quite a lot about the city and about China in general. Last week, in an effort to avoid the oppressive heat and humidity, we went to an art exhibit at the Shanghai Exhibition Center (上海展览中心, Shanghai zhanlan zhongxin). The Exhibition Center is an interesting place with an even more interesting history. It was built in the early days of the PRC as the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building. (中苏友好大厦, zhong-su youhao dasha. “Zhong” is the Chinese word for “Chinese.” The world literally means “middle,” so China’s name 中国 “zhongguo,” literally means “Middle Country.” The Chinese word for “Soviet” is 苏 “su,” which means “awake,” “revive,” or “resurgent.” That’s a pretty powerful and telling word choice, wouldn’t you say?) The building looks pretty Soviet, with its monumental scale and triumphalism. However, when the Sino-Soviet friendship soured, so did the building’s role as a symbol of frindship, and it was converted to an all-purpose exhibition center. This seems like a good representation of the history of Sino-Soviet relations to me. The Soviets showed the Chinese the ropes, until then the Chinese got irritated with the Soviets’ wiser-older-brother mentality. The building remains, however, as a tribute to the once strong ties between the two countries. On a random note, the city of Shanghai also uses the building for its annual People’s Congress, so it’s not just a museum.
This picture gives a sense of the size and shape of the Exhibition Center.
What’s sad is that today much of the Exhibition center is dirty and smelly and not well kept. It’s a shame that such a monumental building, with ornate details and fine craftsmanship should slip into disrepair, but it’s not really surprising. The Shanghai government is far more concerned about developing the city upward and outward than preserving an old building. This seems like a natural time to note that Shanghai is a city of at least twenty-million people. I say “at least” because no one really knows how many people there are, since so many migrant laborers come here without registering with the authorities. To accomodate this huge population, Shanghai is in a constant state of growth. Whole neighborhoods dissapear, seemingly overnight, and new office buildings appear equally as quickly. The archetypal example of this is Pudong, the area west of the Huangpu river. In 1990, Pudong was a swamp with small shops and houses. Then, the government decide to transform Pudong into a center of business and tourism. This started with the Oriental Pearl Tower, finished in 1994 and by far the most controversial building in Shanghai, ushering in a new era of development in Pudong.
The Oriental Pearl. Try to imagine this against the backdrop of slums and swamp, as it would have been in 1994.
Since then, Pudong has become a bastion of huge buildings, including the tallest one China, the World Financial Center. (You can see these buildings by looking at the photo at the top of the page. In the photo, there are still cranes working on the World Financial Center, but that’s because the photo’s a few years old. The building is now complete. In fact, Joyce and I went there for dinner on Monday, July 5, for Joyce’s birthday.)
On a side note, as many of you may know, Shanghai is holding the world’s fair this year, or EXPO, as it’s better known. EXPO’s motto is 城市，让生活更美好. (Chengshi, rangshenghuo geng meihao, “city, life better” but translated as “better city, better life.”) My coworker, James, told me that the Shanghai municipal authorities explained that what this motto means for Shanghai is that there will be more building, to make the city better, which will in turn make life better for city residents. Hmm. . . . I don’t think that’s how English speakers took the meaning of the motto.
"Chairman Mao goes to Anyuan" by Liu Chunhua. Probably the most famous painting of Mao, every detail of it is designed to show his revolutionary spirit.
"Chairman Mao visits Guandong country" by Chen Yanning. Made in 1972, this painting exudes Cultural Revolution. Ironically, in 2005, this painting sold for 10.12 RMB to a European collector.
Anyhow, back to the after-lunch visit to the Exhibition Center. James and I went there to see an exhibit of twentieth-century modern and post-modern Chinese paintings. It showed me a lot about Chinese art. I noted that there seem to be three competing influences on twentieth-century Chinese painting: classical Chinese styles, communist-propagandist style, and Western styles. The classical Chinese styles are very much what we Westerners think of when we think of Chinese painting—landscapes with waterfalls and mountains, etc. However, there is actually huge depth and variety in these, and the art is very referential to other well-known pieces, even some that are hundreds of years old, so it is like a continuing and evolving dialogue.The communist-propagandist style is far less interesting. It consists mostly of pictures of happy peasants marching into the future, Mao embracing the now-liberated multi-ethnic citizens of China, industrial progress moving China into the future, etc. As in most propagandist art, there is far less concern with artistic originality than with towing the party line. A few of the propagandist paintings were captivating and /or interestingly executed, but they are, by and large, pretty dull. You know the type, it looks just like Soviet realism.
The exhibit was chronological, and as it progressed, more and more Western influences peeked in. It started with the odd impressionist painting here or there, until certain painters embraced impressionism entirely and their work looked as though it could have been made alongside Monet and Degas’s work. But, this Western influence was entirely invisible in other painters’ works. The real distinguishing factor seemed to be that painters who’d studied in the West, particularly Paris, brought back Western sensibilities with them. Contrary to what one might expect, many of these painters went to the West in the 1950s and 1960s, with the full support of the Chinese communists.The best use of Western influences, in my opinion, was by those painters who didn’t just adopt western styles wholesale, but instead intermingled Western and Chinese styles, creating a new, hybrid style. By far the best of these was Wu Guanzhong, an internationally famous painter. He was the only painter to receive an entire room in the exhibition, and it was the last room, giving the feeling that one had “arrived” at the finale, or the zenith of modern Chinese painting. Looking at his work, I thought of Jackson Pollock and Joan Miró.
"Forgetful Snow" by Wu Guanzhong. I think this painting is beautiful. It reminds me Miro.
Sadly, Wu Guanzhong died last week, at 90 years old. The New York Times ran an obituary of him—that fact itself telling of his fame and influence—that called him “one of China’s most forward-looking and admired artists.” I’m sad that I didn’t know of him sooner, since he seems to be a household name in China, like Jackson Pollock or Jasper Jones. In fact, we even have a reproduction of one of his paintings in my office. The good news, though, is that his work will still remain, and I’ve got lots of time to get to know it better.
See you later.
Ten weeks of working and living in Shanghai 