Mood: It’s unsurprising that immediacy of “Mood” has spread at the opening of the exhibition. Mood is a simple rendering of social psychology, which is lacking in reflection and analysis, so that it naturally slides into an old ship, following the river to meet the sea, but it still looks forward to comfortable feelings “to my boat these ten thousand mountains away.” Without a reason, a person will have a mood of resistance which is mainly diverted from several aspects: dissipating the collective warmth of “comrades”, a panicking sense of the self-position which shakes, a deconstruction of the “uprising and rebellious” thinking mode, invalid feeling of the creative or curatorial base point, and loss of the previous “power”. It’s a psychological reality that is mainly reflected by artists, critics, curators, etc.

Power: Some people consider contemporary art as “Rivers and Lakes (Underworld)”, where “power” generates. The “power” actually refers to the controlling right of exhibition opportunities, the diversion of market capital, the right in choosing a discourse. Because the survival space is too narrow, contemporary artists always borrow overseas exhibitions and market capital for effective resistance. In the process it produces a variety of “powers”, its hegemony, rage, and the “misreading”, “catering to” are rarely touched. In fact they have already seeped into the seemingly independent gesture, position, writing and creation. So that it’s necessary to shunt power, otherwise it is the hegemony. The exhibition can be regarded as a starting point.

Avant-garde: In the exhibition, it seems that one of the three elements of “avant-garde”“alternative space” is intuitively pulled away, but in fact, Today Art Museum’s identity is a “nonprofit folk art museum” which is not mentioned. In combing through Chinese contemporary art history, the relationship between “avant-garde” and “alternative space” has always been ambiguous. Since “Stars Art Exhibition”, “China Avant-Garde Art Exhibition” entered the National Art Museum of China, this paradox has been continued. In fact, avant-garde artists have always been “active” hoping to enter a “symbolic space”, it is a kind of excitement of Li Zicheng who conquered the Beijing city, and it has never disappeared. If “avant-garde” is just a gesture, then the capability to enter a specific relationship, the capability of dealing with a specific issue has always been questioned. Now, the event and confrontation of the so-called “avant-garde” has added more composition to “sensationalist”, as reflected on by some young artists and curators.

Experiment: In my opinion, “experiment” is different from “avant-garde”, because of its capability to enter a specific relationship, capability in dealing with a specific issue, capability of the discovery of artistic language. The word “avant-garde” is gradually refrigerated, in addition to the macro reason, it is actually because of the rise of a construction attitude, it appears in part for artists and curators who are more responsible and sober to contemporary art; moreover the ambiguity, abstraction and simplification of “avant-garde” itself. The avant-garde artists who swear, possess irrational rage, gradually lose their rebellious capability, but their interest orientation, habits of the underworld, desire for power and the opportunistic traits are also gradually exposed. The teaching of “experimental art” has been a part of the college, artists and their works are accepted by mainstream exhibitions, mainstream spaces, which has always been the appeal of Chinese contemporary artists. Otherwise, it’s impossible for the establishment of a contemporary art collection system, to popularise it for the public, and creates more research in contemporary art.

Courtesy of Liu Libin, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.