Art Insight #5: Philip Tinari
Explorer who leads Chinese art scene through dynamic projects
UCCA, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, has become a catalyst for contemporary culture in China. It is a not-for-profit located in the middle of the country’s most important art district and focuses on artists both Chinese and international, emerging and established. It presents a compelling mix of exhibitions to an annual public audience of more than half a million visitors. It supplements this with a wide complement of supporting programs—roughly 350 a year—which offer Beijing’s public a window into contemporary art and culture globally.
Founded by Baron Guy Ullens and his wife Myriam in 2007, this vast space has been directed since 2011 by Philip Tinari, an influential and dynamic curator active in the Chinese art scene for nearly 15 years. He is American, born in Philadelphia in 1979. He came to China out of an intellectual fascination with the language, and with an abundance of ideas about globalization and culture. From a young age, he researched and wrote about contemporary art in China. For him, it was absolutely fascinating to watch the scene develop and transform over the years.
He said: “I have a lot of respect for certain attitudes that are widespread in China—the idea that any problem can be solved with a lot of hard work, and the ambition and daring to undertake massive projects on short deadlines.” However, he added: “I worry that China is becoming more and more restrictive on a cultural level and yet I’m also excited to see how ideas from China are beginning to find their way into the global conversation.” UCCA, in many ways, is the product of a special moment in Beijing: just before the Olympics, when the city and the country were opening up to international culture. “Unfortunately it feels as if that kind of openness no longer exists, and yet we are still able to operate.” China is definitely in a moment of transition.
Tinari will continue to build bridges between Asia and the rest of the world,but also between his own cultural mission and the commercial aspects of contemporary art. He explained: “All institutions today need to work with the commercial system in one way or another. We are lucky to have great support from collectors, patrons and sponsors throughout and beyond China.”
I have a lot of respect for certain attitudes that are widespread in China—the idea that any problem can be solved with a lot of hard work, and the ambition and daring to undertake massive projects on short deadlines. -Philip Tinari-
Q. You promote contemporary Chinese art in China through established artists, what about young Chinese names?
Young Chinese artists have always been at the core of our concerns. In 2013 we mounted the exhibition “ON | OFF: China’s Young Artists in Concept and Practice,” which set a global agenda in looking at a generation of Chinese artists born in the early years of the Opening and Reform in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Later this year, we will launch the exhibition series New Directions, which will focus on individual positions from this younger generation.
Q. How do Chinese artists manage to make a name for themselves when so many are technically talented? Is it their conceptual approaches that make the difference?
There is certainly a high level of technical skill among artists in China, owing mainly to the fact that the education system, which teaches painting, sculpture and printmaking, remains firmly in place in the academies. It is more difficult to teach concept than technique, and so only a small number of artists awaken to the more intellectual dimensions of artistic practice. Of course, in China a small number is still quite large, and these are the artists who enter the contemporary scene. Thankfully today there are a number of talented critics and good media outlets, which can discuss these works.
Q. What is your view on Korean artists and the country’s situation within the global art market? Have you shown anyKorean artists at UCCA?
Korea is a fascinating context for contemporary art, structured by a different set of dynamics than China. Later this year we will present an exhibition with Haegue Yang, her first in China. I think Korea has benefitted from a cohort of ambitious and cosmopolitan collectors, and from a slate of very intelligent galleries, which are able to present Korean artists on the world stage. It is also interesting to see more historical movements from modern Korean art being reevaluated, such as the Dansaekhwa painters.
Q. Last year at the Armory Show’s China Symposium, Adrian Cheng (founder and chair of the K11 Art Foundation)presented on the changes taking place in Hong Kong and artists’ increasing self-confidence, but underlined nonetheless that they are still searching for an identity. Do you feel there is a big difference with artists in Beijing?
Hong Kong is a city of 7 million attached to a nation of 1.4 billion, of which Beijing is the capital. It’s different to make comparisons between the two. Of course in the last year, Hong Kong has undergone a major political awakening, which will surely have an impact on the work of artists there in the coming years.
Q. The symposium also discussed government control of culture. Is Chinese art essentially a reactive political art? Does the Chinese government receive any benefits from Chinese artist sales?
All art is connected on one level or another to the society from which it comes. In China there is a legacy of art as a vehicle of political dissent, which began in the late 1970s and continued through the 1990s. These days this tendency is less obvious, although most artists do maintain some sense of criticality about the system in which they find themselves. As for the question of government involvement in the art market, beyond taxation of art works there is no direct connection. In fact, the appearance of an art market has actually provided a kind of political cover for contemporary art, because art can now be seen as just another economic sector as opposed to the cradle of rebellion.
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Q. Where is European art’s place in the Asian market?
I was just in Madrid for a few days with members of our Patrons Council and it was very interesting to watch them collect works by European and other global artists. I think that as Chinese collectors become more knowledgeable and cosmopolitan, they start looking beyond Chinese artists and a few big international art stars, and to works by artists based on their own sense of aesthetics. Just in our small group, there were purchases of works by BarthélémyToguo, Gabriel Kuri, Ignacio Uriarte, and TomásSaraceno. This openness and knowledge only continues to grow.
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Q. What percentage of artists represented at UCCA international?
We try to keep our program about half Chinese and half international. Of course, international includes the whole world beyond China. Last year we did an exhibition of seven positions from artists based in Los Angeles. This year we will do a major exhibition with William Kentridge, who is South African but deeply informed by European culture. Later in the year we will do a trilogy of exhibitions by Asian artists—Ming Wong, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Haegue Yang—who come from Singapore, Thailand and Korea, respectively, but are now or have been based in New York and Berlin. We will also do a show with David Diao, a painter who was born in China in 1943 but has made his entire career in New York, with many exhibitions in Europe. So I think the essentialist distinctions of identity based on place of birth are less and less relevant to what we do.
Q. How would you compare the importance of biennials/triennials (such as Venice, Gwangju, Busan or Guangzhou) and international art fairs in today’s art world?
The art fair has become a very powerful exhibition format in the past decade. Often art fairs are about more than the fair itself—they serve as focal points for entire art weeks in which the museums, galleries and collections of a particular city will open up, and the international crowd will descend to get a sense of the scene. I don’t think it’s possible to say that one fair is definitively the most important.
Biennials meanwhile have become more and more like museum shows. They remain important because they are non-commercial, and thus able to set curatorial agendas and consolidate new trends and reputations.
Q. This year, the Armory Show focused on MENAM (Middle East, Northern Africa and the Mediterranean). Does UCCA have relationships with artists or institutions from these art hubs like Algeria, Egypt, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon or Turkey?
I hope we can do more with these regions in the coming years. Right now at UCCA we have a show called “The World in 2015,” which includes work by the Algerian-French artist Neïl Beloufa and the Kuwait/London/New York-based collective Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as a young Chechen artist Aslan Gaisumov. Our Patrons Council will travel together to Istanbul later this year, and I am looking forward to visiting Saudi for the first time as well. I’m excited to show more work from this part of the world.
Q. Hyundai Motors Company supports the arts through such partnerships with the Tate Modern and MMCA Seoul. In your opinion, what is the best way for commercial enterprises to engage in and encourage the growth of art?
There are basically two schools of thought here. The first is that corporate sponsorship is best when it comes as unrestricted donations, to be used by the museum for a particular exhibition it had already planned. This is of course extremely helpful, and often an enterprise can get a great deal out of this kind of sponsorship. The second is projects developed in collaboration between enterprises and institutions. This requires a high level of sophistication, coordination, and trust between the institutions and enterprises to develop projects that fit both parties’ goals and are still relevant to the public and to art.
Increasingly, enterprises will commission artists for various projects with more and less direct connections to marketing and branding strategies. The success depends entirely on the artist and the brand—these collaborations can be beautiful—think of the film Yang Fudong made for Prada a few years ago—but they can also go badly wrong. I think these collaborations work best when the enterprises approach the artists as catalysts and creators, rather than as commercial actors.
Q. Can you tell us about some of your future projects?
The big ones for me this year are the exhibitions of William Kentridge and David Diao, and an exhibition of Chinese contemporary art at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris at the end of the year in collaboration with the team there. ■ with Davina Macario (ARTINPOST)
The interviewer, Davina Marcario is working for French art magazine 『La Gazette Drouot』 and Belgian art magazine 『L'Eventail』. She studied art history at Université de Strasbourg(UMB) and got a degree at IEJ(Institut Européen de Journalisme-Paris 16) majoring in Journalism.
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<Media guided tour on exhibition opening day>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<UCCA Atrium>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<UCCA Central gallery>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<UCCA Entrance>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<UCCA Great Hall>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Made in China by Sui Jianguo – UCCA outside>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<UCCA Nave>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<UCCA Reception>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<UCCA Store>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<UCCA Workshop>
Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei: Colors> Installation View of <Untitled No.3>
2014 Oil on canvas 60×80cm Photo: Dora Tang Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei: Colors> Installation View of <Untitled No.1>
2014 Oil on canvas, 60×80cm Photo: Dora Tang Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei: Colors> Installation View of <Love It, Bite It No.3>
2014 Oxhide, wood, steel Dimensions variable Photo: Dora Tang Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei: Colors> Installation View of <Crucifixion>
2014 Iron, steel Dimensions variable Photo: Dora Tang Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei>
Photo: Dora Tang Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei>
Photo: Dora Tang Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei: Colors> Installation view
Photo: Dora Tang Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei: Colors> Installation View of <Puzzle>
2014 Glass, aluminium, alloy Dimensions variable Photo: Dora Tang Photo Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei: Colors> Installation View of <Puzzle>
2014 Glass, aluminium, alloy Dimensions variable Photo: Dora Tang Photo Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
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<Liu Wei: Colors> Installation View of <Puzzle>
2014 Glass, aluminium, alloy Dimensions variable Photo: Dora Tang Photo Courtesy UCCA and ARTINPOST
Profile
Philip Tinari is Director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing. Prior to joining UCCA in 2011, he was the founding editorial director of the bilingual, international art magazine LEAP, published by Modern Media. He previously served as the China advisor to Art Basel, was founding editor of Artforum’s Chinese-language edition at artforum.com.cn, and lecturer at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He has written and lectured extensively on contemporary art in China, and sits on advisory boards including the Guggenheim Asian Art Council and the Asia Society Hong Kong Center gallery committee. In 2002, he worked as curatorial assistant to the first Guangzhou Triennial. He holds a B.A. in Literature from Duke, where he curated the exhibition “Made in Asia?” and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Harvard—he proceeded to research at Peking University as a Fulbright fellow.In March 2014, he curated the Focus: China section of the Armory Show in New York.
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