2016.05.09 Mon, by Translated by: Katy Pinke
On Art E-Commerce

This piece is included in Ran Dian’s print magazine, issue 2 (Winter 2015-2016)

I will start by beating around the bush a bit in talking about an event in history that, from our perspective today, would seem to verge on the absurd. In the late eighties and early nineties, “qigong fever” swept mainland China like a tidal wave, drawing in hundreds of millions of people across the country. Some people practiced qigong for physical fitness, while others believed that it could bring about the sublimation of body and spirit. Regardless, the interesting thing was the phenomenon that emerged in the midst of the craze: in many hospitals at the time, especially in traditional Chinese medicine hospitals, “qigong rehabilitation” divisions began to pop up. Several “Qigong Institutes” devoted to research also were established everywhere, continuing into more recent times with the last official qigong organization, the Shanghai Qigong Institute. In this way, with the persistence of authoritative language to support it, qigong was bundled together with the concept of the “scientific.” A more extreme example of this can be found in the invention of medical equipment—electronic qigong instruments—at these “research institutes.”

But what I want to discuss here is not the reasons for the rise of qigong, but instead the question why qigong attached itself to the “scientific.” If we return this question to the  greater context of “cultural roots” consciousness at that time and the contradictions that arose therein with the sudden rise of commercialization and modernization, we can clearly see that qigong, playfully cloaking itself in “science”—a new value for Chinese society—was able to take on the role of spokesperson for the attractive notion of “The more national, the more global.” And yet, in reality, throughout the nineties far more things wore the crown of the “scientific” than they do now. The motivation for this is not difficult to understand. The embrace of “science” in fact originates from a kind of crisis consciousness. Once “science” established itself as the latest trend, that unrelenting “those with me prosper, those against me die” social pressure took hold. Of course, “Mr. De” (democracy) and “Mr. Sci” (science) had already been proposed as early as the May Fourth Movement period as central values, but only later did people become keenly aware of the benefits of the latter. Under these conditions, oftentimes the more something lacked the valued trait, the more that thing was emphasized as being in possession of it.

20 世纪 90 年代气功热潮,中国大陆(照片:《大公报》) / Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

20 世纪 90 年代气功热潮,中国大陆(照片:《大公报》) / Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

This kind of psychology is much like the art industry, pushed forward as it is now by the e-commerce boom. What all of these online auctions, online original-artwork platforms, online limited edition copy sales networks and other apps operating through mobile clients are chasing after is, similarly, a trend: the new value tidal wave. I do not intend to emphasize my own personal experience of the importance of art to make irresponsible remarks about art e-commerce. After all, in an era of screen-browsing, how many of our experiences at this point actually come from direct contact? Not to mention, we also have these offline experience centers at our disposal. But the deconstructive function of the online sale of “artwork” is actually far stronger than the issue of “going to experience” it ourselves. The operators of online platforms all seem to harbor a grand behind-the-scenes dream of turning their businesses into the  new Taobao’s of the art world: using the increased scale of operations to reduce middle men and cut extra costs for the low-profit sale of large quantities of goods, and hooking a broader consumer base. This logic, however, is actually very difficult to apply to works of art. The reasons for this are below.

E-commerce or, in the broader sense, all online business, can effectively reduce middle men and lower the added value of products. But when it comes to art work, this setup is not necessarily tenable. As everyone knows, with art, there can be an enormous gap between the actual cost of production and how work is ultimately priced (a failure to recognize this divide implies an assertion that the value of a painting is based entirely on its material components, and that alone). Everything that fills this gap, this divide, is the so-called “added value” of the product. The most extreme example of this is Duchamp’s work “Fountain” (1917), which is actually comprised of a single urinal. Especially when it comes to contemporary art, the value generated by interpretation  of a work is often blended together with the accepted value of the work itself. In other words, the entire art ecology is working towards added value. Contrary to this, what e-commerce is trying to do with goods in general is to subtract this value. The move of bypassing the retail store is, for most products, a good thing that benefits the consumer. But the move of bypassing the art gallery reduces something that is not merely incidental to the value of art, but rather precisely its most essential value: its relevance to its time.

20 世纪 90 年代气功热潮,中国大陆(照片:《大公报》)/ Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

20 世纪 90 年代气功热潮,中国大陆(照片:《大公报》)/ Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

In response to this point, the world of art apps and mobile clients seems to have three trump card arguments readily prepared: 1. How are we to account for the derivative markets, where reproductions of works by artists like Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Yoshitomo Nara, Takashi Murakami, and Yayoi Kusama are sold? 2. What about holding academic events that are both online and offline? 3. What about the possibility of everyone consuming art? Of every person having the chance to become a collector? Is this not a good thing?

First, the derivative market is indeed its own thing. It is especially developed in the West, where the range of reproduction covers almost everything, even lesser-known paintings. But this is separate from artistic creation. We cannot forget one basic fact: whether it be Warhol and Nara or Damien Hirst, these are bodies of work that first had to be accepted critically before their “subsidiary” markets could ever come into existence, and not the other way around (the profit created by these “subsidiary” markets sometimes even surpasses those of the original market). This order cannot be reversed. If we try to reverse it, we ignore the significance of each artist for his respective era. If “originality” is still a valued trait today, then this “originality” depends on historical context. Only with this context can a person or a period of artistic achievement be given fair consideration. The point in time when any art work/artist/art movement is endowed with uniqueness and value is the point in time (whether it occurs before or after its full development) that serves as its reference point. Take Warhol’s expression of the experience of post-industrial society, or Nara’s hurt Kawaii girl’s reference to the contradictions of Japan’s national psyche following the Second World War.

20 世纪 90 年代气功热潮,中国大陆(照片:《大公报》) / Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

20 世纪 90 年代气功热潮,中国大陆(照片:《大公报》) / Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

Second, when academic and artistic circles participate in the fostering of art e-commerce, it is tragic. Not long ago, I saw in a report on Artron’s press conference for some new art app that “art elders Xian Ting, Huang Du, Zhu Tong, Du Xiyun and other guests conveyed their congratulations.” The question for me is not whether Du Xiyun is in fact an art “elder,” but rather whether these guests were at all clear on what it was they were “congratulating.” Elders: 1. they need your packaging and support to be able to go off with their own work, far removed from the purpose of yours 2. you do not in fact need them, because they do not have creativity; the object of your research is precisely what they intend to use to serve their own image. They are focused on symbols that immediately serve interest levels, and believe you are likely creators of this instant significance; and 3. when they talk about democratizing art collection and breaking the boundaries between online and offline spheres, it is propaganda used for nothing more than realizing commercial objectives. But art is not law, so they need to stop conveniently plugging the notion of democratic “equality” into the process. This tactic of sponsoring grass-roots “collectors” is so infantile that it is not worth comment. Deep down, everyone loves money, but what artwork apps and micro photo platforms attempt to circumvent is precisely the “added value” that art circles and the academic world are trying to establish and protect. The boundary between online and offline, in this haze of apparent equitability, will take contemporary artistic concepts, already so hard to make “high,” and bring them down “low.”

As all kinds of micro platforms start to make their racket once again, I cannot help but think of those years of qigong fever. The art world’s time on stage now seems to be a thing of the past, and a new concept has suddenly taken the world by storm. And so, many people—eager to have a go at it—come charging forward with heads full of fog, further abetting the bewildered status quo, running wildly at some notion of “mobile internet commerce” for fear of missed opportunities. Yes, those years of “nano” technology were just the same, weren’t they?

20 世纪 90 年代气功热 潮,中国大陆(照片: 《 大公报》) / Qigong  spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

20 世纪 90 年代气功热 潮,中国大陆(照片: 《 大公报》) / Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

20 世纪 90 年代气功热潮,中国大陆(照片:《大公报》) / Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)

20 世纪 90 年代气功热潮,中国大陆(照片:《大公报》) / Qigong spree in the 1990s, Mainland China (Photo: Ta Kung Pao)