contemporary monkey

Xu Zhen is at least one part of MadeIn. Or not.

Can you ever really know someone, a country, or a culture? Armed with the worldwide inter-webby thing, a plane ticket to just about anywhere, and a credit card that purchases just about anything on the planet, you’d think our capacity to be global pals of the highest order is a cinch. What is it we don’t know? Want to meet people from all over the world, but don’t have the wherewithal? Line up a four week holiday to South Africa in June and the world comes to you. Constantly wondering what all the hub-bub is about of, say, the politics in Georgia, shifting borders in Armenia, or football teams of Togo? An iPhone in your pocket is all you need to pull down as much data as your battery allows. But honest data doesn’t make it easy to grasp the details.

This month at Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery is a show from a Chinese art collective called MadeIn. There is a large amount of work in the gallery, so the term “collective” could mean a small Chinese village of 200,000. And this is exactly the point MadeIn are making in their show called, “Seeing One’s Own Eyes”, how much of the world is understood through cliche. MadeIn’s work enables the platitudes of the Middle East, including the sympathies of the region’s locals, with the caricatures of the “tourists” (that would be us westerners with our ample supply of guns and ammo).

In one section, enclosing about 8-10 mixed media works, each about 8 feet by 15 feet wide, reflect someone’s interpretation, or subjective opinion, of the current realm of the Middle East. American’s like me will see this as one more smirk at our country’s muscularity, bullying, short-sightedness; just more censure that the world piles onto every American, as if we’re all standing shoulder to shoulder against the world. And while the trite remarks might be somewhat warranted, it’s becoming an increasingly old story. I was mostly annoyed.

anti-American? or anti-indolent?

However, while the work uses mixed media, the images are painted cartoon-like, suggesting less than earnest comments. The images reflect what someone in Shanghai might perceive the Middle East to be from thousands of miles away, viewed through a skewed lens of the Chinese media, knowing it’s probably not completely true. The proposition is one that hints toward our inclination to shape subjective, even lazy, views into absolute fact.

I can’t leave without commenting on the over-zealous copy from the exhibition guide suggesting that MadeIn is a Chinese collective, that pretends it’s a Middle Eastern collective. Ikon Gallery state that Xu Zhen, a single man, is indeed MadeIn, which in itself pretends to be a Middle Eastern Art Collective. That’s more than a bit optimistic, as firstly, I don’t think one has to go that far to make the point about cliche which they were successful in constructing. Secondly, no visitor is going to think that, so why even make it up? It’s not like MadeIn needs to be more than once removed to prove their point. In fact, if you’re going to the trouble of inventing another layer, why not keep inventing layer; why stop at two? Why not suggest the Chinese artist Xu Zhen is pretending to be a Chinese artist collective, which is pretending to be a Middle Eastern Collective, which in itself is pretending to be an American collective, which might really be a British collective, pretending to be Chinese. Isn’t it all so circular and mind-bending, and self-reflective and black-hole-like? Who’s got drugs?