Cantocore: Free on Board
Featuring works by: David O. Johnson, Fang Lu, Guy Overfelt, Huang Xiaopeng, JD Beltran, Jon Phillips, Justin Hoover, Katherine Worel, Lin Fang Suo, Misako Inaoka, Wang Ge, Zhou Tao
Mission 17
San Francisco, CA
13 February – 18 April 2009

By Tonya Warner

Within the past two years or so there seems to have grown an increased fascination in the English-speaking world with China.  This interest appears to be two-fold: looking to China as a new economic superpower, both in terms of production and consumption, as well as a place of dubious political practices.  A focus on the economic and cultural climate of this large country – characterized in the minds of the media as a site of constant, explosive growth – has also led to an interest in how China’s contemporary artists respond to this state of both flux and oppression.  Despite recent downturns in the Chinese art market (mimicking global trends), there has been a boom of exposure for Chinese artists in the Western world.  Saatchi had a huge group show of who’s who in Chinese art at the end of last year, PaceWildenstein is set to open a gallery in Beijing, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, there have been at least 11 exhibitions of contemporary Chinese art in the past five months alone.

In the Mission 17 gallery spaces there are even two simultaneous China-related shows up at once.  In Gallery 1 are two video projections in connexion with the exhibit “imPOSSIBLE!: 8 Chinese Artists Engage Absurdity,” also at the SFAC Gallery downtown.  Why the show would spill over into a gallery 1.5 miles away is beyond me.  Never-the-less, Shi Yong presents an interesting video that consists of a steady shot of a bookcase.  Upon further examination one finds that the books are gradually turning from color to black and white, one at a time.  Their transformation is both sudden and subtle – the shift not immediately perceived.  The architectonic nature of the volumes lined up on the shelves leads the work to become a metaphor for the shifting urban landscape.

“Cantocore,” in Gallery 2, centers around a collaboration between artists in San Francisco and Guangzhou, China.  The show was first presented in China and related to the “import and export” of culture, people and objects between the two cities.  Only part of the pieces were then shipped over to San Francisco.  Perhaps this is because the Mission 17 space is so small or because they wanted the works to lose something in transit – something they definitely achieved.  As with the Transpop [http://percolatormag.com/janfeb09/transpop.html] show at Yerba Buena, this exhibit would have definitely benefited from more information given about each piece.  So much of the art here seemed to rely on cultural references or experiences that were not explained – in such a situation one can only evaluate these works on aesthetic grounds.  Such was the case with Fang Lu’s video installation “News Reenactment,” which showed a group of people setting off string after string of firecrackers, letting the red paper detritus fall around the scene like snow.  It is beautiful in a way, but I could not help but feel like I was not getting the whole story of the work.

On the other side of this is Lin Fangsuo’s video “Exploitation,” featuring vegetables with drawn-on faces getting squished by a plate of glass pressed down by two people off-screen.  Even though there is a nice element of humor (and the participants seem to be enjoying themselves), the work crosses over the line into being too literal.

The shining star of the show, which also seems to have no place here, is by Misako Inaoka, an interesting and inventive artist I have reviewed multiple times before.  Inaoka’s “Zen Garden” sits in the middle of the space and appears to be a typical Japanese rock garden.  Upon closer observation, however, one discovers that the rocks are artificial and not only that, are on wheels – wheels that have in turn made the patterns in the sand rather than a rake.  Against the back wall is two pillows one can sit on with remote controls to move the rocks around the garden.  The work is clever, visually interesting and joyfully interactive.  It is also distinctly Japanese.  Which makes sense, as this is where the San Francisco-based artist is originally from, but not in the context of this show.

What bothers me the most about this show is that for something that is about exchange and cultural mixing, there doesn’t seem to be much consideration of this transaction.  This is except for JD Beltran’s video “Airplane Cantocore”, a series of interviews with people in China that seemed too drawn out for its installation.  “Cantocore,” in its statement at least, seeks to transcend modalities of location, however, its premise is based on location – two locations to be exact.  I didn’t find much evidence of the artists relating to Chinese-American exchange.  More was made of the physical exchange of the works themselves than ideas.  Has China become such a catch phrase in the art world that its presence is enough to build a show around?

http://cantocore.com/

http://www.sfacgallery.org/exhibitions_detail.fsp?id=449025