Song Dong

Quinn: Hello and welcome back to Pictorial on Relay FM. I'm Quinn Rose, and I did not go to art school, but I love learning about art and artists.

Betty: And I'm Betty. I'm also someone who did not go to art school, but this time, unlike the past few times, my experience in working at an art gallery for about nine years actually is somewhat relevant again. So I will refer to that in a moment.

Quinn: That’s right. We're bringing it back with the good old traditional focusing in on an artist episode. And this is Betty's topic. So I’ll let you take it away.

Betty: This is actually an artist that we have mentioned a few times. So the first time I think I mentioned this artist was when we talked about the artist Ai Weiwei. And we talked about that he collaborated with a lot of other Chinese contemporary artists and he has, or he had a show in China called “F— Off.” And this is probably the last time I'll swear on this episode because—so the artist that we are talking about, his name is Song Dong. So even though he participated in this show with Ai Weiwei, and he is also someone who disrupts certain cultural norms, he's not like Ai Weiwei. Like I see him as more of a calmer, refined Ai Weiwei. I feel like Ai Weiwei wouldn't mind me saying that because like, Ai Weiwei, he, you know, he likes to be controversial and, you know, have naked pictures of himself and swear and, you know, do things that kind of, he knows will intentionally upset people. Song Dong isn't someone like that. Or at least he doesn't intentionally upset people. He might still upset people, but… He's a part of that generation. He's a bit younger than Ai Weiwei, but he's a part of that generation of Chinese contemporary artists who were doing a lot of work in the 90s, but he is still actively working today. And another time we mentioned him was when we were talking about experiential art. I mentioned a show I saw at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2019 called Allure of Matter. And that actually was a traveling show that ended abruptly because of COVID in Chicago. And so there, I saw a work of his called Traceless Stele, and I was like, we have to just talk about this artist just completely, because they're so interesting and fascinating. And not just in the specific of his work, but also in, in the way he explores materials and he mixes different cultural topics. And, but anyway, yeah, before, I guess before I start, since I have, you have had brief introductions of this artist, do you have any thoughts so far? I haven't told you anything else.

Quinn: No, I don't have any experience with this artist beyond the stuff that we have that you have brought to episodes before and kind of mentioned. And so yeah, I'm coming into this with fresh eyes.

Betty: Amazing. Yeah, this is really great because—so I first got introduced to Song Dong in 2016, again, I think I had heard of him before. Like I was a little bit aware of Chinese contemporary art before this time, before working this show in 2016. But  I didn't know very much, beyond Ai Weiwei I didn't know very much. So I did research on Song Dong. And so at the time, a piece of art came into the AGO’s permanent collection. And oh, sorry, I should mention the AGO is the Art Gallery of Ontario, where I volunteered as a gallery guide for about nine years. But currently, due to the pandemic, that is not something that I do. But at the time in 2016, I was doing tours and talks. And I also wrote the tours through researching the notes from curators, from interpretive planners, and sometimes also the artist. And so Song Dong did come to the AGO to do a talk, and talk to some of us briefly about his work. And so through researching this work he did called Communal Courtyard, I learned about basically everything else. And most of the people coming in to see his work also had never heard of him, even though he is quite well known in contemporary art and in Chinese contemporary art. Like most people don't know, like me, don't know anything about him, but people found like a deep connection with this work. And people generally do with a lot of his other works—without, obviously, even knowing who he is. That's why I think he is someone who's just very good at making connections with people. And so he—I actually pulled up his like, he has a biography on Pace gallery where he's represented and they describe him as someone who explores like, memory, self-expression, impermanence, transience, like a lot of these words are used to describe his work, but basically, I just see it as like, he explores like memories and materials. And a lot of his experiences, a lot of his works are Chinese, but they're not like distinctively about China or about exactly like the places that he's from. He's trying to make a connection with people in general, through talking about or through expressing his own experiences. And again, while his themes are Chinese, quite often based in Chinese traditional materials, his inspirations—similar to Ai Weiwei—are many different artists. So he talked about one of his first artists that he really was inspired by was the artist Robert Rauschenberg, who did a lot of like found art, who did a lot of ready-mades or took objects that are normal everyday objects, but made it into art, which is something we've talked about before. And so Song Dong was really interested in this as well. And we've talked about also the artist Sol LeWitt, who does these artworks where he just makes a set of instructions and that becomes the art. So that's also an artist that Song Dong really likes. He is a big fan of like Andy Warhol and Rene Magritte. And so, so obviously he's had these influences from contemporary artists, like Western contemporary artists. Before I talk about the piece though that he did in the AGO, cause that's actually kind of a piece I want to talk about last because kind of everything else leads into that, I believe. I do want to circle back to the, what we spoke about last time in the experiential art episode, where we talked about him drawing or him having this Traceless Stele, this big piece of stone where you just write on it with a brush with water. And he actually started this series called the Water Diaries back in 1995. So he just, he would start with just stones and just pieces of rocks, where he would write on with a, with a brush, but it's just water and he would, or he would do it like on the floor. He would then make these videos and performance art pieces with, with that. And he just did all kinds of different artworks having to do with, with using just water to write on the surface. And when he came to the AGO in 2016, he talked a little bit about it and he said that like he, he wants to explore the idea of like something evaporating very quickly after you after, after you write on it. And he's, it reminds me of him, of stuff like his childhood memories of food scarcity. The context is that he, Song Dong was born in 1966 and he grew up during the Chinese Cultural Revolution and also a lot of other additional historic things in China that we don't have time to get into, but basically he grew up in this time of political and social turmoil, but also just a lot of poverty and a lot of things like food scarcity and just, you know, very difficult times. And so he, he explores that, but he doesn't explore in a way like, oh, we were so poor, we had no money and we were starving to death. He's like looking at these other ways to express it, like, you know, the Water Diaries. And another thing he did mention when he was here in Canada is he did say, you know, in China, there are many things you can't say, and many people also get in trouble for writing, for writing things down. But he himself as well as a lot of his friends and family and colleagues do love expression and freedom of expression. So they still want to express things. But in a way, when you write something with water and it evaporates, you've said it, but nobody knows it's there.

Quinn: So earlier you mentioned that one of the biggest ways that you conceive his work is that he is exploring memory. So is this what you mean by that? Like, is this an, is this work an example of that where he's exploring memory by creating a piece in which things are lost to only memory, where there's a lack of permanence.

Betty: Yeah, exactly, this is one of the examples and—but I think it's twofold. It's first of all, the creation of this piece is based on his memory. Like he made the Water Diaries series because it reminds him of things from his childhood or even things right now in China. But in addition to that, he's exploring memory and he's exploring the impermanent nature of not just memory, but also like words and thoughts and ideas in general. And also, you know, other, other things in life, I guess. And the thing that's also interesting about this series, cause I think originally he started just doing it on his own, but then eventually he made pieces like the one in the Allure of Matter show where other people can come and write their own words on it. So like he wants to explore that in not just like his own memory, but also other people's and even people whose memories have nothing to do with China.

Quinn: Interesting.

Betty: So I think this, this particular one and, or the series of works of Water Diaries, like it already, like he started in the 90s and I think it's still ongoing. He still, the Traceless Stele piece was from 2018 or 2019 or something like that. And he's still doing works like these, but the work that he probably is the reason he's famous or at least, you know, like people, some people know who he is or the, the work that he got really wide attention for was this work he did in the Museum of Modern Art in 2009. So there, there is a link in the show notes where you can go and it's also, it's called Project 960 there. I'm not really sure. I know the show as the title Waste Not, and it actually was also, it also traveled to other places, but I believe the first place was the MoMA. I just remember at the time seeing a headline, something along, something along the lines of “Beijing artist turns hoarding into art.” Which is exactly what this is. So actually, I'm sorry, it was first shown internationally in 2009, but he actually first did an incarnation of this show in Beijing in the early 2000s, which is why like he was already famous in China in the early 2000s. And basically he just took objects from his mom's house. When he had to help her, help her move or something, he was just like, oh my God, you have so much stuff. And he turned it into an exhibition. And so he took everything she, I guess, ever owned. And so in the middle of the floor space in MoMA, if anyone's looking at the pictures, there is what looks like a house, like a wooden frame of house. That's actually the wood he salvaged from her old house when she moved and rebuilt it, but then spread out all across the floor in MoMA, as well as wherever it's displayed. He categorized like all of her belongings, like whether it's like shoes or shoelaces or—but like she collected everything like bottle calves like needles or pieces of metal that she thinks can be reused, like thread and clothing like old socks or like old electronic stuff, plates, basically just think of hoarders and this is what she is. And so he yeah, and then he, but he of course like cataloged them and then display them in a pretty neat way. So as if he's you know, presenting this, like, I don't know, like an archival collection or something. But it's just of the belongings of his mom. And she actually passed away shortly after this show was, I think, started at the MoMA in 2009. So his mom's name is Zhao Xiangyuan and she died in 2009. And so this actually then kind of became a tribute to her in a way. And so he talked about how the title of the show, which is Waste Not, was her philosophy. Like again, growing up in Cultural Revolutionary China, she did things where like, she would save the little bits of soap, like at the end where you can't really use it anymore. And she would put it in like a bowl. And then when she had enough of those, she would like melt it slightly and make another bar of soap. And so he said that when he got married in the 90s, so at this time, you know, China had already kind of opened up for, to capitalism and people’s lives were becoming a little bit better. I remember since that's when I was growing up in China. So when you got married, his wedding present was like a giant bag of soap. And he's like, Mom, I just bought a washer dryer. I don't need this. And she was just like, well, you think you can afford a washer dryer now, but in 1949, my family, our family was like, also wealthy. And then the government came and took everything and we had nothing. And so take your soap.

Quinn: This reminds me of the conversation around minimalism, which is like a pretty popular kind of trendy thing that a lot of people try to do. And I feel like the original perception was like, oh, minimalism is great because you know, like it doesn't cost money to be minimalist, you actually save money, but that's not true at all. Like, it doesn't even necessarily cost money, but it, you need to have money to be a minimalist because it means having the security to know that if you get rid of things that you can afford to replace them if you need to. To have the absolute confidence to get rid of something and know that you don't need that thing. And you'll never need that thing. And if you do need that thing, you can buy, you can just buy it again is actually a privilege that like a lot of people who grew up, like in this time, like a lot of people who, you know, grow up around the Great Depression and stuff like that. It's such, it's such a common thing that you see in these people that in their bones, they'll never throw anything away because they never know fundamentally because of that trauma, if they'll be able to get it again.

Betty: Exactly. Yeah. And it's, it's really funny because I am actually a person, like I don't identify as a minimalist but I'm probably more like a minimalist than a maximalist, cause Song Dong’s mom's obviously a maximalist and I know a lot of people who are, but it's just the fact that I live in a tiny downtown apartment. I can't, I don't have room to keep stuff, so I often have to throw things out. But it is knowing that, okay, well, like I have not a lot of money, but enough that I can just get rid of something or donate it, like I try not to just throw things in the garbage. And I have, it's happened to me where I get rid of something and then like six months later, I'm like, okay, I need to go on Amazon and buy this thing again, cause I actually need it. But yeah, like definitely for a lot of people, they didn't have that privilege. And I'm glad you mentioned like the Depression and things like that, because one of the reasons why Song Dong, like he himself was so impressed about the amount of connections people had with the show is, already in Beijing, when international—or sorry when, when people across China came to his show, they said, he's like one common thing he said or he heard people say was, oh, this is not your house. This is my house. It reminds me of back in like Guangzhou, like, you know, all the way on the other side of the country where my mother too collected all of this stuff. But even after he came to, to the US and also I think the show went to like other places internationally, everybody had a story of their parent who grew up during the Depression, or maybe during some like Eastern European conflict or whatever, where they had to scramble and get by. And then they, they did these things where they collected pieces of scrap just so they could survive. And he was just, he himself even was shocked by the amount of people who made a connection with this, even though this is like, we're only really kind of reflecting one woman's life in like 60s, 70s, 80s China, but really everybody all over the world could relate to it. And obviously I relate a lot to it because I look at some of these objects and I'm like, oh my God, like my grandma owned that. Like, or you know but, but you don't have to have that exact connection to kind of know the idea of what he's getting at.

Quinn: I mean, that's what good art is, right? It's universality in the specifics.

Betty: For sure. And I already mentioned that he was born in 1966 during the Cultural Revolution. But he actually, he grew up in a pretty poor neighborhood in Beijing. And so I think today, a lot of people have different images of what China looks like, and it is very like industrialized and a lot of places are like, you know, kind of like what you would expect of typical urban 21st century cities, whether it's Beijing or Shanghai, but back in the, during the time that he was growing up, it was definitely not like that. Not only was it poor, but like a lot of the buildings and architecture were still of—they were old. They were maybe, some were decades old and some were hundreds of years old. Cause Beijing has been the capital of China for, I can't, I don't know, off the top of my head, I should probably know my Chinese history better, but at least the hundreds of years at this point. And even before then it was, you know, an ancient city. Anyway, so he grew up there and he actually, he studied, he did study art in Beijing, and he graduated in 1989. And, but he did start his career in the early early 90s during a time of rapid change in China, like rapid expansion of you know, wealth and the economy as well as just a lot of, I guess some people call it Westernization, some people call it, you know, modernization, but you know, there was a lot of change. And so he did get a lot of inspirations from like Western conceptual art and learn about, you know, photography, video and installation, art and stuff like that. And then he yeah, again collaborated with a lot of other contemporary artists and so, but one of the first works he did. Like I can, I think earlier I mentioned that he likes to disrupt, he does like to disrupt norms and put things into question. So in 1994, he did a performance piece called “Another lesson: Do you want to play with me?” And he basically questioned the roles of educational institutions. So he transformed this classroom called the Central Academy of Fine Arts into a classroom where exam papers cover walls and floors and middle school students were reading blank textbooks and participants were just invited to like write all over the place on boards and stuff like that. And so, again, very early on, he incorporated community participation into his works. But this, the police actually shut down this performance and the reason is that he was creating a fire hazard, but it's like, or was he like questioning traditional institutions and people didn't like it? We don't know.

Quinn: If you are flammable and have legs, you were never blocking a fire exit. That's a Mitch Hedberg joke, I just like it. But yeah, I can see your point as that may have been the reason on paper, but was it really the reason?

Betty: Yes. So and it's a similar thing. Like, you know, Ai Weiwei was arrested when, when he was arrested in I think 2011, it was for tax evasion, but I think everybody knows that it's not for tax evasion. It is for things he said against the government that people didn't like. And probably one of the few reasons why Song Dong isn't in that situation so much is that he is a lot more, we'll just say tactful with his messages. Like he isn't overt. But he just puts things into question. And so anyway, kind of going back to the Waste Not exhibition, as well as his focus on growing up in Beijing or life in Beijing. When he was at the AGO and some of the, through some of the research that I was going through—and there's also a few documentaries that either he made or participated in where he's talked about, he really likes exploring like, urban environments and neighborhoods, specifically about Beijing. And he so it, you know, it's a very dense city. There's a lot of old neighborhoods, but through this rapid modernization and expansion, a lot of things get bulldozed right over and torn down. And so the interesting thing is, so I grew up in Xian in Northwestern China, and again, I haven't done too much research in this, but like when I was living there, as far as I knew, Xian was one of the few cities that designated heritage sites and that wouldn't let buildings get torn down. There was a system that, okay, you can't just get rid of this, because it's like thousands of years old or at least hundreds, but I don't think Beijing had that. Maybe they do now, or I'm not sure, but at the very least when this modernization was happening, there was no rules. People just, whether it's developers or the government, who knows, just came in and got rid of a lot of things. Or got rid of, I mean like, evicted people or forcibly moved people out of their neighborhoods and just demolished and built new buildings. And there were these places which are in Mandarin is called hutong (胡同), which translates to neighborhood alleyways. And he, he really kind of studied these alleyways because it's not just an alleyway, like, cause alleyways are traditionally kind of sketchy and so are they in Beijing. But there's an interesting aspect of that where, it's kind of like where neighborhood and community and vibrant cultural life is, it's where like people meet up and have tea. It's where there might be like a local shop where they sell shoes or it's where there’s like, you know, little street side businesses and all kinds of things and—but of course, you know, the government or businesses would be like, oh, we're getting rid of these sketchy neighborhood alleyways where crime happens. And it's like, well, yes, but you're also getting rid of like everything else. And especially these traditional neighborhoods. So Song Dong grew up in a type of house called a courtyard house, a hutong courtyard house, which is basically a house that has four—it's like a quadrant, there's like four sides, and then there's an interior courtyard. And then between these houses, there's, you know, there's alleyways. And so people would often throw out like their old wardrobes into these alleyways, sometimes to use outdoor sheds, sometimes to just like put it out there because they are not using it anymore. So like he just remembered growing up, like seeing a lot of these like wardrobes and like furniture that's supposed to be on the inside, but it's on the outside. But a lot of these alleyways don't exist anymore. So about like 10, 15 years ago, he started going around secondhand shops in Beijing buying a lot of these old wardrobes and then he would tear the doors off of them. And then he would make these communal courtyards out of wardrobe doors. So if you click on the first link where it says Communal Courtyard, you'll see some pictures from when it came to the AGO, what it looked like. But again, for a while, this particular work traveled to all kinds of places where he just, yeah, he made these, he kind of recreated these courtyards in an art gallery setting and made them into courtyards. But again like this one very specifically, he does want people to think about what it means to basically at this point where we, we've lost a lot of these stories and these memories, and probably one of the few reasons, or probably one of the few documentation we have of this cultural phenomenon are in photographs and the wardrobes Song Dong has salvaged.

Quinn: This looks beautiful. I can't imagine—like walking into an exhibit and seeing this, I feel like would be so interesting to walk through because the picture that I see on the website is kind of an aerial view. So you can kind of see like the different sections of it from mostly above. But like if you're walking in at eye level, like of course, I think it's even hard to take in the scope of all of these, you know, courtyards. And having to explore them piece by piece. That's such an interesting approach for this.

Betty: Yeah actually I just remembered, I don't have it in the show notes now, but I can link it to it later, but I actually took some pictures. I have some Instagram pictures from back in 2016 that I took. So I took closeups of these wardrobes while I was walking through them. And so I guess you go on my Instagram and scroll all the way back, you'll see some of the closeups of these. The thing a lot of people like about them, and so did, is a lot of these wardrobes have mirrors and you, so you see yourself reflected back in them. And so, and it just so happens the Art Gallery of Ontario is located in Toronto, or located right next to Toronto is Chinatown. So we have a lot of people, we did also have a lot of people from Chinatown come see it. And I like some people cried and I almost did, because like my connection with this is quite personal. So Song Dong, he actually is pretty much the same age as my parents. And he went to school in Beijing at the exact same time my parents did and his career, even though my parents aren't artists or engineers, like my parents also experienced this rapid expansion of China. And so did I, in a way, even though I'm much younger than Song Dong. I grew up in downtown Xian and we had wardrobes exactly like these, like this goes back to like people showing up at Song Dong’s exhibition going like, this is my house. And I looked at these, I'm like, oh my God, that's my grandma's wardrobe. Like, except like, obviously it doesn't exist anymore because their old building also got torn down and I'm sure their furniture's way gone, long gone. And so it’s interesting because a lot of these wardrobes were built by just like carpenters, but like not necessarily professional carpenters, they might just be somebody who like lived in your grandparents' neighborhood or lived next door. The person who built my grandma’s wardrobe was I think like one of the, they might've been a migrant worker from another province, but they were just, they would knock on doors of people and say, hi, like I know how to build furniture. Do you need a chair? Do you need a sofa? Do you need a wardrobe? And then I think one day my grandma was like, oh yeah, we have so much clothes now that, you know, my husband has sewn, but we just don't have a place to put them. So this guy just built my grandparents a giant wardrobe, but then my grandma was like, I'm sorry, I can't pay you, but you can stay at my house for the next two months and I'll feed you while you're working on it. And he was like deal, and they did it. And honestly, I didn't know this story at all, but my uncle came to see this show and then he told me this story of how that wardrobe when I was a kid came to be, and I was like, this is beautiful. Like seeing this, this guy that I didn't know from Beijing, who did this work, led me to talking to my uncle and to find out like my own memories from my childhood, but something that I wouldn't know, because my grandma actually passed away a few years before this show. So I couldn't ask her. But my uncle obviously, you know, did know the story and it was really interesting. Not only because of this personal connection, but like walking through this courtyard and sneaking in and out of the wardrobes and, you know, it reminds me of when I was a kid, when I would hide in it. And my grandma would get mad at me cause she couldn't find me. And then when Song Dong did his talk at the AGO, he was like, yeah, one of my favorite books is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. And I'm just like, this is amazing.

Quinn: It is so cool how this piece like is connected to like, experiences that you've had. And even like you were saying, like hearing this whole story that you didn't even know before, but was brought out by seeing this piece in a museum. That's amazing.

Betty: Yeah. And again, like, it was great because of course like people from Toronto and local you know, obviously like non-Chinese people or people not of Chinese backgrounds came to see it. And yeah, like some people are like, oh yeah, like, it reminds me of me when I was like playing and hiding in the wardrobe as a kid. And, you know, things like that. And, and the concept of like, you know, an alleyway, a neighborhood or gentrification is not specific to Beijing. These questions that he has regarding, what do you, what do you do about these memories and what are you, or what do you do about these old buildings and old neighborhoods. And like, obviously you do have to redevelop them at some point, cause they fall apart, you can't just let your city fall apart. And it makes sense why governments and even, you know, businesses would want to do that. But you know, really like, he does have a pretty direct message, I think anyway, that we should do it carefully and we should do it considering the culture and the history and people's memories. We shouldn't just come in and not consider these things.

Quinn: Yeah. It’s like bringing the personal back into the equation because I think a lot of times when these kinds of decisions are made, you know, tearing down buildings and building new buildings and all this kind of stuff. Like, I think it's so impersonal the way that people tend to think about that when they are making those decisions. And he's like putting it back in your face and saying like, this is real people, like these are real stories. This is history and culture that deserves to be preserved and thought about and respected. It's been so fun to learn about the background of this artist that I've heard you mention many times, so thanks for sharing all of that Betty, and for sharing your own stories as well.

Betty: Yeah, no problem.

Quinn: As we are wrapping up here, we also want to tell you about another podcast on Relay FM that you might like, and that is a Parallel. It's a tech podcast with accessibility sprinkles, which is what they like to say. It's hosted by Shelly Brisban, who is a journalist and accessibility expert. And it's a really interesting show that mixes mainstream tech conversations with accessibility conversations and examining everything from TikTok to how to navigate a Zoom-based world when you're blind, to even just a general topic, like a newbie's guide to productivity.

Betty: Yeah, I'm really interested in Parallel because obviously I work in design, I work in like designing of physical buildings and incorporating accessibility into that, but I've also personally had experience of what I was learning how to speak English, it was really important for me to have close captioning when I'm watching a video. So it's something that's always been really important to me, incorporating accessibility with tech. So I would definitely recommend people to check out Parallel.

Quinn: You can find Parallel at relay.fm/parallel, or just search for Parallel anywhere you get your podcasts. And thanks everybody out there for listening to this episode of Pictorial. You can find our show notes and pictures of all these good art pieces at relay.fm/pictorial. You can also find us on Twitter or Instagram @PictorialPod, or you can find me on Instagram @aspiringrobotfm.

Betty: And you can find me on Twitter or Instagram @articulationsV. And I'm also on YouTube as ARTiculations, and speaking of YouTube, we also upload these episodes to YouTube. Usually a few days or sometimes weeks after it is uploaded as audio, where you can look at the images of the works that we are talking about as they go by on the screen.

Quinn: Thanks for listening, art enthusiasts!