The art of absorption

Correction: Due to an editing error, the names of artists He Yunchang and Sui Jianguo were misspelled. This story was updated on Oct. 27. 

Wang Chunchen knows how to roll with change. Quick and wrenching change in the world’s most populous nation is the theme of “Future Returns,” a dizzying, diverse exhibit of contemporary Chinese art, curated by Wang, set to take over the second floor of the Broad Art Museum Oct. 30.

Even though Wang has been planning this exhibit since he was named adjunct curator at the Broad two years ago, the Beijing-based curator and critic didn’t seem the least bit put out when American superheroes swooped into town last week, temporarily closing the museum and upstaging the newly arrived art.

Wednesday afternoon, he watched in bemusement from a temporary third-floor office in the building next door as trailers and backdrops for “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” took over the museum, just as preparations for “Future Returns” was reaching a peak.

The chaos below, a crazy mlange of Zaha Hadid’s architecture, day-to-day campus life and Hollywood buzz, reminded him of modern life in China.

“Some people oppose globalization,” Wang said. “Some people say we cannot avoid it. But whether you like it or not, it’s a fact. You see it every day. Traffic, food, styles, Hollywood movies.”

“Future Returns” is a part of that globalization. The exhibit brings a breathtaking variety of Chinese self-expression to East Lansing, from traditional art forms such as ink drawings and porcelain to the controversial, self-mutilating performance art of He Yunchang, captured on video and in still images.

Much of the art deals in trenchant metaphor. Two transparent chairs stuffed with barbed wire by artist Wang Huangsheng hint at the oppression lurking beneath China’s new prosperity. A metal cube by Sui Jianguo, “One Cubic Meter of Darkness,” looks even heavier than it is; it’s so heavy it was welded together on site.

“The artist was a worker in a steel factory when he was young, during the Cultural Revolution,” Wang said. “It is strongly metaphorical. Darkness is a feeling. They couldn’t say something so they just become dark. Chinese people understand that easily.”

A mind-boggling triptych by 40-year-old artist Liu Lining, “Paradise City,” captures the exhibit’s expansive spirit. The canvas is crammed with hundreds of figures, fighting, arguing, having many different kinds of sex, getting into auto accidents, praising Mao Zedong and ignoring him. The panorama is as wild as a Hieronymus Bosch painting, but Wang said that a Chinese observer would recognize every vignette in the painting from a recent story in the news.

“If you don’t live in China, you can’t feel how dramatic the change is,” Wang said. “Old houses, so many things disappeared. New buildings, skyscrapers, highways.”

Grim humor, another feature of “Future Returns,” is one way to adapt.

“We joke about it,” he said. “If you visited China’s cities, you couldn’t tell one from another. Why visit Guangzhou? It’s the same as Beijing.”

“Future Returns” is an unusual exhibit for many reasons. In most “art from country X” exhibits, a Western expert goes into the field and gathers the art, based on a few weeks or months of research, Broad Museum assistant curator Yesomi Omolu explained.

By contrast, Wang was born in China and lives there. He’s a longtime art critic and curator based at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts.

“It’s a collaboration with people who know the art better than we can know it,” Omolu said. “We give them the platform.”

The exhibit also recognizes the growing number of Chinese students at surrounding MSU, now at nearly 10 percent of the student body.

For centuries, the world’s developed nations have called the shots in their relationships with emerging nations, even with giants like China and Brazil. Western “experts” shaped the way overseas cultures were represented in art exhibits in America. “Future Returns,” by contrast, brings modern China from a Chinese perspective.

Wang is eager to help convert a centuriesold one-way street to two-way traffic.

China has been absorbing foreign ideas for centuries. Marxism is a dramatic example. Even Buddhism, Wang said, is an import from India.

That absorption has only accelerated since China’s opening to the West in the 1970s. Chances are, Wang will see the “Batman v Superman” logo again when he returns to Beijing. Superhero movies make about 10 percent of their global revenues in China.

Screaming Western pop culture seems a far cry form meditative scrolls of nature scenes that have long been part of Chinese heritage (and are also a part of “Future Returns”).

“How can you just absorb the good things?” Wang asked. “How can you keep your identity? This is a contradiction. We debate and discuss it. Sometimes people feel sad and gloomy for the disappearing of traditional life.”

But Chinese culture is resilient, Wang said. He chose an earthy metaphor to illustrate.

“We need food. You never know what your body can digest. Some things don’t get digested!” he said with a grin, implying that what’s not suitable can always be excreted. “Don’t fear anything you want to take in.”

“Future Returns: Contemporary Art from China”

Oct. 30-March 8, 2015 Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum 547 E. Circle Drive, MSU campus, East Lansing (517) 884-4800, broadmuseum.msu.edu