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Xiang Yang’s hybrid boat-house installations—seen floating on a barge on London’s river Thames in 2015 or more recently on land at “Planet 9” presented by Kunsthalle Darmstadt—have become a key trope in his artistic practice. Perhaps this is because they so aptly encapsulate both his past memories, as well as his future hopes and have become a way for the artist to deal with his feelings of fragmentation and dislocation, representing his desire for a more unified and interconnected world.
Born in Guizhou in 1967, Xiang grew up in the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. He spent his student days in Beijing and was involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Xiang then left China for a 13-year-long sojourn in New York in 1998, returning to Beijing in 2011. His experiences in China and the sense of displacement he brought with him across the world to the United States and back has informed both the content and style of his work, resulting in the meeting of disparate cultures and ways of thinking. For example, discarded Chinese cabinets, drawers and doors comprise the exteriors of The Shore Where We Can Reach (2016), displayed at “Planet 9” at Kunsthalle Darmstadt. The parts are held together by tenon and mortise joints, which are seen frequently in Chinese architecture. On the other hand, the interior of the structure reflects a non-culture-specific, international style of architecture, which the artist hopes is relatable to audiences all over the world. Less concerned with market forces and more obsessed with details, Xiang took three years to complete the project.
Looking for inspiration from beyond art, the artist likes to contemplate the big questions in life, and draws upon science, religion and culture to address them. In an interview with ArtAsiaPacific, Xiang Yang discusses the evolution of his philosophy in life and his artistic practice.
Your latest work, a large-scale installation resembling a house on a boat, titled The Shore Where We Can Reach, was on show at “Planet 9” at Kunsthalle Darmstadt in Germany from May 30 to August 27, 2017. Tell us more about this work. How did it come about? What was the inspiration behind it?
I put the work together based on fragments of my memory—it is a summary of my life. My childhood is closely associated with boats. My mother took me on a dangerous three-day trip on a small fishing vessel to look for my father in 1969 during the Cultural Revolution.
I also attended “6/4.” [The student protests that took place in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, in 1989.] Many questions were going through my mind: what is freedom, what do we need, what does our country need now? I was naïve, only 22 years old, not mature enough to really think about these problems but enthusiastic enough to want to do something about it. Shortly after that I left for the US. Now I am more moderate in my views. I still think about how we can change things, but I no longer believe that fighting is the answer.
The installation also acts as a summary of my artistic works because it embodies my understanding of Chinese culture and my enduring wanderlust. It also contains my hope for the future; my vision is to build something that has the feeling of an ideal home.
You invite the audience to enter your installations. Were you able to observe participants interacting with The Shore Where We Can Reach in Darmstadt? What was the encounter like when they came into your boathouse?
I made this work of art because I wanted to give the audience a place to rest and be comfortable, to feel safe and loved. You can live in this work, drink tea, chat and sleep inside. I want people to use the art, not just look at it.
How does this work differ from Ultra Architecture – East Meets West (2015), where you sailed your installation on a large barge down London’s Thames river?
Ultra Architecture – East Meets West was the first time that I presented my installation in such a way. The artistically created architecture, while sailing, formed a conversation with the historical buildings on the riverbank. There was a common understanding between the practicalities of the urban architecture and the abstractness of the art installation.
The Shore Where We Can Reach has more narrative elements because of the way I built my stories into the work. I felt like it was a process of the realization of humanistic feelings. Compared with Ultra Architecture, I think there are deeper and wider aspects to this work.
What are the greatest challenges when making your work? What have you learned in the process?
I think the biggest challenge is exercising restraint because there are too many ideas that arise during the process of making something. Every single part wants to express a certain meaning. Each joint, each component is in dialogue with another one. Works need to be refined. I think this is the most difficult part.
You have lived in the US for 13 years and have incorporated Chinese and Western elements in your work. How do the two different cultures inform your work? Do you seek to juxtapose or create a dialogue between them? For example, one element of Ultra Architecture – East Meets West uses silk threads to connect a traditional Chinese painting with plans of a Western cathedral, and in Relatively Related (2010) you connect maps of the US and China with silk thread.
Today there is no so-called Chinese culture. There is no American culture. When I moved back to China and was reintroduced to Chinese culture, I found that it had become fragmented and reinterpreted. When I studied Chinese culture anew, it brought about a dislocation of identity. The same thing occurred when I was faced with Western culture. Slowly I got accustomed to this state of alienation, to being on the periphery, of being an outsider. Then I started to treat culture as a whole and stopped focusing on one particular culture. I do not merely want to see from the viewpoint of a Chinese person. I want to see from the perspective of a human being. How can we develop such a way of thinking? I wonder how we can work together as Americans and Chinese, because we are not just Chinese, Americans or some other nationality. First and foremost, we are human beings. We are one family.
At what age did you become interested in art? How did it all start?
When I was around ten years old, I started to get interested in art. Due to the re-education of intellectuals in the countryside, I had access to highly skilled teachers such as Wu Ziqiang, a brilliant graduate of the Central Academy’s oil painting department and Xiao Xiangping. Half of our town’s population was made up of intellectuals who had been moved to Guizhou, a poor and isolated place in the mountains. Therefore, I received a first-class education, despite being in a remote part of the country.
What are your main sources of motivation?
My inspiration comes from the production process. There is no sudden flash of inspiration. Rather, it comes through reflection and thinking about the details of the project.
I like to discuss science, astronomy and quantum mechanics, because they give me a lot of good and new ideas. I don’t want my practice to be informed by just other art. Art comes from your thinking about life.
What are your plans or future projects?
In Chinese Buddhism, the boat is symbolic for taking you to the other side, to a utopic place. I want my boat to carry my past experiences over to an ideal future. I plan to construct a vessel, which I want to sail on the seas. That is the reason why I am moving to a coastal city in the south of China. I hope to visit many places and communicate with a lot of people. This will be the main goal of my “Global Art Sailing” project. At each stop I plan to invite scientists, artists, engineers and poets to come and live on the boat for some time and to complete a project together. Once the project is complete we would move to the next stop. This is my dream.
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