Hybridization in the Contemporary arts: a trend, a way, and destiny

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Abstract:

This essay addresses three main characters of contemporary art practice as they relate to Hybridization: the inevitability, the rationality, and the infinite possibility. As Wang and Yeh(2005, p.190) points out, “Hybridization has become part of an ongoing trend in cultural production, with both the globalization and localization of the culture industry.” Hybridization, which is an unstoppable tendency, we could see it as a signpost guiding people into a brand-new era, and it is an opportunity for all the art creators.

 

Since the 20th century, there is full of the trail of hybridization appeared in the field of art, for example, the Chinese artist Cai Guo-qiang, who break the boundary of national identities, reinforce the dialogue between oriental art and western art; Olafur Eliasson and the Scottish artist Katie Paterson, who determined to show the beauty of eco-environment in an artistic way. In this sense, we are facing an essential time that art could seem like a bridge connecting different parts of any fields, hybridization is a reasonable and effective way in the contemporary context of art-making.

 

This essay will focus on 5 contemporary artists that show evidence of hybridized creations and then analyze the meaning of their representative works, further, how their works interact with hybridization and make a reaction to it. Then I will briefly explain my hybridized works during the quarantine of 2020 coronavirus and evaluate it. The final part of the essay will state my opinion about how the concept of hybridization affects us and how artists can live with it in the future.

 

 

Key words:

Hybridization; Contemporary art; Nationality; Interdisciplinary; Quarantine

 

 

The inevitability of Hybridization: it is the unstoppable trend of globalization.

As Servaes. J and Lie. R(2003, p.7) addressed that globalization could be seen as the expanding, deepening, and speeding up of global interconnectedness in every aspect of contemporary social life. With the widening of globalization, the boundaries of nationality in art have been further blurred. Take China as an example, in the last decades of the twentieth century, Chinese artists faced aesthetic and political issues because of the Cultural Revolution(1966-76), traditional Chinese arts were rejected by all art schools in favor of Socialist Realism so that they can connect to the wider Communist world. During that period, Chinese artists have no right to free speech and the tradition has been wiped out. When the communist leader in china Mao Zedong died, the programs of Cultural Revolution were quickly modified, under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping, Chinese government permitted a far greater amount of free speech as never before, Gao Minglu, a curator, critic, and scholar of contemporary Chinese art described(1993) that contemporary China is “ a country opening its door to the world.” and presenting its art as the site of “conflicts between the beautiful and the ugly, the new and the old, the true and the false, and the confrontation of existing complicated values.” And he also concluded) that contemporary Chinese artists were waving good-bye “to the ideas of art meant to please human sense organs alone or instruct people with dogmas.”

 

Chinese artist Xu Bing is one of the represented examples of hybridization. Xu has life experience in the United States for nearly twenty years, most of his art projects are trying to promote the co-understand between China and the west. In 1999, Xu created a  system of rewriting English words in Chinese character forms, generally known as “New English Calligraphy”, when people began to read this kind of calligraphy,  they will “experienced this transformation- part familiar, part strange.”(Xu, 2000, p.197)  He printed an eye-catching red-and-yellow banner, with the slogan "ART FOR THE PEOPLE: Chairman Mao said" engraved in his invented system, the work represented how Xu combines his particular cultural background into the international context of contemporary art. “Chinese people come to understand structure through writing, as can be seen in their architecture and furniture” Xu explained(ibid.) that, as an artist, he seeks to disturb ‘our familiar patterns of thought’ and at the end of to oblige us ‘to find a new conceptual foundation’.(ibid.) This way of describing his interventionist ambition, as McDonald. P(2013, p.198) has suggested, was ‘comes from the Zen Buddhist tradition’. 

 

Another Chinese artist Cai Guo-qiang was influenced by Zen Buddhist as much as Xu Bing. His works break the boundary of national identities, reinforce the dialogue between oriental art and western art, and Cai’s projects not only concern the gap between different nationalities, respond to culture and history, but also establish an exchange between viewers and the larger universe around them. His explosion art and installations are imbued with a force that transcends the two-dimensional plane to engage with society and nature.  His works "Sky Ladder", “The Dragon Meridian: Project for Humankind No. 5”, and “Project to Extend the Great Wall of China by 10,000 Meters: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10” are shown the evidence of his ambitious dream —along with the fireworks people can climbing into the skies, having an equal communication with alien creatures, and connecting heaven and earth.

 

Cai's practice fully embodies the view of nature in traditional Chinese culture, he makes full use of the natural aesthetics, by using modern materials he inspired the aesthetic potential of nature in the human heart.  According to Tao Te Ching(Laozi,25)  “Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is it‘s being what it is（人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然）” Cai created his most well-known explosion painting “Project for Extraterrestrials No. 10”, which combines modern techniques such as gunpowder and filming with the traditional symbols and spirits. In my opinion, Cai Guo-qiang could be called an outstanding individualist, a nationalist, and an internationalist at the same time. His art deals with the frontier issue of the contemporary world, the east and the west, but instinctively transcends the boundaries.

 

 

The rational way of hybridization in contemporary art: crossover and interdisciplinary approaches.

Some artists are restricted by their talents and energy, during the process of exploring "existing", they have met their aesthetic psychological needs, so they do not have to go further into the "unknown". A few, on the other hand, are constantly pursuing the novelty of their own artistic creation, and, by means of constant discovery, even invention, gradually reach the limits of art by means of their own spirits and senses. Eliasson is one of those few people who, together with experts from different industries around the world, including architects, researchers, art historians, and craftsmen, explored the infinite possibilities of natural objects with the phenomena of wind, light, wave, water, ice, fog and air as artistic materials. “Eliasson’s sublime isolation of time, motion, and gravity and his overt presentation of mechanics, technology, and artifice integrate phenomenology and technology, nature, and culture.” (Peter. R Kalb, 2013, p.282), For Eliasson, the essence of innovation is not simply additive: adding things to the accepted order, begging for help from different disciplines, Instead, he believes in teamwork, He has a wide talent team which includes craftsmen, academically trained researchers who focusing on history, literature, and philosophy, some in the theory of some sorts, some internet and programming people, some film editing, music, and sound people. And some architects. 

 

Ecology is one of the most concerning parts of contemporary art and design. Katie Paterson, A Scottish artist who made effort to raise public awareness of protecting the environment, has been focusing on various subjects for many years, for example, in Katie’s project “Vatnajökull(The Sound of)”, she installed a microphone under a glacier in Iceland in 2007. Viewers can connect to the microphone through a neon phone number hanging in the exhibition hall and hear the sound of running water and melting glaciers. As we all know, glaciers are melting every day because of global warming, and It's hard to watch melting ice for ourselves, but Katie Paterson is using technology to bring it within people's reach, allowing us to hear the sounds and sounds of nature. Her art suggested the way people should live in harmony with nature, and how artists can use scientific means to intervene in artistic creation, in order to express the beauty of nature. These are co-profile topics to the artists in recent years, there is no doubt that by cooperating with specialists in other fields artists could deepen their works and projects, it is the rational way of hybridization in contemporary art.

 

 

Hybridization between art and daily life.

Duchamp, as a pioneer of experimental art in the twentieth century, was the first person to break the boundary between life and art, he put a signed toilet into an art gallery, named it “fountain” which shocked the audience by attacking traditional aesthetics. However, Duchamp was not the only one trying to find a breakthrough in crude materials. Martha Rosler, whose work centers on every day and the public through a woman's perspective, feminism, social justice, and the separation of public and private life. Her topics range from the media to war, architecture to the environment, to housing, street sleeping, and transportation systems. In the 1970s, Rosler created a number of classic works in feminist video art, such as "Semiotics of the Kitchen" (1975), which gave Rosler a lot of recognition in the field of feminism art and video art. The six-minute video was seen as a satire on traditional female roles in modern society. In that video, Rosler was filming a very stilted cooking show, she introduced to the audiences all her kitchen supplies, waving and named them from the letters a to z, her movements were very intense in the introduction. “My art is a communicative act,” Rosler(2015) says, “a form of an utterance, a way to open a conversation.” She expresses her frustration with the family through her intense gestures, replacing the domesticated meaning of kitchen tools with vocalized words of anger and frustration. At that moment, the kitchen, as a home space,  was changed into a spirit field of resistance. What she unfolds is a meditation on women, family, and space. “Semiotics in the kitchen” has thus been particularly valued by contemporary feminists. Rosler’s attempts were undoubtedly successful and have a far-reaching significance, her performance which makes use of everyday objects endowed those humble things with progressive significance in terms of social issues.

 

 

My hybridized practices during the quarantine.

I was experimenting with home-based practices the same as Rosler because of the situation of the 2020 coronavirus. As the virus spread widely this spring, all the campuses in the UK have been closed. I had to move my practicing space out of school and try to make art at my apartment in London. The change in working space has huge influences both on my mind and working methods. When the city is ticking along normally, we will receive the stimulus from the outside without intention, that is where the ideas come from. Due to the isolation, I started to broaden the channel to gather information proactively, and I was trying to use some new media to represent my works. Inspired by Yvonne Rainer’s work “Hand Movie”(1966) and Martha Rosler’s practices, I made a video that expresses my feelings about the information blocking in China.

 

In this video, I was using a heated glue gun to make marks on thermal paper in an intense way, those noises and dramatic gestures I made assuming that I was “hurting” the paper.  After the thermal paper turns into complete darkness, I used alcohol to clean it in a very gentle mood, which represents the “cure”. The paper could represent the people who got hurt, and I, as a domineering force from society, treated that thermal paper without an ask. In that sense, I reckon the whole process could be the “Violence” towards the paper, including the “cure”. I tried to encourage people to think about the importance of individual freedom of speech by using implication and metaphor.

 

Daily materials using, video making, and the theme of contemporary issues that I choose show my concern about the contemporary issues, and I will keep testing hybridization in contemporary art, in terms of different fields. Hybridization in the context of contemporary art, not only means “mixing”, but also a wisdom that people make timely adjustment responding to the changes of situation.

 

In conclusion, hybridization is an unstoppable tendency, we could see it as a signpost guiding people into a brand-new era, and it brings opportunities to all the art creators in a lot of aspects, just like McDonald. P(2013, p.198) addressed,“…by creating a unique experience of doubt, each work also points beyond itself, to an as yet inconceivable future in which new “patterns of thought `` might emerge”. 

 

By discussing these contemporary artists that show evidence of hybridization and then analyze the meaning of their representative works, this essay has demonstrated that hybridization in the field of contemporary art has three main characters: the inevitability, the rationality, and the infinite possibility. Hybridized practices inspired artists, furthermore, hybridization could help us to understand other cultures and promote the process of globalization, we will finally get benefit from the process of making hybridized art.  By practicing hybridized art during quarantine, I re-considered the relationship between individuals and society, I realized that there is a larger universe around us no matter how limited the space we have and how bad was the situation we are facing. I believe that hybridization in the field of art is an unstoppable tendency, we should accept it, follow it, and generate new forms of art depending on it.

 

 

 

References:

Wang and Yeh(2005) Globalization and hybridization in cultural products. London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi.

 

Servaes. J & Lie. R(2003) Media, globalization and culture: issues and trends.pp.29:1-2, 7-23.

 

Gao, M. Zhou,Y. Andrews,J.(1993) Fragmented Memory: The Chinese Avant-Garde in Exile. Columbus, Ohio State University Press.

 

Gao et al.(1989) China/Avant-Garde, China Art Gallery :Beijing,n.p.

 

McDonald. P(2013) The Space Between. UK: Museum of art and archaeology, university of oxford.

 

Servaes. J & Lie. R(2003) Media, globalization and culture: issues and trends.pp.29:1-2, 7-23.

 

Peter R. Kalb(2013)Art Since 1980: Charting the Contemporary. London, Laurence King Publishing Ltd. 

 

Pattberg. T(2009), The East-West dichotomy, Public domain, Available at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_East-West_dichotomy. (Accessed: 10th May, 2020)

 

Rosler. M(2015), In Conversation with Martha Rosler. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMxo_3Ppr8Y (Accessed: 10th May 2020).

 

Rosler. M (1975),  Semiotics of the Kitchen. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuZympOIGC0(Accessed: 10th May 2020).

 

Yvonne Rainer (1966) Hand Movie. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xSKgl4Dd5o (Accessed: 10th May 2020).

 

 

Illustrations:

Xu B. (1999) “ART FOR THE PEOPLE”, Available at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/704954147900660955/(Accessed: 19th May 2020)

 

Xu B. (1999) “New English Calligraphy”, Available at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/386394843020119517/(Accessed: 19th May 2020)

 

Cai. G(1993) “Project to extend the great wall of china by 10,000 meters: project for extraterrestrials No.10” ,Available at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/386394843020119517/ (Accessed: 19th May 2020)

 

Eliasson. O(2015) “THINGS GO WRONG AND WE CELEBRATE IT”, Available at https://the-talks.com/interview/olafur-eliasson/ (Accessed: 10th May, 2020)

 

Paterson.K(2007) “Vatnajökull (the sound of)” ,Available at http://katiepaterson.org/portfolio/vatnajokull-the-sound-of/(Accessed: 19th May 2020)

 

Duchamp. M(1917) “Fountain,  photograph by Alfred Stiegliz”, Available athttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Duchamp#/media/File:Marcel_Duchamp,_1917,_Fountain,_photograph_by_Alfred_Stieglitz.jpg(Accessed: 10th May 2020).

 

Rosler.M(1975) “Semiotics of the Kitchen” , Available at https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSemiotics_of_the_Kitchen&psig=AOvVaw01-gAmdW-fTEfiXdrdCFoZ&ust=1590047366326000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAkQjhxqFwoTCIDIxZX6wekCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE(Accessed: 19th May 2020)

 

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Bibliography:

Kirkland.R(2004), Taoism: The Enduring Tradition, USA and Canada, Routledge.

 

Tomkins, Calvin(1996), Duchamp: A Biography, Henry Holt and Company, Inc., ISBN 0-8050-5789-7