Contemporary Chinese Art Exhibit at Peabody Essex Museum Shows Critical Edge

Art is often subversive. Hitler knew it. Stalin knew it. And Mao Zedong knew it. Dictators regard ideas expressed by art for art’s sake as a threat. They use art as propaganda, a tool to glorify the state. They prevent artists who do not hew to the party line from exhibiting their work in public. Some of the groundbreaking Chinese artists who made the works currently on view at the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM), Salem, still aren’t allowed to show in their own country.

Mahjong: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection “is ultimately a way of accessing China,” says Uli Sigg, the Swiss businessman who participated in China’s first joint venture with the West and later served as Switzerland’s ambassador to China and North Korea.

Sigg is passionate about contemporary art. He arrived in China in the late 1970s and recalls, “What I saw at the time did not seem very interesting to a Western trained eye.” He looked for innovation, but had “no luck with this absolute expectation.”

It was too risky then, especially for a foreigner, to seek out artists in their homes and studios. But by the 1990s, Sigg could make discrete inquiries. He obtained a few names and followed leads. His clandestine search led him through dimly lit courtyards, to dilapidated buildings, and up creaky stairways where he met the artists.

After revising his criteria, he made his first purchases. “The mark of the good collector,” he writes in the well illustrated exhibition catalog, is “to choose the most significant works that happen to be available.” Slowly, Chinese art attracted other collectors, too. Now Chinese artists are invited to show in prestigious European exhibitions and museums. Contemporary Chinese art is one of the fastest growing areas in the international art market. “Foreigners made the market,” says Sigg.

As expected, the art features many images of Chairman Mao, not all of it complimentary. One of the most arresting pictures is “Untitled,” an oil painting from 2005 by Yu Youhan. A composite image of Marilyn Monroe and Chairman Mao known as the Mao/Marilyn, it borrows heavily from Andy Warhol’s colors and images.

The exhibition at PEM reveals that over the past forty years, Chinese artists increasingly reflect the influences of Western art. Soon after November 1985, when the American artist Robert Rauschenberg exhibited in Beijing, Chinese artists followed his example of using found objects. The authorities closed their exhibitions.

Western commercialism inspired several of the approximately 120 objects in the Mahjong exhibition. “Chanel No. 5,” a large oil painting by Wang Guangyi shows four smiling women in army uniforms. They hold Mao’s Little Red Book, but salute Chanel No. 5. The red and white rays that emanate behind them are in the style of American comic books.

Chinese artists acknowledge their own heritage in different ways. Liu Wei’s 2004 work, “It looks like a Landscape,” appears to be a brush painting of a mountain scene. On closer examination, however, the mountain forms are actually nude body parts.

Wang Jin also found inspiration in his country’s past for his 1997 sculpture, “The Dream of China.” Substituting translucent Polyvinyl for silk and fishing string for embroidery, the artist’s construction pays homage to the Chinese imperial robe. The garment made of mundane materials is as beautiful as any worn by royalty.

Al Weiwei, by contrast, alludes to the official attempt to hide parts of the past. For his installation, “Whitewash,” constructed in the nineties, he surrounds a few intact Neolithic jars with an arrangement of similar clay pots covered in white.

Uli Sigg has amassed more than 1000 works in various media by about 250 artists. It is the most extensive collection of contemporary Chinese art in the world. He hopes that one day China will be ready to accept and permanently display his collection.