propositions press... 2.0

interviewed by 小雨

Xiaoyu XIA, an astute student from Shanghai taking classes at the University of Chicago only for this summer, conducted an interview with me by email. It was in fulfillment for an assignment in Rebecca Zorach's summer course on Contemporary Art and Community. Xiaoyu wrote up the interview so skillfully, I had to share it. The section on Mess Hall is long because Rebecca had used one of my descriptions of Mess Hall as an assigned reading. Anybody seeking info on Mess Hall now would best be served by getting in touch with keyholders directly. 

＊

July 21, 2012

A Maze and a Map: A Conversation with Dan S. Wang

“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”

― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

One the night of his trip back to an ancestral hometown in Shandong province, China, Dan S. Wang, the independent artist who was born in the American Midwest in 1968 to immigrant parents, drew a sketch in his hotel. Later, as a printer, Wang turned it into an experimental printing, which looks like a map and a maze as well. Also, a series of printings then repeated these elements and patterns. See at http://prop-press.net/experimental.htm. Together they remind me of the novel by Jorge Luis Borges, A Garden of Forking Paths, in which the maze set up by Borges not only deludes a Chinese Professor to kill an eminent foreign Sinologist, but also, in an allegorical way, utters a question: who can represent China? Even more allegorically, the way to claim one’s identity is also the forking path of otherness– just like a map sometimes is also a maze?

And this leads to the theme of our conversation. But before that, I would like to apologize for not being able to have this interview in person and extend my appreciation for the support from Wang, who is now in Michigan for Ox-Box a summer artists’ camp.

Self Identity: “I have always been Chinese”

My questions mainly focused on the theme of “identity.” Inspired by those prints, my first question was still about that trip: is it root-seeking, a way to reclaim the self-identity as a Chinese person? By reclaiming this identity, to what extent do you think you can represent China as a overseas Chinese artist?

“It is not about ‘reclaiming’,” said Wang, “because I don’t feel that I have ever lost anything. I have always been Chinese, just a particular kind of Chinese. Insofar as I have a personal journey embedded in my work, it is only ‘claiming’ in the sense that, as one of the infinite variety of Chinese peoples around the world, I am taking part in the work of determining the spectrum of possibilities available under the identity category ‘Chinese.’ That is what I personally and professionally claim to represent, one possibility for what it means to be Chinese.”

And then, to answer my doubts on his intentional use of Chinese elements and its potential “danger,” he said, “[in claiming and representing this possibility], this of course requires a level of engagement with a variety of elements of culture that are shared broadly across the many Chinese peoples, ie language, value systems, relationship with the land, family relations, etc. I have always had differing levels of engagement, but enough to be secure in my identity as a specific variety of Chinese. My entire graduate school art output used signifiers of Chinese, Asian, Asian-American, and Chinese American culture and experience. I made a conscious decision in 1997 to end the use of those vocabularies exactly for the reason of exoticization, art world ghetto-ization, and other ways of being marginalized based on identity. On the positive side, I had also by then accumulated a backlog of concerns that had only peripheral connection to issues of identity, and I was anxious to create work about them. Since that time (about fifteen years ago) I have been very careful about when and where I emphasize ethnic identity, but because I work in a largely white art world, I do have occasion to make the emphasis regularly.”

The Identity of a Space: “Problems” are not necessarily unhealthy

When asked about his preference among the titles, Wang gave a short answer: “I would choose the title Independent Artist, because it allows for including within it the other two as roles and activity.” It seems that he kindly neglected the latter part of my question, which is about “the tension between these vocations, between the theoretical/academic thinking, the realistic concern and the aesthetic creativity”–but perhaps, he had already answered that.

However, my questions then are more relevant to his identity as an organizer. To outline the formation and identity of Mess Hall, Wang said: “Mess Hall is much more participatory than a conventional art space, meaning one that is modeled on commercial galleries, non-profit organizations, and even community art centers. Mess Hall was founded as an experiment informed by a wider spectrum of models and precedents. Anarchist infoshops of the 90s, antiwar drop-in centers of the 60s, communal settlements of the 70s, art collectives of 80s, Spanish and Italian social centers of 90s…these are some of the sources for how Mess Hall developed its culture of governance and management. In this way, Mess Hall departs from the artist/audience dichotomy enforced by art world institutions. I would say it has been a literally successful departure given that a number of people who simply participated regularly eventually became keyholders who helped to manage, maintain, and direct Mess Hall.”

True, but is there any problem in the process for nominating keyholders? “There were several intense arguments in my time as a keyholder, and I know that there have been some since.” Wang admitted, “The process for nominating keyholders was not systematic, at least that was my experience. Many factors went into the invitation and recruitment process, foremost among them the confidence in a nominee’s potential dedication to the work of internal dialogue, task-fulfillment, and efficient communication. At the same time, it was an informal process—there was never any formal application procedure, interview process, or time frame for adding keyholders. One’s professional or reputational status held little sway, and that is a good thing, quite at odds with art world tendencies, but one’s personal reputation mattered a great deal. The process was always somewhat contradictory, but it seemed to function. I cannot speak to the process as it is currently conducted.”

Then, presumably this “internal circularity” of Mess Hall does claim its self-identity as an art space, but could it be possible that, on the other hand, it also suggests the egoism and the possibility that it is but part of the culture industry which it should have been against to?

Again, this is a short but powerful answer: “I would say that the ‘problems’ of egoism and personality are not necessarily unhealthy, that a project like Mess Hall must include space for strong voices, for a fluid group dynamic rather than one made static through a fixed decision-making system, even if that means there is the potential for serious internal disagreement.”

The Identity of Art in Our Time: “Critical”, not “Radical”

After the last two layers of the theme, I assumed that our conversation might have touched on its third layer, that is, the identity of Art in modern society. Still, I am concerned about the intrinsic demarcation between “insider” and “outsider” within the so-called “identity”.

My next question may sound too idealistic (well, as idealistic as I always have been): “Could Art, especially the radical art, truly have the power to be oppositional to capitalism apparatus, or is it just another specimen of the apparatus itself?”

This is Wang’s answer: “There can be no ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ of capitalism, only degrees of enclosure by capitalist logics and degrees of attention by capitalist entities. Whatever its potential for offering usable paths less constrained by capitalist logics, critical art consistently performs the service of exposing the workings and depth of historical capitalism. Even as attached to the apparatus itself, critical art can do this.” And after this, he added, “Note that I do not use the term ‘radical art’, but instead prefer the term ‘critical art’, which makes a reference to the critical theory tradition.”

To Wang, the difference between “radical art” and “critical art” really matters. At first, I thought this was just his accuracy on terminology as a researcher or probably his respect for the academic tradition from Frankfurt School. But his answer to my next question might have indicated something more profound.

In this question, I treated Mess Hall as a case study for the relationship between people and questioned its potentiality in “breaching capitalism's definition of social relations” as Wang had pointed out in his article. Wang gave a very detailed description and explanation: “Social relations as cultivated by Mess Hall represent a very small but nonetheless meaningful divergence from capitalist social relations, beginning with the landlord-renter relationship. Mess Hall owes its landlord very little in monetary terms, but quite a bit in terms of gratitude and respect. So it is different than the standard landlord-renter relationship, and even though there is a legal structure that codifies the power inequality, the informal economy of attention and reputation provides the keyholders with a power of their own, equal to or perhaps greater than that of the landlord. This is only one aspect of changed social relations at Mess Hall. ”

“Obviously, it is not about changing capitalism as a whole.” he added, “Nothing will outstrip capitalism but its own terminal contradictions—if the worldwide social revolutions of the 20th century could not, then any kind of art will not, either. But those contradictions are now taking the form of proliferating crises, at all scales and in all places. The instability we see all around us is a new norm. Projects like Mess Hall contribute by offering small examples of new stabilities, new forms of social security, a new aesthetics of governance and group decision-making. No matter how small, these realities will grow in value as the world we have inherited continues to crumble.”

Isn’t this the true meaning of being “critical”: always keep the acuteness to reality and never give up the patience and promise for future? At certain points, we may find the modernity just like a maze, so well-designed and so self-sufficient that embraced all of us, erasing our identity. But a maze also means a space pre-designed in itself, a possibility for us to escape. Isn’t this the true meaning of “critical”–isn’t this the true meaning of “art”–that the maze given by the reality is also a map for the future?

 

finding our global midwest

I am just returned from the Opportunity Agenda’s Creative Change Retreat 2012. The three full days we shared were filled with an effective combination of directed exercises, facilitated conversation, and free form socializing. The place was the Sundance Resort, a superlative setting with a worry-free culture of service, comfort, and natural beauty. The experience as a whole was complex, enormously inspiring, and indeed revitalizing. I can superficially summarize by saying the retreat was amazing and I feel very fortunate to have been invited. What the experience meant and what it might lead to requires a long moment of reflection. It is too soon to know.

The retreat was generative, that is for certain. I left thinking about many things, but one simple question stands out.

On the final afternoon, after participants had two days of forming new friendships and becoming acquainted with each other’s histories and thought processes, a program segment was reserved for Open Space Conversations, a time for participants to generate their own topics for small group discussions. People were asked to suggest a topic or question—anybody could do it—and then everybody else was free to group around whichever topic attracted them. Being too curious about what topics others would offer, and just being too slow to think on my feet, I failed to offer one of my own. It only occurred to me after the process had moved on, but I offer it now: where is the global Midwest?

I have been using the descriptive term “global Midwest” here and there, including once or twice at the retreat. Some of my Compass comrades may be using it, as well. But I myself have neither attended to the task of defining what it might mean, nor, perhaps more pointedly, located it. In some larger and indirect way all of the Compass work around the idea and reality of the mrcc is about locating it. Asking others to locate it, or simply posing the question of where it is, opens another pathway for thinking through the problem of place in the neoliberal age.

A radical reorientation stands at the heart of the question. The regionally demarcating term “Midwest” carries with itself a legacy of spatial orientation based on imperialistic Manifest Destiny. My feeling is that the descriptor “global” may productively upset the ways in which neoliberal structures reinforce Manifest Destiny, but only if we who are indigenous and immigrant, straight and queer, precarious and secure, bind our futures to a sense of place that stands in opposition to neoliberal logic. Capital has an answer to my question. What is our answer? Where is our global Midwest?

At the retreat I met Bao Phi, a spoken word artist and organizer of Vietnamese descent living and working in Minneapolis. He put his voice into the mix, exemplifying for me the task of revealing the contradictory "glocality" people live with everywhere, but especially in the Midwest. Dig this, a poem he performed for us at the retreat. Bao had another poem picked but in a last minute decision changed it this one because he had just learned of the verdict in the Private Danny Chen hazing case. The poem is, in Bao's words, "from a body of my work where I explore alternate and untold stories and perspectives from Vietnamese American lives, through fictional persona poems."

 

Mercy

Nguyen, John – ROTC, Iraq

 

Let my father know it is not

for his blood

that I fight this war.

 

His decision, made in Saigon.

Mine, made at a recruiting table in an L.A. high school

 

Let him know that his hands, which once cradled guns

in another war,

are not my hands.

 

Let his friends know the difference,

at least to us,

between a communist and an Iraqi

and understand why he won’t speak about me.

 

Let my mother know one day where she

does not fear violence an ocean away

where the body and home

are not always in a dance

toward fracture.

 

Let my little hippie sister’s letters to me, telling me it’s not my fault

I was sent to this unjust war, be true,

at least in the eyes of God.

 

Concerning my little brother

who stabbed a white man in San Jose for calling him a chink

let the judge presiding over his case

know that what my brother did,

he did in the name of war.

 

Let the last cradle of my tender vessel

not be this godforsaken Humvee.

 

Let this boredom, this blessed boredom,

easily fill that thin space between my finger

and the trigger.

 

If bullets should fly, let the air pounding from

my lungs as I run be my song.

 

Let my affection for the people here, for the children here,

be real, not sweetened by Nestle or Coca-Cola

or plastic toys Made in China.

 

Let them know I am trying to understand

no matter what I say or do,

it is never enough

because they never asked for this.

 

Let me not tear apart a people, a country, causing Iraqi food

become the nouvelle cuisine in twenty five years back home,

like they did to my people –

let me not become my father, and my son or daughter, myself,

wandering the wavering borders made by someone else.

Let me ask this and mean it,

Though I’m the one holding the gun.           

 

Let the globe on the desk be mightier than the grenade.

 

The soldier, who looked at me and snorted, gooks killing ragheads,

that would make a great video game, let him know a hatred

he never asked for and cannot reason with, and let him die with it

choking his sleep, and let it pass

onto his children and haunt his children’s children,

without mercy.

 

The Eminem wannabe Marine, who when freestyling in the cipher in our barracks squeaked me love you long time, saw me scowl at him, and who the night after left a bullet on my pillowcase with a pair of tiny lips scratched into the casing, let me not be tempted to be first, to beat him to the finish line of the race that he and his kind set up, let me not be tempted to line up the promise in the eye of my M-4 to the back of his bleached blond hair, let me not chain lightning from my finger through the hollow echo in the valley of the chamber through to the domed pellet of steel that would become his whistling reaper, let me not be the first, of he and I

 

to play God.  Let me not pull the trigger on his story.  But let everyone know

that I could have.

 

Let me pronounce the last names of the curly-haired Filipina twins in the next platoon correctly, even as they pronounce Nguyen as best they can.

 

Let every poor brown, black, yellow soul who signed up for college tuition have children who grow up to be NBA stars drafted for millions out of high school.

 

Let me have the courage to erase the names of the dead

from my cellphone.

 

Let my lover, in our most private darkness, know, that when I tell her

you have a Quixotic pussy

except

that your pussy tilts windmills –

let her know, that I mean

that she, the all of her,

has a gravitational pull

and I am only a man

helpless in her current

I am swept in her undertow

and I drown

gladly.

 

Let her know, as the Lord is my witness, that I have confessed

to doubting God

but I have never doubted

her.

 

If we mirror one another then let us be both our homelands –

she, the jagged edge of California, and I her reflection, the jigsaw

coast of Viet Nam, or one, the other,

 

and let no one say I fought this war to make a better world

for our unborn children.

 

Let them know, that I mean the first Persian Gulf,

let them know I mean Viet Nam, and Korea,

and the bombs that made blossoms of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

let them know I mean every man that will call me gook

every man that will slap my sister behind a closed door

let them know I mean police beating down Cambodian kids

in the park

and people who make fun of my mother using welfare checks

at the supermarket

let them know I mean my father screaming in nightmares

and ghetto neighbors who call my parents gook

when walking by their front yard

Let them know I mean my uncles drinking themselves to death

and aunties losing life savings at blackjack and

white hunters killing Hmong in Wisconsin

and yes, let them know I mean this, here, now, Iraq,

when I say

Fuck this war.

 

Bao Phi