|
TIME,
NOVEMBER 11, 2002
The
Birth of Cool
A
new generation of trendsetters is laboring to turn 'Made in China' into
a symbol of style that's part Western, part traditional and all original
By
Hannah Beech | Shanghai
Nothing
used to irk a Chinese yuppie more than hinting that his clothes looked
like they were made in China. Even the proudest mainland nationalist
knew that a homegrown brand signified ultracheap and tres tacky.
High-flying Chinese wanted Italian suits, German cars and American
M.B.A.s. Chinese was reserved only for food, and even then banquet menus
proudly boasted Southeast Asian abalone, European pig trotters and
African shark's fin.
No
more. Just as "Made in Japan" went from being a mark of shoddy
workmanship to a symbol of refined art and fashion, "Made in
China" is also morphing into something with more panache and
glamour. This goes beyond producing better-quality washing machines or
televisions or computers. It's a revolution in taste led by style gurus
who are redefining Chinese craftsmanship in everything from architecture
and film to clothing and cuisine. Out are the oriental roofs plopped on
cement-block buildings that constituted China's clumsy effort to create
a homegrown architecture. Equally passé are the epic films with
plum-cheeked peasant girls forever tilling the yellow earth. Gone, too,
are the ill-fitting polyester cheongsams that only a karaoke hostess
felt comfortable wearing.
Instead,
these style mavens are fashioning a modern Chinese aesthetic inspired
both by a Ming-era minimalism and a strenuous attention to detail-no
tacky flourishes or cheap stitching. Their belief in Chinese materials
and history has encouraged other mainlanders to eschew the West-is-best
philosophy and embrace the East. "Finally, we've grown up as a
nation," says Shanghai interior-design and clothing mogul Chen
Yifei, wryly aware that the Chinese like to constantly tout their 5,000
years of history. "Now that we have confidence in ourselves, we can
have confidence in our products."
Today,
discerning Chinese dine on raspberry tea-smoked duck, wear
Mandarin-inspired suits and buy contemporized calligraphy to decorate
the Suzhou-silk walls of their weekend villas. The movies they watch-on
pirated DVDs, of course-portray urban Chinese sipping green tea
frappuccinos and perusing sex manuals written by slinky Shanghai girls.
There isn't a brocaded young concubine in sight. "This isn't the
kind of tacky chinoiserie you see in Chinatowns overseas," says
property magnate Zhang Xin, who tries to cultivate chic, domestic
designs.
The
next step in this Great Aesthetic Leap Forward is to convince the rest
of the world that China offers more than shoddy stuffed animals and
flashlights that break whenever you need them. "China now has some
really quality workmanship," says real estate developer Pan Shiyi.
"Why do we always have to promote the stuff that's cheap?" To
that end, fashion designer Chen has opened an office in Manhattan and is
working on distributing his clothing at fancy retailers like Barney's.
Chef Zhang Jinjie recently realized a similar dream by opening a
restaurant in Singapore's sparkling new arts center, the Esplanade.
Chinese painter Zhu Wei is selling his artwork to top galleries in
London and New York City, and moviemaker Lu Chuan wants Western viewers
to appreciate a Chinese film that doesn't take place in a long-bygone
dynasty. "We Chinese are sometimes insecure about ourselves,"
says designer Chen. "The best way to fix that is to succeed on an
international level with products that aren't copied from the West but
show our real history and talents." Meet the trendsetters who
realize that the real revolution will only come when "Made in
China" stands for cultured elegance around the world.
TIME,
NOVEMBER 11, 2002
Living
Large
By
Hannah Beech | Shanghai
HEAD
MEN: Clockwise from left, paintings by Zhu, Zhao and Zeng reflect a
passionate sentiment that, even in a country of 1.3 billion people, the
individual deserves the space to breathe and flourish
Forget
about the little people-China's new wave of modern art is all about
portraying the big heads
Zhu
wei is a diminutive man with a very large head. One of the progenitors
of modern Chinese art's "big head movement," the Beijing-based
artist paints portraits of bubble-headed people, their gargantuan
proportions stretching the confines of both his giant canvases and, if
we must get metaphorical, their worlds. Traditional Chinese art likes to
shrink the human figure: in Qing dynasty scrolls, mere mortals were
eclipsed by the ostentation of nature, with its towering cliffs and
heaven-scraping mountains. Only by looking closely could you spot a tiny
fisherman perched by the edge of a rushing river. Chairman Mao furthered
this scaling down of the individual by boasting that China teemed with
so many people that it could send human wave after human wave into war
without weakening his fledgling nation.
The
"big head" artists have turned this very notion on its head.
The People's Republic may be crammed with 1.3 billion citizens-not to
mention thousands of stratospheric skyscrapers-but each person, say the
big heads, deserves the space to breathe and flourish, if only on
canvas. Zeng Fanzhi, a native of Wuhan in Hubei province, central China,
paints lost souls struggling for identity in China's thronging
metropolises, their fashionable clothes juxtaposed with the cauterized
expressions people adopt to survive in big cities. Such portraits are
introspective, whimsical celebrations of a China in which the individual
can triumph over the group. Perhaps that victory is not so surprising
given that some of the self-absorbed offspring of the nation's one-child
policy are just picking up their paintbrushes. But the big heads hope
their art can accomplish something else. "It's only by focusing on
the individual that we can find real talent in China," says Zhao
Nengzhi, a big head who lives in Chengdu in central Sichuan province.
Then, walking glumly down streets where wooden teahouses have been
replaced by characterless, concrete boxes, he adds, "We live in a
country that desperately needs a little genius."
美国《时代》周刊2002年11月11日系列报道：中国文化新革命（4）：“酷”之诞生（作者：汉纳·比奇/Hannah
Beech）
过去，对于中国雅皮士来说，再没有比穿一身中国本土品牌的衣服更让人丢面子的了。即使是最爱国的民族主义者也知道，本土品牌就意味着廉价和庸俗。雄心万丈的中国雅皮士讲究穿着意大利的服装，开着德国的车子，拿着美国的MBA学位。一时间“中国制造”只剩下了食品这一块自留地，但是紧接着，南亚的鲍鱼、欧洲的猪蹄以及非洲的鱼翅便成了宴会餐谱上的炫耀品。
但是这都是以前的情形了，现在，所有这一切都一去不复返。“日本制造”曾经是拙劣手工制品的代名词，如今却已经代表着艺术和时尚。无独有偶，“中国制造”也在逐渐使自己变得更加具有美感和魅力。这不仅体现在高质量的洗衣机、电视机以及计算机的生产上。这是一场由时尚大师领导的美学革命，这些大师们提高了“中国制造”在各个领域内的水平：从建筑到电影，到服装，再到烹调。随之逝去的是：设计拙劣的水泥建筑，老生常谈的史诗电影，以及只有歌厅的招待小姐穿起来才会觉得舒服的旗袍。
现在，那些时尚大师们令中国的建筑充满现代气息，这里既有明代的极简单派艺术风格，又有对细枝末节的吹毛求疵；而且，这里不再有世俗的华丽，也不再有廉价的咬合。他们对中国本土产品以及历史文化的推崇已经令其他的中国人开始逐渐抛弃“洋为贵”的哲学，而改为信奉“东方”。“终于，我们发展成为了一个真正的民族，”上海服装设计界的大腕陈逸飞说，“现在，我们对自己有足够的自信，我们对自己的产品也有足够的自信。”
如今，有品位的中国人讲究吃挂炉烤鸭，穿唐装，并且在自己周末度假的别墅里挂上当代名家的字画以及苏州的丝织挂毯。电影中的中国城市居民通常是喝着绿茶，读着性爱指南。地产业巨头张欣说：“这里没有你在海外的唐人街里所看到的那种艳俗的中国艺术风格。”
这一审美品位“大跃进”的下一步任务便是让世界相信，中国人不是只能够制造毛茸茸的玩具和方便简易的闪光灯。“中国现在确实已经能够生产高质量的手工艺品了，”房地产开发商潘石屹说，“为什么我们总是要靠打‘价格牌’来促销呢？”英雄所见略同。服装设计师陈先生已经在纽约的曼哈顿设立了办事处，致力于向“巴尼斯”等有特色的零售商推销自己的服装；美厨家张劲洁最近终于得偿夙愿，在新加坡崭新的艺术中心——埃斯普兰纳德——开办了一家餐馆；画家朱伟将自己的作品卖给了伦敦、纽约等城市的顶级美术馆；而电影制作人陆川则希望，虽然自己的影片已经不再依靠神秘的中国历史来吸引观众，但是依然能够得到西方影迷的认同。
“我们中国人有时候会显得缺乏自信，”陈先生说，“改变这一现状的最好办法便是用可以显示我们自己的历史文化和民族才智、而不是抄袭西方的产品征服全世界。”时代的弄潮儿们已经认识到，只有当“中国制造”在全世界范围内代表着品位和高雅时，真正的文化新革命才会水到渠成。
生而巨大：忘了那些小个子的人们吧--中国的现代艺术新浪潮全是关于大脑袋（自大）的肖像（作者：汉纳·比奇/Hannah
Beech）
朱伟是一个有着非常巨大的脑袋的小个子男人。作为中国现代艺术"大脑袋（自大）运动"的先驱之一，这个生于北京的艺术家描绘了有着泡泡般巨大脑袋的人们的肖像，他们不成比例的庞大脑袋不仅充斥着巨幅画框，也充斥着--如果我们可以比喻的话--他们的世界。传统的中国艺术通常是把人形缩小：在清朝的画卷里，峻峭的山崖和擎天的山脉是主角，人类的形象只不过是山水画的点缀而已。只有凑近了仔细看你才会发现，在那湍急的河流旁，还栖息着一个极其微小的渔夫。毛主席则把个人的作用更进一步弱化，他炫耀地说，中国人口众多，就算把一批又一批中国人投入到战争里，也无损于他的新兴的国家。
而"大脑袋（自大）"艺术家们把这个概念用到了脑袋上。人民共和国或许是挤满了13亿人口，更不用提数千的摩天大楼--但是每个人，大脑袋们说，也需要空间来呼吸和繁荣，即使是在帆布上。曾梵志，湖北省武汉人，描绘了中国人口聚集的都市中正在寻找身份的失落灵魂，他们时髦的衣服映衬着麻木的神情，在大城市里适应生存。这些肖像是对中国个人超越集体现象的一种自省和庆祝。如果考虑到中国只生一个的生育政策中产生的那些自我为中心的孩子已经到了拿起画笔的年龄的话，这种胜利也许不是那么让人诧异。但是这些大脑袋们希望他们的艺术还能做到另外一些事。"只有把注意力放到个人身上，才能在中国找到真正的天才"，赵能志说，他是一个居住在四川省成都市的大脑袋。然后，走过阴沉的街道，街道上那些没有性格的水泥盒子已经吞没了传统的木头搭建的茶馆，赵又说道："我们居住的这个国家正迫切地需要一点点天分。"
（人头像：从左面顺时针为朱伟、赵能志、曾梵志的作品，反映了一种强烈的感情：即使是在有13亿人口的国家，人们还是渴求呼吸和繁荣的空间。） |
