ARTISTS AND INTELLECTUALS IN CHINA AND EUROPE:
THE NATION, GLOBALISATION, AND PUBLIC SPACE

欧洲与中国的艺术家、学者：民族、全球化和公共空间

We organise a yearly workshop in Beijing in the context of the China-Europa Forum. Here are details for the discussions in July 2009, with information for 2010 coming soon!

When: 18 and 19 of July 2009
时间：7月18日/19日
Where: Abitare Courtyard, BeiJing ShiXiChengQu DaShiZuo HuTong 18
地点：北京Abitare庭院; 北京市西城区大石作胡同18号

What: 2-day workshop looking at the role of the intellectual and the artist in a European and Chinese context, with a focus on questions of nationalism, globalisation, and the meaning of public space and urban context.
内容：邀请欧洲及中国关注民族主义、全球化和公共空间及城市环境的意义等问题的学者和艺术家举办的一个为期两天的研讨会。

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME
研讨会安排

The topic of each table is introduced by two short presentations (10-15minsutes) and followed by a moderated informal conversation between all the participants to the workshop.
两段短篇演讲（10—15分钟）介绍每个版块的主题，其后研讨会参与者之间将进行非正式交谈。

Saturday 18th
18日 星期六

Artists and Intellectuals Between the Nation and Globalisation
艺术家和学者就民族和全球化问题的讨论

Overview: Strategies of Artistic and Intellectual Engagement in China and Europe
概况：中欧的艺术与学术的参与战略

The day opens with a discussion on ’socially engaged’ art; art that, more generally, presents itself with direct relation to a possible collective future (another definition is that it is art that is communitarian in nature, designed to strengthen the ‘collective bond’). Points of reference in the discussion could be early 20th century European avant-gardes, the Artists Placement Group (APG), the May 4th period in Chinese history, the role of 1968 movement in Europe and China, as well as the dialectic of the Chinese 1980s.
What is the relation between contemporary artists and intellectuals and the society they inhabit? What are the main points of distinction between the Chinese and European traditions?
开幕当天将讨论“社会参与”艺术；这类艺术，代表了可能的群体性未来（另一个定义是：它是天生的共产主义，是为加强“集体凝聚力”的艺术）。讨论涉及20世纪早期欧洲先锋派，the Artists Placement Group (APG)，中国历史上的五四运动，欧洲和中国1968运动的作用和中国80年代的辩证问题。
当代艺术家、学者和他们所居住的社会间有着怎样的关系？中欧传统文化的主要差别是什么？

Artists, Intellectuals, and the Nation
艺术家，学者与民族

The nation has often played a key role in advancing socially progressive demands and in representing the obvious point of reference for practices of artistic engagement, particularly in former third-world countries faced with the consequences of colonialism and imperialism. At the same time, the nation has also produced the danger of virulent nationalism, which builds fake barriers between people and is often used as a form of diversion from real problems. What is the historical understanding of the ‘nation’ and the national in the European and Chinese context? In what ways do artists and intellectuals relate to the nation? Is the national still a productive and emancipatory concept, or should new forms of post-national organisation be thought?
民族常常在推动社会需求的增长、表现艺术交流实践上起关键作用，特别对于那些从前面临着殖民主义和帝国主义影响的第三世界国家来说。同时，民族也滋生了恶毒民族主义，这些恶毒民族主义构建了人民间的伪障碍，且常常被当作一种转移真正问题的方式。中欧背景下对于“民族”和“民族的”这两个词基于历史的理解是什么？艺术家和学者是通过怎样的方式同民族联系起来的？“民族的”这个概念仍然是多产和自由的吗？抑或我们应该思考后民族主义的组织形态？

Global Art, Global Politics?
全球化艺术？全球化政治？

Picking up the discussion where the last panel left it, we ask here the question of alternative forms of community to the nation. A large discourse sorrounding globalisation has emerged in China, reasoning on questions of self-exoticism, global-western market, and access to the international elite. How is globalisation understood today, and what is the state of discourses surrounding questions of internationalism? How does power move both upwards towards global forms of economic, political and social activity and also downwards towards private spheres of activity, in the process producing local variants and hybrids? Lastly, is there a way to be a ‘global’ artist, or a ‘globally engaged’ intellectual, that does not play in the hands of critics of the ‘transnational class’ as a mere elitist phenomenon of jetsetters?
继续之前的讨论，探讨关于社群和民族交替形式的问题。由于自我洋化倾向，全球市场西方化以及接触国际精英等，在中国出现了关于全球化的大规模讨论。在今天怎样理解全球化？围绕国际主义问题展开的讨论情况如何？在产生局部变异和混合的过程中，它是如何推动全球化经济、政治和社会活动，同时又阻滞私人领域活动的？最后，有办法成为一个“全球化”的艺术家或 “全球化”的学者，而又不沦为“跨国阶级”评论家们所掌控的富人们的精英么？

Sunday, 19 July
7月19日 星期日

Beyond the White Cube
白盒子之外

The discussion can focus on the strategies open for artistic engagement that go beyond the simple production of art objects. A particular focus can be put on ‘projects’ the artistic status of which is in many ways ambiguous; works such as Tania Bruguera’s Summer University in Cuba, Rasheed Araeen’s plans for desalinisation plants, Rirkrit Tiravanija’s Land Project, or the experience of the (artistic) Long March, radically reformulate the position of the artist as creator of artistic objects, and renegotiate the position of the viewer/spectator presenting an eminently practical art. A similar emphasis can be given to the role performance art, particularly in the Chinese context.
讨论关注于超越简单艺术品的艺术参与战略。特别关注的是那些在很多方面颇具争议的项目，诸如Tania Bruguera在古巴的夏季大学，Rasheed Araeen的脱盐植物计划，Rirkrit Tiravanija的陆地工程，或者（艺术的）长征体验，这些都从根本上改变了艺术家作为艺术品创造者的地位，也通过呈现卓越的实验艺术重新定位了观众的重要角色。尤其是在中国，表演艺术也受到重视。

Urban Strategies: Artists and the City
城市策略：艺术家与城市

In what ways can artists engage with their urban surrounding, and what is the relation between artists and public space? Could simple walking, ‘flowing’ (liu), be the element of an artistic project? What can be recuperated from the idea of the flaneur, and how is this idea played out in the context of Chinese artistic and urban dialectics, and in the new Chinese cities?
艺术家如何与他们周围的城市相交融？艺术家和公共空间的关系又是什么呢？简单的散步、“流”能成为艺术创作的元素吗？我们能从浪荡游子的思想中得到什么呢？这些想法又怎样在中国艺术和城市的辩证中以及中国的新城市中结束的？

Concluding Panel: Transnational Strategies
结论座谈：跨国策略

Specific proposals for projects following this workshop will be put on the table and discussed
此次会议相关项目的具体提案会在此讨论。

Here the Flickr Gallery with more photos.