I met Yu Guo again in May, just as it was growing warm in Beijing. He was in a hurry, having just finished his residency in Changbai Mountain and making a brief stop in Beijing on his way back to Chongqing.
The last time we met was in May last year, at the 798 ArtDist. Yu Guo’s solo exhibition “From Ridge to Ridge” at the CLC Gallery Venture won the Best Exhibition Award of Gallery Weekend Beijing, but the honor did not make him any more energetic. I couldn’t have heard him speak more than three sentences at the party that evening. However, I later learned that he felt uneasy about his silence at the time. This is somewhat surprising: as a socially awkward person, Yu Guo is obviously unable to force himself to appear polished and adept in certain situations, but he silently feels frustrated about his own clumsiness. What he regrets is not that his integrity couldn’t be fully expressed, but the concern that someone might be hurt due to his poor social adaptation.
Therefore, perhaps conversations and even interactions with Yu must be straightforward and free of redundancy and pretense. Yu appeared so reserved and at a loss before and after this interview, but during the interview, when talking about his residency experience, art production, and working methods, he was so talkative and at ease. If I were to find an explanation for this contrast, I would call it the self-mitosis of the socially anxious artist, Yu Guo.
Only by retreating to his own mountains and fields does Yu feel unified and complete. His universe has its own structure: roaming in the outskirts and mountains of Chongqing, traversing through the dry winds and devout chants of Xinjiang, and witnessing the migrants, borders, forests, and seas along Changbai Mountain… It is in this nearly grounded rooting that Yu continuously trials his understanding and judgment of contemporary art while attempting to search within the system to find gaps and holes for artistic production.
During his stay in Changbai Mountain, Yu used the residency space in Erdaobaihe Town as the center and spread his footprints into a larger network that radiated as far outward as possible. He rented a car and drove south or north along Changbai Mountain, from Hunchun to Dandong, from the Tumen River to the Yalu River, and from one forest farm to another. In order to save money, ideally his trip planning principle was to return on the same day. Occasionally he would stay overnight along the way if he went too far. In fact, regulating the scope of artistic coverage with costing has always been Yu’s method, or so to say, way of survival. He leads a life of almost low materialist desires, without much anticipation for the commercialization of his works, but neither does he place himself against economic logic. He does not resonate with the anxiety of most people, but at the same time, he is worried that this lack of anxiety will cause him to lose the possibility of understanding the general anxiety of young people today.
As a pessimistic long-termist, Yu’s anxiety neither lies in the present nor grows from reality, but originates from the brevity and ineffectiveness of art in time. He is anxious that there may come a day in the future when he is no longer able to analyze or ask questions about contemporary art and the person he is within it. Although he was worried about not being able to find the entrance to the path of academic art production earlier, even this anxiety disappeared later on. After figuring out what Chinese contemporary art really is, and after his initial predictions about the trend were confirmed one by one, Yu became calmer: he knew that not everything is impossible.
Yu Guo’s self-narrative is as follows, reviewed by the interviewee before publication. All photographs in the text were taken by Yu Guo.
1
During my 35-day residency in Changbai Mountain, I basically moved around within a limited area along the Changbai Mountain Range. I had never been to Northeast China before this residency and had no idea about it, so it is fair to say that everywhere I went was unknown to me, the China-North Korea border, the Yalu River, the forest farms, the deep mountains… It may seem that this is my exploration and walk through the Changbai Mountain region as a geographical concept, but the truth is, what I have seen is far richer than these concepts.
To enter the local area, you need to find some ways. One of them is to find and contact local people on short video platforms. Many of them are eager to share their lives and wish to show clients into the mountains. Although there are no specific statistics, I later found out that these mountain runners, or their fathers and grandfathers, basically all came from Shandong. Shandong people have had a tradition of breaking through the Shanhaiguan and into the East ever since the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. It seems that this migration still continues today, although there are changes in their way of entering the Northeast and surviving there.
2
During my residency, I went to the western foot of Changbai Mountain, where many abandoned sites of small third-tier factories remained. I suddenly discovered that the locals all spoke the Shandong dialect. When I asked, I found out that they were all new migrants from Shandong who had moved here decades ago. Looking at these people, I saw the rise and fall of the villages. No one lived here at first. Then the third-tier factories were built and people settled here. Later, the factories moved away, leaving behind empty houses and abandoned factory buildings. Slowly, people from Shandong came along to reside here. As the villagers spread the word or under the guidance of some policies, more and more people from Shandong gathered here to form villages. In Hunchun, near the China-Russia border, I also saw that the closer to the border of the two countries, the sparser the population, and the more Shandong villages there are. Some villages are very new and may have been formed only two or three years ago. Some have existed for a long time, but a large number of new migrants from Shandong have appeared in recent years. I have been to one of these villages, Heidingzi, which is right next to the border and a mountain away from Russia. Many Shandong people in the village have also only moved here in recent years. Of course, aside from the people from Shandong, there are also people from Henan and other migrant populations as well. They bring different accents and lifestyles, but they are all accepted here.
In addition to human inhabitants, the different terrains and ecological features are also quite dynamic and mixed. Changbai Mountain seems to run from south to north, but areas of the mountain range are not entirely continuous. There is pretty much no agriculture in the south, then some valleys and plains appear in the middle, where blueberries and American ginseng are now planted. Further north in the hills, crops such as corn and soybeans are planted… Still further north, the plains and lakes beyond Jilin and Changchun are more suitable for modern agricultural development, which is also the part that best fits our traditional imagination of the Northeast as a granary.
3
For a one-month residency, I’m afraid that I’m still far from reaching a strict sense of depth. All I can do is to go as deep as possible in a limited time, so basically I never stay in the residency space for too long. I am almost always out and about. If I go out, I want to be more efficient. The day breaks very early there, and normally it gets bright at 3:30 am and dark at around 6 pm. However, my schedule does not strictly follow sunrise and sunset but is based on cost considerations. For example, I need to plan in advance how many days it takes to go to a place, and whether I can get back as soon as possible on the same day. I try to maximize the time I spend outside while skipping accommodations since car fares and fuel costs are not small expenses after all. If you add the accommodations, it becomes quite costly. For instance, if I decide to head north one day, I will set off early in the morning, stay at the destination for one night at most, and drive back at night on the second day to save the expenses of one night.
Fortunately, the residency space happens to be the center of my investigation field, and it is relatively convenient to spread out from Erdaobaihe Town. Basically, I went a little north in the first two days, returned to the residency space, and then set out a little south afterward. Such a working method cannot claim to be systematic but may seem more like the way I have always done it, which is to conduct a geographically based walk according to the space I am currently in and its objective conditions.
4
I have always been looking forward to all kinds of opportunities to enter specific realities or geographical spaces for creation. The Changbai Mountain residency was an unplanned project, and the invitation arrived just in time. Back then, my planned residency in Africa suddenly fell through, but I had already made a lot of preparations, so switching to another destination was just as appealing to me.
Research and fieldwork are a working method I have recently established. This method determines that the residency space is not only a form of funding for me but also a way of production. In comparison, although individual creations in the past still formed productions, they cannot be said to be very healthy ones. For me, joining the residency is a kind of update for my own work form, which is quite necessary at the moment.
Before setting off to Changbai Mountain, although I knew very little about the Northeast, I still had an interest based on the locality. I was extremely curious about the production methods of popular culture, stereotypes, and even so-called local characteristics of the Northeast, intentionally or not. This curiosity is not about praise or criticism but is a focus on the local construction of the Northeast that differs from other places. For example, the Northeast that we talk about in everyday conversations is actually a vast area of three provinces, which are very rich from geographical environment to humanistic connotations. Then why is it that the conceptual narrative of the Northeast as a whole is more effective? How is it produced? Why was this production not born from tradition and history, but is completed in modern times? How can this narrative further realize its own circulation with the help of mass communication or the entertainment industry? These are all things that I was curious about.
5
In fact, after arriving in Changbai Mountain, I realized that as a means of artistic production, the residency itself seems to have become a part of a certain local narrative.
Have you ever been to the Changbai Mountain Residency Space? I think it carries a very fascinating context, and its spatial form is quite impressive: behind the entrance door, the first floor is the form of a particularly large studio. Everything can be found on the counter of the bar near the door, including a coffee machine and an ice maker. Pull open the refrigerator, and you’ll see it stocked with all sorts of beverages. If you take a few steps forward from the bar, you’ll come to a row of long tables suitable for discussion meetings. The sofas and coffee tables scattered around it are fit for small-scale conversations. There is also a projector, and a velvet curtain that isolates the space…
To me, this space seems pretty standard and corresponds to the spatial form of the residency production mechanism. The moment I stepped inside, my imagination, expectations, and assumptions about the residency took physical shape. It represents a reliable production system.
At the same time, as part of the research, I also reflect on this space. As a part of the internal production of the art system, the tradition of the so-called residency is not very old, but it is very mainstream and is something that commonly exists all over the world. In comparison, spaces like art galleries, which we are all familiar with, exhibit more diversity. They will generate infinite possibilities depending on whether they are situated in China or the United States, the interests of investors, and their own demands. Residency, however, is very standardized. For residents, how to make connections with the locality within such a nearly unified aesthetic space becomes a more interesting matter.
6
For my residency in Changbai Mountain, I brought various different filming tools. Some of them were new, such as the DJI gimbal, a standard piece of equipment for internet influencers, and others I have used for many years, like my handheld DV camera. Mediums have always been a sensitive part for me. While in Changbai Mountain this time, I discovered that drones, which seemed distant from everyday life, are actually deeply integrated into the lives of local villagers. When visiting each village and chatting with the locals, whenever I asked them geographical questions, the villagers would open a WeChat channel and show me aerial photos of their village. This was the case for almost every village. The feeling was quite peculiar, as if at that moment you had entered another layer of spatial context behind the village through the medium of the drone, and caught a glimpse of another way of life.
At the western foot of Changbai Mountain, I also visited the film processing workshop at Branch 875 of Changchun Film Studio. 8.75 refers to a type of film, and is also a unique cinematic film specification in our country. Compared to 35mm film, 8.75 film consumes less material, making the projection equipment lighter and more portable. In the 1960s and 1970s, most rural areas and third-tier factories used 8.75 films for movie screenings. Today, it seems evident that this workshop has been dilapidated for a long time, but the village guard took me to the film review room, which is very discreetly located. It played a crucial role back in those days, as all the dubbed and domestic films produced by Changchun Film Studio were repeatedly reviewed in this projection room.
Although the people guarding the village told me that this film review room was abandoned around the 1990s, it remains quite well preserved today. Despite the walls appearing somewhat dilapidated and old, the original shape and layout of the space have been retained. It has not been remodeled or used for other purposes and stands as if frozen in time. This experience was very unforgettable for me. To some extent, the 875 film, the projection room, and my journey, observations, and filming all became secretly interconnected.
7
Gradually, as I walked, I kept pondering about how to transform what I saw into a work of art. Perhaps a film is the most convenient way. It is unlike words, which require logical connections. A film seems to align more with the viewing within a geographical space.
For example, I noticed that when looking across the Yalu River, all the Chinese people seemed very excited. This made me curious. Why was everyone so excited? In fact, our proximity to North Korea has always remained on the level of images or ideology and has never involved empathy based on the body and emotions. It is so mysterious. Even when we travel, what we see is the “reality” that has been created for us to see. Meanwhile, however, I also realized that for those who set up machines for live streaming and tourists who gazed obsessively at the other side, the imaginations they draw are almost entirely driven by the world behind them. Another example is standing at the China-North Korea border at night. It’s pitch black and silent on the other side, but turn around and you’ll see the magnificent neon lights on this side. At that moment, it felt very much like standing in Shenzhen in the 1990s and looking toward Hong Kong. This kind of geographically based viewing is both mediated and spatial.
8
After a month of residency, I still have no answers for the Northeast, but I do have a lot of inspiration. This inspiration may not be solely about the Northeast, because although there are differences between geographic regions, what I seek to pursue is something universal. My question is, how can cultural productions shape a region?
We use narratives in a way that constantly stitches things together and then splits them apart. When we are young, we may often see new things and easily feel the excitement of “facing a new trend.” However, now we realize all narratives have roots, and these roots are stitched together, but at the same time, they are also constantly splitting apart.
For example, as I mentioned earlier about the Chinese people standing by the Yalu River and looking across the other side, the narrative enthusiasm they muster might be even greater than when they are in Paris. You can’t help but wonder where it comes from. It might be the additional imaginations we create about places unfamiliar to us. This supplement may include large collective experiences and images from the Third Front Movement period. This is also a way of stitching up divided parts and enriching the narrative, but at the same time, it is also in a constant state of splitting apart. The live streaming broadcaster by the Yalu River, for example, was actually talking about North Korean women and their marriage relationships. At that moment, what he split off was his own anxiety, and other realistic factors that we care about, such as wealth and class. This pervasive stitching and splitting forces me to view and think about the world from this perspective and to engage in the analysis of knowledge production.
9
Regarding the universality of geographical concepts I just mentioned, it actually requires some context. Nowadays, when we talk about locality, we always expect it to provide some form of particularity. I disagree with this, which is why I hope to talk more about the so-called commonalities of geographical environments.
Certainly, there are differences between geographical environments—mountains and seas, rivers and valleys. Yet these differences also originate from the same tectonic movements and are interconnected, all within the same state of motion and change. The universality here is obviously not the cultural hegemony symbols we receive on the level of everyday discourse—like during the modernist period in the West, where they either named all existing realities or performed semantic conversions. Or like art galleries, which not only collected different items but also categorized them, enforcing a kind of universal acceptance. However, this universality is evidently insufficient, as it obscures many localities, resulting in the excessive pursuit of particularity nowadays. We constantly emphasize our differences and even attempt to export a certain unique model, insisting on defining our political correctness. This is actually quite dangerous.
The commonality I emphasize is precisely the response that one attempts to make within such a divisive trend of thoughts or context and amid the excessive indulgence in one’s own identity or differentiated ecology.
10
In terms of specific sensory experiences, being in Changbai Mountain is definitely different from being in my hometown, Chongqing. Feelings have their own scale and are naturally influenced by space. However, when it comes to my own working methods, while I can’t say they remain unchanged, the overall trend is the same—continuous growth.
I’m not numb to the point of having no energy in Chongqing, nor am I thrilled to the point of losing myself in Changbai Mountain. The refreshing or regeneration of local experiences can nourish me, but this doesn’t mean I would avoid stimulating new experiences. As a middle-aged person, naturally I look forward to this sudden stimulation. However, in my current state, it’s hard to experience sudden excitement because I would first question that excitement. In comparison, what I’d prefer is to maintain gradual progress.
11
I don’t produce artworks that quickly, I don’t hold many exhibitions, and I have no high expectations for the market. In fact, whether in Changbai Mountain or Chongqing, I always try to maintain a low-cost life. Although there are some pressures in life, for some reason, I never seem to be that anxious. Sometimes when I teach students in school, I notice that young people are particularly anxious. I can’t fully understand this, but at the same time, I can’t criticize or blame them for not being strong enough. Objectively speaking, I wasn’t as anxious at their age. Maybe it’s because I was a bit cheeky and careless. When I ran out of money, I would just ask my family for some. I didn’t have a strong ambition, nor was I deeply attracted by those narratives of success. In my years of doing art, I haven’t spent much time dealing with anxiety.
This lack of anxiety, however, doesn’t mean that I’m rejecting or resisting anything. Of course, I know that I need to understand the world and other people, such as how galleries work, how auctions are conducted, how successful artists achieve success, and so on. In fact, I have indeed done so, but that’s about it. Since I now understand these things, there is even less to worry about. Therefore, I have never had high expectations for the commercialization of my works, but I don’t resent it either, because the confrontation itself is already expressing a certain anxiety. So I am also quite skeptical of those who constantly oppose commercialization and refuse to sell their works. Saying “no” to the market is actually very simple, if you truly don’t care, just quietly turn around and do something else.
12
I once had my own anxiety as well, which is the frustration of “seeking the unobtainable” in academic art. I care about academics and have invested a lot of effort in an attempt to explore the academic aspects of contemporary Chinese art. However, academics are not accomplished by self-talk; they require communication and heterogeneous experiences. I also know that I haven’t truly entered the academic production system. I yearn for a healthy way of academic production, but I haven’t found the path to it yet. This is precisely what I was anxious about.
Of course, I am no longer anxious now. This process is accompanied by a deeper understanding of Chinese contemporary art and a recognition of its more complex and diverse aspects. Many things are like this: you feel very anxious when you don’t understand them, but once you do, you realize there’s nothing worth worrying about. All the information you gather becomes the material for your analysis. There’s nothing for you to prove; you just need to see things more clearly, and then a little more clearly. This suits your desire to conduct entirely new experiments, and you do so with the determination not to expect a specific outcome.
13
Since I have been staying in Chongqing and making art there for a long time, many people would naturally assume that this might be too marginal, perhaps even see it as a result of the disenchantment of the center. Actually, I think this issue is easy to understand—the so-called center or periphery of contemporary art has never really existed. As I mentioned before, it is easy to see contemporary Chinese art clearly. The proposition of center versus periphery is essentially about people and their works. Be it artists or curators, I only need to look at specific individuals and their results. Different people or different stages of the same person will vary. Some people care about certain topics that others don’t. I can understand, analyze, and figure all that out, and ultimately, I can accept not only these but even all of contemporary art. Therefore, there was no enchantment in the first place, let alone disenchantment.
This process is like doing fieldwork. I place myself in a certain location, and when I become interested in artistic production, I, being involved in art myself, also become a subject of investigation. The results of the feedback are not important; what matters is how I understand this feedback. For example, why is certain work ineffective at certain times? Why are there so few others walking this path besides me? Once I figure out these questions, I won’t be too anxious.
14
I am originally pessimistic, but if I look a bit further ahead, I become slightly more optimistic. The fundamental reason might be that many of my initial judgments have eventually been proven correct, and the overall trend gradually moves in the direction I originally anticipated. It’s not like there are no opportunities or possibilities at all; this is what makes doing art very interesting.
Cultural production ultimately boils down to the struggle between different relationships. This means that the art industry may have more gaps and holes compared to other industries. Although it also involves resources, capital, and many other less pure elements, none of these are absolute or singular. You can still have the opportunity to play the game. For instance, if you lack resources, can you invest your own body in the work? This might actually offer more freedom and possibilities.
However, for me, even the game might seem rather uninteresting. For instance, I don’t see myself as being on the margins with a need to compete with the center. This is not my thinking approach. Staying in Chongqing to do art after graduating from university was not a choice made after much deliberation and weighing of options. It was rather a somewhat passive decision. First, I don’t like competition, and second, staying in Chongqing is more convenient and less costly. For me, the fact that it can happen might be all there is to it.
Interview and writing: Yang Meiju
Yu Guo is an artist whose work encompasses a variety of media, including painting and video. He currently lives and works in Chongqing, China.
