Art Elsewhere

Since twentieth century, Chinese artists have been to France for their dream of art. Even though France is no longer the only art capital of the world today, the glorious history had made its status unshakable as a symbol. With its policy of "liberty", "equality", "fraternity", France attracted the artists around the world who were eager to get opportunities for free creation and diverse inspiration. All the works they did became an important part of French culture and art, while the "French culture and art" as a whole keeps building the myth of cultural capital.Successive art education system, rich form of art communication, a wide range of art popularization, mature art market, as well as complete tax administration and legislation institution, have indeed provided a favorable space for the blooming of art. For the Chinese artists living in France, another myth is those famous histories of Chinese artists in France. Of course the situation is quite different, but as a myth, the metaphor in the historical narrative still exist in form of variant when it turns to the similar space and time. The histories of famous Chinese artists in France is also no doubt a mirror of the transformation process, in which the signification of symbols in "Chinese-occidental" structure were changed.Different from the ancient a priori myths, the artists are now the practitioners although they live in mythology. According to their own context, artists can decide the distance which contributed myths, and transform the myths into their meaningful experiences part to solve their own problems. On the artists themselves, art working always need freedom and creativity. Living aboard can be a chance when the artists deconstruct the coherent time and space, forming a present, which beyond the established time-space for identity politics. In the same time, artists reconstruct the myths in their time-space by way of as the others or inspired by the others. Thus, not only the typical identified Chinese impression which the art history prefer, but the diverse creative works appear.In fact, creation itself always comes first for the artists, whether they represent a Chinese style or follow the western painting forms. Even these artists share the common transcultural background, their woks are still inconsistent because of various considerations by themselves. In addition, these artists i've contract with, all grew up in the context of globalization which has been formed. Face to world full of spectacles, their response to the cultural shock so called, is not that obviously strong. In the other word, the transcultural experiences is not necessarily represented as a consistent symbolic difference between east and west, but more as the artists expressions to the specific circumstances in the transcultural vision.The meaning of works and the will of artists are not either be embedded in history or be isolated by society. The value of art is established in such a world full of unstable significances under the interaction of many different factors in the field of art. These factors include both cultural system and market system. Modern art market system was build in occidental world, but nobody can ignore its global effect at this moment. Chinese art market trend for example, has already shown its voilence more than the original place. For the professional artists, art market supports their survival and art working. The artists have to make a balance between independence and market needs. Also they consciously reflect on the consequence of the market. In this case, artistic behavior is not just individual but rather the behavior of social relations. Audiences, critics, curators and collectors, etc, all participate and contribute to the art phenomenon; which makes art itself an open interation system as well.This also means that the artists shuttle in not only their cultural expericens, but also the habits of picture interpretations, such as "taste", which largely recreat the works. Taste is also a habit of expression in which we admit that imagination and stereotype exist. Another possibility is, this kind of order becomes a traget of artists to pursuit their freedom.If we consider art as a compression model for grasping the world as a totality, then the cultural habits and the field of art are all in this world. Far from the cultural habits of a specific historical system, the cultural habits itself is more like a mixture, especially for the artists who have transcultural experiences. Maybe it is possible to use the concept of intertextuality to deal with such an experience, in which acculturation and enculturation make a fusion. Intertextuality doesn't mean an absolute equality as expected. It rather refers to the importance of cultural practice, which involves the discussion of contexts and a series of negotiation for power and meaning.