2000.11.04 – 2000.11.20

Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai

Curators: Ai Weiwei, Feng Boyi

Artists

Ai Weiwei, Cao Fei, Chen Lingyang, Chen Shaoxiong, Chen Yunquan, Ding Yi, Feng Weidong, Gu Dexin, He An, He Yunchang, Huang Lei, Huang Yan, Jin Le, Li Wen, Li Zhiwang, Liang Yue (梁玥), Liang Yue (梁越), Lin Yilin, Lu Chunsheng, Lu Qing, Meng Huang, Peng Yu, Peng Donghui, Qin Ga, Rong Rong, Song Dong, Song Tao, Chen Hao, Zheng Jishun, Sụn Yuan, Wang Bing, Wang Chuyu, Wang Xingwei, Wang Yin, Wu Ershan, Xiao Yu, Xu Tan, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Yang Maoyuan, Yang Zhenzhong, Yang Zhichao, Yang Yong, Zhang Dali, Zhang Shengquan, Zheng Guogu, Zhu Ming, Zhu Yu

In today’s art, the “alternative” is playing the role of revising and criticizing the power discourse and mass convention. In an uncooperative and uncompromisable way, it self-consciously resists the threat of assimilation and vulgarization. A cultural attitude that stands against the power and makes no compromise with vulgarization is, together with independent individual experiences, feelings and creations, is what extends the pursuit and desire of art for spiritual freedom – an everlasting theme. Such a cultural attitude is obviously exclusive and alienated. It aims at dealing with such themes as cultural power, art institution, art trends, communications between the East and West, exoticism, post-modernism and post-colonialism, etc. “Fuck Off” emphasizes the independent and critical stance that is basic to art existence, and its status of independence, freedom and plurality in the situation of contradictions and conflicts. It tries to provoke artist’s responsibility and self-discipline, search for the way in which art lives as “wildlife”, and raise questions about some issues of contemporary art. Allegory, direct questioning, resistance, alienation, dissolution, endurance, boredom, bias, absurdity, cynicism, and self-entertainment are aspects of culture as well as features of existence. Such issues are represented here by the artists with unprecedented frankness and intelligence, which leaves behind fresh and stimulating information and traces of existence…

by Ai Weiwei and Feng Boyi

October, 2000

My contradiction is exposed to a range of individualized issues such as view, judgment, instinct, rhetoric and experience. I not only want to explore marginal and linear cultural clues, but also try to obtain a microscopic view of what the glamorous urban life presents. Realization of the polarity of “cold” and “hot” enables me to pay more attention to the possibilities generated by contradiction.

Ding Yi

Uncooperative Approach (Fuck Off)

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