Editor’s Note

Over the years, Yishu has paid considerable attention to artists who are working outside the main urban centres and in more rural locales. Lu Mingjun opens Yishu 88 with a text that considers artists who work in different regions of mainland China within the context of what he refers to as the “frontier,” a transitional zone that challenges the idea of the nation-state and the pressures of globalization. His essay complements Mia Yu’s recent research, published in Yishu 86, that addresses artists whose geographical imaginations attracted them to the marginal corners of China’s Northwest.

Marie Leduc presents a conversation with Jean-Hubert Martin, whose 1989 exhibition Magiciens de la terre played a seminal role in opening up a discussion pertaining to visual art, globalization, and what constitutes the international, and that delivered a provocative proposition to the art world establishment of the time. Patricia Eichenbaum Karetzky discusses the work of the venerable Yang Jinsong and the artist’s dramatic shift from expressionistic figurative painting to one rooted in landscape and the tradition of calligraphy.

Yeung Tin Ping revisits the work of Pak Sheung Chuen, whose work we featured earlier this year in Yishu 84, and takes a look at this artist’s endeavours through his recent video work, to address contentious questions around the occupation and ownership of public space in Hong Kong. The regulation of public space is also brought into play in Julie Chun’s examination of the audio art of Yin Yi, a pioneer in what is a relatively new medium in China whose source material is often derived from everyday urban encounters.

The Chinese diaspora and identity politics within Canada are examined in the last three texts. Henry Heng Lu discusses the work of Ho Tam and his idiosyncratic—humourous, yet serious—exploration of Asian and non- Asian social typologies. Annie Wong reviews the exhibition Far and Near: The Distance(s) between Us and highlights the shifts in contemporary art by Chinese-Canadians from the 1990s to today. And, finally, Joni Low conducts an extensive conversation with Karen Tam about the artist’s most recent research and exhibition, which references the Musée d’art chinois de Jésuits in Québec City, revealing the complex ways this artist deals with issues around history and cultural appropriation.

Image (top): Zhuang Hui, Searching for Mu Lili, mixed media, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.

Keith Wallace