The Latest at Goethe

Since May of this year Peter Anders has been the director of the Goethe-Institut in Beijing where he encounters the exciting coexistence of contemporary art, alternative culture, patriotism and Louis Vuitton at the National Museum.

“Bu shi wo bu mingbai” or “It’s Not That I Don’t Understand” is the title of a pop song by Cui Jian from a few years before I travelled to China for the first time in 1988. Almost 25 years later, shortly before I took over the direction of the Goethe-Institut in China, right in the middle of celebrating my 50th birthday in Berlin the news of Ai Weiwei’s arrest bursts in. Immediately, the title of this pop song comes to my mind. In the course of Obrist’s mini-marathon in late 2008, Ai Weiwei spoke of Beijing as the most inhuman of all cities he’d ever lived in. Fuck Off came to mind, the satellite show to the Biennale in Shanghai he curated in 2000, which explicitly stressed the critical standpoint of the artist as the basis of his work. That is close to us as a position, but where does that leave what everyone calls the great challenge of working in China, namely balancing state influence with artistic independence? Do we want to be more Chinese than the Chinese? Bu shi wo bu mingbai.



It’s not that I know nothing, but must I know it all better? Eight weeks later, I’m sitting on the 12th floor of the high-rise that has been chosen as my residence with the remarkable name of MOMA. Behind me are striking encounters that made my previous knowledge look rather small. “The self-righteous,” I was instructed by one of the old artist guard who has come to terms with the system with a nod to Confucius, “they are the greatest thieves of virtue.” But in these days, what is a virtuous system, I ask myself. Somehow I have no history, I am accused. I read an interview with Li Zhenhua and understand what it may mean. “If one deals exclusively with recent history, one becomes depressed. For better understanding, one should look at all of history and seek the different perspectives.”

I exhale on the way to Wen Hui’s and Wu Wenguang’s Living Dance Project. I pass Ai Weiwei’s studio, where now only a camera stands by the entrance, but not more police, after Caochangdi. On arrival, a large area opens up, not unlike the good old UFA-Fabrik in Tempelhof, the cafeteria to the right in which today – for the dragon boat festival – a tremendous meal is being prepared. But in the centre stand the stage area, the cutting room and the studios for guest artists. This is the living resistance against the economic relations and their spirit born by anticipated profits, I think. A little romanticism resonates of wanting to hold high the values of mutual understanding, but always the lived deceleration seems more suitable for thinking about cultural identity than seeking out those large-scale cultural industry palaces that may be mighty grandiose from the outside, but inside merely house propaganda events.

Grass roots work with a cultural mission

A few days ago I saw the National Ballet and its Red Detachment of Women. “I guess it's very weird for you,” murmured the young assistant to the artistic director in my ear, and yes, he’s got a point, one truly has to get used to the fact that the iconography of power directly sets off thundering applause among the audience here. At the National Museum, you read it like this for the exhibition The Road of Rejuvenation: “The Chinese nation is a great nation whose people are industrious, courageous, intelligent and peace-loving and have made indelible contributions to the progress of human civilization.” Suddenly everything becomes earnest and somehow German. Just portentous, and I’m reminded of the shoes of Kant, which are exhibited one floor above and have to serve for the creed that the Enlightenment revered its clever intellects and poets as spiritual heroes in a thitherto unknown way. That is really Huntington – here the cult of the individual, there the triumph of the collective. Yet the last day of my visit to the National Museum remains unrivalled, at least with regard to the popular reception of capitalist commodity fetishism: the exhibition on the history of the Louis Vuitton handbag is beyond doubt the sensation.

This is China, Yan Sun explains to me. Everything is in a state of flux. A country overloaded with information and without a system. The way, not the being; the process, not existence. Transformation, not identity. Okay, one more time for me: no being, no existence, no identity, but instead the way, the process, transformation. What comes after Louis Vuitton? I am curious about what I will learn tomorrow on the topic of the rule of law dialogue between Germany and China. At the moment, though, I am aggravated. After I arrive home there is a knock at the door. Three uniformed policemen are standing there and want to see my ID. I consider it chicanery and a false pretence because the surveillance state seems to want to keep track of my activities. After four weeks! I secretly feel flattered by the fact that I must be so important. This is grass roots work with a cultural mission. Having said that, just don’t get paranoid. The next day I inform the embassy of the incident. I am disillusioned to learn that this is a very normal procedure prior to important events. What these may be are, however, not divulged.

This article appeared in the magazine on “60 Years at the Goethe-Institut” (to the PDF).