Statement of letter

Pu Jie

Regarding the work “Letter”, it mainly aims to reveal the media status of contemporary art. By the image of “letter”, I express the phenomenon of information communication, as well as the status relationship between media and the contemporary art center.

A letter compromises of a sender and a recipient. However, the senders and the recipients of my letters are virtual, some from a Shikumen in Shanghai, or an art group, and sent to an art center or a western art institution. These virtual letters also have some Chinese historical features. Thus, I plan to state an important topic, that is, the media manipulation suffered by contemporary Chinese art is no less than that in the western world.

Since the mid-90s, a lot of strange phenomena have emerged in the relationship between contemporary Chinese art and media. Art critic literature manipulated by commercial laws, as well as the personal relationship between artists and critics, eliminates objectiveness and technicality in many art critiques. Furthermore, western communication media performs global manipulation in order to maintain its western culture centrism, art frontline and cultural power. In fact, the objectiveness, equity and technicality of media are a common issue in today’s global culture. The evolution of such phenomenon will definitely lead art in the opposite direction. To serve business, media or a center will be the ultimate choice of art.