Peer Review of Xiao Zhang’s Project——”Failure of Artists is Inevitable”

Xiao’s art project is different from the traditional exhibition form, it should be seen as an art practice. Although she defines herself as a “curator and artist,” I think of her more as an initiator of a contemporary art practice that involves not only eight young artists from China, but also the public, the viewer, as an important part of the practice. The first part is offline, where xiao herself rides her bicycle and distributes her mailings (flyers) on the street to the public, who can choose to receive them or not; the second part is online, where the viewer scans the QR code in the mailings to enter Miro and see the works of the eight artists and their respective interviews. The theme of the project is “Failure of Artists is Inevitable,” xiao tries to present the creative state of young Chinese contemporary creators through the works and interviews of these eight young artists, revealing the inevitability of failure in the creative process of artists. I really like Xiao’s ideas and can see her research on mail art and her thoughts on Duchamp’s La Boîte–en-Valise. The art form she uses is not innovative, but it does not fall into clichés. Her aim is to recreate the image of the mail carrier of the last century, a sentiment that is in line with the retro wave that is popular now. I would like to say that she has chosen a very clever perspective and material that allows her to show more insightful ideas, and I can see that there are many points to play with and use as a challenge to contemporary art. For example, the relationship between Eastern youth and Western society, questioning the challenge of “authorship,” the artist’s examination of the self and criticism of the other, and other ideas can all be seen in this practice, but I feel a little sad that her theme does not fall here.

The physical section, which I found to be very practical, showed that she had also done some research into relational aesthetics. When the viewer receives the envelope, it is opened to reveal an interview with one of the participating artists and a QR code with five questions around ‘the artist and the failed work.’ The form of the envelope is wonderful in that it presents a state of ‘presence’ and blurs the notion of ‘communication,’ exploring ‘sending’ and ‘receiving,’ in this case as the artist’s work. “In this section, it would have been better to have actually mailed the envelopes, and it would have been better to have set different questions inside each envelope, so that more uncertainty and randomness could have stimulated more possibilities for the art, even from one audience to the next, with each person answering the questions in the envelopes. For the online part, xiao draws on the platform Miro, which requires viewers who wish to see the work to have a Miro account to view and leave comments, and even to download the Miro software, which limits the viewer to a certain extent. I can understand her approach, it is a cost-effective way to save money. Nevertheless, I would suggest that a website or a platform without registration for her project would be a better option.

Xiao’s artistic practice is valuable, and her project is very well done, with a smooth interface between the online and offline components. She balances the ‘viewer’ and the ‘artist’ nicely, implementing her own understanding of curating. She is flexible and I can see from her blog that she is constantly shifting her thinking, including adjusting her curating schedule, reflecting on past curating formats, and exploring trends in contemporary art. She is bold and experimental, and her projects are interpretations of her themes. The failure of the artist (curator) may be inevitable, but so what? Young artists and curators should not be discouraged by ‘failure,’ but rather look beyond their own work to see their own ‘failure,’ which I think is the concept that xiao is trying to convey.