Song Dong: 36 Calendars

'36 Calendars' is Beijing-based artist Song Dong's first solo exhibition in Hong Kong.  As the name implies, the work is composed of 36 separate calendars, hand-drawn in simple pencil, charting 432 months in the artist's life, from 1978 to 2012.  Their individual subjects range from socio-political commentary, to reflections on cultural change, to candid admissions of a more personal nature.

The work partly deals with themes of memory and time, and this is hardly new territory for an artist to explore.  So how does Song Dong's concept maintain interest?  What exactly is he doing here, and how well does he explore his chosen themes?



The arrival of KFC in China, March 1994.

The answer to the last question perhaps lies in the collaboration of more than 400 invited members of the public, who convened at the venue in January to colour-in, expand, deface, or erase copies of each of the calendars.  These copies are displayed on small low tables arranged in a grid-like formation in the central area of the exhibition, and - for students at least - evoke the feel of the exam room.  The artist's intention was to add another layer to the artwork, but in making '36 Calendars' a participatory work, he has accomplished much more.  Following the sequence of calendars around the perimeter of the exhibition space, one cannot escape the feeling of viewing a pictorial autobiography (although the months within each individual year are pleasingly arranged into white blocks that copy the geometric pattern of the central area's tables, and seem to extend that same three-dimensional pattern onto the two-dimensional wall).  Were the artist's calendars to appear anywhere but in the rarefied space of an art gallery, I don't believe they would hold as much interest as they actually do.  What saves the work is the presence of not one additional layer, but of 432 additional ones.

 

Each of these pieces either comments on, edits, or entirely rejects Song Dong's personal recollections.  The individual personalities of hundreds of other people become blended with the artist's to some extent, suggesting not only the impossibility of separating history from the personal memories of those who record it, but that history itself is an amalgamation of countless testimonies.  It is important, however, to point out that each participant was seated at a random calendar:  this resulted, in many cases, of artists working on calendars whose month and year they were not actually alive in.

If our concept of art is dictated to some degree by the space in which we experience that art, how does '36 Calendars' use its exhibition space to alter or affect our concept?  I have already mentioned the grid-like pattern of 3-D tables surrounded by 2-D images.  The monochromatic colour scheme of the exhibit (blacks, greys and whites, lit by spotlights) is punctuated by monolithic dull black pillars: the tables have to make room for them.  There is a sense of austerity here that lends seriousness to the endeavour.  This makes the brightly coloured participants' calendars (when you stumble upon them) all the more striking.  Yet at the same time, one is aware that it is ultimately Song Dong's grand conception: his calendars, mounted on the surrounding wall, enclose and embalm his contributors'.  It is his memories, recollections, and life story that frame - and give reason for - the 432 individual pieces of art so artfully arranged within them.