National Art Education Association Studies in Art Education

National Art Education Association
From Translation to the Transnational: Reading Art for the 21st-Century Classroom
Author(s): YUJIE JULIA LI
Source: Studies in Art Education, Vol. 53, No. 3 (SPRING 2012), pp. 194-207
Published by: National Art Education Association
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Copyright 2012 by the National Art Education Association
Studies in Art Education: A Journal of Issues and Research
2012,53(3), 194-207
From Translation to the

"Like Duchamps Transnational: Reading Art for the
Fountain, which 21 st-Century Classroom
questions the Υ U JI Ε JULIA LI
University of Georgia
ideas of art and

In our globalized contemporary world, many artists are becoming
authenticity, the transnational and are making art with a global perspective.
In this context, not only is our sense of art in relation to other

forest of stone steles aspects of culture changing, but new ways of understanding
has polemicized
art educational practice have emerged. Inquiring about the
nature and characteristics of this new type of art, this article
the notion of analyzes and (re-)interprets two artworks, the forest of stone
steles: re-translation and re-writing of tang poetry and the united

cc ·>·> Γ 1
a pure, nxed
nations, by the Chinese American artist Wenda Gu. Gu's works
are examined to draw educational and pedagogical insights for
culture and
contemporary educational practice. Utilizing the artworks as my
site of research inquiry, I argue that in order to develop students
the ideology of
into future artists and citizens who are capable of creating
counter-narratives of globalization, our school curriculum and
nationalism
pedagogy need to demonstrate fiveand interrelated attributes that
also characterize Gu's art—to be thematic, dialogic, janusian,

its realizationdiscrete, and relational.
1 · r 5>
in lire.
Correspondence regarding this article may be addressed to the author

at: julia2001 @post.harvard.edu
194 Li / From Translation to the Transnational
forks of art and (art) educational analyzing and (re-)interpreting his art, I intend
Wi practice have long had an intri- t0 draw educational and pedagogical insights
cate relationship. Traditionally, art- for a curriculum that aims to develop students
works have been used as objects or media to not onlV int0 future artists and art teachers' but
teach art appreciation or history. However, this also individuals wh° have a 9|obal Perspective
and thus, are capable to make sound judgments
has been changing. New ways of understand
as global citizens.
ing art educational practice have emerged
The focus of my analysis is the art of the
For example, some art educators have devel
Chinese American artist, Wenda Gu, especially
oped the notion of arts-/studio-based inquiry hjs insta||ation the forest ofstQne sfe/es. re_m
and arts as research (Cahnmann-Taylor & ,of/on and re-writing of tang poetry.The questions
Siegesmund, 2008; Cole, Neilsen, Knowles, & | ask are: (ij what interpretations can be offered
Luciani, 2004; Eisner & Barone, 1997; Irwin & for Wenda Gu's forest of stone steles project? and
de Cosson, 2004; Sullivan, 2004, 2005, 2007). (2) are there pedagogical or educational implica
At the same time, our sense of art in relation to tions that can be drawn from this piece of trans
other aspects of culture has been in flux. Many national art that may help today's art educators
artists have made art with a global conscious- teach t0 and develop transnational students,
ness and have participated in mushroom- encouraging a transnational stance in the 21 st
ing international biennales and triennials. In century world?
an age of globalization, art educators have The Method: Dialogic inquiries
inquired about the nature and characteristics To seek answers to these questions, I have
of this new type of art and are integrating art- employed a blended methodology. On the one
works of this kind into their educational prac- hand, I have offered interpretation and criticism
tice. Consider Marshall (2009), who analyzed of artworks; on the other, I interviewed the artist,
the strategies of contemporary artists for read about bis art' and underwent reflection
making art that references multiple cultures and self-reflection. As Eco (1992) pointed out,
a piece of literary or artistic work, once created,
in a globalized world; Garoian and Gaudelius
somehow has gained a certain degree of auton
(2009), who looked into specific artworks to
omy and has its own intentio operis (p. 25)—that
examine how transnational art and visual
is, its own intention. As an intentional viewer
culture form counter-narratives against glo- and interpreter, I have engaged the artwork in
balization; and Jones (2009), who raised the a dialogue of sorts with a view to articulating a
notion of border art pedagogy in the contem- negotiated meaning to a targeted audience,
porary context of transnationalism. In a dialogic encounter, neither participant
In this article, I take advantage of my bilingual, is self-sufficient. As Bakhtin (1981, 1990) stated,
multicultural, and transnational background a literary work is not complete in itself; it was
to introduce to our field a transnational artist made and also has to be understood in a context,
whose major works heavily rely on language. By According to Bakhtin, a dialogic work of literature
Studies in Art Education / Volume 53, No. 3 195
—and by extension a work of art—has both believed that such inspired readings of text or
informed and been informed by previous works. artwork can "help you to change your purposes,
Further, an artistic or literary work is not only in and thus to change your life"(p. 106). That means,
a dialogic relationship with other works but is though I have brought with me my own intention
also related to its many contexts. Such contexts as an educator/viewer in this dialogue with the
include its making and its viewing as well as the artwork, I nevertheless also allowed my own "pri
individual relationships with its viewer/reader. orities and purposes" to be possibly "rearranged"
When theorizing contemporary art, through this encounter (p. 107).
Bourriaud (2002) suggested that reading and As | visited, read, and pondered Gu's art
viewing art also creates and results from rela- intermittently for years, my interpretation of
tions. He further states that art has always been f^e forest 0f Sfone steles1 gradually became
relational in varying degrees-thatis,"a factor of dear t0 me_ a,ong wjth some answers t0 what
sociability and a founding principle of dialogue" meaning-making it can allow and what educa
(p. 15). However, this has been particularly so tional and pedagogical implications I can draw
with contemporary art. Urbanization and the frQm jt These imp|ications center on the emer
city model after World War II have led up to "an gent characteristics of transnational art. Taking
art form where the substrate is formed by inter- advantage of the fact that the artist the artwork,
subjectivity, and which takes being-together gnd , afe a|| transnational though in different
as a central theme, the 'encounter' between , $hare hefe {he jnsjghts , found thrQugh
beholder and picture, and the collective elabo- ,. , . ... .. „ ,
~ my dialogic encounter with the artwork.
ration of meaning" (p. 15)
The Artwork: the forest of stone steles
As a public piece of art, Wenda Gu's forest of
the forest of stone steles is an installation of
stone steles is such a dialogic art, created in and
carved stone steles (Figure 1). According to the
created for a web of relationships. When my
intention meets with the artwork, I finalize and artist' the complete pr°ject contains 50 such
"consummate" (Bakhtin, 1990, p. 13) the work steles· °ften accompanied by some ink rubbings
through reading and interpreting it in a dialogic of the steles and a video pr°jector which shows
relationship. To make my reading of the work the artmaking process, these stone steles have
and the overall dialogue more meaningful in this been displayed in a number of cities and coun
tightened "space of relations" (Bourriaud, 2002, tries' including China, Australia, and the United
p. 15), I interviewed the artist in 2004 and 2005. States· ln terms of its PhVsical border-crossing,
I sought to understand the artist's background, this installation has surely been transnational,
interests, and intentions, and how the text/ But the artwork can be considered transnational
artwork is dialogic with its maker and its making 'n many other senses as well. First of all, the
context to fathom the artwork's intention. In surface of each stone bears Chinese and English
addition, my engagement with the artwork writings, alternately arranged between the two
was also informed by Rorty's theory of literary languages. The writings are four inter-related
criticism. In his essay, The Pragmatist's Progress, poems translated multiple times according to
Rorty (1992) differentiated between "knowing different strategies. Translation, as is often con
what you want to get out of a person or thing or ducted between different linguistic systems and
text [artwork] in advance" and "hoping that the cultures, connotes mobility and adaptability as
person or thing or text [artwork] will help you well as multiple places and language speakers,
want something different" (p. 106); he called the The artwork's full title, the forest of stone steles:
latter"unmethodical"or"inspired"criticism. Rorty re-translation and re-writing of tang poetry, tells
us both the origin of the poems and their status
of transformation.
Along with the juxtaposition of multiple lan

guages, the work has also demonstrated the
attribute of hybridity (Bhabha, 1994). Looking
at the central piece of writing carefully, one
realizes that each of these Chinese characters
is written as a synthesis of several writing styles

that originated in ancient, modern, and contem
porary time periods. Gu (2005) intended each
of them to simultaneously demonstrate mas
culinity and femininity, or to appear "hearty," as
Gu says of the Fang Song style, and "mellow" in
the Seal Script style (p. 287).This synthesizing of
styles, in my view, resonates with the Chinese
Taoist philosophy which believes in the har
monious ideal of co-existence between pairs of
opposites (Moran, 1993). However, if this hybrid
ized writing style reveals a practice consistent
with traditional Chinese thinking, the makeup
of these characters has shown the opposite. In
fact, each of these Chinese characters has been
a result of shifting, omitting, or re-formulating
the components of the original. For example, in
some characters, the left-and-right structure has
changed to an upper-and-lower one; in others,
the stroke has broken away from the bound
ary it is supposed to observe according to the
conventional way of Chinese writing; and still in
others, a simplified radical2 in the contemporary,
standardized writing system has returned to its
earlier, more pictorial form (Figure 2).
Figure Figure
Thus, the altered writing becomes "the third 1. Wenda
1. Gu, The Gu,
Wenda Forest
Theof Forest
Stone Steles -
of Stone Steles -
Retranslation & Rewriting of Tang Poetry. 1993-2005.
space of enunciation" (Bhabha, 1994, p. 86). ^translation&Rewriting of Tang Poetry. 1993-2005.
r Courtesy of theCourtesy artist.of the artist.
Writing, or language at large, has functioned
as a major means to pass knowledge and has
connoted power (Heath, 1983). This has been
particularly true in a culture where, throughou
history, the ruling class has strived to control
the official language. In China, there always ha
been a "proper way" of doing everything, from
holding chopsticks to writing and placing each
stroke of a square character. Therefore, the alter
ing and re-formatting of the Chinese characte
the more-or-less Western centered encounter
between the East and the West that happened
in modern times, the (re-)translations in the
forest of stone steles have pointed us to the mul
tiple forms of existence and multiple directions
of movement in contemporary times. Whereas
the repeated translation signifies the endless
process of transportation and transformation,
the alternating of the sound-based and mean
ing-based translation has implied more sophis
v:?4 ticated strategies for survival and co-existence
in a globalized era.
According to Gu, these 50 Tang poems
were randomly selected (personal communi
cation, November 19, 2004). However, looking
through all of them, I found that they are inter
estingly dialogic with one another. The themes
addressed by these poems range from lamen
Figure 2.
Figure 2. Details
DetailsofofThe
The Forest
Forest of of Stone
Stone Steles: tations over the deteriorating conditions of
Steles:
Retranslationand
Retranslation andRe-writing
Re-writingofof Tang
Tang Poetry. the country and concerns of the official-poets
Poetry.
Courtesy of the artist.
Courtesy of the artist. toward their war-afflicted emperor to memo
ries of love and friendship in times of
prosperity, and even to longings for
of the original—that is, by willfully picking age or leisurely lif
and re-arranging ingredients from various interestingly, the
sources in writing and thus, altering the original deploring the relo
culture(s)—Gu has exercised freedom as a trans- 'ts emperor to th
national figure and embodied the attribute of rebellion-though
hybridity. Concurrently, the artwork has implied a love"sick Poem a
alternative inter-human relations by demon- contemporary Chin
ends with the one who records a visit to an
strating the several characteristics inherent to
unknown paradise isolated from the rest of the
transnationality, including hybridity, multiplic
world where people live happily and harmoni
ity, and contingence/liminality.
ously. On the one hand, the poems and their
These attributes have been continued in the
sequence in the series may have directly or indi
four poems carved on the stone stele. Based rectly reflected the range of feelings of the artist
upon 50 Tang poems and their 1929 Chinese- toward his loved ones when he first came to the
to-English translations by the American scholar United States from China as well as his longings
Bynner (1929), Gu re-translated these poems as a new immigrant. On the other hand, their
twice—first according to sound and then, transformation into a poem of another kind
according to the meaning of the previous has declared the demise of those nation-state
translation. This results in four poems, includ- oriented nostalgic sentiments. Indeed, whereas
ing and based upon one Tang original, carved the original Tang poem sounds nationalistic
on each stele. If Bynner's translations represent and heroic, Gu's re-translation generally has
rendered it funny and mundane. For example, Duchamp's Fountain, which questions the ideas
the original poem, numbered 20 in the series, of art and authenticity, the forest of stone steles
read as follows: ISftf TÛJUéffi has polemicized the notion of a "pure," fixed
ÀzfciE· {Β·® ι JE Κ ill- culture and the ideology of nationalism and its
(tB®· Bynner's (1929) meaning-based English realization in life.
translation follows: This stance resonated with anthropolo
The moon goes back to the time of Ch'in, gjSt Anderson's (1991 ) claim that the nation is
the wall to the time of Han, on|y an "imagined political community" (p. 6).
And the road our troops are traveling goes As 2izek (1993) pointed out, it is the "Nation
back three hundred miles... Thing"—all that people believe they share with
Oh, for the Winged General at the Dragon one anot;ber—that consolidates members of a
^ community (p. 201). In China's thousand-year
That never a Tartar horseman might cross |ong history< the Tang poetryi stone carvin
the Yin Mountain!3
and Chinese writing have been functioning as
(Title: Over the Border)
part of the "Nation-Thing" for its people. As they
Contrastingly, Gus (2005) contemporary now experjence multiple times and types
translation reads: transportation and transformation, this "Nati
My brother secretly visited guests at Thing» js going g,obaL And china has not be
Zhemeng mansion, just for soup and a|one jn ^ affajr By utiljzing chjnese a
buns. My father knows that I stole candy. r , u . ^ _ ,
~ ,, Enqlish (re-)translations as representatives, Gus
Dont make any noise! He knows that he
is happy when with girls. His wife is not forest of stone steles visu
stupid, so she doesn't let my brother be wel1 as exemplifies, in itse
frustrated. He is disloyal, impolite and has ception of interhuman r
bought two concubines. His wife vomited tional culture that is "not
and fainted so Sister De gave her some multi-culturalism of the div
milk, drew her a bath and put her to bed. on the inscription and a
He is fond of beating things to death. The hybridity"(Bhabha, 1994
one who cursed and disturbed the public
now lives in seclusion at Mang village. In Relations with O
In the forest of stone steles project, the re- an£^ Co
translations—that is, the third and fourth poems The message has
on the surface of each stone stele—typically globally scaled artwo
produce a poem similar in style and meaning to nations4project. Conce
the above one. While the Tang poetry has been same period (1993-2005),
considered a jewel in the Chinese literary world, and the united nation
and calligraphy a highly valued and respected each other in that the
form of art in China, here, the serious has been from and resonate w
changed into the playful, almost hilarious; the ways; and therefore, ar
elitist into the commonplace, the everyday; and, the forest of stone s
the refined into the mundane, into a piece of sis on transforming an
popular visual culture. By flattening down the and local into the g
stone steles, which are conventionally enacted united nations has stre
vertically, like trees in a forest, the artwork has common experience or
evoked death instead of life or eternity. Like For instance, three ins
the africa monument: the world praying wall,
the australia monument: epnagcliifsihc, and the
hong kong monument: the historical clash—have
addressed the topic of colonialism. Yet, each has
its own perspectival entry point and distinctive
physical look. Though under the canopy title of
united nations, each installation in the series has
been dedicated to a specific nation-state, unless
it describes the entire humanity (Figure 3).5The
project was made primarily of the hair of living
people, mostly from those living in the local
areas and individual countries where the instal
lation is enacted (Gu, 2003). Thus, the building
block of the installation not only has alluded to
the countless relations involved in its making,
but also has created what Bourriaud (2002)
termed "a state of encounter" (p. 18) when audi
ences, including the local people, come to view
it. Furthermore, each exhibition has reflected on
a country's or continent's historical or current
events. Therefore, the project has embodied,
in more than one sense, what Robertson (1995)
termed "glocalization" (p. 28), the interpénétra
tion of the local and the global. According to
Marshall (2009), glocalization has characterized
much of contemporary art, particularly as artists
idiosyncratically adopt and employ some global
trends by such strategies as fusing, layering,
playing with non-conventional materials, and
collaging multiple cultural icons. Thus, not only
has the united nations been dialogic with the
forest of stone steles, but the two projects by Gu
have been in dialogue with the contemporary
art scene in Gu's native China and the diaspora
Figure 3.
Figure 3. Wenda
WendaGu,
Gu,the
theunited nations:
united babble
nations: of of
babble of Chinese communities (Gao, 1998) as well as
the
themillennium.
millennium.San San
Francisco Museum
Francisco of Modern
Museum of Modern w|((1 j^e reS{ of the world.
Art, U.S.A., 1999. Courtesy of the artist.
Flowever, if looked at side-by-side, the instal
lations in the united nations series have differed
significantly in their appearance from the forest
of stone steles. While the forest is made of stones,
heavy and solid, the united nations installations
have appeared lightweight and transparent.
Created primarily with human hair—mostly
glued into thin sheets and panels, others braided
into strands or scattered in loose dough—the "anti-monumentality" (p. 297). According to Wu,
united nations project has symbolically mixed monuments are physical objects, but monu
together people of different race, culture, age, mentality refers to the integral elements that
gender, or religious backgrounds in intricate lend such objects a commemorative meaning
ways. While this constitution differs from the to the public. Typically, official monuments
conventional metaphor of the melting pot, the have been grand, solemn, and impersonal. Yet,
relationships between the DNA-carrying hair the dozens of hair installations in the united
has differed from that implied by the Chinese nations series have employed a monumen
and English poems in the forest of stone steles tal form but violated the weighty, impersonal
project. Written in altered Chinese characters qualities of conventional monuments. Further,
but sounding like English sentences, the Chin- the installations also have lacked substantial
glish translations (half Chinese-like and half ity in that the writings are all obfuscated and
English-like) in the forest have resonated with un-readable. The same has been true with the
Dobel's (1997) image of The Big Muddy River, forest project.Traditionally, in China, stone steles
where the water picks and drops as it flows, have been used, especially by imperial families
in different parts displaying different colors and high-ranking officials, to record doctrines
depending on its contributory streams, or with to establish and perpetuate a centralized, hier
the metaphor of The Great Northwestern Halibut archical social and political order, or to inscribe
Taco, in which ingredients "contaminate" one flamboyant, extravagant writings to tout the
another while remaining identifiable. virtues or achievements of one's ancestors,
Such fusion in the forest of stone steles project deceased friends, or oneself (Peng, 2005). In
has not echoed in the treatment of the hair Gu's forest of stone steles, however, the canonic
itself in the united nations. Rather, it has been Tang poems have been transmogrified into a
embodied in the project by the fake Chinese comedic, mundane matter of popular visual
Seal-Script styled characters which appear to culture. Further, the placement of the steles has
be Chinese but actually are non-readable and discarded the conventional vertical and pedes
each contain an English letter. Flair, an "abject" tal-based format of traditional stone steles in
material (Kristeva, 1982, p. 19) that simultané- the Chinese culture (Peng, 2005). Thus, utiliz
ously exists inside and outside of the body, ing pseudo-monuments to critically examine
concurrently attracting and repelling people, and even cancel out monumentality, the united
has described well both the living conditions of nations and the forest of stone steles have not
the transnational and the attitudes they gener- only conducted a self-reflection of some sort
ally receive from others. As Golden-McNerney on art and monuments themselves, but also re
(2004) commented, this material has provided appropriated the tool—the monumental form,
the "ideal medium for Wenda Gu's exploration This appropriation has paralleled the art
of the complex relationship between the sense work's problematizing of the concept of nation
of self and the sense of place in a global com- alism and its questioning of the "Nation-Thing"
munity"(p. 15).Together, the two artworks have such as calligraphy and Tang poems. Moreover,
attested to the multiplicity and complexity of the artwork has contained a democratic under
the transnational existence that is becoming tone that can be sensed from various aspects,
widespread in today's globalized world. First, the fake writing has privileged no single
By using hair and appropriating the practice individual or group, especially in the united
of stone carving, the two artworks also have nations project. Second, the use of human hair
constituted what art historian Wu (2005) termed has tended to connect with the ordinary people.
Studies in Art Education /Volume 53, No. 3 201
Usually, Wenda Gu has placed a poster beside Viewed from this perspective, the place
the hair installation that records the names of ment of the stone steles also has radiated a
all the barbershops through which the hair was ray of equality. As mentioned earlier, in China,
collected (personal communication, April 19, stone steles traditionally have been placed on
2005). Since mostly the lower economic classes a pedestal, thus, lifted higher than the ground
visit these barbershops in Chinatown, such and symbolically higher than life. Such place
individuals may have felt a stronger sense of ment has forced the viewer to look up to the
ownership and relevance when coming to visit steles and the flattering inscriptions on them.
the installation. Though traditionally seldom -phjs subtle strategy has created and reinforced
considered artists, and often neglected by the a hierarchy desired and institutionalized by
authority who commissioned the artwork and the ru|ing dass of societyi inc|udjng those who
by those who were acknowledged as the sole made or commissioned the making of such
maker of the artistic product, these ordinary stone ste,es However, by flattening the steles
people now not only have become part of the downj the fores( project has functioned differ_
artwork, but also receive recognition through ent,y_a|most just the opposite-even though
posters in the united nations series. Hair and jt haj emp,oyed the same t00,s and material
obfuscated writings combined, the artwork gs conventional stone steles As art historian
thus has enacted a space where, paradoxically, n „ u j ^
r r Ratnam (2004) observed, the proponents and
"we will find those words with which we can
opponents of globalization are using the same
speak of Ourselves and Others"and by exploring
tools to create different versions of global con
that with which, "we may elude the politics of
sciousness" (p. 306). As the united nations and
polarity and emerge as the others of ourselves"
the forest of stone steles have shown, this emerg
(Bhabha, 1994, p. 56).
ing transnational identity has not been about a
This vision of human relationship, similarly, ,. t . ... , tl ,
v ' combination of two nationalities, but has been
has been addressed in the forest of stone steles.
built upon a negation of the concept of nation
By placing and playing a video-clip which has
alism and dualistic thinking in general.
recorded the entire stone-carving process
In sum, Gu's united nations and forest of stone
side-by-side on an additional stone stele with
the ones bearing the Tang poems and multiple steles have "Par°d[ied] the role of cultural colo
translations, the forest of stone steles has credited nialist"(Bessire, 2003, p. 12), but, in de facto have
the little-known but technically superb stone- formed a counter-narrative of globalization,
carvers. Though throughout history and in both They have exemplified, as well as encouraged,
China and elsewhere, it has not been rare for the development of transnationalism/transna
famous artists to use assistants when making tionality in the contemporary world. Like many
art, such technical and other kinds of helpers artworks produced during and since the 1990s,
have been seldom mentioned, let alone cred- united nations and the forest of stone steles have
ited or made known to the public. By strictly called for a "relational aesthetics" which holds
following the traditional technique of stone that, in Bourriaud's (2002) words, "the essence
carving (Gu, 2005), yet deliberately releasing the of humankind is purely trans-individual" (p. 18).
story behind the scene, the artwork has staged By creating a web of relations, especially those
not only a salutation to the tradition of stone more democratic ones, the two artworks by Gu
carving in Chinese culture, but also a critical have suggested to us new ways of living as well
examination of the conventional practice in it. as models of action.
Educational and Pedagogical tive of seeing difference as surmountable, treat
Implications ing it as constructive, and even profitable, rather
Based upon the above analysis, I believe than as a threat or contamination. Meanwhile,
these particular artworks provide art educa- the penetration of traditional divisions between
tors with insight into how to teach in this best- various art forms, mediums, cultures, and the
and-worst of times, to borrow from Dickens. To like will also help students view identity as fluid
develop our students into globally conscious and porous so that they will more likely see
citizens, who are capable of making choices that themselves as and develop into world citizens
may counteract the downside of globalization, enjoy a larger degree of freedom to critique
education needs to demonstrate the following and borrow from different cultures to create art.
five interrelated attributes in respect of its cur
riculum design and classroom pedagogy. ®
Paralleling the thematic structuring of the
Thematic
teaching content, contemporary education
Contrary to the traditional structuring of
and art education can also benefit from a dia
the school curriculum and course content,
„ , , , ι , .. logic approach to classroom pedagogy and
a 21st-century education and art education K 3 37
that is responsive to globalizing trends should curriculum organization. This r
approach its content thematically rather than the relationship between diffe
chronologically. In art education, this also teaching content, such as the c
means to break away from the medium-by- tbe revolutionary or the high a
medium format or a singular linear progrès- of art, but also to that of the
sion. In fact, a number of art educators have context of teaching. Teaching
addressed the thematic approach (Chalmers, not just for the remembranc
1996; Erickson, 2001; Katz, Lankford, & Plank, of a past, but also for the cre
1995; Smith, 1993). These educators have con- so that education is proacti
sidered that theme-based inquiry can help stu- Furthermore, a dialogic relat
dents to transfer the skills learned from viewing acterizes the interplay betwee
art to making art. In addition, I believe that by tbe student as well as among st
organizing the content around themes, we can t0 acknow|edge that each h
create a multi-centered, multi-dimensional Qwn perspectiveS/ interestS/
rhizome of knowledge that connects the local tQ the dgss gnd contribute
and the global, the high and the low, and the
of the community. This dialogic relationship
old and the new. Further, it can bridge and fuse
necessitates an equal status of the participants
artistic practices and techniques generated in
or, at least, such a view of all of its members.
different cultures, places, and time periods, yet
remain open for further connection. If this the- 11 also recluires an °Pen-mi
matic approach is employed, we may not then, both inform and be informed
as often happens today, exclude the currently tbe classroom> this perspectiv
mainstream Anglo-Saxon culture in conducting behavior, once gained, will e
multicultural art education or traditional fine become future agents who ca
arts from a visual cultural art educational curric- ful dialogues between and
ulum. Besides expanding a body of knowledge nations/cultures, helping to ma
that is currently compartmentalized, students better understand one anothe
will also benefit from the transnational perspec- ing world less conflict-ridden.
Janusian word used by former U.S.S.R. filmmaker and
As my analysis here has shown, the making theorist Dziga Vertov (198
of the forest of stone steles and the united nations, film director and writer,
just like many other contemporary artworks, explained:
requires one to look in multiple directions. The Intervals allow a ruptur
complexity of our time calls us to be like the reflections and present
Roman god Janus, who has two faces and can of space as breaks. The
see all sides at one time, instead of falling into interruptions and irrupt
a one-sided view or a false belief in absolute uniform series of surfa
objectivity like Narcissus, who only sees either are wdat comes UP at t
the self or the world but never the self in relation representation and c
there where the aperture is also the
to the world. To encourage the development of
spacing-out of disappearance, (p. xii-xiii)
transnational perspectives or individuals, a glob
ally oriented art education will look simultané- ln Gu's art Pr°jects'
ously at the field and at the rest of the world. times ^recognizable w
This means that we not only teach our students intervals· ln our curricu
the vocabulary, language, skills, and techniques also need to offer or allow
necessary for artmaking and appreciating, but which students can use a
also the operation and structure of the profes- and exPlore' t0 exercise
sional worlds, including those not immediately responsibility. Instead o
associated with art. Then, students may acquire in9 a li9ht|y structured plo
both artmaking tools and the knowledge of to its verV minute detail o
themselves in relation to a larger context in the vo'd Power in an in
world that will allow them to effectively commu- which Justifies the impo
nicate with and engage the world through art. from outside-we can
This requires that the teacher know not only the others by first recognizi
condition and background of the students, but the a9ency and Power P
also his or her own speaking position. In addi- and/or are capable of exer
tion, a Janusian approach to teaching means ca"y create situations cond
one needs, at times, to allow for ambivalence °f tde'r agency. If educat
and multiple, sometimes contested, readings w'" become agents equip
of the same issue in the classroom. Being both necessary tools to bring
reflective and self-reflexive, the Janus-faced world,
learner will look critically at and pick and re- Relational
arrange elements from the wealth of multiple If corporate capitalism i
cultures that are now becoming accessible in a tion is about generating
globalized world in order to produce globally spreading a pyramid-like
conscious, yet personally idiosyncratic art. 21st-century education n
Discrete sis on relationship building in order to develop
The liminal and contingent nature of trans- students into citizens capable
nationality and transnational art suggests to ter-narratives to globalization
us that to facilitate students to be/come global, start breaking down the h
education needs to accommodate spaces-in- of and transgressing the con
between, or "the intervals," in the sense of the between various forms of a
logues between and among art forms, people, as the others of ourselves" (Bhabha, 1994, p.
and cultures on a more equal footing. We can 56)—instead of speaking for or merely about
also stress both connection and contrast, speci- other members of the learning community and
ficities and similarities of artistic practices of dif- the people and culture under study, we will
ferent people from different localities, cultures, encourage a more dynamic interaction in the
time periods, and so forth. Pedagogicaily, if we classroom. Such relations will then encourage
encourage and incorporate inputs and insights critical thinking and perspectival multiplicity
from students, make curriculum development as well as more genuine collaboration. Each of
and assessment more transparent, and speak these habits of the mind, once developed, may
nearby—for example, by way of "emerging] be continued beyond school.
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206 Li / From Translation to the Transnationals
ENDNOTES
Wenda Gu idiosyncratically has written in lowercase letters; the artist once jokingly remarked that, "artists are
not capitalists!"The titles of Gu's artworks mentioned in this article, thus, are all in lower case according to the
artist.
Radical is a translation of the Chinese term to label certain components in Chinese characters.
Tartar was a minority bordering on the territory of what was then China.
Wenda Gu claimed that this piece of art has nothing to do with the political organization headquartered in
New York City, though he admitted in a conversation with this author that he did borrow from and used some
United Nations documents in making his non-readable writings.
For images of more installations in this series, see: www.wendagu.com

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From Translation to the

questions the Υ U JI Ε JULIA LI

ideas of art and

In this context, not only is our sense of art in relation to other

steles: re-translation and re-writing of tang poetry and the united

are examined to draw educational and pedagogical insights for

site of research inquiry, I argue that in order to develop students

counter-narratives of globalization, our school curriculum and

also characterize Gu's art—to be thematic, dialogic, janusian,

Correspondence regarding this article may be addressed to the author

194 Li / From Translation to the Transnational

Studies in Art Education / Volume 53, No. 3 195

196 Li / From Translation to the Transnational

Along with the juxtaposition of multiple lan

is written as a synthesis of several writing styles

Studies in Art Education / Volume 53, No. 3 197

198 Li / From Translation to the Transnational

Studies in Art Education / Volume 53, No. 3 199

200 Li / From Translation to the Transnational

Studies in Art Education /Volume 53, No. 3 201

202 Li / From Translation to the Transnational

Studies in Art Education / Volume 53, No. 3 203

204 Li / From Translation to the Transnational

Studies in Art Education / Volume 53, No. 3 205

206 Li / From Translation to the Transnationals

Studies in Art Education / Volume 53, No. 3 207

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