Artist Spotlight: Gordon Cheung

MG: You and Smart­Stamp CEO Juli Bail­er have known each oth­er since 2005, the ear­ly days of your career and her time as a muse­um cura­tor in the US, so it’s great that we can recon­nect and catch up with you! Would you share with our read­ers, that are not famil­iar with your prac­tice, what are the main themes in your work?
GC: Thank you Micaela, it’s very nice to recon­nect with you both too! As a British born Chi­nese, my dual iden­ti­ty has devel­oped over time from an in-between per­spec­tive. So when I was study­ing at Cen­tral Saint Mar­tins and Roy­al Col­lege of Art, I cre­at­ed the notion of paint­ing with­out paint to express the in-between space by using finan­cial news­pa­pers as a metaphor of the glob­al datas­cape and dom­i­nant eco­nom­ic ide­ol­o­gy of Cap­i­tal­ism. I was influ­enced by the 1990s dig­i­tal and com­mu­ni­ca­tions rev­o­lu­tion with the inter­net and afford­able mobile phones that accel­er­at­ed a glob­al in-between space of data. It recon­fig­ured our per­cep­tions of time and space into a state of con­stant flux. The unthink­ably com­plex flow of infor­ma­tion formed Utopias and Dystopias wher­ev­er cap­i­tal accu­mu­lat­ed. More­over, the use of tech­nol­o­gy as a sub­sti­tute for the brush and infor­ma­tion for pig­ment was a way of ques­tion­ing the iden­ti­ty of paint­ing; is it a paint­ing when it looks and uses the prin­ci­ples of paint­ing? I called this vir­tu­al paint­ing — a lan­guage I devel­oped to reflect upon the human con­di­tion in the new glob­al land­scapes of data.

MG: The vir­tu­al paint­ing con­cept sounds fas­ci­nat­ing, recon­nects to the art his­to­ry while delin­eat­ing a tra­jec­to­ry into the future. Would you mind elab­o­rat­ing on that?
GC: Through a com­bi­na­tion of tra­di­tion­al tech­niques and mod­ern tech­nol­o­gy, I weaved togeth­er his­to­ries that spanned the Dutch Gold­en Age when the rise of the most pow­er­ful com­pa­ny in his­to­ry, the British East India Trade Com­pa­ny forced Chi­na to con­sume opi­um — weak­en­ing it to the extent that for­eign pow­ers invad­ed and occu­pied cities, as well as forc­ing it to give Hong Kong to the British. This his­to­ry informs the wider his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive of the cur­rent most pow­er­ful hege­mon­ic empire in the world, the USA, that some say is in decline com­pared to the rise of Chi­na as a super­pow­er. In my work, the geopol­i­tics of these themes are explored through use of Google earth maps of trade routes, con­flict zones, and megac­i­ties, and ren­dered in paint­ings with tex­tures that are cov­ered in sand and spray paint­ed in dif­fer­ent direc­tions, sug­gest­ing alter­na­tive worlds to exis­ten­tial­ly ques­tion the rise and fall of civil­i­sa­tions when all have crum­bled into sand.

MG: Very inter­est­ing indeed, and look­ing at the future, what projects do you have on the horizon?
GC: I am work­ing on a self-pro­duced solo show in Los Ange­les that will include works that were recent­ly released from a lengthy dis­pute in Shang­hai and also new work about our cur­rent glob­al cri­sis in the form of sculp­ture, instal­la­tion, video, paint­ing, and prints — as sig­ni­fiers of the birth of a new rev­o­lu­tion. I am fas­ci­nat­ed by the charts of the finan­cial and dig­i­tal mar­kets for how they rep­re­sent human herd emo­tions that move val­ues from the rela­tion­ship of fear and greed towards his­to­ry. These charts not only record the move­ment of cap­i­tal but also map col­lec­tive human emotions.

After the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis caused by the banks, Bit­coin was invent­ed as a dig­i­tal cur­ren­cy — often called dig­i­tal gold. From that cri­sis was born the next tech­no­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion, that a decade lat­er we now see is at the begin­ning of glob­al adop­tion, as major finan­cial insti­tu­tions invest into cryp­tocur­ren­cy. The 2020 Covid pan­dem­ic exac­er­bat­ed the glob­al reces­sion into what could be a depres­sion and the cen­tralised bankers respond­ed by print­ing mon­ey into the tril­lions cre­at­ing a fear of hyper­in­fla­tion and dilut­ed pur­chas­ing pow­er and lead­ing to an exo­dus of dol­lars into oth­er assets, such as Bit­coin. Blockchain is what under­pins the exis­tence of cryp­tocur­ren­cy by being a decen­tralised ledger sys­tem mak­ing it near impos­si­ble to coun­ter­feit, thus ensur­ing a high­ly reli­able sys­tem of authenticity.

MG: We would like to expand on the dis­pute you men­tioned ear­li­er. Even though the 2010 show at the Oth­er Gallery in Shang­hai (since reor­gan­ised as the pri­vate HOW art muse­um, Ed.) was a crit­i­cal suc­cess and a tes­ti­mo­ny to the insti­tu­tion­al sup­port you have received, it also result­ed in a cost­ly ten year legal dis­pute report­ed in The Art News­pa­per. How did your sto­ry res­onate with oth­er artists and oth­er con­stituen­cies of the art world (col­lec­tors, gal­lerists, cura­tors, etc)?
GC: As part of our agree­ment, I am unable to divulge spe­cif­ic details of the case, but the infor­ma­tion is in the pub­lic domain for researchers. What began ten years ago with enor­mous pride and excite­ment to be hold­ing my first solo show in Chi­na, a place I con­sid­er to be an ances­tral home, turned into an incred­i­bly stress­ful bat­tle, but I’m relieved it is now final­ly resolved.

As an artist, my main focus is to make art and the legal and admin­is­tra­tive part of the art world is very dif­fi­cult for me to nav­i­gate. Art school cer­tain­ly did not pre­pare me for inter­na­tion­al art legalese. I had to wait ten years before I had enough resources to find a team of pro­fes­sion­als, like Inez Suen, an art busi­ness con­sul­tant who advised me to hire Zhen­hua Gong of Shang­hai Ronghe Law Firm, Dam­son PR, and Coates and Scar­ry all helped to find a res­o­lu­tion. The major­i­ty of peo­ple I work with in the art com­mu­ni­ty are pro­fes­sion­al and have been sup­port­ive of our col­lab­o­ra­tive growth. I have been lucky to show in incred­i­ble muse­ums and to also be priv­i­leged with hav­ing my art acquired into their collections.

But it only takes one dis­trust­ful per­son to set you back with dis­tress, wast­ed time, and loss of finances that weighs heavy on the abil­i­ty to make art. After ten years of car­ry­ing the injus­tice and heart­break by myself, I went pub­lic with my sto­ry on social media and was over­whelmed by the imme­di­ate sup­port and sto­ries of oth­er artists who have also expe­ri­enced sim­i­lar injus­tices. I am grate­ful for the arts com­mu­ni­ty, friends, and fam­i­ly who tru­ly helped gal­vanise my resolve to fol­low through with retriev­ing the works. It has been a great way to round off one of the most chal­leng­ing years; 2020 will be indeli­bly marked in all our mem­o­ries. As a result, I have cre­at­ed a #Pro­tec­tY­ourArt page on my web­site to enable artists to share their sto­ries too and per­haps be able to find help, advice, and res­o­lu­tion for themselves.

MG: As busi­ness insid­ers this inci­dent doesn’t real­ly sur­prise us unfor­tu­nate­ly. We are all aware that often artists are tak­en advan­tage of and espe­cial­ly strug­gle to enforce inter­na­tion­al cas­es. Which organ­i­sa­tions in the UK or glob­al­ly helped you?
GC: Luck­i­ly I was able to draw upon the help of my com­mu­ni­ty. I want to thank my pro­fes­sion­al col­lab­o­ra­tors such as my gal­leries, cura­tors, and con­sul­tants for their help in spread­ing the word. DACS, an organ­i­sa­tion start­ed by artists to pro­tect arts resale rights, spoke out and advised my deci­sions. The Arts News­pa­per, Art Asia Pacif­ic, and Ran­di­an are art pub­lish­ers who took inter­est in artist’s rights. And also my legal team in Shang­hai who helped fight my case and the lawyer friends who gave help­ful advice. Most­ly, I couldn’t have done this with­out the sup­port from the arts com­mu­ni­ty, friends, and fam­i­ly who helped retrieve the works that can now be shown in LA 2021.

MG: In addi­tion to tra­di­tion­al artists legal organ­i­sa­tions, new tech­nolo­gies have emerged in recent years that can real­ly empow­er artists — every­thing from back­ing art­work doc­u­men­ta­tion and prove­nance on the blockchain to dig­i­tal fin­ger­prints of works of art, fin­ger­prints that can even be “revoked” in worst case sce­nar­ios of stolen art­works — all tech­nolo­gies that Smart­Stamp inte­grates into a stream­lined App. Your stu­dio is in a big project to dig­i­tal­ly archive your work. How do you antic­i­pate new tech­nolo­gies, such as our Ai pow­ered dig­i­tal “sig­na­tures,” will change the art market?

GC: Any tech­nol­o­gy that enables an artist to archive and record what they have made will pre­vent coun­ter­feit­ing and ensure there is a high stan­dard of ver­i­fied authen­tic­i­ty. With this type of tool in their hands, it empow­ers an artist to run an inven­to­ry far eas­i­er and reli­ably. It gives every­one involved from their col­lec­tors to their deal­ers peace of mind know­ing that what is pass­ing into their hands will always be authen­tic. I think that Smart­Stamp is help­ing solve an arts indus­try prob­lem of fakes, as well as pro­vid­ing a tech­nol­o­gy that is easy and fast to use. It was in part due to my dis­pute and pre­ven­tion of future theft that I began the ardu­ous task of cre­at­ing an inven­to­ry of all my works, and Smart­Stamp is a great tool to ensure that there is always a dig­i­tal record or sig­na­ture that can­not be repli­cat­ed and there­fore is unique to the art­work. I gen­uine­ly believe we are at the thresh­old of a rev­o­lu­tion­ary dig­i­tal age and blockchain tech­nol­o­gy, along­side arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence with all its adap­ta­tions, are impor­tant pil­lars of the 4^th Indus­tri­al Age. Those who don’t adapt will be left behind.

MG: We agree with you. One of SmartStamp’s ini­tia­tives is in fact to advance art ecosys­tem alliances that work to cre­ate a safer mar­ket­place. We rec­og­nize that art reg­istries are an impor­tant check in due dili­gence, so we are proud to offer our part­ner, the non-prof­it Artive, a blockchain lay­er to their online reg­istry. SmartStamp’s blockchain API makes it easy for Artive to turn their data­base records into immutable records so that they can sup­port pro­fes­sion­al artists that find them­selves in an unpleas­ant sit­u­a­tion. What are your thoughts?
GC: I have just reg­is­tered a selec­tion of my works with the non-prof­it reg­istry Artive, flag­ging them as resolved dis­putes — and unfor­tu­nate­ly in the case of one work, flag­ging it as hav­ing been ille­gal­ly repro­duced as edi­tioned prints. This sim­ple step is very use­ful for law enforce­ment or any­one doing due dili­gence to clear a poten­tial art­work. Look­ing at future ways to pro­tect my art­work, I’m also real­ly excit­ed to work togeth­er to cre­ate the first ever print edi­tion using SmartStamp’s AI + blockchain dig­i­tal fin­ger­prints and dig­i­tal­ly fin­ger­print future loaned paint­ings. It’s very fit­ting that this body of work is about Bit­coin, blockchain, and its revolution!