Still hard to figure out the whole afternoon spent at ICP’s organized yet stuffed bookstore was an adventure or a trip to the wonderland of visual art, or perhaps it was more a feast even a fiesta of inspiration to eyes and mind?

Yet the best find was a pocket-sized book Letters to a Young Artist published by Dente. A recent art school graduate moved from the West Coast to New York is lost in the struggle maintaining between integrity and freedom of thought and participation in the art word. So the young artist wrote letters to established artists in the US, some local, some from other countries, and two dozen of the responses turned out to the book. A very inspiring and delightful book.

The first letter was from XU Bing, Vice President of Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. I have been a fan of XU Bing’s writing for a long time, and the letter is just as thoughtful and sincere as his other works in Chinese. Below is the letters addressed to by the artist and from XU Bing to the anonymous young artist in both English and Chinese, which was published in XU Bing’s own website.

From a young artist to Xu Bing:

Dear Xu Bing:

I have considered writing you for several months, but have put it off out of fear of burdening you with a responsibility that is not yours and making myself vulnerable to someone who knows nothing about me. Nevertheless, there is a sensibility in your work and the way in which you have approached your career that I respond to — that keeps me hopeful despite the solitude right now in the shadow of the sublime and invisible mountain that is my career.

Last summer, after graduating from art school, I moved to New York from the West Coast. My friends and family discouraged me from doing so. They warned me how expensive New York would be, that I would spend all my time working to pay off my tiny apartment and that I would have very little time to make art. Unfortunately, their warnings have become my reality. I feel like I need to be here though, to absorb everything I can in the museums and galleries so that I can develop an historical awareness about my work. But the struggle is almost more than I can bear.

Over the past nine months, I have met many artists my own age who are in a similar situation with the exception that they have grandiose ideas about their future success. (It is true that gaining access to galleries is easier than I thought it would be.) Some of my friends are already showing and selling work. They claim that getting early recognition is important because it will be much harder to get farther down the road. Although I’ve had opportunities to show, I have been resistant to do so soon. I have always believed that it takes time to develop a true sense of self, and that that process should precede any commercial endeavors so as not to be tainted by them. Still, I wonder if I am my own worst enemy — if I am sabotaging my future.

And that leads me to my question for you: is it possible to maintain one’s integrity and freedom of thought and participate in the art world? You appear to me as someone who has dealt with these issues successfully. How have you managed to reconcile what seems to me, at this point, to be irreconcilable?

Thank you for decades full of challenging work. That in and of itself is a gift to me and has given me inspiration. Hearing from you directly would be an unbelievable honor.

Sincerely,

Young Artist

From Xu Bing to the young artist:

Dear Young Artist,

I did not answer your letter sooner, first because I am very busy and second because the honest and specific questions in your letter cannot be answered simply, in a few words. The situation of each person who engages in art is an individual case, with individual conditions. In addition, even those artists who have already succeeded when asked why others have not, have trouble answering the question despite their natural talents.

One can see from your letter that you are a person who has courage when it comes to your future and your artistic responsibilities. This is not something that everyone possesses; but it is the first condition of being a successful, outstanding artist. You should recognize this. I have always thought that to be an artist, the first thing one must do is clarify what art is and what its principles are. Specifically speaking, she must identify what an artist does in this world and what relationship exists between herself, society, and culture. And even more specifically, she must determine her particular commutative relationship with society. If you want to be a person who can survive on her art, you must clarify what can be exchanged with society before society will repay you. I sometimes think: I have a house in which to live, a studio in which to work and food to eat, what has been exchanged? Museums and collectors are willing to buy my work for a high price, what have they purchased? The artwork itself is a mere lump of materials; is it worth that much? Does value derive from meticulously cultivated skill? Many artists work more meticulously than I do. Rather, that part of the work with value presents society with a valuable way of thinking and is associated with a new form of artistic expression. As this “new mode” is something that people need, it can become a marketable value; and only then can it constitute a conversion key. The discovery of this new mode springs from talent, a sensitivity to one’s time and an above average recognition of the current culture and environment. In this way, it restructures the methodologies of old art. Consequently, a good artist is a thinking person, and is a person adept at translating thoughts into the language of art.

From your letter it is clear that your goals are lofty. At the same time you are not an artist looking to quickly achieve market results. This is the right way of thinking. Of course any “value” will be transformed into a commodity and it will ultimately be sold. A street artist might sell one piece every ten minutes; an artist in a gift shop might sell one piece every day and an artist in a commercial gallery might sell one piece a month. Some people sell a piece as soon as it is finished, others sell only one idea for their entire lives. It all depends on what kind of artist you prefer to be.