Shanghai Scrap

In a fleeting respite from Expo blogging … allow me to join a growing rank of folks eager to tell you that – if you are in Shanghai before July 25 – you absolutely must attend Cai Guo-Qiang: Peasant Da Vincis, the inaugural exhibit at the exquisite new Rockbund Art Museum. The exhibition is curated by Cai Guo-Qiang, the highly regarded Chinese artist who, over the last several years, has taken an intense interest in the ambitious inventions of Chinese peasants, including helicopters, submarines, and robots. Below, a submarine by Li Yuming, hanging in one of the galleries.

The transit-oriented inventions are terrifically fun and interesting, but I have to say that I most enjoyed the robots commissioned by Cai, and built by inventor Wu Yulu, that invoke the work and methods of well-known Western artists. So, for example, below we have a robot that drags a female mannequin through colored sand, in tribute to Yves Klein and his “living brushes” (basically, nude women covered in paint whom he directed across canvases).

In his remarks to media in advance of the opening on Monday, Cai pointed to these inventions, and their inventors, as a rare example of individual achievement in a culture (in his interpretation) that rarely values it. To me, they seem like a poignant repudiation of those who doubt whether China can, or ever will, innovate (a favorite and regular conversation at the American Chamber of Commerce, believe me). Under the most difficult of circumstances, these inventions seem to say, ambitious Chinese (peasants) find a way. I’ll have more to say about this show in the very near future. But, for now: go.

As regular readers know, for more than a year I’ve asked the USA pavilion at Expo 2010 (World’s Fair) and the State Department to provide me with a precise accounting of how they’re spending the US$61 million that they’ve raised from private corporations in the name of the United States of America. And, for more than a year, I’ve been met with either a) silence, or b) “we can’t do anything unless the pavilion’s board of directors approves it.” Even if the latter answer is sincere (and I’m pretty sure it’s not), the fact that several of the board members refuse to return my calls doesn’t bode well for my request.

So, rather than bang my head against the pavilion wall, I’ve decided to take a look at what the Internal Revenue Service has on Shanghai Expo 2010, Inc (that’s the name of the non-profit corporation that funds and manages the USA pavilion). And lo and behold, there, amidst a very interesting filing that I’ll touch upon in coming days, we find a June 29, 2009 document helpfully named “USA Pavilion Summary Cost Sheet.” Click the thumbnail document below to expand it.

It’s important to keep in mind that the numbers in this document were made a few weeks before the pavilion ground-breaking, and so they may have changed in the intervening months (then again, many of the numbers conform to what I and others have heard around town). Still, in the interest of accuracy and fairness, yesterday I forwarded a copy of the Cost Sheet to Martin Alintuck, spokesman for the USA pavilion, offering Shanghai Expo 2010, Inc the opportunity to comment upon, update, or correct any of the figures. Alintuck has not responded.

Meanwhile, over the weekend I shared the Cost Sheet with two individuals associated in similar ways with Expo 2010, and they were kind enough to provide me with their thoughts on it. (more…)