Me & Beuys · Wang Guangyi: Face Recognition - Find Descendants of Tatars

When describing the incident in Crimea, Beuys said his plane crashed on the Crimean Peninsula during WWII, and it was a Tatar who saved his life. This experience of "rebirth" made a profoundly dramatic impact upon his artistic practice. To Beuys, the Tatars were literally his life-savers. 

I don't think it's necessary to verify the authenticity of the incident Beuys described. Nevertheless, this story was indeed of theological value to Beuys' "self-built persona". The tradition of building persona with theological nature dated back to Vasari's writing of history through a series of biographies, which came to the fore during Renaissance period in the 16th century. 

What does the presence of Tatars mean? According to anthropological studies and categorization, Tatars is an umbrella term for a variety of different ethnic groups bearing the name of "Tatar". But in Beuys' view, this specific Tatar represented a fable-like presence. On the one hand, he was primitive. It was more than natural that there was a distance between the presence of him and modern civilization. And on the other, he was like a "prophet" who was intricately related to Shaman. In a way, such complexities mirror the "overwhelming bemusement" embedded in contemporary art. 

Trying to find descendants of Tatars, do we intend to restore the linkages between Shaman, theology, politics and art? Or is it some kind of game? Essentially speaking, it is a test of how individuals would feel and react when confronting "face recognition", a power structure under the disguise of hi-tech, in the name of art and through the form of game. "Face recognition" in nature epitomizes the generalization of national reason. As individuals, do we have the freedom to choose whether to enter the field of "face recognition" or not? 

A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical genetic qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. The categorization could be based on physical characteristics (i.e. skin color, eye color, eye shape, hair color, hair texture, nose shape, lip thickness, head shape and face shape), genetic traits or self-identification. The concept and categorization of "race" have always been considered controversial and defined differently during different time periods and cultural contexts. 

Studies on race are carried out on at least two levels (domestical and international). As purposes of such studies vary, discussions into the topic are highly complicated. Currently, studies and debates on "race" are interdisciplinary, and so far no universally acknowledged conclusion has been reached concerning what race is, whether it exits, how many races there are and how to define, understand and analyze race. 

According to many evolutionists and sociologists, based on recent research on biology, all the definitions on human races lack stringency and preciseness in terms of scientific classification. Definitions on human races are imprecise, casual, politicalized and established mainly by usage. They change as cultural perspectives shift. In this regard, race should be deemed as a kind of social construction. 

However, some scientists claim that the concept of race is not totally groundless. There is evidence of connections between race and multilocus genetic data. And the reason behind the attempts to abandon the concept of race is often driven by non-scientific factors. For instance, support for terms such as "Caucasoid", "Negro" and "Mongolia" from the scientific community has decreased significantly during the past century. But these terms originally derived from techniques of craniofacial measurement and referred to skull types, and currently are still widely used in forensic anthropology. 

Tatars, who are considered descendants of Rouran, is an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups bearing the name "Tatar". Their origin could be traced back to Mongol Empire when Genghis Khan unified the various steppe tribes. The Tatars in China and Russia all derived from the Tatars living on immense grasslands of the ancient Mongolia. Today the Tatars mainly live in Central Asia, Afghanistan and Europe (including Kazan in Russia, Crimea of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Lithuania and Finland). 

In an account Beuys gave of the near-death experience he had, he said he was rescued by a group of nomadic Tatars who tended to his wounds with animal fat and wrapped him in felt. In this story, compared with the modern people who had been disenchanted and left with nothing but void in mind, it seemed that the Tatars managed to retain some mysterious power that mankind had for long possessed, which imbued new inspiration to Beuys' artistic practice. To him, the incident presented itself as an opportunity for him to embrace the fables and signs related to Shaman and theology, re-enchanting the artistic exploration gearing towards infinite openness and possibilities. 

By installing a set of face recognition facility at the gallery space of the museum, Wang Guangyi makes it possible for the viewers to see with their own eyes how much similarity they share with the Tatars. To the viewers, this could be either an unexpected and yet quite solemn chance to "search for their roots", or a casual and fun game, or both. In the maps drawn by the Europeans from the Middle Ages to early 20th century, the nomadic areas of the Tatars are known as Tartaria. In some European literature, "China" sometimes was perceived as a parallel concept to "Tartaria". In the context of Beuys' art, the Tatars enabled the desperate to restart with full vitality after re-enchantment. Tatars, Shaman, theology, politics and art in this case formed an organic chain. According to Beuys, art equals life and art equals human beings: "The liberation of human beings is the goal of art, for me, art is about the freedom of science." To the contemporary people who are almost besieged by AI and big data, what does face recognition mean to them? And what do the descendants of Tatars look like?