Artist fears six-months of his work is lost after apparent censorship raid of Chinese gallery

Tristin Hopper | 31/10/13 | Last Updated: 31/10/13 7:04 PM ET
More from Tristin Hopper | @TristinHopper

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Ben ClarksonA Montreal artist is fearing that six months’ worth of his work may have disappeared into the vaults of Chinese censors after a Beijing gallery hosting one of his shows mysteriously vanished in an apparent raid

A Montreal artist is fearing that six months’ worth of his work may have disappeared into the vaults of Chinese censors after a Beijing gallery hosting one of his shows mysteriously vanished in an apparent raid.

“It’s pretty overwhelming,” said Ben Clarkson, a Manitoba-born artist and illustrator now living in Montreal.

“You hear rumours about this kind of stuff, but you never think you’re going to get caught in an international incident.”

Mr. Clarkson’s show, Mirror, Mirror, was set to run from late October to early November at Duck Soup Projects, a Beijing-based exhibition space.

Just before the Oct. 18 opening, however, Duck Soup Project’s website, ducksoup.cn, was suddenly taken down, replaced instead with an official People’s Republic of China seal and a message declaring that the message was in contravention of Chinese Internet law and that any attempt to contact the website’s owners is forbidden.

All Mr. Clarkson’s subsequent emails to gallery owners have gone unanswered.

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“Completely disappearing and dropping off the face of the planet — that’s not normal, most of my shows don’t go that way,” said Mr. Clarkson, speaking from his Montreal studio.

The show included 14 China-themed works by Mr. Clarkson, including an image of a sunglasses-wearing Mao Zedong superimposed against Canada’s Rocky Mountains and a photorealistic drawing of the piked, severed head of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, a vocal critique of the Chinese regime.

Altogether, he suspects he lost six months’ worth of work. “It is a setback,” he said.

The saga began in August when the owner of Duck Soup Projects, a man identifying himself as Mike, emailed Mr. Clarkson and told him that a Montreal-based friend of his, Peter Wei, had seen the artist’s work at the city’s Galerie Les Territoires.

“My gallery, Duck Soup Projects, wants to move in exposing emerging foreign artists to a Chinese market,” he wrote. “I find some Chinese art so dull and your seems very exciting.”

Ben ClarksonAi Weiwei's head on a pike in one of Ben Clarkson's pieces.

Mr. Clarkson then assembled a show from his collection, covered all the shipping costs to get it to Beijing on the understanding that, for every work sold, the profits would be split 50/50 between him and the gallery, minus any framing costs.

His last message from Mike, received Oct. 7, reads simply, “Hello Mr. Ben. 
We here at Duck Soup have your work. We are current framing, the show is going to look good!”

Visual art, such as film, literature and all other artistic mediums, is subject to strict censorship by Chinese authorities. In June of 2011, for instance, Beijing’s CCD 300 gallery was forced to dismantle an exhibit seen to be in support of Ai Weiwei.

Jason Q. Ng, a Toronto-based expert on China’s online censorship, told Metro Saskatoon that the censorship alert posted to ducksoup.cn appeared authentic.

The possibility exists, of course, that the censorship post was part of an elaborate ruse to steal 14 pieces of Canadian art.

As of Thursday, all evidence of DuckSoup.cn—including the censorship warning—had been taken down.

There is almost no other online evidence of the gallery’s existence. Aside from Mr. Clarkson’s website and social media pages, ducksoup.cn is not referenced on any other official website.

As of Thursday, all evidence of DuckSoup.cn—including the censorship warning—had been taken down.

Nor is the gallery’s address, which is referenced in a press release advertising Mirror, Mirror, and would put the gallery in Beijing’s Chaoyang District within sight of the city’s Worker’s Stadium.

A source with knowledge of the Chinese art market who did not wish to be named told the National Post that it is unlikely that Duck Soup Projects, if it exists, was raided, since censorship authorities “would [not] care that much about seeing [Ai Weiwei]‘s head on a stick.”

Notably, the website for Beijing’s Galerie Urs Meile, which actually showcases the work of Ai Weiwei, remains open.

At the same time, the source also noted that even the scam theory does not make sense, either, since the work of a relatively obscure foreign artist would not be worth the trouble to steal.

National Post