The whole story of Scorching Sun of Tibet
 
In May 2007, we met Mr. Li Xianting during the exhibition of Lhasa: New Art from Tibet at Beijing 798 Red Gate Gallery through a friend. It was the first time meeting, Mr. Li kindly invited us, artists from Tibet, to visit Songzhuang Art District. He showed us the Songzhuang Art Museum, also suggested hold a large Tibetan Contemporary Art Show there sometime.  We were quite excited, but also feeling a lot pressure - Mr. Li Xianting's academic authority and large space of Songzhuang Art Museum are a bit overwhelming.
 
It's indeed not that easy to conduct an art exhibition. First of all, collecting art works was difficult. In Tibet, there are actually not many contemporary artists apart from the over 20 artists in Gedun Choephel Gallery, let alone finding good art works here. It was really hard to collect enough amounts of art works in a month for a museum scale exhibition. I was contacting artists every day, included the Tibetan artists in Qinghai, Sichuan and Beijing. In order to get works, we held a pre-exhibition in our Gedun Choephel Gallery. Surprisingly, the work on this pre-exhibition, especially those from some young artists out of our space, made me felt more confident about holding a large scale Tibetan art show. Actually I think every artist was making effort for this exhibition. Another obstacle was funding. Though Mr. Li  kept telling us do not worry it too much, we hope to try to get partial financial support by our own effort. There are only a few enterprises in Tibet, while those are able to sponsor exhibitions will never invest in the hard understanding contemporary art. Financing from related governmental department is even harder. Normally you have to go through endless censorship and supervision which are unbelievable to artists in other provinces, then your exhibition eventually end up with nothing. In this case, self-funding is the simplest solution. Though some professional painters are still struggling for survival, they actively participated in financing. (Qiu Zhijie called it Rural Cooperation.) Meanwhile I proposed my fund application to some cooperating galleries, and got their positive feedbacks. Thanks to Harvest Fund Management Co.,Ltd, Red Gate Gallery, Rossi & Rossi Gallery from England, Tibetan artist Gonkar Gyatso.etc. I'd like to express my sincere thanks to them!

In 2009, Mr. Li asked about preparation progress of the art exhibition. At the end of the year, Nortse and I brought Mr. Li art collections to Beijing, and finally we decided to hold the Tibetan Contemporary Art Show in September 2010. In July 2010, Mr. Li went to Tibet along with his curator team to pick art works. Regardless of altitude reaction, Mr. Li went through art work over and over, making adjustments, truly impressed me and all participant artists. On the way back to airport, Mr. Li told me that he had thought of the exhibition title – Scorching Sun of Tibet. I like it a lot, and I also admire Mr. Li's deep understanding of current Tibetan cultural condition.   
 
I believe for Tibetan art, the meaning of Tibetan Contemporary Art Show in Beijing is no smaller than the '85 New Wave Art Movement. Tracing the development of Tibetan contemporary art, which hasn't been exhibited on a mainstream platform, nor been included to critical issues, though it has been displayed over ten times domestically and internationally. For the outside world, it's just an exotic culture that being chased for novelty seeking. There is only one 'imaginary Tibet' in people’s mind, while the one in reality has always being erased.
 
Tibet has been 'depicted', 'mystified' and 'artified' all the time. From serf emancipation praising in 50s to Tibetan local culture depicting in 80s, to today's mysterious and wonderful Shangri-La style boom, Tibet is always in the state of 'outsider's imaginary type expressionism'. Out of thousands of works related to Tibet, how many were made with our mother language? Even the few exceptions had already switched themselves to the 'outsider's perception' mode.
 
This exhibition is not meant to show there is contemporary art in Tibet, because it is not important. (In fact it's hard to determine contemporary art exists in Tibet in strict sense.) The important thing is to show another way to depict Tibet. In the context of economic changes, Secularization and globalization, every Tibetan is in the middle of an ever-experienced spiritual transition and religious transformation, while all of these can only be tasted and expressed by ourselves.
 
Sincerely thanks to Mr. Li Xianting, the Tibetan Contemporary Art cannot be exhibited without his support, affirmation, insistence and courage. I appreciate Mr. Zhang Haitao and Ms. Fang Lei’s gracious assistance and guidance, as well as Songzhuang Art Association's kind help. 
 
Finally, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has helped us! Tashi Delek!
 
Gade 
August 20, 2010