some chinese avant garde

The Jakarta Post
Sunday, November 9, 2003

China's avante-garde artists dare to be different

Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta

Of the 167 works at September's CP Open Biennale, those of four Chinese
world-renowned avant-garde artists were heavyweight contributions in
supporting the
Biennale's visions. The artists belong to the Chinese avant-garde that
found
its momentum after Tiananmen in 1989.

Avant garde in the Chinese context should be understood as a movement
that
started as a protest of society's values. Artists then tended to use
Western
art
language; while the language may be imitative, and the forms similar, it
had
a distinct meaning of its own. Under the slogan No U-Turn, the China
Avant
Garde opened their exhibition in 1989 with a collection of 293
paintings,
sculptures, videos and installations by 186 artists, including Wang
Guangyi,
Xu Bing,
Wu Shan Zhuan, Huang Yong Ping and Gu Wenda.

But the government closed the exhibition soon after its opening when two

artists fired gunshots as part of a performance work. Although it was
reopened, it
was shut down completely two weeks later after reports that the gallery,
the
municipal government and the Beijing Public Security Bureau had received

bomb
threats.

The crackdown caused a temporary disruption in the momentum and for the
artists to go into themselves, allowing a new energy to emerge. They
became
famous
as "Political Pop and Cynical Realism". There were also artists who left
the
country and developed their art toward universal significance, but their

roots
are forever shining through.

Gu Wenda

Among the latter is Gu Wenda, born in 1955, one of the most accomplished
and
diverse talents in the art form. Gu, now a performance artist, painter
and
installation artist, began to question traditional painting methods and
calligraphy and in 1984 started to incorporate surrealist techniques
with
traditional
ink and brush painting techniques, together with the use of invented
Chinese
language.

He left for America in 1987, and has taken an important role in
confronting
and communicating with an international cultural mainstream. Residing in
New
York and retaining his studios in Shanghai and Xian, Gu is obsessed with
the
unification of the world through a mix of DNA in human hair. He is
active in
an
ongoing project including 22 site-specific country installations with
human
hair.

His installation titled The Thin Line: the history of the Chinese in the

Diaspora, was accorded a special space at the CP Open Biennale.

Wang Guanyi

One of the dominant trends to emerge in China after 1989, Political Pop
was
a
combination of socialist realism and American Pop Art styles that
lampooned
the government's introduction of capitalist market relations and its
promotion
of Western consumer goods and advertising icons. Among the most
important
painters of this trend is Wang Guangyi, born in 1956, who lives and
works in
Beijing.

Reworking the visual tropes of the propaganda of the Cultural Revolution
in
the flat, colorful style of American Pop, he presents both the
capitalist
and
communist symbols. Conflicting and competing, both insist on hegemony,
drawing
a parallel of capitalist and communist systems.

His painting at the CP Open Biennale was titled Great Criticism: Rolex,
showing an image that could have been one of the political propaganda
posters, now
transformed with the addition of the words "No" and "Rolex". This was
probably
one of the artist's responses to the influx of advertising images
promoting
newly available, high-priced commodities in China.

Beginning with Coca Cola and first shown abroad at the 1993 Venice
Biennale,
the Great Criticism series has successfully used the names of various
great
world brands placed against images of idealized young soldiers and
farmers
wearing Mao caps. While some disapprove of this easy way of making art,
it
has not
prevented him reaping huge success.

Wang 's art education began at middle school. In 1972 he entered art
classes
run by Harbin's Children Cultural Palace. Two years later at age 17, he
was
sent along with thousands of high school students to the countryside to
learn
from the peasants. In 1977 he enrolled in the oil painting department of

Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts where he graduated in 1984.

Different from Gu Wenda and Wang Guanyi are the younger Fang Lijun and
Yue
Minjun born, in 1963 and 1962 respectively, for whom the upheaval of the

Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a childhood memory leaving a bitter
legacy.

Fang Lijun

Fang Lijun, who sent two paintings to the CP Open Biennale and came to
Jakarta to talk on his art on Sept. 22, said he began to learn painting
when
he had
to stay home to avoid being attacked in the street during the Cultural
Revolution.

Indeed the 10 years of turmoil during the Cultural Revolution were hard
on
the family. Fang was born to a blue-collar family in the small city of
Handan in
Southern Hebei. Fang's father was a cadre in the machinery division of
the
Ministry of Railways, but during the Cultural Revolution he was
classified
as a
rich peasant and demoted to the post of train engineer.

In 1968 his grandfather was denounced as a landlord, with abusive
messages
pasted on their home. To Li Xianting, the Beijing scholar and art critic
who
is
fondly called "Lao Li" (older brother), Fang once said, "I think of my
whole
life before China opened up to the outside world as hatred. Because I
was
born
in the wrong class, I had to learn at a very young age to shut up, and
fake
it".

After the Cultural Revolution, Fang began studying ceramics at the Hebei

Light Industry College in 1980, and informally he also learned woodcuts.

After
graduating in 1984, Fang worked in art advertising and participated in
regional
art exhibitions. He was accepted for formal study in the print
department of
the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1985.

Fang Lijun's images portray people with shaved heads or swimming through

iridescent water, depicting contemporary people and their times in a
style
which
has been termed Cynical Realism. Generally described as "rogue and
ennui",
Li
Xianting, foremost Beijing based critic and mover of the Chinese
avant-garde,
explains that rogue encompasses a Chinese cultural concept of cynicism,
including the notions of joking, boisterous untrammeled behavior, an
indifferent lack
of restraint, and the ability to see through everything. The rogue is
the
last and staunchest enemy of authoritarianism, he contends.

In this sense, the bald-headed youth who first appeared in the artist's
paintings in the early 1990s and has since become Fang Lijun's
characteristic
figure, has been widely interpreted as the symbol of disillusion,
mockery
and
rebellion in present Chinese society, though Fang himself says he used
bald
heads
simply to attract attention.

But more striking is Fang's open-mouthed figures floating like
baldheaded
clones in an endless space. They seem to speak of uncertainty, a sense
of
premonition amid happiness. Images of facial expressions and grins akin
to
old people
who have descended into dementia looking up to the sky, surrounded by
flowers
that seem artificial, evoke an eerie feeling of witnessing a stirring
drama
of people trapped in the emptiness of life.

The flowers may have a double significance as he was taught to paint
flowers
because of their beauty. But at one time when he was in a flower
painting
class, there was a dead body close by? Could the sweet scent and look of

flowers
actually be a cover for the stench of the real world?

A sense of double significance or ambivalence is also evoked by his
water
series. Water, according to Fang Lijun, can be relaxing and dangerous at
the
same
time. It refers to life as well as death. Perhaps this is why he states
that
the translucent blue water embracing a man swimming on his back in one
painting denotes the history of humankind.

The other painting in the same exhibition shows a fat baby hand blown up

before a wide peaceful landscape with flowers floating in the air,
perhaps a
sign
of hope or rebirth.

Yue Minjun

Whoever has seen the "silly smiles" of Yue Minjun's images at the
Singapore
Esplanade may have loved them for their seemingly hilarious and
infectious
laughter. Others may have been left with a feeling of boredom, but
perhaps
very
few have recognized the cynical aspect in these realistic images. The
wide
smiles showing teeth too perfect to be real in the cloned faces have a
meaning of
their own. Laughing like a silly man denotes detachment, an attitude of
avoiding confrontation and retaining inner peace.

According to Li Xianting, it is a self-ironic response to the spiritual
vacuum and folly of modern-day China. It is as if the mass of
contradictions
faced
every day were so absurdly dense that they led to a sort of pathological

disassociation from self, expressed through these grotesque portraits.

Yue Minjun, too, belongs to Cynical Realism. His works are instantly
recognizable by the cloned faces that are bursting into laughter.
Similar to
exaggerated advertising images of perfect "shiny happy people", Yue
Min's
faces are
also cynical and mocking.

Most of the time appearing superficial, humorous, mindless, and
ridiculous,
they, nevertheless seem to contain either a message of some sharp
critique,
as
shown in the slideshow he held during his talk at the Biennale. Laughing

faces
in a boat, for instance, tell about the problem of existence and those
who
must find another place to live, while the haunting sense of being
followed
all
the time is revealed in his self portrait titled Heaven, showing a
hearty
laughing figure amid the hovering shadow of chairman Mao.

In the 500 x 182 cm long canvas Fighting, Yue Minjun paints a row of his

clones, each with different detailed cracks around the eyes, seemingly
bursting in
laughter as they point their fingers to an invisible object, with
aircraft
flying overhead and dark clouds rising up from the bottom. The contrast
of
laughing faces, the pointing fingers, with the tanks and the dark smoke
rising from
the bottom comes across as a sinister joke.

One might wonder why these two painters would express critique through
their
own faces. I was told that it is the safest way to give social comment
at a
time when critiquing the government is a taboo. And using oneself as a
model
also saves time and money.

Whatever may be true, the paintings reveal an extraordinary depth of
thought.
-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

where is the CP Open Biennale?

--- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, kraig grady <kraiggrady@a...>
wrote:
>
> The Jakarta Post
> Sunday, November 9, 2003
>
> China's avante-garde artists dare to be different
>
> Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta
>
> Of the 167 works at September's CP Open Biennale, those of four
Chinese
> world-renowned avant-garde artists were heavyweight contributions in
> supporting the
> Biennale's visions. The artists belong to the Chinese avant-garde
that
> found
> its momentum after Tiananmen in 1989.
>
> Avant garde in the Chinese context should be understood as a
movement
> that
> started as a protest of society's values. Artists then tended to use
> Western
> art
> language; while the language may be imitative, and the forms
similar, it
> had
> a distinct meaning of its own. Under the slogan No U-Turn, the China
> Avant
> Garde opened their exhibition in 1989 with a collection of 293
> paintings,
> sculptures, videos and installations by 186 artists, including Wang
> Guangyi,
> Xu Bing,
> Wu Shan Zhuan, Huang Yong Ping and Gu Wenda.
>
> But the government closed the exhibition soon after its opening
when two
>
> artists fired gunshots as part of a performance work. Although it
was
> reopened, it
> was shut down completely two weeks later after reports that the
gallery,
> the
> municipal government and the Beijing Public Security Bureau had
received
>
> bomb
> threats.
>
> The crackdown caused a temporary disruption in the momentum and for
the
> artists to go into themselves, allowing a new energy to emerge. They
> became
> famous
> as "Political Pop and Cynical Realism". There were also artists who
left
> the
> country and developed their art toward universal significance, but
their
>
> roots
> are forever shining through.
>
> Gu Wenda
>
> Among the latter is Gu Wenda, born in 1955, one of the most
accomplished
> and
> diverse talents in the art form. Gu, now a performance artist,
painter
> and
> installation artist, began to question traditional painting methods
and
> calligraphy and in 1984 started to incorporate surrealist techniques
> with
> traditional
> ink and brush painting techniques, together with the use of invented
> Chinese
> language.
>
> He left for America in 1987, and has taken an important role in
> confronting
> and communicating with an international cultural mainstream.
Residing in
> New
> York and retaining his studios in Shanghai and Xian, Gu is obsessed
with
> the
> unification of the world through a mix of DNA in human hair. He is
> active in
> an
> ongoing project including 22 site-specific country installations
with
> human
> hair.
>
> His installation titled The Thin Line: the history of the Chinese
in the
>
> Diaspora, was accorded a special space at the CP Open Biennale.
>
> Wang Guanyi
>
> One of the dominant trends to emerge in China after 1989, Political
Pop
> was
> a
> combination of socialist realism and American Pop Art styles that
> lampooned
> the government's introduction of capitalist market relations and its
> promotion
> of Western consumer goods and advertising icons. Among the most
> important
> painters of this trend is Wang Guangyi, born in 1956, who lives and
> works in
> Beijing.
>
> Reworking the visual tropes of the propaganda of the Cultural
Revolution
> in
> the flat, colorful style of American Pop, he presents both the
> capitalist
> and
> communist symbols. Conflicting and competing, both insist on
hegemony,
> drawing
> a parallel of capitalist and communist systems.
>
> His painting at the CP Open Biennale was titled Great Criticism:
Rolex,
> showing an image that could have been one of the political
propaganda
> posters, now
> transformed with the addition of the words "No" and "Rolex". This
was
> probably
> one of the artist's responses to the influx of advertising images
> promoting
> newly available, high-priced commodities in China.
>
> Beginning with Coca Cola and first shown abroad at the 1993 Venice
> Biennale,
> the Great Criticism series has successfully used the names of
various
> great
> world brands placed against images of idealized young soldiers and
> farmers
> wearing Mao caps. While some disapprove of this easy way of making
art,
> it
> has not
> prevented him reaping huge success.
>
> Wang 's art education began at middle school. In 1972 he entered art
> classes
> run by Harbin's Children Cultural Palace. Two years later at age
17, he
> was
> sent along with thousands of high school students to the
countryside to
> learn
> from the peasants. In 1977 he enrolled in the oil painting
department of
>
> Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts where he graduated in 1984.
>
> Different from Gu Wenda and Wang Guanyi are the younger Fang Lijun
and
> Yue
> Minjun born, in 1963 and 1962 respectively, for whom the upheaval
of the
>
> Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a childhood memory leaving a
bitter
> legacy.
>
> Fang Lijun
>
> Fang Lijun, who sent two paintings to the CP Open Biennale and came
to
> Jakarta to talk on his art on Sept. 22, said he began to learn
painting
> when
> he had
> to stay home to avoid being attacked in the street during the
Cultural
> Revolution.
>
> Indeed the 10 years of turmoil during the Cultural Revolution were
hard
> on
> the family. Fang was born to a blue-collar family in the small city
of
> Handan in
> Southern Hebei. Fang's father was a cadre in the machinery division
of
> the
> Ministry of Railways, but during the Cultural Revolution he was
> classified
> as a
> rich peasant and demoted to the post of train engineer.
>
> In 1968 his grandfather was denounced as a landlord, with abusive
> messages
> pasted on their home. To Li Xianting, the Beijing scholar and art
critic
> who
> is
> fondly called "Lao Li" (older brother), Fang once said, "I think of
my
> whole
> life before China opened up to the outside world as hatred. Because
I
> was
> born
> in the wrong class, I had to learn at a very young age to shut up,
and
> fake
> it".
>
> After the Cultural Revolution, Fang began studying ceramics at the
Hebei
>
> Light Industry College in 1980, and informally he also learned
woodcuts.
>
> After
> graduating in 1984, Fang worked in art advertising and participated
in
> regional
> art exhibitions. He was accepted for formal study in the print
> department of
> the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1985.
>
> Fang Lijun's images portray people with shaved heads or swimming
through
>
> iridescent water, depicting contemporary people and their times in a
> style
> which
> has been termed Cynical Realism. Generally described as "rogue and
> ennui",
> Li
> Xianting, foremost Beijing based critic and mover of the Chinese
> avant-garde,
> explains that rogue encompasses a Chinese cultural concept of
cynicism,
> including the notions of joking, boisterous untrammeled behavior, an
> indifferent lack
> of restraint, and the ability to see through everything. The rogue
is
> the
> last and staunchest enemy of authoritarianism, he contends.
>
> In this sense, the bald-headed youth who first appeared in the
artist's
> paintings in the early 1990s and has since become Fang Lijun's
> characteristic
> figure, has been widely interpreted as the symbol of disillusion,
> mockery
> and
> rebellion in present Chinese society, though Fang himself says he
used
> bald
> heads
> simply to attract attention.
>
> But more striking is Fang's open-mouthed figures floating like
> baldheaded
> clones in an endless space. They seem to speak of uncertainty, a
sense
> of
> premonition amid happiness. Images of facial expressions and grins
akin
> to
> old people
> who have descended into dementia looking up to the sky, surrounded
by
> flowers
> that seem artificial, evoke an eerie feeling of witnessing a
stirring
> drama
> of people trapped in the emptiness of life.
>
> The flowers may have a double significance as he was taught to paint
> flowers
> because of their beauty. But at one time when he was in a flower
> painting
> class, there was a dead body close by? Could the sweet scent and
look of
>
> flowers
> actually be a cover for the stench of the real world?
>
> A sense of double significance or ambivalence is also evoked by his
> water
> series. Water, according to Fang Lijun, can be relaxing and
dangerous at
> the
> same
> time. It refers to life as well as death. Perhaps this is why he
states
> that
> the translucent blue water embracing a man swimming on his back in
one
> painting denotes the history of humankind.
>
> The other painting in the same exhibition shows a fat baby hand
blown up
>
> before a wide peaceful landscape with flowers floating in the air,
> perhaps a
> sign
> of hope or rebirth.
>
> Yue Minjun
>
> Whoever has seen the "silly smiles" of Yue Minjun's images at the
> Singapore
> Esplanade may have loved them for their seemingly hilarious and
> infectious
> laughter. Others may have been left with a feeling of boredom, but
> perhaps
> very
> few have recognized the cynical aspect in these realistic images.
The
> wide
> smiles showing teeth too perfect to be real in the cloned faces
have a
> meaning of
> their own. Laughing like a silly man denotes detachment, an
attitude of
> avoiding confrontation and retaining inner peace.
>
> According to Li Xianting, it is a self-ironic response to the
spiritual
> vacuum and folly of modern-day China. It is as if the mass of
> contradictions
> faced
> every day were so absurdly dense that they led to a sort of
pathological
>
> disassociation from self, expressed through these grotesque
portraits.
>
> Yue Minjun, too, belongs to Cynical Realism. His works are instantly
> recognizable by the cloned faces that are bursting into laughter.
> Similar to
> exaggerated advertising images of perfect "shiny happy people", Yue
> Min's
> faces are
> also cynical and mocking.
>
> Most of the time appearing superficial, humorous, mindless, and
> ridiculous,
> they, nevertheless seem to contain either a message of some sharp
> critique,
> as
> shown in the slideshow he held during his talk at the Biennale.
Laughing
>
> faces
> in a boat, for instance, tell about the problem of existence and
those
> who
> must find another place to live, while the haunting sense of being
> followed
> all
> the time is revealed in his self portrait titled Heaven, showing a
> hearty
> laughing figure amid the hovering shadow of chairman Mao.
>
> In the 500 x 182 cm long canvas Fighting, Yue Minjun paints a row
of his
>
> clones, each with different detailed cracks around the eyes,
seemingly
> bursting in
> laughter as they point their fingers to an invisible object, with
> aircraft
> flying overhead and dark clouds rising up from the bottom. The
contrast
> of
> laughing faces, the pointing fingers, with the tanks and the dark
smoke
> rising from
> the bottom comes across as a sinister joke.
>
> One might wonder why these two painters would express critique
through
> their
> own faces. I was told that it is the safest way to give social
comment
> at a
> time when critiquing the government is a taboo. And using oneself
as a
> model
> also saves time and money.
>
> Whatever may be true, the paintings reveal an extraordinary depth of
> thought.
> -- -Kraig Grady
> North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
> http://www.anaphoria.com
> The Wandering Medicine Show
> KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST

I don't know
communist party
Chinese peoples?

Paul Erlich wrote:

> where is the CP Open Biennale?
>
> --- In metatuning@yahoogroups.com, kraig grady <kraiggrady@a...>
> wrote:
> >
> > The Jakarta Post
> > Sunday, November 9, 2003
> >
> > China's avante-garde artists dare to be different
> >
> > Carla Bianpoen, Contributor, Jakarta
> >
> > Of the 167 works at September's CP Open Biennale, those of four
> Chinese
> > world-renowned avant-garde artists were heavyweight contributions in
> > supporting the
> > Biennale's visions. The artists belong to the Chinese avant-garde
> that
> > found
> > its momentum after Tiananmen in 1989.
> >
> > Avant garde in the Chinese context should be understood as a
> movement
> > that
> > started as a protest of society's values. Artists then tended to use
> > Western
> > art
> > language; while the language may be imitative, and the forms
> similar, it
> > had
> > a distinct meaning of its own. Under the slogan No U-Turn, the China
> > Avant
> > Garde opened their exhibition in 1989 with a collection of 293
> > paintings,
> > sculptures, videos and installations by 186 artists, including Wang
> > Guangyi,
> > Xu Bing,
> > Wu Shan Zhuan, Huang Yong Ping and Gu Wenda.
> >
> > But the government closed the exhibition soon after its opening
> when two
> >
> > artists fired gunshots as part of a performance work. Although it
> was
> > reopened, it
> > was shut down completely two weeks later after reports that the
> gallery,
> > the
> > municipal government and the Beijing Public Security Bureau had
> received
> >
> > bomb
> > threats.
> >
> > The crackdown caused a temporary disruption in the momentum and for
> the
> > artists to go into themselves, allowing a new energy to emerge. They
> > became
> > famous
> > as "Political Pop and Cynical Realism". There were also artists who
> left
> > the
> > country and developed their art toward universal significance, but
> their
> >
> > roots
> > are forever shining through.
> >
> > Gu Wenda
> >
> > Among the latter is Gu Wenda, born in 1955, one of the most
> accomplished
> > and
> > diverse talents in the art form. Gu, now a performance artist,
> painter
> > and
> > installation artist, began to question traditional painting methods
> and
> > calligraphy and in 1984 started to incorporate surrealist techniques
> > with
> > traditional
> > ink and brush painting techniques, together with the use of invented
> > Chinese
> > language.
> >
> > He left for America in 1987, and has taken an important role in
> > confronting
> > and communicating with an international cultural mainstream.
> Residing in
> > New
> > York and retaining his studios in Shanghai and Xian, Gu is obsessed
> with
> > the
> > unification of the world through a mix of DNA in human hair. He is
> > active in
> > an
> > ongoing project including 22 site-specific country installations
> with
> > human
> > hair.
> >
> > His installation titled The Thin Line: the history of the Chinese
> in the
> >
> > Diaspora, was accorded a special space at the CP Open Biennale.
> >
> > Wang Guanyi
> >
> > One of the dominant trends to emerge in China after 1989, Political
> Pop
> > was
> > a
> > combination of socialist realism and American Pop Art styles that
> > lampooned
> > the government's introduction of capitalist market relations and its
> > promotion
> > of Western consumer goods and advertising icons. Among the most
> > important
> > painters of this trend is Wang Guangyi, born in 1956, who lives and
> > works in
> > Beijing.
> >
> > Reworking the visual tropes of the propaganda of the Cultural
> Revolution
> > in
> > the flat, colorful style of American Pop, he presents both the
> > capitalist
> > and
> > communist symbols. Conflicting and competing, both insist on
> hegemony,
> > drawing
> > a parallel of capitalist and communist systems.
> >
> > His painting at the CP Open Biennale was titled Great Criticism:
> Rolex,
> > showing an image that could have been one of the political
> propaganda
> > posters, now
> > transformed with the addition of the words "No" and "Rolex". This
> was
> > probably
> > one of the artist's responses to the influx of advertising images
> > promoting
> > newly available, high-priced commodities in China.
> >
> > Beginning with Coca Cola and first shown abroad at the 1993 Venice
> > Biennale,
> > the Great Criticism series has successfully used the names of
> various
> > great
> > world brands placed against images of idealized young soldiers and
> > farmers
> > wearing Mao caps. While some disapprove of this easy way of making
> art,
> > it
> > has not
> > prevented him reaping huge success.
> >
> > Wang 's art education began at middle school. In 1972 he entered art
> > classes
> > run by Harbin's Children Cultural Palace. Two years later at age
> 17, he
> > was
> > sent along with thousands of high school students to the
> countryside to
> > learn
> > from the peasants. In 1977 he enrolled in the oil painting
> department of
> >
> > Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts where he graduated in 1984.
> >
> > Different from Gu Wenda and Wang Guanyi are the younger Fang Lijun
> and
> > Yue
> > Minjun born, in 1963 and 1962 respectively, for whom the upheaval
> of the
> >
> > Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) was a childhood memory leaving a
> bitter
> > legacy.
> >
> > Fang Lijun
> >
> > Fang Lijun, who sent two paintings to the CP Open Biennale and came
> to
> > Jakarta to talk on his art on Sept. 22, said he began to learn
> painting
> > when
> > he had
> > to stay home to avoid being attacked in the street during the
> Cultural
> > Revolution.
> >
> > Indeed the 10 years of turmoil during the Cultural Revolution were
> hard
> > on
> > the family. Fang was born to a blue-collar family in the small city
> of
> > Handan in
> > Southern Hebei. Fang's father was a cadre in the machinery division
> of
> > the
> > Ministry of Railways, but during the Cultural Revolution he was
> > classified
> > as a
> > rich peasant and demoted to the post of train engineer.
> >
> > In 1968 his grandfather was denounced as a landlord, with abusive
> > messages
> > pasted on their home. To Li Xianting, the Beijing scholar and art
> critic
> > who
> > is
> > fondly called "Lao Li" (older brother), Fang once said, "I think of
> my
> > whole
> > life before China opened up to the outside world as hatred. Because
> I
> > was
> > born
> > in the wrong class, I had to learn at a very young age to shut up,
> and
> > fake
> > it".
> >
> > After the Cultural Revolution, Fang began studying ceramics at the
> Hebei
> >
> > Light Industry College in 1980, and informally he also learned
> woodcuts.
> >
> > After
> > graduating in 1984, Fang worked in art advertising and participated
> in
> > regional
> > art exhibitions. He was accepted for formal study in the print
> > department of
> > the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1985.
> >
> > Fang Lijun's images portray people with shaved heads or swimming
> through
> >
> > iridescent water, depicting contemporary people and their times in a
> > style
> > which
> > has been termed Cynical Realism. Generally described as "rogue and
> > ennui",
> > Li
> > Xianting, foremost Beijing based critic and mover of the Chinese
> > avant-garde,
> > explains that rogue encompasses a Chinese cultural concept of
> cynicism,
> > including the notions of joking, boisterous untrammeled behavior, an
> > indifferent lack
> > of restraint, and the ability to see through everything. The rogue
> is
> > the
> > last and staunchest enemy of authoritarianism, he contends.
> >
> > In this sense, the bald-headed youth who first appeared in the
> artist's
> > paintings in the early 1990s and has since become Fang Lijun's
> > characteristic
> > figure, has been widely interpreted as the symbol of disillusion,
> > mockery
> > and
> > rebellion in present Chinese society, though Fang himself says he
> used
> > bald
> > heads
> > simply to attract attention.
> >
> > But more striking is Fang's open-mouthed figures floating like
> > baldheaded
> > clones in an endless space. They seem to speak of uncertainty, a
> sense
> > of
> > premonition amid happiness. Images of facial expressions and grins
> akin
> > to
> > old people
> > who have descended into dementia looking up to the sky, surrounded
> by
> > flowers
> > that seem artificial, evoke an eerie feeling of witnessing a
> stirring
> > drama
> > of people trapped in the emptiness of life.
> >
> > The flowers may have a double significance as he was taught to paint
> > flowers
> > because of their beauty. But at one time when he was in a flower
> > painting
> > class, there was a dead body close by? Could the sweet scent and
> look of
> >
> > flowers
> > actually be a cover for the stench of the real world?
> >
> > A sense of double significance or ambivalence is also evoked by his
> > water
> > series. Water, according to Fang Lijun, can be relaxing and
> dangerous at
> > the
> > same
> > time. It refers to life as well as death. Perhaps this is why he
> states
> > that
> > the translucent blue water embracing a man swimming on his back in
> one
> > painting denotes the history of humankind.
> >
> > The other painting in the same exhibition shows a fat baby hand
> blown up
> >
> > before a wide peaceful landscape with flowers floating in the air,
> > perhaps a
> > sign
> > of hope or rebirth.
> >
> > Yue Minjun
> >
> > Whoever has seen the "silly smiles" of Yue Minjun's images at the
> > Singapore
> > Esplanade may have loved them for their seemingly hilarious and
> > infectious
> > laughter. Others may have been left with a feeling of boredom, but
> > perhaps
> > very
> > few have recognized the cynical aspect in these realistic images.
> The
> > wide
> > smiles showing teeth too perfect to be real in the cloned faces
> have a
> > meaning of
> > their own. Laughing like a silly man denotes detachment, an
> attitude of
> > avoiding confrontation and retaining inner peace.
> >
> > According to Li Xianting, it is a self-ironic response to the
> spiritual
> > vacuum and folly of modern-day China. It is as if the mass of
> > contradictions
> > faced
> > every day were so absurdly dense that they led to a sort of
> pathological
> >
> > disassociation from self, expressed through these grotesque
> portraits.
> >
> > Yue Minjun, too, belongs to Cynical Realism. His works are instantly
> > recognizable by the cloned faces that are bursting into laughter.
> > Similar to
> > exaggerated advertising images of perfect "shiny happy people", Yue
> > Min's
> > faces are
> > also cynical and mocking.
> >
> > Most of the time appearing superficial, humorous, mindless, and
> > ridiculous,
> > they, nevertheless seem to contain either a message of some sharp
> > critique,
> > as
> > shown in the slideshow he held during his talk at the Biennale.
> Laughing
> >
> > faces
> > in a boat, for instance, tell about the problem of existence and
> those
> > who
> > must find another place to live, while the haunting sense of being
> > followed
> > all
> > the time is revealed in his self portrait titled Heaven, showing a
> > hearty
> > laughing figure amid the hovering shadow of chairman Mao.
> >
> > In the 500 x 182 cm long canvas Fighting, Yue Minjun paints a row
> of his
> >
> > clones, each with different detailed cracks around the eyes,
> seemingly
> > bursting in
> > laughter as they point their fingers to an invisible object, with
> > aircraft
> > flying overhead and dark clouds rising up from the bottom. The
> contrast
> > of
> > laughing faces, the pointing fingers, with the tanks and the dark
> smoke
> > rising from
> > the bottom comes across as a sinister joke.
> >
> > One might wonder why these two painters would express critique
> through
> > their
> > own faces. I was told that it is the safest way to give social
> comment
> > at a
> > time when critiquing the government is a taboo. And using oneself
> as a
> > model
> > also saves time and money.
> >
> > Whatever may be true, the paintings reveal an extraordinary depth of
> > thought.
> > -- -Kraig Grady
> > North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
> > http://www.anaphoria.com
> > The Wandering Medicine Show
> > KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST
>

-- -Kraig Grady
North American Embassy of Anaphoria Island
http://www.anaphoria.com
The Wandering Medicine Show
KXLU 88.9 FM WED 8-9PM PST