The
decade of the last century was also the most intense ten
years for Chinese opening up and reform program that aims
at modernization. The rapid economic growth brings forth
dramatic changes in all fields of the society. When Chinese
people were all satisfied with economic development achieved
from "one change in a year, one big change in three
years, and one dramatic change in five years", I
felt too much out of the tune with the times, almost to
be betrayed by this times of dramatic changes. From then
on, I started to think of a new living manner.
Competition
series, oil on canvas, 1995-96
In
October 1993, I took 2,000 Yuan that I only had and came
to the heart of China, Beijing, with ideals and fantasies.
However as soon as I arrived in Beijing, I found out that
the monthly rent for a little house in Beijing cost 150
Yuan while back in my hometown such a house would only
cost 20 Yuan. To endure the harsh winter, I bought first
200-kilo cabbage (termed as patriotic vegi), then some
life necessities, materials for painting and frames; I
became a poor wretch (This amount of money was supposed
to be my expenses for half a year). To catch up with "modernization",
I threw myself into working quickly. Full of passion,
I painted about 20 paintings within three months and named
them "Competition series" and "Work series".
Figures in "Competition series" are distorted
and wrestling in fight for life and death. "Work
series" look vernacular. The normal working procedures
and postures give out a sense of violence and threat.
These two series expressed my initial impression as an
outsider of this cosmopolitan city and described my depression
and disappointment.
| Such
sentimental creation ended very quickly. Under the
slogan of "A bit braver, a bit quicker",
Beijing ran wild with great bravo and rapid tempo
which confused me so much. 0.5 kilo noodles used to
be 0.7 yuan increased to 1.3 Yuan after three months,
almost doubled the price. Of course rent and other
life necessities were all increased dramatically.
I had to move into a smaller house in Yuan Ming Yuan
that cost about 200 yuan a month. At that time, there
were about 100 artists in this artist village. Everyday
artists sharing similar interests would chat and talked
about every art trends that changed dramatically in
five years, from "Stars Group", "Scar
Art", "85 New Trend", "1989 China
Art Exhibition" up to the issue of contemporary
features of national culture in the background of
commercial society, which was the predecessor of "Gaudy
Art". We would depart to do independent art works
after we were bored. |
Work
series , 1994-95
|
|
Dysphasia
series
sculpture, 1998
|
In
late 1994, I went to the plastic plant of my elder
brother in Shandong Province to make some plastic
figures since this material looks so shiny with
lower price and kitschy color that well represented
very well the society at that time. However when
I got there, I learnt that the equipments my brother's
plastic plant purchased were all bad quality and
fake products. Therefore my former plan was stranded
and had to work it out anyway. So I went to the
Automobile Repair Factory where my sister-in-law
worked and created some distorted and destroyed
figures made of iron slabs. My feelings were all
contributed into those works.
In early 1995, I came back to Beijing in disappointment
and disillusion. Like before, we came back to the
discussion about the contemporary features of national
culture. I started to paint on silk velvet since
it was very shiny and kitschy and well used by peasants
in the past. I painted cabbage, little cats, cute
dogs, beautiful women and some mundane while meaningless
stuff onto silk velvet. I also mounted the silk
velvet paintings onto the frame in the style of
windshields. These works expressed peasants' ideals
and tastes which was my initial understanding of
"gaudy art" (the contemporary qualities
of national cultures).
|
The
works in this period were selected into "Gaudy
Life", an art exhibition curated by Liao Wen
and Li Xianting in 1996. It was the first formal exhibition
since I came to Beijing. The opening was very crowded
and many people came to congratulate on the show.
Later reports said that this exhibition was the most
wonderful and controversial show over these two years.
Of course some people argued that the exhibition was
really bad with works of unprofessional painters.
Through this exhibition, I started to look for the
best way to express my ideas of creation because I
found paintings failed to express my understanding
of dramatic social changes. By the year-end, I started
to experiment with photography as a medium to create
my works since photography itself can "faithfully"
and "accurately" represent all stories in
the society. Therefore my later works are like stories
I document with a camera.
|
Gaudy
Life series, 1995-96, oil on canvas
|
|
Dysphasia
series, 1994-97, oil on canvas
|
When
Yuan Ming Yuan artist village was dismissed, artists
went all over Beijing. Such a migrant life made
me very upset. I had no clue when I could live in
peace. My artistic creation in this period was very
contradictory. On the one hand, I wanted to continue
my works of gaudy art to express social and cultural
features of this rapid developing country. On the
other hand, I was forced to face instability of
both life and settlement. Within this year, I was
forced to move five times which made me feel so
difficult to be merged into this social family.
With such a feeling, I create "Dysphasia
series" on canvas. The distorted figures
wrapped up in plastic wanted to get out. But this
suffocating covering allowed them to see clearly
the outside world but nowhere to escape. Such a
wandering life was alleviated when I moved into
Dongba Village in 1997. When life was stable, I
began to have new ideas on creation and get close
to social changes and speed of modernization. This
close and further contact made me feel that modernization
of Chinese features was actually a combination of
both western and Chinese qualities. In my perspective,
China became an experimental field of Li Hongzhang's
"Westernization Movement" over one hundred
years ago even though this man and his movement
were defined as a movement of betrayal to Chinese
interests.
|
|
Over
these years, I have been thinking over and over
about the rapid development in Chinese economic
reform in the last two decades. Villages catch up
with townships. Townships catch up with counties.
Counties catch up with capital cities. Capital cities
catch up with the capital. The capital catches up
with European countries and America. This level-by-level
chase and emulation turns China into a gigantic
world park. We can see in China "Manhattan
Fifth Avenue", "SOHO modern city",
"Oriental Versailles", "Euro-Land
Classics", and etc. It seems these architecture
could be perfectly united. We can imagine they would
be very ludicrous as the coat for the Emperor in
the story of a Danish fable writer.
China
has vast land and mass people. The macro-program
of Chinese government is to resolve problems of
food by the end of the 20th century. Hence food
is a big issue to be improved as an index for evaluating
the level of living standard. It is well known that
China has a long history of eating culture. All
over Beijing one can still see many broken walls
and dilapidated ruins of old restaurant. However,
McDonald's which is fast food chain store in America
and Europe convenient as Chinese meat buns delis
became the top cuisine when it stroke the market
in China in 1990. We often see many people celebrate
birthdays, throw parties and date lovers in McDonald's
and make it into as hot as a five-star restaurant.
When the first McDonald's chain was opened in Wangfujing,
Beijing in 1992, over 10,000 people came to eat.
Now wherever it is noisy and crowded, there will
be a McDonald's. Now there are 560 chains of McDonald's
in China spreading over 17 provinces and 94 cities.
It increases by more than 100 chains annually. Now
it is one of the many important "hot buttons"
in China. This mindless aspiration for western world
and modernization intrigues me so much that I created
"Adam
and Eve" (1997), "Thinker"
(1998), "Prisoner"
(1998), "Catcher"
(1998), "Look
Up! Look Up!" (2000) and other works.
In such a kaleidoscopic society, what changes happen
to our traditions and culture? Buddhism, the core
essence of Chinese tradition, has accompanied Chinese
civilization for thousands of years. It brings comfort
and fortune to the people, inspires their soul and
enlightens a responsibility for having good relations
with the others. Bodhisattva (Guanshiyin) is the
first Buddha in China whose goal is to save the
suffering through self-devotion. However, in the
current commercial society, the respectable Bodhisattva
has also been changed. It reaches out its hands
insatiably for money and material goods towards
every troubled person. What a pity that it has only
one thousand hands! If it had ten thousand hands,
it would become a billionaire on the earth whose
assets could surpass those of Bill Gates. The "Requesting
Buddha" Series £¨1999)©,
"Preincarnation" and
"Incarnation" (2002) are the faithful
representation of such an avaricious country with
traditions forgotten and betrayed. Maybe in ten
more years, the old doctrines of Confucius and Mencius
will be only found in books of libraries.
|
China
is ongoing with dramatic social changes. I ponder at whether
China has changed. With suspicion, I selected some representative
pieces from the ancient times, such as "Night
Banquet of Han Xizai" in post-Tang Dynasty (talking
about life of intellectuals), "Imperial Sedan"
in Tang Dynasty (reflecting diplomacy), "Court
Lady with Flowers" in Tang Dynasty (expressing
noble life), "Packman" in Song Dynasty (telling
stories of children and vernacular life) not for the purpose
of emulation or praise of the exquisite skill of the paintings.
Instead, I select them to make a comparison with the current
society.
"Night
Revels of Lao Li", 2000
"Night
Banquet of Han Xizai" reflected the turbulent social
life in post-Tang Dynasty when the reign was weakened.
The troubled intellectual Han Xizai could not rebel against
the corrupted society and had to avoid such trouble and
resort himself to provocative life. Based on "Night
Banquet of Han Xizai", I shot "Night Revel of
Lao Li" to denote that intellectuals who would like
to contribute talents to the country in the past and at
present have been faced with the same dilemma. Their social
status of being suspected and not trusted has never been
changed. This is my conclusion after comparing the social
status and destinies of intellectuals at present and in
the past. "Can I Cooperate with You?" imitates
"Imperial Sedan". In my work, I switch the roles
of the figures. A westerner is seated on the imperial
sedan where the Emperor was seated. The former places
of foreign envoys paying tribune to the Emperor in "Imperial
Sedan" were taken over by minimized weak Chinese
people. "New Women" was based on "Court
Lady with flowers" that comments on the dilemma of
present white-collar ladies. In 2001, my son was born
that triggered me to think about education for the next
generation. Appropriating "Packman" in Song
Dynasty, I shot "Knickknack
Peddler" when my son was one year old which criticizes
the mistakes of present-day education.
KnickKnack
Peddler, 2002
I
was born in 1960s. Our childhood was accompanied by patriotic
movies, such as ""Railway Guerrillas",
"Landmine War", "Dry Mountains", and
etc. "Another
Battle series" in 2001 was influenced by these
war movies. The war scenes in my photographs reflect the
intense economic competition in the current world. In
this battle with no smoke and gunshots, heroism is gone
when I could only play the role of a defeated commander
in the confrontation between the east and the west. Such
works include "Sentry
Post" and "Port"
(2002) which all express the wonderful world we run after
is full of smoke with gloomy future. Later on, I imitated
postures of the monuments in front of Chairman Mao's Memorial
that extolled the revolution and social construction times.
In the past, when people stood before these monuments,
they were all enthralled with deep respect. But nowadays
when people of all backgrounds stand before these monuments,
they talk with each other, look at the monuments, smiling
and speaking, and then make a pose to take a picture with
the monuments. The history is gone that the statues of
heroes are turned into touristic props. This sad scene
throws me into doubt whether people lose faith in the
respected heroes and ideals in the past. With such "doubt",
I act as an outsider, a tourist and a participant in my
triptych work "Past,
Present and Future" and cover models playing
heroes of revolutionary and socialist construction periods
with mud, silver and gold. This triptych emulates the
urban sculpture like monuments in terms of form to reach
the purpose of reflecting upon our past history, present
reconstruction and future ideals.
Peonies
had been favored much by ancient literary figures. Tang
Xianzu, a famous playwright in Yuan Dynasty, wrote "Peony
Pavilion". The imperial officials have also written
a lot of essays about peonies and painted a lot of peonies.
This flower is often found in woodcuts, water prints,
paper cuts and other civilian art that becomes a decoration
in people's homes. In China today, one honorable hall
named after peony is reserved for noble guests in either
five-star luxurious hotel or a dirty and cheap deli. Always
on the walls of these restaurants, peonies in the style
of Chinese traditional ink painting will be stuck on the
wall. "Ethereal
Beauty" and "Auspicious
Snow" were finished in the cold winter of early
2003. I asked professional cook to sculpt lamb and beef
into petals of red and white peonies and staple them into
meat peonies of all shapes in both fresh and frozen state
to shoot the pictures. This series refers to the flowing
of fleshy desires and cheap values in the current times.
I would like to pose irony against such a low spirit.
Meat peonies in frozen state expresses my "rapid
cooling" of this limitless expansion of desires,
which is my idea about a brand-new aesthetic concept.
Ethereal
Beauty, and Auspicious Snow, 2003
In
the summer of 2003, I created the C-print photographs
China Mansion
(4' x 39') and Romantique
(4' x 21'). Both of these works were shot in a Beijing
movie studio of more than 19,000 square feet. This studio
formerly hosted important movie crews, including those
for the model operas during the period of the Cultural
Revolution and, recently, the Kill Bill crew. Currently
the largest movie studio in China, it regrettably will
be torn down to support commercially ambitious real-estate
development projects.
For
China Mansion,
I drafted a sketch of the entire vista, with details of
doors, windows, alleys, background, wallpaper, antique
furniture, and flooring. It took around 20 workers five
days to construct this environment. On the date of the
shooting, there were around 40 people working, including
models, workers, lighting staff, and a make-up team. Models
took their young babies and children to participate in
the shooting, poked fun at each other's make-up, and enjoyed
watching each other's performance. The whole shooting
took one complete day.
China
Mansion summarizes my perception of Chinese social reality
during the current stage of globalization. China has been
very enthusiastic about inviting foreign experts in economy,
technology, architecture, and culture to give support
and guidance to its modernization programs. These foreign
specialists help to create economic opportunities and
introduce alternative systems of thought to China. However,
the cultural clash creates social contradictions. This
phenomenon triggered me to shoot and direct China Mansion.
In the set-up, I invited models to play the parts of foreign
guests, mimicking postures in paintings by Ingres, Courbet,
Manet, Gauguin, Klein, Boucher, Rembrandt, Rubens, Man
Ray, and several other artists. I wanted my models to
communicate with each other across centuries and with
Chinese culture so as to create certain amiable relationships.
It seems my hope was in vain. It's easy to see that I
play the role of the confusing host in this mansion, filled
with both Chinese and western antiquities. Obviously the
host is a conservative, but also a fashionista. On the
left of the photograph, the host wears a banner of welcome.
But on the right, the armed guard-like a terra-cotta soldier-looks
like a robber, preventing the honorable guests from free
movement and forcing them to leave something valuable
in the host's mansion.
The
setting of Romantique
took more time to construct than China Mansion's. There
were around 25 people working for a week, sometimes around
the clock. Because small ponds were to be an element of
the environment, I was left with two options: to create
ponds on the flat ground or to dig underneath the ground
to make holes. Actually, we did neither, partially building
up and partially digging down. To make them appear deeper,
I told workers to use black cloth to cover the bottom
of the ponds. The huge sky backdrop was simply spray painted
by a group of five people in two days. For days we worked
together and screwed plastic leaves onto the bare branches,
made styrofoam stones and shells, and planted trees. It
was a successful collaboration among artist friends, hired
workers, and me. I learned a lesson from the uneven lighting
in the shooting of China Mansion, and this time asked
the crew to light the entire setting at the same time,
which requires more people and good timing, but was worthwhile.
Romantique,
2003
In
Romantique,
one seems to walk into a land that is half the heaven
of western religion and half apastoral Chinese garden.
There are cheap plastic leaves, fruits, flowers, and decorations.
The little ponds in this paradise emit a light smoke created
from dry ice. Viewers can imagine false happiness in this
fabricated beautiful paradise. Models act out the figures
in western masterpieces by Massacio, Velasquez, Botticelli,
Raphael, and Matisse. There's a Chinese golden Buddha,
beautiful princesses, and livestock. There's a western
girl and a Chinese man and his little girl, highlighting
the potential conflicts of this complicated international
dialogue. These people are very happy, peaceful, and without
desire. Like in China Mansion, the communication in Romantique
is forced, manufactured, chaotic, and confusing-a fabricated
prosperity and happiness, like a utopia that can't be
realized.
Over
these years, the problems I am concerned with go further
deep as the society develops rapidly. Now I am more like
a journalist and photographer documenting the society
who shoot pictures immediately as soon as problems pop
up. There are such works as "Forum"
(about international conferences and forums), "Art
Express" (about art world), "Finding
Fun" and "Bath
House" (about social life), "Beggar"
(about loafers), "Preschool"
and "Follow
Me" (about education of the next generation).
To find more problems, I need to make my eyes wide open
in order to create better and more works.
Art
Express, 2002 and Follow Me, 2003
