"The Pluralistic Look of Chinese Contemporary Art Since the Mid-Nineties"
| Guangzhou's
Big-tailed Elephants In Guangzhou, China's first truly open coastal city, there is an art movement still active today called Big Tailed Elephants. The group's main representatives are Xu Tan, Chen Xiaoxiong and Liang Juhui. It's not that they all share a common artistic vision, but rather what holds them together is their desire to pursue their art in a world run riot with greed and desire. Xu Tan's recent work has shifted its focus to photographs representing "insignificant" scenes in everyday life. He feels that today's video and photography-based works are too "arty". Artists are trying to pack their works with complex concepts whereas each persons reality is nothing more than an amalgamation of a countless number of insignificant images and moments. From his point of view, this is a new kind of politics. Lin Yilin with his background as a student of academic sculpture, often employs architectural constructs to make his sculpture works. He especially likes to use bricks in his three-dimensional works. He has inlaid himself, money, televisions and other objects in his wall sculptures. He also likes to use his own body as the basis of his sculpture, freeing the work to achieve accidental or spontaneous effects. Chen Xiaoxiong's works are about the passive way people are shaped by their environment and the information they are exposed to. For instance, his series of works entitled, "The Vision Corrector" involve making the audience watch an illogical, nonsensical video installation using either their left or right eye only, therefor "forcing" them to alter the accustomed manner in which they respond to video. Liang Juhui's work deals with the different relationships between public and private space by expressing an existential angst that comes when public space encroaches upon, or invades private space. |
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 1 22. Xu
Tan
"Knowledge is Power Power is
Authority"
1997
Installation
 Lin Yilin
"New Kinds of Things"
1997
Installation, bricks
and electric massage machines
 1
 2
Chen Xiaoxiong
"Vision Corrector"
1996
Video Installation
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| Part IV:
Gaudy Art
Gaudy Art is perhaps the direction that an increasing number of artists advocate through their choice of subject matter and technique. Representative artists for the most part hail from the now dispersed art community in Yuan Ming Yuan, artists like Xu Yihui, Chang Xugong, the Luo Brothers, Hu Xiangdong, Feng Zhengjie, and Wang Qingsong among others. In 1995, a group of artists came together, quite coincidentally, to use symbols of consumerism, such as money, TVs, images of overnight millionaires, pictures of beautiful woman on wall calendars. Using gaudy or garish colors, mixed with images of turnips, cabbage and other peasant staple foods, they sought to focus on some of the real issues arising from China's transition from a political to an economically-based society. Of particular noteworthiness, these artists strove to infuse their works with the taste of China's peasantry for gaudy objects, either through the use of color or popular images of cabbages, turnips, etc., to raise an awareness that at the base of today's consumerism, lies the essence of peasant taste. In keeping with this artistic intention, these artists often employed materials and methods used in peasant handicrafts, giving viewers an immediate and direct visual stimulation. At a deeper level, their works are a sardonic indictment on China's revolutionary culture. The popularization of culture has been the main driving force of 20th century cultural standards. From Kang Youwei and Liang Qiqiao of the late Qing and early Republic period, to Chen Duxiu, Zhu Qiubai, Lu Xun and other thinkers of the May Fourth period, all advocated the popularization of culture, maintaining that in order to save and re-build China, it was essential to bring down the refinement of the esthete scholar, their culture and tradition. In 1943, when Mao Zedong published his "Talk at the Yannan Roundtable on Art and Literature" he institutionalized in a very systematic way, the concept of cultural popularization. He called on artists to learn from the peasants and their art. Since the early eighties, with China's opening up to the West, these revolutionary values fell out of favor with the masses. In the void, Hong Kong and Taiwan's popularity crept in. Singers, actors and actresses took the place of yesterday's revolutionary heroes, becoming the idols of youth. In fact, while elements of Western high culture were gradually introduced into China, the influx of Western consumer culture seemed to infiltrate every aspect of life from food to clothing. All that came with the foreign joint ventures and their products, videos, fashion, pop songs, fast food, etc. everything from daily use items and food to the visual and audio sensations were absorbed by the masses. But, behind this cultural invasion of China, there always lurked the multi-colored fantasy of hitting it big and getting rich. And with it, the foreign consumer culture rapidly gave way to peasant-like dreams of wealth. The long exiled God of Prosperity was invited back, "Wealth, Rank, Long-life and Happiness," "Wealth and Glory," "The Spring of Wealth Overflows," with economic prosperity the Eastern wind blew in old skeletons and spirits from the past. The color red, the celebratory color of China's peasantry, after finishing its revolutionary historical mission, changed clothes, applied make-up and re-emerged on the stage. "Raise the Red Lantern" replaced the red flag. Every imaginable kind of red advertisement and sign then quickly covered the red-colored slogans. Continue with article...
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 1 2Anonymous
Untitled: Giant Flower
Basket and Installation on Tiananmen During National Day Celebration
1997
Installation
... behind the
cultural invasion of China, there always lurked the multi-colored fantasy
of hitting it big and getting rich. And with it, the foreign consumer
culture rapidly gave way to peasant-like dreams of wealth.
 Huang Yihan
"Cartoon Generation -- Wholesale"
1996
Installation
 Feng Zhengjie
"Romantic Trips"
1997
150 x 110cm
Oil on Canvas
 Hu Xiangdong
"The Planted Ideal"
1998-99
mixed media installation,
plastic, cabbage and soil
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The long exiled
God of Prosperity was invited back, "Wealth, Rank, Long-life and Happiness,"
"The Spring of Wealth Overflows," with economic prosperity the Eastern
wind blew in old skeletons and spirits from the past.
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