| Recently, Chinese society has transitioned from an idealistic society to a pragmatic one, bringing with it a change in values. In the early phases of Chinese contemporary art, most of the works produced discussed more abstract questions, such as political and economical matters concerning a collective society, whereas, today, the focus is turning toward individual experiences within the larger society. In this way, expression becomes more direct, and this reality helps create a more diversified art scene. |  |
Shouting Truth – Xian Lei
Recently, Chinese society has transitioned from an idealistic society to a pragmatic one, bringing with it a change in values. In the early phases of Chinese contemporary art, most of the works produced discussed more abstract questions, such as political and economical matters concerning a collective society, whereas, today, the focus is turning toward individual experiences within the larger society. In this way, expression becomes more direct, and this reality helps create a more diversified art scene.
The exhibit, “Shouting Truth,” is presented by Platform China Contemporary Art Institute in Beijing, China, and contains works from all media: video, animation, installation, photography and painting. The artists Cheng Ran, Jin Shan, Chen Wei, Sun Xun and Liu Weijian are from Hangzhou and the surrounding area (Tang Yi is from Sichuan), and all were born during the late 70s and early 80s. With China’s rapid development, beginning in the mid-70s, these artists and the various media that they employ, in a way, grew up together. While artists of older generations, whose choices of media may have reflected reactions to new available tools of their era, these new artists are not struck by the novelty of technology within the environment of commercial art. Their use of technology becomes more so a choice in language, since picking the right media assures a successful articulation of the personal experience that each artist is trying to convey. Unlike older artists, who did not grow up with video, DVD and digital technology, the media chosen is not a social commentary; it is quotidian, just a tool for expression. The diverse formats in “Shouting Truth” prove a certain evolution in this modern society.
Cheng Ran’s work A Sublimative Memorandum is a triptych of video installations projected onto three adjacent screens. Cheng Ran chose this format because if “a lot of sights are ambivalent, then you have to choose.” According to the artist, a lot of concepts within this work concern the status of ordinary life. Through fractured perspectives, the work fragments conventional views on situations by drawing special attention to details that parallel the concept of the individual as the microcosmic unit of a larger society.
Conceptually, if Cheng Ran’ s work can be described as warm and human, it also contrasts with the impact of Jin Shan’s video, Hanging Flesh; Jin Shan’s work is misanthropic, raw and naked. This wordless artist uses provocative imagery to communicate his message. Hanging Flesh wants to show the human instinct to live in an abnormal situation, a kind of reverse scenario. It represents the conflicts and collisions of a group’s existence in this society, it shows the struggle to live. The expression of the image confronts a kind of societal asphyxia, encouraging the audience to consider the suffocating weight that society imposes upon life.
A similar feeling can be found in Chen Wei’s photography. Although his work addresses feelings of anxiety and separation, the still images course underneath with emotional expression and are manic with nervous energy. As contemporary art gets more and more attention in Shanghai and Hangzhou, a lot of good artists are gathering in these two places: some of them are experienced from the experimental movement in 80s, some of them are young and freshly inspired. They bring exciting influences to the local art scene, inspiring a kind of renaissance, a new art generation born with courage to challenge the limits that society places upon them.
Before Chen Wei and Jin Shan began making visual art, they spent a long time making sound. Jin Shan did the sound for Sun Xun’ s animation works. Sun Xun is an artist with really strong creative desire. Like other people from the same generation, he feels adrift; yet, instead of feeling anxious, he embraces uncertainty as his direction. He has said that an artist is just like a wanderer with a clear direction of where to go, and that this means a non-stop experiment, with a direction that is spiritual but not realistic. Maybe just because of his spirit, his animation is very different from other animation works produced recently. As opposed to his contemporaries, many of them digital animators, his traditional, hand-drawn work makes this artist more like a handicraft artisan from old times. Sun Xun doesn’t like to call it contemporary art; he thinks art is art, and all the works he makes are within the same system. The mosquito is a kind of symbol in his work. As an infector, it can mix different matters, and, in this way it takes on the role of continuity in Sun Xun’s works, just as a magician is another image that he uses, again and again.
Fairytale prediction can be found in both Chen Wei’s photography and Liu Weijian’s painting. After testing a lot of different mediums, Liu Weijian found painting is still his most suitable media. His work of this exhibition presents his continuous exploration, seeking to eliminate the subjective emotional part of painting, returning to the original essence with a simple technique.
As the only female artist in this show, Tang Yi’s work naturally brings up sex topics; however, in addition her installations also address her thoughts through a kind of mathematic and philosophic logic. The catching point of her work is infinite things like the mathematic number π; she is fascinated by the things which you can’t name which are hard to describe in any language, things which you cannot totally grasp through any form of communication.
The works of this exhibition employ uncertainty as a metaphor. But instead of generating uneasiness, the artists revel in the unknown. Different from forced than a misunderstanding, the artists are clear about the conscious of their incertitude. China used to be united by the collective, consequently, consciously stressed; in contrast, this new, young generation places their own experience and personal relationships in front of us, narrating a new society ahead of collective consciousness. Together, they shout out their own voices.
In another aspect, these artists forge a new society themselves. All of the artists know each other quite well. They all grew up in the same era, so their experiences overlap and intersect. However, different from most of their peers, who have been tagged as the “cartoon generation”, their flippancy towards society helps them to confirm their attitude of “shouting truth.” This is art, their own way, manipulating the unconscious to purposefully articulate their ideas. Based on this exhibition, we have a lot to expect from their futures, and our own.
