He Sen: the lost generation

Beijing-based artist He Sen has been painting girls smoking, drinking and dazing for a good 10 years now. He has quietly become a powerful force among contemporary Chinese painters. His ultra-realisitc and photographic oil paintings of women, often in seductive underwear and poses, are sharp and blurry at the same time, with starkly contrasting colours, greyed-out background and vivid details which paint a bleak and pessimistic picture of the youth culture in China. 

Without contextualising the images it's easy to dismiss He's work as simply the "objetification" of women, possibly border-line "erotic". But the message here is more complicated than that. These women are beautiful, yet their bodies are deadly grey, their faces often blank and lacking intensity compared to their clothing and pose, shadows often dance into the background and the only one or two details that stand out are the lips, the drinks and the cigarette smoke.  After much fame and fortune, He has moved on in recent years to ink and pen and re-invented classic Chinese paintings of flowers and trees, but to the Western world these nearly naked sad girls still look far more interesting.  

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Monkey King in contemporary Chinese Art

Ever heard of the Chinese legend Monkey King? Think of Spider Man, but way cooler. Monkey King Sun Wukong can ride clouds, clone himself with his monkey hair, spot demons and witches with his Fiery Golden Eyes, even when they dress up as innocent pretty girls ready to seduce. He's also a shapeshifter, able to transform into 72 objects and animals. He hates the authority and was put under a big rock and spell by the gods for sabotaging the Heavenly Kingdom, until the Journey to the West novel made him a bodyguard of Buddhist monk Tripitaka, who was commissioned, in real life, in the 7th Century to trek to India to retrieve Buddihist sultras. Alone with the Monkey King, there was Pigsy, Sandy and the monk's white horse, whom later revealed himself to be a dragon prince.


The traditional realisation of Monkey King is often in the form of opera, film and staged play, but contemporary Chinese artists have found new ways to re-interpret the classic Monkey - in a space suit with a big six-pack.

Check out the carefully handcafted toy figures by Cacooca, an enterprise based in Beijing that creates funky designs of Pandas in print and figures.

Contemporary Chinese Artist Wang Mian (not the one from the 14th century) has also produced a series of mini-sculptures featuring the Monkey King and his fellow disciples. All in somewhat a futuristic and sci-fi fiction inspired style. Wang's work has been exhibited in China and Switzerland.

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24 Xiao: The Chinese Fashion Obsession

Xiao[孝] meaning filial in Chinese might seem completely irrelevant to the series of fashion shots created by the Taiwanese photographer Liang Su and produced by Jeffery Wang from the ad agency BlanQ.


The only connection is that there are 24 pieces in the series and each photo takes one expression in the ancient filial duty bible and applies them to the new found obssession with Western high fashion and luxurious brands. It's completely souless and another attempt to marry up East and West commercial cultures that's visually pleasing. Nevertheless, the images are highly polished, beautifully arranged and fit for the Chinese Vogue and Elle. Spotted brands include Dior and Jean Paul Gaultier.



The agency BlanQ has an extensive portfolio on Behance that's worth checking out.

 

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Alain Delorme: Super Totems In Shanghai

 

With her booming economy and authoritative political system, China often finds herself in the spotlight of Western scruntiny and controversy. Recently Morrissey commented that the way Chinese treat animals must make them a "subspecies". Does that make the Germans a subspecies too? Surely they killed more Jews than cats and dogs, and not for food either? Enough said.

Not only do the Chinese make their cultural heritage subject of art works, (Ai Weiwei has certainly paved the way for Western recognition of Chinese contemporary art), many Western artists also find China at the centre of their inspiration, notably British photographer Jasper James, and lately, French photographer Alain Delorme.

During the 2010 World Expo in Shanghai, Delorme wondered around the city away from the modern skyscrapers and the clean streets and deep into the suburbs surrounding the developed central, capturing the daily movements of the "floating population" - the Chinese migrant workers, as they shift cargoes of goods, recycling materials, chairs and bottles in and out of the city to make a living. At first glance these images are half real half surreal, with carefully compositioned and horizontal layers. Delrome cuts out the city in the manner of an archaeologist. Various subjects spread out in a regular way between the ever-changing urban temporalities: the daily newspaper, the ceaseless movement of the passers by, the building sites and the new buildings, which all falls under a slow rhythm. Behind the balance of these compositions, Delorme breaks the rules of the documentary kind, playing with the assembly and the color to present a kind of “hyper reality” which highlights the paradoxes of the most dynamic city of China. 

In these photographs Delorme also captures the individuality of the workers, whereas the common depiction of the Chinese work force has largely been a faceless mass.The author urges us to see the workers as they contribute to the growing consumerism in which they do not benefit from themselves. Alain Delorme reactualizes the documentary proposal here which is based on the contrast between the form and of the representation, with the bright advertising colours, and the subjects of his depiction to underline this variation. These men become the superheroes of the new world whose force seems multiplied by ten. They are believed capable of all the prowesses, maintaining balance of their random and strange burdens with dexterity. Layers upon layers, thousand-year-old China côtoie contemporary industrial power is matched by the ordinary worker's totems. The race is not only among the men in the city, but also that of the city towards its future.

Delrome's latest exhibition's in Paris featuring the series of Totems at the Magda Gallery until the 25th of September.

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Car, crash and art works inspired

Perhaps it's the association between Crash and J G Ballard, works from two artists caught my eyes recently that depict the everyday object beautifully sabotaged.

Danish artist Nicolai Howalt made a series of close-up studies of dented and scratched metal surfaces of wrecked cars, which are often visually disorientating and resemble digitally enhanced abstract paintings. They capture the violent forces and the dark romance of destroyed car bodies in a sobering yet seductive way.

Other works in the series take a step back to examine the larger picture, the smashed windshields and deflated airbags, a strand of bloodied brown hair or a pack of unfinished cigarettes, which are intrinsically Ballardian and voyeuristic.

Howalt’s images were on show in Copenhagen in Feb 2009 at the Martin Asbæk Gallery.

Another artist who had a series of work evolved around the (crashed) car is Li Hui, a multi-media artist based in Beijing whose installations have been widely exhibited and praised in China and Europe.

His latest exhibitions in Germany this year included his extensive sculptures and installations in steel, acrylic, LED  technologies and laser light, which work together to construct enormous and dreamlike scenarios. In particular, Untitled (2007) depicts a crashed car that was demolished in a real accident. The remains are bandaged and fog is rising out of it while they are illuminated by over 13.000 red laser lights mounted to the museum’s ceiling, making the car "breathe and bleed" silmutaneously, like the injured person who was inside quietly waiting in pain after the accident.

Li's obssession with cars started from his graduation project in 2003, which was a converted Jeep with two front drives and no rear end. Since then he has been experimenting with less traditional materials than clay which he was trained to use as a sculptor.

Similar to the UVA, Li's extensive use of laser and lights does not stop at making up lines and squares. Amber (2006) for instance, is a steel car model filled with neon lamp and a dinasaur skeleton on the inside made of neon acrylic. Other works take it one step further from cars and Jeep, including aircraft carrier and rockets. Li likes to challenge the common perception of products associated with the industrial and modern age. Check out his interview with The Creators Project here for the thinking behind his work.

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Ai Weiwei “Freedom is a high-risk business”

Tate Modern announced this month that one of the most influential Chinese contemporary artists Ai Weiwei is going to design an installation for the Turbine Hall this year from October to April 2011. The first ever artist living and working in the Asia-Pacific region to be commissioned for the series.

Born in 1957 in Beijing, Ai spent over 10 years in New York before returning to Beijing to establish the experimental artists’ group East Village. Today Ai’s better described as a social and cultural commentator, a political activist, an architect and a critic whose work encompasses a wide range of challenging and often provocative activity, from smashing antique Ching vases to gathering 1001 Chinese to ‘colonizing’ the German town Kassel. Ai is critical of the Chinese political state and has recently been ‘attacked’ by Chinese police in an attempt to stopping him from attending protests.

His most recent work involves installing a video camera to record the journey of the famous Danish Little Mermaid, which is making a remarkable trip from Copenhagen to Shanghai to attend the World Expo so that 70 million people can experience the iconic symbol of the Danish capital. The 5 foot statue has been cut loose and lifted onto a truck at a ceremony today but the exact route she is taking remains a secret.

While the Mermaid is on vacation, Ai has placed a video camera on her spot at the harbour to document and reveal the scenes she encounters. Lord Mayor of the City of Copenhagen Frank Jensen says: “We are proud to lend the Little Mermaid to China. I am convinced that she will be an excellent ambassador of Denmark...At the same time I am delighted that Ai Weiwei’s video installation will make it possible for the Danes to follow her throughout her journey.”

The Little Mermaid is unable to comment today but considering that she has never left Denmark since she was born in 1913 and was twice beheaded and had her arm cut off, we think the holiday is long overdue. Freedom is indeed a risky business, even when you are a statue.

To see the free broadcast of the video footages, visit http://www.thenewsmarket.com/denmark Full post...

Not Your Average Pet

“We are Pet Conspiracy, we are from China but we don’t eat pets”, such is the introduction to this young and bold electroclash band from Beijing, led by Helen Feng, an America fed and educated Chinese and an Italian drummer Edo. Now “Queen of the Beijing Rock scene”, Feng has released several EPs while with Pet and other bands, including the nostalgic Depot and club friendly Don’t You Move.

Pet Conspiracy '09 European Tour (Black Betty)

Formed in 2008, with over 250 gigs under the belt, the Pets are ambitious and aiming high. Simian, Crystal Castles and LCD Sound Systems are the names they often mention. Already toured in Berlin and several major cities in Europe in 09, their up and coming show is at Beijing Yugong Yishan supporting the almighty Peaches on the 24^th of April. Expect to see some jumping off stage, pulling down speakers and tipping over monitors as a warm-up for Peaches from these naughty Pets. A destructive London visit is surely looming up this year.

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