This is revolutionary, a start of a new era, this is fresh, exciting and sooooooo cool– Those are the thoughts and feels i had when first saw the video on David Hockney’s recent exhibition “Fresh Flower” in Paris. Click here to check it out and to see what you would think…
Look what the high tech would do/is doing to the art word, to artists, to everyone, to our daily life- isn’t this amazing?!
Posted in artist, exhibition
Tagged "fresh flowers", Brushes, David Hockney, iPad, iPhone, Paris
During my research, paintings from a Chinese female artist Cai Jin (蔡锦， 1965－) attracted my attention. I am not a pro in artwork evaluation at all; her works draw me in with the fascinating colors and the marvelous way she applied it. Cai Jin’s series of Dried Canna Lily reminds me of a great female artist Georgia O’keefe. On the similar topic of flower but with completed different approaches/technics that each creates its own unique feeling on their viewers. It seems to me that today’s painters, unlike other artists dealing with art forms other than drawings, have the most difficult time since almost all the high points in every directions in drawings have been reached by all the great masters in the recent history. When everything has been done, one needs some serious talent to break through.
Another Chinese female artist Pan YuLiang (潘玉良，1895-1977) is considered as a female pioneer painter of west style in the recent art history in China. Her real life story was so legend, so tale like that it has been turned into films lately. Click here to read Pan’s story with some of her paintings.
PS: photos from Cai Jin’s website, click here to see more her paintings and artworks.
Lately I have been doing a research on Chinese female artists/painters in the present history. The idea came from my last-minute-studying on one of the exhibitions that we will visit in Paris (next week!) which is called elles@centrepompidou, a thematic exhibition held by the French National Modern Art Museum. By half way through the “Elles”, a book on exhibition with almost 400 pages and tons of pictures for over 200 female artists worldwide, I didn’t find any Chinese female artistes’ names/works. I suddenly realize: even as a native Chinese, I could give you lists of influential Chinese female authors/performers/film directors, but not a single name of a female artists/painters from the present day. Some homework has to be done.
During the research, a female artist XiaoLu (肖鲁, 1962–) really stands out. Indeed, the contemporary art in China is a man’s world. Yet XiaoLu, has set the contemporary art history’s landmark in China with 2 gun shorts she fired as a part of her experimental artwork in 1989 (shown in the picture above). I was a kid back then but I don’t think many of the other Chinese would have known or were aware of this incident which actually swirled the politic and society within and beyond China (omen of the TianAnMen Square massacre shortly afterward). For me, the most fascinating part comes from after 15 years in 2003 when XiaoLu ravealed for the first time of her version of the story: 26 years old, just broke up with boyfriend, frustrated, disappointed and also confused by relationship between male/female, she designed that collaborative piece “conversation” as expression of intimate feelings and with gun shots to also voice out a feeling of “break down”–a pure artistic experiment of a young woman’s inside world without any political intention that claimed by the others later on.
Interestingly XiaoLu made another piece called “15 gun shots– from 1989 to 2003” when she separated from her 15-years long living partner Tong Song, who helped to set up the “conversation” and became her lover afterwards. XiaoLu commented on her work “15 years long, no marriage, no kids, all the way he wants. To me, love is the life’s ideal and I am living for it… I have forgotten myself.” “15 years ago I shot the “me” in the mirror; 15 years after I shot the “me” by facing myself… we are done.”
In XiaoLu’s case, an artwork is tied with her personal life/fate when it implemented with particular time and place. Today XiaoLu is still working on sculptures in her studio in Beijing. (see photos below)
2. A full story on what on earth happend in the 1989 incident that made XiaoLu a star (in Chinese)
Click on for a short summary of XiaoLu’s achievement after 1989
the last 2 photos from Mr. Lin Fei’s blog
His name is Cai Guoqiang (蔡国强） — my favorite contemporary Chinese-born artist. As a bold originator of new art forms Cai has received global recognition for his talent.
I remember when I first heard of him with his gunpowder drawings, I immediately felt a close tie. At least, as Chinese, we all love fireworks during Chinese New Year. Reading the book Cai guo-Qiang by Munroe (AMZN: http://amzn.com/0892073713) helped me to know how Cai through the last 20 years has experimented with gunpowder and transformed this material, one of the Chinese oldest inventions, into an art form. A transformation which makes me further appreciate the creative spirit at work in an artist in full mastery of their medium. As commented by Alexandra Munroe “Cai uses explosive to manifest the pure force of energy, not as a means to art but as an art form itself.”
My first encounter with Cai’s art however was uniquely odd. It was July 3rd, 2006, at 12:00 noon precisely, on the roof of Metropolitan Museum. There supposed to be a black cloud of smoke appearing above the Museum’s Roof Garden. A single shot of gunpowder. Poof. Black Cloud. That was the expectation as I stood among a modest group of forty or so, stretching my neck, staring into the sky and afraid to blink for fear of missing the expected event. The clear blue sky above NY on that day was beautiful but it was hot, bright and the direct sun made it almost impossible to catch a spot in this spotless sky! Minutes later, whispers started “ have you see any thing?” “I think I saw it!” ”where? where”? “Heard the gun fired?” “There! There!” “well, I don’t think I saw it”. As you can picture, most of us were very unfortunate and disappointed. “That’s it?!” was my reaction. Years later, I realize that this scene on the roof of Met sticks in my mind, maybe because I missed that black cloud, maybe because I had never looked into NY’s sky, or any other sky in such a concentrated way, it was an unforgettable few minutes that Cai created through interacting with his viewers in such an intense way. Yes, it was intense. At that time I would’ve never imagined that when I saw Cai’s art again, it would be a CRASH……
To know more about the artist, see Cai GuoQiang’s website.
Photos below:
1) Cai looking toward Manhattan, April 20, 1996.
2) Creation of gunpowder drawing Black Fireworks, 2005 (both photos from the book by Munroe)
3) Transparent Monument.
4) Move Along, Nothing to See Here (both are installations from “On the Roof” for Met, 2006)
A Chinese Docent 
