Shen
Shaomin, "Handle with Care No. 29," 2014, oil on canvas, 36 x 36
inches (91.5 x 91.5 cm) Image Courtesy the artist and Klein Sun Gallery |
Shen Shaomin, April 2014, photograph Luise Guest |
The offerings in Sydney's commercial galleries over this summer just past have been a little lacklustre. Other than Zhang Huan's impressive and moving Buddha of ash, and the chaotic and anarchic visit of those Duchampian jokers, The Yangjiang Group, there hasn't been a lot to get excited about. The new exhibition at White Rabbit, 'State of Play', is provocative and interesting - quite a different curatorial "take" on works from Judith Neilson's collection, with a dark interpretation of the notion of play. Memorable works include MadeIn Company's leather and chain, bondage and discipline, spiky Gothic cathedral, Zhang Dali's beautifully ethereal cyanotype, and Yang Yongliang's giant cigarette, which is suspended from the ceiling (in fact, from a hole cut into the floor above), ashing layers and layers of multi-storey towers, referencing what Yang sees as the destruction of the unique character of his home city of Shanghai, and his sadness at the way that globalisation and modernity have made everyplace the same place.
The big blockbuster show over the Sydney summer was 'Pop to Popism' at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, by all accounts a financial success of a somewhat limited kind. I must confess I enjoyed it immensely: it reminded me forcibly of the excitement of being seventeen and discovering Warhol, Hockney, Jim Dine, Nike de Saint Phalle and Marisol. I went to Europe at eighteen and thought I had arrived in heaven in the Pompidou, in a room with George Segal and Ed Kienholz. The artworks, not the artists. Apart from nostalgically visiting my long-lost girlhood, though, I liked the connections established between the original Pop artists and the latter day inheritors of Pop. But where, I wondered, were the Chinese Political Pop painters? This seemed a most bizarre exclusion from what was otherwise a very comprehensive show. Much too important to simply ignore without explanation, their absence left a weird hole in the narrative.
When Robert Rauschenberg showed in Beijing in 1985 (a triumph of American soft diplomacy) it was one of those ground-breaking exhibitions that changes the course of art history. He met with the avant-garde artists of the day, in a series of rather frustrating conversations characterised by misunderstanding and mutual incomprehension, but the effect on Beijing's nascent contemporary art scene was explosive. In combination with the opening-up of China to Western ideas, and the influences of Duchamp, Warhol and Beuys, this exhibition is the influential experience that almost every Chinese artist of that generation refers to. Rauschenberg, Johns, Warhol and the cool ironic stance of American Pop was perfectly suited to artists emerging from the traumas of the Cultural Revolution. Artists such as Fang Lijun, Zhang Xioagang and the much-copied Yue Minjun, among others, developed two influential movements, Political Pop and Cynical Realism, perfect expressions of the zeitgeist ("Shidai Jinsheng" in Chinese.) After his years in New York's East Village, even Ai Weiwei wanted to be "yige Beijing de Andy Warhol."
Shen Shaomin, Summit (Castro), 2010, silica gel and mechanical breathing system,image courtesy the artist |
Shen Shaomin, Handle with Care #10,2014,
oil on canvas, 35 x 23 1/4 inches (89 x 59 cm) image courtesy of the artist and Klein Sun Gallery |
Shen
Shaomin, "Handle with Care No. 19," 2014, oil on canvas, 36 x 36
inches (91.5 x 91.5 cm) image courtesy the artist and Klein Sun Gallery |
As with much of his earlier work, Shen Shaomin challenges us to think about the distinction between the real and the ideal; the real and the fake. His earlier works of hybrid creatures made of real animal bones and bone meal, his tortured bonsai plants chained in their ceramic pots, and most particularly the work previously shown at the same New York gallery, 'I heard the voice of God' all reveal an artist who is dealing with the big issues. That installation, made from the nose cone of a rocket from the Chinese space program which had fallen to earth ("You can buy anything in China!" Shen told me) engraved with text from the Book of Revelations - in Braille - suggests a darkly pessimistic view of the world. At first you might be inclined to dismiss these new works as a clever, but slightly facile art joke. You would be wrong to do so. An artist with a team of assistants to fabricate his works, Shen is asking us to consider whether contemporary art is any more than another branded luxury good, and whether the art market is different to any other market.
Shen Shaomin, "Handle with
Care No. 15," 2014, oil on canvas, 35 x 23 1/4 inches (89 x 59 cm)
Image Courtesy the Artist and Klein Sun Gallery
|
Like Wang Luyan, Ai Weiwei, Guan Wei and Wang
Gongxin, all of whom spent years living outside China, Shen’s work today
emerges from his own particular generational experience. In the early
1980s there were no commercial galleries and no art market. Artists met in each
other’s homes to discuss ideas and to make experimental work with limited
resources. There was much excitement and a growing awareness of western
contemporary art practices including performance and installation art. I asked
Shen what unites the artists of his generation - what makes them different from
younger artists: “The difference for my generation of artists is they are
idealistic, but for young artists they are more commercial. In our time there
was no market for our art so we never even thought about making money. Now it
is very different. For the young artists, even just after graduation, or from
their graduation exhibition, they can sell their work and make lots of money.
Then they just keep doing the same kind of work.” He thought for a minute, then
laughed and said, “But maybe they are smarter than our generation.”
The twenty paintings in 'Handle with Care', wrapped in their trompe l'oeil bubble wrap, are presented leaning against the wall as if propped there before or after the install of the show, subverting our expectations of the seamless experience of viewing art hung at eye level in the white cube of the gallery. He alludes to the fact that artworks are just another commodity, globally traded, and shipped around the world. Yes, packed in bubble wrap.