At the Maillol Museum in Paris, the exhibition "China Gold" does not
hide the influence of modern Western art on Chinese artists. The China
fascinates as much as it's scary. The cliché of the "Yellow
Peril" comes from the East shapes our Western unconscious for a long
time. In Chinese culture, yellow is the color of the earth and the
"supreme power" imperial. "China Gold" brings together
thirty-five contemporary artists, among the most prominent. The land,
the country is pervasive and it feels like a uncomfort. The uncomfort
of a society on the path to social changes due to a dizzying growth.
The exodus of rural mingongs, these migrants workers in the cities in
search of a better life, bringing in their wake misery. They are being
staged like a Ettore Scola in Ugly, dirty and evil, by the photographer
Wang Qingsong. They are still processing architecture of Beijing, where
most working artists in a paradox between tradition and modernity,
pagodas and towers of glass, Forbidden City and Olympic Stadium. The
artists explore the doubt of a nation marked by the legacy in many
respects criminality of cultural revolution. Thus the dark faces
painted by Zhang Dali clear where the graffiti "AK 47", the notorious
Soviet weapons. We discover a China or rises timidly the veil of
cultural taboos and moral. Those of sexuality, nudity bodies, abuse of
human relations in a country where the population is mostly male,
dramatic consequence of the one-child policy. The trends are pictorial
inflencées by the artistic movements of the sixties, in
aesthetics and criticism of the consumer society. From the pop art
performances, through conceptual art. These are facilities Ai Wei Wei,
directly inspired by "ready-mades" of Marcel Duchamp, these objects
reflect everyday life and become works of art as a urinal becomes a
"fountain". The performance of a masochistic photographed He Yunchang
who does not hesitate to be immersed in a concrete block for
twenty-four hours. Economic power is uncontested, the Middle-earth is a
dream-it cultural power? In any case, it is aware of the aura of its
artists in the world. Their works fought price of gold on the art
market, prey to speculation of Western collectors. Recently, the
Chinese upper social class that rising interest near the productions of
his countrymen. The art reflects society? After gold medals Olympic
gold black… The exhibition "China Gold" invites to figure out
on the elusive China, always in search of the precious metal, through
its contemporary artists.
Musée
Maillol. Until
13 october 2008.
