Hey! Low-tech and Brain-quake Life

Su Wenxiang

The name of the exhibition, “Brain-quake”, does not refer to the common symptom produced by a violent shock on the brain. In fact, it is a counterfeited white human brain made by the artist, quivering violently, as the word “concussion” may suggest. A hollow brain made of silica gel and driven by a motor, it keeps “thinking”. The funny vibration of the brain seems to reveal that the artist doesn’t mean to be serious at all, and the big glass mantle is nothing but a pseudo-archeology veil.

             “I’ve concluded that I just like finding troubles for myself.” (cited from Li Xiaosong’s blog).

  Having inherited his knowledge of electric techniques from his father, Li has a persistent interest in things jokingly called by his friends as “low-tech”, and has designed simple machines and dynamic devices for many of his works. This seems so rare today as works filled with “concepts” has prevailed in contemporary art. The image of human brain first appeared in Li Xiaosong’s Once Every X Minutes (Installation, 2005), a work showing the “blood” in vessels surging up every few minutes with the “heartbeat”. In the 2D animation of his Power broker's game (Installation, 2006), thousands of diodes were switched on by turns to make different pictures, and the cute little bulbs on and off at intervals seemed to be teasing the audience instead of telling sadistic stories. Serious things always become something entertaining in Li Xiaosong’s works. Similar cases are I reject to be exposed (Photography, 2005)，a series of photographs showing a common star-and-paparazzi (here played by Li and his student) game on public occasions, and his 6 : 0 (performance and installation, 2006), in which Li invited two men to “play football” above people’s heads by fastening both the men and the ball onto a tall rack.

  Though imagination has no limit, its realization is often harnessed by budget or feasibility of the plan itself. After having a short revel with the completion of the works and their exhibition, Li has to spend most of his time with all his plans, some of which are unlikely to realize forever. But does it matter? Just let the things unable to be realized die off! Most of his plans, however, are still very impressive ones.

  In the eyes of many of his friends, Li Xiaosong has spent much of his time fooling around and never gets serious about things, but this impression has been gradually changed. In his newly made work  In Cloud ( video, 6’ 30”, 2007)，a man with a bald head and naked upper part of his body appears. In the white misty cloud he looks like the famous Buddha in a popular TV series based on the classical Chinese story Journey to the West. This is the artist himself, who resembles a thin monk in appearance. The growing pain shown in his facial expression seems to be telling us the torture he is suffering in the eyes of the audience. The still scene looks very serious, but somehow, is funny at the same time. The artist stays still amid the cloud, but looks floating in the air. In the surging cloud which sometimes changed its pattern slightly, he conducts an introspection of his inner-self. In fact, the “cloud” was the smoke coming from the Chongming Island of Shanghai where the farmers burnt the grass to kill the pests in the shrimp area.

  The artist seems to have got rid of his “low-tech” imaginations and come back to the real life, and the vestige of his childhood heroism and aggressiveness often reappear in his works. But one has to face reality, and the boldness of a young boy is often laughed off the moment it is mentioned. Li, however, has found his own way to review it and has even paid his attention to some of today’s popular topics, such as the war and the terrorism. The artist makes use of his experience of pets-raising in his video Unlimited Justice (Video, 2007). Li and his girlfriend have kept a dog. Every time they throw off a piece of food or a toy, the dog will go at it very quickly and bring it back to them with his mouth. Taking advantage of the dog’s faithfulness, the artist then made a doll of Bin Laden, hid it behind the trees and let the dog find it again and again. We cannot help thinking about the US, a nation that hastily launched two wars after the “911” to get rid of some of her foes but make new ones at the same time. Who are our true enemies anyway? Almost all the major countries were faced with such problems during the Cold War. In Li’s video, the “enemies” of the dog are the two dolls, but in the real world, what the American Army is searching for seems only to be a video or recording tape of “Bin laden”.

  We have to think that perhaps the war and even the whole process of human beings is a series of set rites—everything is planned and comes like one act after another in a play. This may sound like fatalism, but man has to show his prudence or esteem about a thing through rites, like we prove our courage and power through the war. However, hollow actions without the sense of rites are a reflection of spiritual crisis. Symptom (Video, 5’ 55”, 2007)，another video of Li, also shows its profound connection to the rite. Different from the hollowness presented in Unlimited Justice，Symptom demonstrates the artist’s fight and breaking-up with his inner-self. Every time the name of a disease is called, a corresponding man of straw will be burnt. “Devils arise from one’s own mind”—the artist has to get connected to his inner-self which has broken all the restrictions and waked up, to exorcise the devils through the rite of sorcery.
       
             However, if you think that Li Xiaosong is getting serious, you are also making a mistake. He still keeps his humorous nature with two smiling eyebrows on his face. But if one day he frowned, perhaps that means he has new ideas about his work. Let us wait and see.

  2007 / 6

Conversation 10+10

 Conversation and Conversation about Painting

In a remote mountain area near Katmandu, Jean- Francois Revel, the French thinker once held a conversation with his son, Matthieu Ricard who had converted to Buddism. It was a collision between Buddism and Western thinking. The Analects of Confucius, a record of conversations between Confucius and his disciples, has been teaching later generations justice, ethics and learning strategies. The great philosopher Socartes did not write any book during his life. All we have are the conversations he made which were recorded by his disciples Plato and Xenophon. Even though Slavoj Zizek was not in favor of Plato’s conversations, which he thought was affected, he still could not reject conversation altogether. We learnt his point of view through his conversations.

Historical conversations seem to have accompanied the progress of human thoughts. In other words, it is through conversation that people’s ideas become clearer and clearer. This is the goal Conversation 10 + 10 aspires to.  Here, conversation is easy and free; it is not the cautious and precise style that thick biographies usually adopt. Certainly we watch our words when we have political disputes because the kind of conversation happening here precludes grand declarations. We only want to conduct conversations with artists to reveal their true lives as well as their works to the audience.

Moreover, this exhibition has another objective: to allow paintings and non-painting works of art to interact. Note, however, that here we encourage conversation, not dialogue.  Dialogues are likely to lead to vicious competition, but the natural communication like the conversation between the paintings and non-paintings sharing the same space may elicit inspirations mutually.  Like two soul mates trapped in different historical periods, even if they cannot become lovers, they can still call each other friends.

The long and winding history of art brought along numerous -isms. Artists, especially artists nowadays are at the crossroads of various fractions and schools of art. It is especially evident in painting.  Categorization is usually helpful in the study of art, as it creates a connotation for the understanding of art.  Nevertheless, if critics and art historians find joys purely in the labeling of things, then the study of art is merely a monotonous exercise.  Such exercises ignore and deny individual artist’s creative spirit and hard work.  One of the reasons for this phenomenon has is the rise of investment in art. Compared with the other categories of artwork, painting is easier to sell and collect. To some extent market-demand has influenced and regulated painters, and is tempting other artists as well.

However, the above is not our reason for focusing on painting. In fact, we do not just focus on painting only despite the fact that it has already given us much to ponder upon.  Artists are going to keep working with fresh blood continuing joining in. Our true interest and humble wish is to provide opportunities like the conversation mentioned so as to bring about more outstanding works, not only in painting.

Introduction:

The theme of Conversation 10 + 10 is “the multi-dimensional expressions of painting”.  The exhibition includes 20 artists, among which ten present their paintings, while the other ten present works such as installation, video, photography and performance that reflect upon the idea of painting.  On the one hand, non-painting works demonstrate different expressions that enrich and redefine painting as a concept.  On the other hand, the ten painters contemplate the potentials and possibilities within the painting medium, and present innovative visual experiences that are rich in diversity.  Twenty artists working independently in different domains but also interconnected, it is a collective artistic expression at the intersection of different artistic ideals.  This is the essence of “multi-dimensional expressions”.