Cyborg Pieta

Pin Gallery in 798 is currently hosting Bad Exhibition. It is a fantastic exhibition and if you are in the area I suggest visiting.  To learn more about it look at this article from CAFA Art Info.   The work above is of particular interest to me.  Lee Yong Baek, a South Korean artist, created Pieta in 2008.  It is an installation made of FRP and iron plates.   It is incredibly striking measuring 400 x 240 x 320 centimeters (157 x 94 x 126 inches).  Last semester I revisited Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto.   In the manifesto she states that, ““[a] cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature or social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (Haraway 7).

I have appropriated the idea of a cyborg into a way to look at gender–pulling apart a body and reconstructing it.  All bodies are just a collection of parts.    Lee Yong Baek conceptually merges an archetypal symbol of Western art with this idea of the body as non-human.  A Pieta is usually Mary holding Jesus–a female holding a male.  I like to look at these figures as ambiguously gendered but they are most likely two males.

Where’s Waldo

I recently visited a gallery in 798 called Sky Moca.  The gallery space currently features one artist, known as Ding Xiongquan in Beijing and known as Walasse Ting in Europe.  The exhibition was simple and clean.  My first thought when I walked in was of a conversation I had last winter with one of my SAIC professors.  We discussed that the two categories for artwork that we like–one, art we would like to own and two, art that we’d like to write about.  When I entered Sky MocaI initially thought that the gallery held artwork I’d put in the “art I’d like to own” category.

As I strolled around the gallery I was amused by the vibrant colors that would beautifully accent my bright red and white 50′s diner-esque kitchen table set.  Though, I quickly realized that the artwork, though beautiful, quickly began to offend me.   Almost every single work out the the 20 or so in the room exposed one intimate part of a woman.  Women, lounging around in pretty flowers, half nude.  I understand the selection for a cohesive exhibition but I am curious about the intentions of the artist.  As a collection the work became a (very easy) Where’s Waldo book.  Each painting simply highlights a select part of the female figure.

Ding Xiongquan/Walasse Ting is represented by Christies.  He is obviously a well established artist known throughout the international art community.  A Google search brought me work that is very similar to what I saw at Sky Moca.  Ding/Ting has found a nitch and stuck to it.  His nitch is one I truly like aesthetically but do not care for contextually.  Below is an image of one wall that was different from the others in the gallery.  Instead of lightly clad loungers, two paintings that are a bit smaller than the main lot feature women in traditional costume.  These two paintings flank a flower painting that is a bit larger than the others in the gallery.

Please click on this link from Galerie Birch (scroll down) to see a painting by Ding/Ting title Do you want to eat my apples from 1977.  I would LOVE to own that painting with the title card.

Caged Creatures

One of my main goals for the summer is to constantly look at art, I hope to share a lot of that with you here.  This installation is in a main part of the 798 district in Beijing.  My very first full day in Beijing I came across these sculptures. The four figures could speak to many different social issues–evolution and race are at the forefront of my mind.  One website I found said that they are a statement about communism–that was not my first thought but they are in red cages.  As you walk along they diminish in size, their skin tones change to darker shades, and they become less like the notion of the human figure.  I tried to do some research on the sculptures but the only thing I learned was that they have been in 798 for roughly three years.  If anyone knows the artist, title, or date please let me know.

I would love to hear your thoughts, here are some of mine:

I have some random associations with each one.  One nugget I have been carrying around with me for the past few years is subject position.  Living in South Korea made me acutely aware that I did not understand everyone else’s background and perspective.  I am now trying to learn how to make informed judgements without specializing in every culture.  And really, the only way to “specialize” in a culture is to be that culture.  My point in mentioning this is considering my subject position versus a Chinese person’s when disecting these sculptures.  The figure above made me feel guilty for being white.

This one perpetuates my guilty feelings about the first caged figure.

Above, Avatar anyone?

You can climb onto this one.  Hey, Mom and Dad–Christmas Card!

On another note, I love that I could not find any information about this installation.  Not knowing the title and artist is so liberating when you want to truly experience a work of art.  Whenever I view a piece I try my best to ignore the facts on the title card until I have made the work become part of my experience.  This idea is a bit controversial.  Some artists only want the viewer to see the work as they intended, I want people to take my marks and make them part of their biography.