New Chinese Art

I am incredibly (and unreasonably) busy at the moment. I have taken up a new role (still in the same agency) part of the time Account Handling and part of the time copywriting. Undecided about whether I will write about the new job.



Above: Anyway, I was not so busy that I couldn't spare the time to see the New Chinese Art exhibition at the new Saatchi Gallery. I have to say that I am not a great admirer of Charles Saatchi either as a person (he's a bit too oleaginous) or as a leader of the advertising profession. And my visit to the gallery did not get off to a good start - as I was taking the above photograph a security guard came up to me and told me the building was private property and no photographs were allowed.

This seems very high-handed, especially when you consider it is a Grade II former military building, built originally with taxpayers money.



Above: the first gallery had these architectural models constructed from a sort of gel. They are all Western buildings. They reminded me of Salvador Dali's Soft Watches.



Above: the artist is Liu Wei who likes to illustrate cultural anxiety.



Above: I particularly liked these enormous portraits by Zhang Xiaogang. These haunted faces are inspired by family photographs taken during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. George Orwell's 1984 didn't happen in the West (at least, it hasn't happened yet) but the Cultural Revolution was a Chinese expression of Orwell's prophecy.



Above: not sure what to make of this work by Yue Minjun, which is "a response to the spiritual vacuum and folly of modern-day China.”



Above: Yue Minjun sits soberly on a sofa, cackled at by one of his manic creations.



Above: going around the gallery were these two young Chinese lovers. They looked carefully (and for several minutes) at each exhibit. They held hands but didn't talk to each other.



Above: in an addition worthy of James Purnell, Mao has been inserted into the Yalta Conference photoshoot.



Above: Li Qing produced this unusual image of the British Royal Family c1981. He has subverted the imagery by applying communist stars to the drapery. This pixelated painting is meant to "explore the authenticity of documentation".



Above: Chinese Offspring by Zhang Dali. From a distance it reminded me of Lionel Ritchie's Dancing on the ceiling. The artist intends the work to portray internal Chinese immigrants "the uncertainty of their life and their powerlessness in changing their own fates.



Above: a parody of socialist realism by Wang Guangyi.