City Passer-By, Zhong Biao

Coca-Cola, Wang Guangyi

Wang Guangyi was one of the most famed political pop artists in China who produced a series of artworks titled the 'Great Criticism' series that earned him fame. it was done with political pop style and anatomic structuralism to record his thought about the effect of the influx of large quantities of western commodities has on CHinese Culture. This influx is interpreted as an invasion of Western culture. i.e. this series of works combines ideology (communism) with advertisement (capatilism) to criticize the apparent truths both seem to tout.

Zhong Biao has captured the pulse of China’s social reform through visual symbols familiar in contemporary Chinese culture. In his own quiet way, Zhong creates visualizations through paradoxical images, combining scenes from different eras or contrasting colors in the same image. Born in 1968 in Chongquing, Sichuan province of China, Zhong earned a degree from what is now known as the China Academy of Fine Arts. He has used visuals of sculpture and ceramics representing China’s past glories, the Cultural Revolution and modern-life cultural shift symbols including McDonald’s or skyscrapers to explore the idea of contemporary popular culture.

	Add info: As a sensitive artist, Zhong Biao has captured the pulse of China's social reforms through the visual symbols Chinese people are familiar with. He takes the visual experiences of an era as the image source of his works, including sculpture and china representing China's past glories, the labor models of the Cultural Revolution, and such symbols of modern life as McDonalds and Boeing aircrafts. Of course, most symbols are skyscrapers and western-style buildings in old China. What attracts artists is the different meanings of these images, because in the language of ordinary Chinese people, what used to be synonymous with corrupt capitalist society or colonization is now the symbol of modernity. In these new circumstances, images from different eras are frequently taken out of their original context and used repeatedly. And in this process they are continuously endowed with new cultural meanings. Zhong Biao's work is similar to the "knowledge archeology" described by Facult Michael. In "visual archeology" similar to "knowledge archeology," he cuts a section from the visual symbols people are familiar with, then takes out those fragmented symbols from the cultural deposits of different times, and last arranges and combines them in a unique way. What he wants is not to show the meaning of symbols themselves, but to reveal the changing meanings of the images through setting up peculiar scenes. In terms of the similarities in both works, we can see the use of juxposition of images. For Wang, he juxtaposed commercialized brands such as Coca-Cola with Heroic figures from the cultural revolution. For Zhou, he created a a juxposition of colour where he contrasted grey tone imgaes with colourful ones and space where he depicted an interior of a room opening up into an open space of what seems to be a westernized village (people walking around and old looking western buildings) Nonetheless, as an artist, Zhong Biao adheres to "visualization" to accomplish his "archeological work." Instead of juxtaposing concepts, he expresses himself through paradoxical scenes. While his early works usually juxtapose cultural images from different times, his later works are characterized by more transformation. He sets color dimensionality against time direction. The artist's imagination adds color to aged images, yet the images close our daily life are deprived of any color and context. Living people lose color, yet the dresses and accessories they wear, which are the symbols of the era, stay on. With the fading away of colors, the limit between reality and memory is completely destroyed and illusion begins. This illusion, rather than being founded on pure biological sensation as in the case of surrealism, is based on cultural accumulation and memory. If surrealist style is but a reflection of the identity crisis experienced by people during the earlier rapid industrialization, then Zhong Biao's works appear to have initiated a "new surrealist style," which embodies an individual's doubt about his knowledge. Hence, differing from Wang who employs a more direct visual juxtaposition of bold striking images, Zhou plays up with the colours and brings in surrealism and exploring the cultural crisis subtly and deeper. Zhong Biao's unique work style means that his cultural attitude is entirely different from that of Wang's. Wang was eager to put across was his own attitude, criticizing either ideology or commercial culture. Zhong Biao seems to keep a distance from this sort of criticism. In his works we find the calmness unique to intellectuals. What he considers is not how to criticize, but the source of evidence for our criticism and how it's meaning undergoes changes. Behind Zhong Biao's approach to China's pop culture and mass culture, we find a new cultural attitude. He is unlike Wang who deals with pop culture, mixing his works with real pop culture under the pretext of concept. For Wang, he appropiated Warholian Pop Art into Political Pop art, a style of Pop Art with icons from propaganda posters of Chinese Cultural Revelution done in Warholian style of simplifying images into blocks of flat colours. As such, his works were very striking and saturated, bringing forth the irony very strongly and directly in a somewhat abstract pop style, critizing the conflicting values of communism and capatilism in China. On the other hand, in Zhong Biao's works, we can see that through the creation of illusions and the incompleteness of images he gives up not only the antagonistic relations between art and mass culture but also the attempt to control mass culture. Futhermore, we can see that he achieves this through realistic approach and his visualization (use of colour tones). Through 'visualization' Zhong Biao has staked out his own claim within the domain of mass culture.

ART AND SOCIETY

Art as we all know, has evolved greatly throughout the years and in my opinion, has inevitably become an integral part of society today.

Society has several aspects such as the "Arts and Entertainment", "Business, Science and Technology", "Communication and Media", "Disadvantaged and Marginalized", "Education and School", "Family and Home", and "Government and Leadership".

Arts and Entertainment

The Arts is a broad subdivision of culture, composed of many disciplines. It is a broader term than "Art" which mainly refers only to the visual arts. Instead, it encompasses art, literature, performing arts (music, dance, drama etc.) and film.

Entertainment is the amusement or diversion provided by people, especially performers. It is a form of activity or stunt that engages and captures the attention of people, hence, entertaining them.

As we can see from the above definitions, Art is evidently present in this sector and probably even the most crucial ingredient in both areas. It is the source of creavity that creates the "Art" in "Arts" (hope that made sense) and exists in entertainment (haha, sorry, kind of lame here). Nonetheless, we can see that Art naturally plays a part in this area. Art, Arts and Entertainment all revolve around each other, without Art, there would be not Arts and without Arts, there would be no form of entertainment.

Business, Science and Techonlogy

Business refers to the industrial or commercial enterprise and the people who constitute it. It is acitivity of providing goods and services and where there are like financial transactions etc.

In relations to Art, my opinion is that Art can sometimes be used as business transactions. For example, art itself is a business, there are like shops around selling paintings or art stuff. Also, especially regarding the "high society" people, there's like a whole other world out there where famous artworks are being bidded for or even traded for. Art collectors which are basically narrowed down to the really really rich people fork out like millions to get artworks like Damien Hirst's pieces!

For Science and Technology, it is probably one of the most evident sectors that is rapidly growing and influencing society. It has allowed several developments in the medical, media, transportation, infrastructure areas etc.

Now, to many, Science and Technology may be worlds apart, while one relies on logic and the other on creativity and imagination, this is definitely proven to not be true as seen several artists works such as Nam June Paik or Bill Viola's work! Science and Technology together with Art run along such a fine line, as S & T develops, we can see that Art follows suit. In the past, video installations or TV installations could not be created. Take for example, the Cathode ray tubes used in heaven and earth by Bill and Viola was only made possible thanks to the advancements in S & T and the artistic manipulations of it by the artist.

Communications and Media

Communications refer to the audio interations between people and how we relate to one another through speech or conveying messages to each other. Media is like a channel where these messages can be conveyed or broadcasted.

In my opinion, Communications is the act of sending information from one thing or person to another. Regarding Art, communication is needed, be it the communication between the art and viewer or art and society, communication is crucial. Firstly, for an artwork to create an impact on the viewers, the artist has to be able to convey the message behind it to the viewer through this "invisible communication" which to me, is the viewer's interpretation. Secondly, for art and society, we can see from the Singpost event that communication is crucial for Art to gain acceptance from society.

The Media is a channel of communication. In society, Media has grown to be highly dependent on technology which can be seen through the use of the television, radio, computer etc. It is a form where ideologies and messages are being sent out to the public. As seen from Nam June Paik, his works are highly revolved around the Media where he shows us how dependent we have become on it through works like the "Techno Buddha" etc. Also, Art is pretty evident in the media which can be seen through the use of creativty and expressive/ artistic forms used in advertisements or posters.

Disadvantaged and Marginalized

The Disadvantaged and Marginalized in society are people like those handicapped, mentally disbaled, aged, racially or religiously discriminated, foreign workers etc. Also, Marginalized refers to those living on the borders on society, going unnoticed, and probably insignificant to many.

In the case of Art, i believed that Art has been used as a channel o raise the awareness of this group of people in society and even elevate their status. Such social artists are like Dede Eri Supria, Duane Hanson and even Chua Mia Tee who choose such people as their subject Matter. For Supria, he paints images are people who have been left behind and swept aside by urbanization, i.e. the poor. For Hanson, he picked common everday people who lived life by the sidelines like cleaners in the mall or even highlighted the idea of ageism. For Chua, he highlighted the blue collar people who worked hard to build up the infrastructures of society.

Education and School

Education has been to date, one of the most important and taken care of sectors in society. Especially in Singapore, Education is very significant and as we can see, many schools are goverment funded and education is compulsory up to the secondary level.

In the recent years, I believe that Art has been gaining more recognization in Schools and the Art education has improved greatly, take for example, art is a compulsory subject up to Secondary 2 (well, this was for my school and i think many others!) The Art education is really diversed where students are exposed to many forms of art such as photography, batik, painting, fashion, digital editting etc.Furthermore, when they move on to a higher level, take H2 art for example, students are exposed to SOVA where they learn the history and how to appreciate art. Also, schools as NAFA and LASELLE and the oncoming SOTA have been set up to provide a more wholesome Art education.

Family and Home

Family consists of a group of people, whether nuclear or extended who share a close bond, they provide emotional, psychological, financial support and moral guidance etc. The Home is the physical aspect of it which contains the family.

For Art, I believe that many influences have been derived from the family itself. Art is a mean of expressing one's self. Family is the mould that shapes the child's character from young and imparts several values onto him or her. Hence, I believe that many of the inspirations and meanings of the work are closely realted to the family. For example, William De Kooning was a kid who was i think afraid of his mother and saw her as some monstrous figure or something and thus, took it out through his artworks by painting women in disproportional terrorizing figrues, defacing them and not respecting them as his subject matter. On the other hand, we can also see artists like Chuck Close who painted his family members, like the one on Emma because he wanted to commit to memory those who mattered to him.

Government and Leadership

In today's society, the Government is the Leadership and has authority over almost every aspect of the country. They decide what goes and how things should be ran.

As mentioned above, Art has been gaining more recognition in the years to come and there are more Singaporean artists arising, even breaking out overseas and entering exhibitions, competitions etc. Also, we can see that Singapore has been having more and more exhibitions such as the Singapore Biennale 2008 where the public contemporary works were showcased.

Art in relation to the Leadership of the Government has to work hand it hand, without the Government's support, Art could slowly die off as it may be restricted and go off unnoticed. For example, Tang Da Wu did that performance art thing to indirectly make the government aware that they needed to give more support to the local art scene.

SingPost apologises for publicity stunt???

What was supposed to be an eye catching publicity stunt for the YOG turned out to be an eye sore for the public. In this recent case, about 6 post boxes scattered around the entire country were spray-painted by this ominous character known as the "Inkman". Such a stunt was to publicize YOG with its theme being "Express Yourself".

Regarding this case, the stakeholders were the public, Singpost and A Group Of People. In response this to case, the public reacted negatively, it had apparently caused some sort of inconvenience to them, shocking them out of their comfort zones. The police which in the case represents the voice of the public said that "this whole episode had caused unnecessary public alarm and wasted valuable resources". For the SingPost, they were probably demoralised and unexpectant of this outcome from the public. To them, "it seemed like a good idea" to support the theme of YOG which was basically the freedom of expression, and hence, the idea of Graffiti. (a more youth orientated form of expression) In order market this theme, they employed the help of a local events agency A Group Of People who carried out this stunt along with its main character, the inkman. Thus, these two organizing parties who merely wanted to promote this idea ended up being baffled by its negative outcomes, having to explain their actions as well as apologize for it.

Now, what exactly is graffiti? In definition, it is markings, as initials, slogans, or drawings, written, spray-painted, or sketched on the sidewalk, wall of a building, the door of public toilets etc. Graffiti originated in the late 1960s and has been developing ever since. However, it is not readily being accepted as being art like those works found in galleries or museums. It is not strictly being denied the status of genuine art because of a lack of form or other base aesthetic elements. In my opinion, most of the opposition to Graffiti art is due to its location, bold, unexpected and unconventional presentation, but its presentation and often illegal location does not disqualify it as art. Furthermore, as we proceed into a ever changing contemporary society, many ideas and beliefs are being stretched and limitations are being questions. Especially in the form of art, what is art?

This graffiti stunt to me is definitely considered art, I mean, it is aesthetically engaging, vibrant, colourful, interestingly designed and there is a message behind it! Also, as it is a stunt, is it not like a performance art as well? Overall, this work of art is able to visually engage a viewer as well as convey its message, which is the freedom of expression, the essence of "Express Yourself". Furthermore, it is more youth centered and hence, very relevant.

Despite its aesthetic qualities, this graffiti stunt is considered as a sort of crime to the public and was taken very negatively. As the art world grows more and more and becomes more contemporary, the boundaries between art and society's perception becomes increasingly blurred.

In this case, some saw it as a crime, as if vandalizing the post box and hence, were worried it may spark of an increase of vandalism. For many, this stunt was unacceptable and stepped onto their morals and Conservative perspective, thus unable to tolerate it. Also, with this "Kiasu" nature integrated into many of us, many were very sensitive to this issue and would have preferred not to take the risk of exposing the younger generation to such acts. Moving on, with such narrow-minded Singaporeans, they were unable to see the light in the situation which was the artistic expression, instead, it was seen as a vandalising act and to some, vandalizing acts were only carried out by shady/ gangster/ criminal characters.

Overall, the lessons that can be drawn from this incident is that the public is not yet ready to accept this form of art, also, its not that we are distrusting of one another, in general, many would rather take precaution then to take risks in the form of freeing the mind and expressing one's self.