Free Enterprise (1998)
Wang Guangyi Biography and Artwork at Saatchi-gallery
Wang Guangyi belongs to the category of Chinese contemporary art termed Political Pop: work that appropriates the visual tropes of the propaganda of the Cultural Revolution, reworking them in the flat, colorful style of American Pop. To understand the works of artists engaged in this practice, it is important to recognize the significance and specificity of the images they are using to fashion their work. Without this knowledge, the work of artists like Wang Guangyi may be reduced to a mere aestheticization of the experiences of the Cultural Revolution, a view which threatens to limit the discussion of these works to their formal elements, foreclosing more important ideological and historical questions that must be raised. It is perhaps equally essential, particularly for Western audiences, to keep in mind the dominance that the Maoist regime held over visual culture and artistic production in China from 1949 to 1976, a control that reached a near totality between 1966 and 1972, during the Gang of Four’s reign[i]. Certainly, the vast legacy of propaganda that resulted from this period will continue to impact artists interested in critically examining China’s recent visual history. After all, these images were more than simply popular; for a time, they were the only ones allowed.
Wang Guangyi’s The Great Criticism series (1998), the artist responds to the influx of a new visual regime: those advertising images promoting newly available, high-priced commodities. In the resulting oil paintings, Wang stages conflicts between classical figures of propaganda and the onslaught of luxury consumer goods entering China. In the first propaganda image below, three heroes of the revolution seem to be manning the front lines of ideology, as Chairman Mao floats above them like a benevolent and watchful god. From left to right the costumes of these three identify them as an industrial laborer, a soldier in the People’s Liberation Army, and a farmer—examples of “red” people, proletariat who would pave the way for the future. The caption below captures the ferocity of their revolutionary zeal: “People around the world, unite! Abolish American Imperialism! Abolish Soviet Reactionaries! Abolish Counter-revolutionaries throughout the country![ii]” The intense animosity of this trio is harnessed and redeployed by Wang Guangyi in The Great Criticism [BMW] (1998), in which the same three figures look defiantly out toward the future of free enterprise and utter a resounding “No!” But what, exactly, is being refused? What is being criticized?
Wang’s works—and others like them—is their ability to resist absolute clarity, instead creating a surprising tension between consumer and Maoist imagery. Without being overtly critical—refusing the tactic of direct accusation that often short-circuits more provocative discussion—Wang is able to call into question both the capitalist and communist symbols in his work, allowing us to see them as conflicting and competing precisely because of their mutual insistence on hegemony. In this way, the artist is indicating the uneasy points of confluence between China’s Maoist past and its promising economic future. These paintings suggest that resistance or protest in the visual arts is deeply dependent of the cultural context in which works are made. For while Wang Guangyi’s works may be read as a critique of China’s new economics today, they may have passed—with slight modification—for government propaganda not too long ago. It is precisely this polyvalence in Wang Guangyi’s paintings that is their greatest strength.
PROFILE
1956
• Born in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province
EDUCATION
• Graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts
• Lives and works in Beijing
His Selected Exhibitions
1. Gallery Klaus Littmann, Basel,
2. Hanart TZ Gallery, Hong Kong
3. Bellet Gallery, Paris, France
4. XLV Biennale di Venezia, Italy (cat.)
5. Mao Goes Pop, China Post 1989, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia (cat.)
6. The First 1990’s Biennial Art Fair, Guangzhou
7. Gallery Bianca Pilat, Milan, Italy
8. Modern Chinese Art, Tokio Art Gallery, Tokio, Japan????????
9. I don’t Want to Play Cards with Cezanne, Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena, California, USA
10. China /Avantgarde, National Arts Gallery, Beijing (cat.)
About the Author
View more information about Wang Guangyi paintings, biography and Exhibitions at The Saatchi Gallery – London contemporary art gallery. Wang Guangyi
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