Kan Tai-Keung - Other artworks

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Reference : http://www.izhsh.com.cn/doc/9/7_519.html

Kan Tai-Keung - Infinite Quest

        

        When Kan Tai-Keung is designing, he will ask himself many questions and keep finding the answers of them, and this is what 'Infinite Quest' means. One time, he asked himself why was he only chasing other's style, but not trying to create a new style. This became the turning point of making his 'ink wash style'. However, after several years, he start asking himself are adding ink wash painting or chinese writing the only way to show chinese culture. Below are some artworks created after he got the answer of this question.

        You can see there is only a broken ruler and teared papers. This is an artwork created when Kan Tai-Keung teaching a class in Beijing. He wanted to tell his students 'Creativity Breaks the Rules'. It is carrying out a meaning, without destruction there will be no construction. Which is a philosophical thought in chinese culture. Without any ink wash painting or any chinese writing, this artwork still carrying chinese element. 

 Superwoman - A Tale of Four Cities

        This is another example. Kan used Shuangcheng as an idea and create this series of poster to representing the life of modern woman. He turned four english words into four chinese words which have the same pronunciation, and the chinese words are the name of the cities. No doubt that Kan is really creative, which he can combine chinese culture into western style design very perfectly.

Hong Kong Dong Xi

        Hong Kong Dong Xi means Hong Kong things, which means the culture of Hong Kong. Though his creative mind, he simplily combine the the most common things in Hong Kong together, Mahjong and Sparrow. Usually people in Hong Kong will play Mahjong and have a sparrow as a pet, but this culture is disappearing. This is also a good example of combining chinese culture with western style design.

        We can see Kan is not only putting some logo of dragon, azalea, phoenix or cloud into the paper, and call that is a chinese artwork. Many people may think chinese design is old-fashioned but Kan's design is trendy. Kan makes many people re-recognize chinese style.

Cheung Dali - Pekin Fine Arts

        Cheung Dali is an artist from Peking, all of his artworks is about people or environment around him. You can see the focus changes between different series of his artworks, from environmental changes to human changes, from changes of the world to changes of human mind. You may see the change in two series below.

Race

        In this series, Cheung Dali used resin and glass fiber to cast life-size sculpture, and used real human to be the mold. The reason why he used real human is because he thinks a simpler artwork can express the meaning more easily. Also the artwork may have more detail facial expression of that person. All of these people are the migrant workers in China, He wants to record the states of the people at that moment. Cheung Dali is focusing the appearance and use it to express the feeling in this series, he called this is materialism.

        I think the workers in this artwork is expressing the sadness, injustice and helplessness at that moment. And the pigeon is representing peaceful, and this may be a hope of Cheung Dali. 

Cyanotype

        In this series, Cheung Dali start focusing the inner world of people, what do they think, since he believe the mind of people is more important. He thinks his artworks start nearing to idealism. And he find out cyanotype is a good way to express "mind".

        I really appreciate Cheung Dali, he is keep on finding new way that can more precisely express his feel. His artwork is easy to understand. And due to this, his artwork is powerful.

        Here is a combination of both series. You can see the worker seems like more helpless and lonely. And you can see how strong is the expressivity of his artworks.

Yayoi Kusama

Self Obliteration

        Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese artist, she is known as Queen of Dot since most of her artworks is full of dots and balls. Why there are many dots or balls on her artworks? This is because she began to have hallucinations and auditory hallucinations at 10 years old. Thus, everything she see is full of dots on it. Then she try to draw many artworks which is full of dots to cure the fear of dots. She call this method of cure is Obliteration. 

        Then she start making many artworks with things that she afraid of. I think she is very brave that she tried her best to face her weakness. Even when I saw her artworks, I have the feel of being cure.

Feminism

        Yayoi Kusama is a feminist, this may because of her fickle father. She is afraid of sex and penis, thats why you may find out some of her artworks are full of penis. This is also kind of obliteration.

        You can see there are many long narrow piece on the chair, which is representing penis. I think the reason why she use a chair is that when you sit on this chair, you will surrounded by penis. And that may be representing the sexual problems under patriarchalism at that time. On the other hand, the golden birdcage is surrounded by penis, and inside the birdcage you can see some butterflies, which are representing vagina and women. This is reflecting the women are unable to resist the order of man under patriarchalism.

        Finally, this may be the hope of Yayoi Kusama. In this picture, you can see there are several high-heeled shoes, which are stepping on penises. This is representing the feminism. I think Yayoi Kusama is brave because she dare to express the discontent of the society. Also, she is very creative that she can use different things and ways to describe the problem under patriarchalism.

Performance

        Every time you perform, the performance will be unique. But the performance is under control, and the result will be artistic. This is performance art.

Marina Abramovic - Rhythm

        Here are some example of performance art. I don't appreciate it because some of the performance don't really mean something to me. For example, Marina Abramovic's Rhythm. I think there is no need to hurt herself but she still can get the same result by other way, such as using a fake hand. However, I appreciate their effort since some of the performance are really hard to finish and they are really brave and have perseverance.