Oriental Musings

Pseudo Realism

2011-07-07T04:23:00.008+01:00

One of most fascinating new form of art that has emerged since the collapse of the East Block and the embracing of free market ideas by the Asian countries is perhaps 'Pseud Realism'. During the era of cold war, most of Asian countries had either sided with the communists (that is why it was called the East Block) or remained neutral so as not to jeopardize their newly earned freedoms. During this time most of the artists in these countries were encouraged by the establishment to express though the arts the ideas of social equality, and praise of the communist regimes. The result was the begining of a style of art called "Socialist Realism".

Pseudorealism: One of Asia's fascinating new art-form

The end of East Block and the embracing of free market ideals in these countries now produced a counter movement where artists tried to glorify the freedom touted by the market leaders. The result was the begining of "Cynical Realism" as against "Socialist Realism". Nonetheless both of these had one thing in common: propaganda.

Pseudorealism is also a product of this period but it has the distinction of not being propaganda at all. The chief idealist of this art form, Indian artist Devajyoti Ray had stated explicitly that it is an art form to explore the ways of using abstract academic concepts to "create" something not real, but which would be conceived as reality. In other words, the objective of this form of art is exclusively academic and not praising of either market or government.

Socialist Realism (left) and Cynical Realism(below) both in a way are agenda driven and hence its appeal is perhaps short-lived

Pseudorealism also frees an artist from the obligation of being true to the nature. It is particularly suited to the world that we live in, where fantasies can be presented as reality to unsuspecting cyber-audience. There is also a third advantage of this style: it lends one the option of praising or criticizing anything and also keep mum without the risk of being labeled as anything else but a Pseudorealist.

However at present the spread of thes new styles of art are limited mainly to the countries of their origin, Cynical Realism in China and Pseudo Realism mostly in India. But then that had always been true for most other forms of art as well, be it the American Pop Art, Abstract Expressionism, or now the Japanese Superflat.

2010-08-16T02:53:00.004+01:00

Deddy Paw

All over the world now there is a trend of making huge metal sculptures with fine finish and repeatetive motiffs. In India, Subodh Gupta is making huge sculptures made of steel untensils, in Indonesia, this trend is taken over by Deddy Paw, who uses steel apples. Apples, he says was the link between Adam and Eve, between good and evil and between knowledge and ignorance. Thus raising apples to the level of theatrical motif, Deddy Paw plants them in everything he can think of; in Buddha's hands, in front of gun, as a bullet, as balloons for children.

Deddy born in 1963, was initially associated with art direction for theatres and later shifted to making paintings and small scale sculptures. He also worked as a journalist. The concept of Apple was there in his earlier paintings also, but it was his steel scultpures of apples that brought him international recognition. Then in 2009, Deddy had his most successful exhibition in Singapore, outside Indonesia. Since the past two years Deddy has also been talking about socio-political issues that concern Indonesia.However his commentaries remain largely subtle, apolitical and mostly in the form of irony displayed through his works.

2010-08-12T10:43:00.008+01:00

Eddie Hara

Born in 1957 Eddie Hara is one of contemporary Indonesian art’s best names. Eddie Hara had initially started as a playful, colourist; influenced by the Fluxus movement of Europe, but later developed his own niche with a kind of art style which looks playful and has very funny titles. His works show mixture of folk characters, cartoons, comic strips, machines, gods; in other words anything and everything that Indonesian Society is all about.

Eddie Hara's works do not tell any definite story though the works consist of many images and narratives which jumble up into a chaos. They do not make any statement either. Thus Eddie Hara is one another artist emerging in the realm of “Art for Joy” philosophy which is now engulfing the whole world.

Eddie Hara has exhibited his works world wide and have been collected by many important collectors, museums from across the world. He presently lives and works in Basel, Switzerland.

Superflat

2010-05-01T01:15:00.006+01:00

The Japanese culture had always been a mixture of tradition and modernity. However modernity in Japan had been subjected to rapid change due to Japan’s tryst with technological changes. The fast pace has often created immense tension and psychological pressure among the Japanese people particularly the young. The result of this is the tendency to escape into fantasy worlds created in the cyber-space.

Takashi Murakami's Superflat work inspired by Otaku imagery

Japanses youth are addicted to the internet and the fantasy world of anime and Manga comics. This typical aspect of Japanese culture has a special name : Otaku.
In the late 1990s, Takashi Murakami developed this idea into a new art genre called Superflat. Takashi Murakami is one of the few artists who in today’s world have thought of creating a new genre of art. It took some time, for the idea to seep in as it happens in case of most new genres. But by the beginning of the new century, Superflat has become an art movement.

Superflat art genre has certain specific features. Murakami emphasizes its superficial quality. “Superflat world has no depth, no "camera eye", no perspective”. That is to say that Superflat is only one-dimensional and does not use depth as in realism. The colours are mostly flat, the subjects are arranged in imaginary fashion.

Kage-e Japansese Visual Art form shows use of flat colours that give perspective and dimensional values.

To a certain extent, this use of imaginary depth, and created perspective is also found in another new genre of art, now very popular in South Asia: Pseudorealism. But while Pseudorealism’s primary aim is to replace reality with a created one, the aim of Superflat is to abandon reality, even the notion of it, altogether. It is typically grounded in Japanese youth culture.

Superflat Art movement has today today many adherents and most of these artists are quite young, born in the seventies. Chio Aoshima, Aya Takano, Koji Morimoto are some of the better known exponents of this form of art.

Pseudorealist Art Work coming from India shows use of flat colours as in Kage-e, Otaku or Superflat works. But here the dimensions remain real

However it would be fallacious to proclaim Superflat as the sole representative of Otaku in the Fine Arts world. Artists like Kenjo Yanobe, who stand outsdie the Superfalt agroup do have a standing of their own. The post war Gutai Group artists still continue to sreate fascinating art.

There is also a commonality between Gutai and Superflat. The Gutai artists tried to capture the ethos of a war torn Japan, and had made their manifesto to see beauty in things that are devasted.

Japan has built herself again, but in these times of progress, the society is not all that happy. The young still needs a huge fantasy-based cyberspace to escape from reality. In a way the Superflat thus also captures the ethose of something that is not really the positive.

Cinical Realism and Modern Chinese Art

2010-03-22T12:40:00.008Z

In 1985, Chinese art saw the emergence of a new set of rebelling artists led by Xu Bing. Between 1985 to 1988 China produced many good artists and many new ways of looking at art. But this movement was very short lived. The 1985 Movemet soon gave place to the phase of Cynical Realism which continues to afflict the Chinese Art.

Xu Bings Scroll depicting 4000 senseless Chinese characters heralded the begining of New Wave in Chinese Art

Liberalization of Chinese Economy had brought in a lot of western attention to Chinese Art and soon Chinese art galleries started to cater to the needs of this new set of buyers. Most of these art works showed cynicism about Chinese administration. This apparent rebelling style started with a lot of promise and appeared that it would soon surpass the popularity of the previous 85 Movement.

Cynical Realism started with a bang, but very soon lost all its steam. It always sold, but it lost all its charge. They painted predominantly for the west and west wanted to buy only such art that was critical of Chinese Political establishment. The art of this type never tried to get deeper into any of the pressing concerns of society and only remained cynical. Infact the art now had become so deliberately critical, repetitive that it lost its connect with the local people.

Normally Fang Lihun’s first solo show in Mainland China is considered the first show of this genre. But later Yue Minjun (born 1962), Yang Shaobin (born 1963), Wang Jinsong (born 1963), and Song Yonghong (born 1966) joined together.

Yue Minjun had come to prominence with laughing man. But following commercial success, Minjun never changed his style and continued to paint the same thing. It became boring. But Chinese artists are today only bothered about money.

According to Aldous Huxley, "Cynical Realism is the intelligent man's best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation." For China however, this excuse is the new golden pig. The market for Cynical Realism is thriving and ever growing. The commercial appeal for these paintings is rising. Cynical Realism today, enjoys the reputation as an identifying tangent of Chinese Contemporary Art. They fetch the highest of prices globally.

The 85 Movement artists always had large followings but very few buyers. But now the new generation had many buyers but no followers. Chinese were now not interested as how to look at things, but how to make money. Artists also catered less to art loving people but more to the tastes of art-buying people.

The question that was in everybody's mind was that how long was this bubble of Cynical realism to last. The answer was found in the 2010 when none of the cynical realists sold anything at all. Cynical realism is on its way out as newer Chinese artists are coming with stronger resolve and higher commitments and this has become possible partly because of the fall in the reputation of the western art houses.

Art all over Asia is now likely to undergo a sea change. In India, China, Japan and Malaysia, newer artists with original content, brave approaches and newer styles are gaining popularity independent of art houses which had all mushroomed in these countries when the economies were opened up to western market.

Rashid Rana is a Pakistani Artist who makes images of Veils from milions of thumbnail size images of other things. The resulting work tends to provoke human imagination.

But even though Cynical realism is on it way out, it would remained an important chapter in the history of 21st century Chinese contemporary art.

New Asian Isms of Art

2010-01-31T04:38:00.010Z

Asian Art for a very long time had been prospering under the influence of West. Countries with free market economies had been looking towards Europe, and China and North Korea looked more towards Soviet Union. Thus while Surrealism and Cubism were perhaps the most important genres followed by artists in India, Indonesia, Philipines, etc, a variation of Soviet Union’s famous Prolekult could be seen in both North Korea and China. Socialist Realism was all that these countries’ artists practiced.

Though artists had adopted themselves to express their respective countires’ aspirations through these western genres, there always existed another group of artists who were against this ‘aping of the west’ and gathered inspiration from the living and past traditions of their own countries. In China a small group of artists like Zhang Yajie painted outside the realm of Socialist Realism and called his works “art of the wounded”. Japan which was never under colonial occupation always maintained their traditional art forms and Japanese Art history had been divided in terms of periods like Edo Period (1600 to 1819), Meiji Period (1868- 1912). Japanese academies continue this tradition and even classified the contemporary art in terms of periods like “Taisho Period art” (1912 to 1925) and Showa Period” (1926 to 1989). These artists worked parallel to the avant garde artists of the time.

Continuity of tradition had not always remained uninterrupted in erstwhile colonies like India, Phillipines and Indonesia. In India, while majority of artists had adopted to western style art, there were always a small set of artists like Jamini Roy and Ramkinker Baij who had been working outside the realm of western art forms.

Aya Takano's art is entirely Japanese and yet new and original

In this century however the division between the traditional art forms and west-influenced art forms is getting blurred. After the collapse of the East Block and the rise of Asian Tigers in the world economy, the traditions in the third world Asian countries are changing and the local communities in these countries are more integrated to the world than before.

Yang Shaobin's Cynical Realism

The impact of these socio-economic changes are now seen reflected in the avant-garde movements in most Asian countries. The impact can be seen in two major trends.
Firstly Indian, Chinese, Cambodian and artists of other Asian countries are now talking about their own countries in their own styles. Secondly as these countries are getting more world attention, the aspirations to develop art forms of their own s also get crystallized.

Magic Realism of Sacha Jafri is perhaps the only 3rd World art genre art genre which shows Western Conception

Asia is thus seen as the harbinger of new genres of art. The most poipular of these new art genres is perhaps Superflat genre. Developed by Takashi Maurakami in Japan, this art form is the staple for an entire generation of contemporary Japanese artist. The other not so popular genre is Magic Realism. Its propagators are though mostly artists from the third world like India, Mexico and Brazil, the artists are however mostly settled in the West like Sacha Jafri.

Devajyoti Ray's Pseudorealim is Indian in form and content, yet fits entirely the west's definition of an independent genre

The Chinese artists after the famous 85 Movement, developed their own new genre calling it Cynical Realism. Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun are its main propagators. The ism is purely Chinese but it fits the Western definition of an art genre. Pseudorealism developed by Indian artist Devajyoti Ray is considerably new but like other Asian genres of 21st century, this too is rooted in India, but fits aptly the west’s definition of an art genre.

It is difficult to find any definite influence in Hayv Kahraman's works.

Compared to these emerging trends in Asia, In Europe and US we do not see the emergence of any new ism of art. Western Art is now very individualistic and changing with every passing day. This has come as an advantage to the East, particularly South Asia, where art movements are getting solidified and with the support of the emerging local economies, getting all the requisite attention.

2009-11-30T23:16:00.004Z

Wafa Hourani

Wafa Hourani belongs to Palestine and he lives in Ramallah. Among the many well known artists of middle east, he is thus perhaps the only one who stays in his war torn country while practicing his art. Wafa Hourani is deeply affected by the crisis of the middle –east. His works are direct reflections of his times.

Hourani makes small miniaturized houses, city-scapes, out of card boards, wood, and other material. He then uses electrical circuits to light them and the resulting models look like cities at night affected by the scare of war. He also uses visual images through film rolls run constantly at the windows of his cardboard houses. In a way his works look apocalyptic and it is this very quality that makes his works so intensely attractive.

Hourani has exhibited in many countries outside Palestine and Middle-East. He has also worked with Charles Saatchi and his exhibition in London along with the other important artist of middle east had been very widely written about.

2009-10-20T02:36:00.003+01:00

Hayv Kahraman

Perhaps Iraq’s most famous artist of the time Hayv Kahraman was born in 1981. But she was brought up mostly in Sweden and then in United Sates. Her language of expression has therefore been very different from the other artists of middle east. Hayv Kahraman’s initial works had been influenced by the Oriental Ink work images and ceramic dolls. But her later works have shown more Western influence.

Kahraman’s works had been mostly about women of iraq and the issues related to them. Thus female infanticide, female circumcision, general oppression of women are her main subjects. Her works have never been known for style but more for the subject matters

Kahraman has held many shows but her recent shows show a marked departure from her previous works. In these new works, Kahraman has experimented with Text Portraits of.

Kahraman these days stays in New York.

2009-09-24T14:12:00.003+01:00

Diana Al-Hadid

Diana Al Hadid is one of the youngest artists from Syria today to have obtained international recognition. Hadid’s works are three dimensional inspired by architectural styles of various periods which she uses all together to create fascinating architectural structures that do not have any resemblance to what exists in reality.

Hadid uses foam, plastic, polyester, cement, steel and almost anything else to create her structures. What distinguishes Hadid from other artists of her country is however not just the use of these myriad materials but her distinctive style, which rooted in her land and yet so wonderfully international.

Diana’s exhibition in new York titled Tower of babel had drawn immense attention in the year 2008. The show was the however the only major show any artist from Suria ever did in New York. Syria has a very nascent art market and it has led her to remain mostly outside her country.

Diana Al-Hadid works with Perry Rubenstein gallery and it is with this gallery that has been promoting her works. She stays mostly in new York.

2009-09-12T05:13:00.005+01:00

Atul Dodiya

Atul Dodiya had started as a painter of realistic images in 1980s. In those days the Indian art market was in a very nascent stage and Dodiya catered to the need of the time. His style changed with changes in the Indian art market. In the 1990s, Dodiya painted a series on Gandhi where he used a style that resembled old sepia-toned photographs. The style became popular and Dodiya made many more works in the same style.

Dodiya’s style never remained the same. He gave primacy to market forces and taught a whole generation of Indian artists to accept market requirements as through market one gets to know ones times. In Dodiya’s works narratives in became important as he chose contemporary stories, thoughts, ideas, and happenings to depict in his works.

In 1990s Dodiya traveled extensively in Europe and popularized his works there. Like most modern artists in India, Dodiya was also drawn towards installations which became hugely popular in Europe. In installations too Dodiya never followed any fixed pattern but rather used common objects like Shutter-doors, hoarding posts etc to display his works.

Dodiya’s wife Anju Dodiya is also an artist and paints in almost similar style. The two of them often use each other’s images in their works. Both Atul and Anju Dodiya stay in Mumbai.

2009-07-08T14:20:00.007+01:00

Subodh Gupta

Subodh Gupta is perhaps the most vibrant of all success stories that the expanding Indian art market wants to showcase. Born in one of the most underdeveloped rural areas in India, Gupta acquired an art degree from a small art college in Patna and then shifted to New Delhi, where he grouped himself with other artists from his region to exhibit art works in the form of installations and paintings.

From the very beginning, Subodh Gupta had tried to capture the environment in which he had grown up. He painted rural people of India, their attitudes and the sufferings they undergo when they come to urban areas. In many of his paintings Gupta even portrayed himself as a rural bumpkin trying to find a place in the multi-cultural cosmopolitan of India.

In course of time Gupta developed a new series of paintings where he painted only steel utensils which was supposed to be used by the middle-class which constitutes the majority of Indian mass. These paintings became popular in the West and soon Gupta made installations with real steel utensils.

Subodh Gupta is the one of the few major artists in India today who runs factory style workshops where mechanics and engineers are employed to give shape to Gupta’s designs.

He is the most expensive artist in India today fetching the highest ever price fetched by any living artist in India. Gupta lives in Mumbai but travels to Europe regularly.

2009-04-02T11:17:00.008+01:00

Devajyoti Ray

In the late 1990s, when Indian economy was liberalized, many of India’s young generation artists got international exposure and technology as an aid to art-practice became common. Most of the artists of new generation in India started using machines to create modern art-works. Devajyoti Ray during this time came as an antithesis to this trend.

Though Ray’s works with fine edges and flat colours often look like graphic works, each of his paintings is actually a carefully made hand-work. It is this finesse that has put Ray at the centre of Indian modern art.

In 2001, Ray started a new style called Pseudo-realism wherein regular scenes from Indian life were painted in a very vibrant colour scheme which do not conform to reality yet in the eyes of the viewer the visuals remain comprehendible and scenic.

The name Pseudo-realism is also significant because everything in Ray’s works look vibrant and yet the viewer often cannot ignore the pathos beneath. Thus through his works Ray comments on the plastic happiness that economic liberalization has brought into his country where the life of a common man at the very basic level continues to remain the same.

Ray has exhibited his works in many European countries and his works have been acquired by important art galleries and Museums in Asia and Europe.

2009-03-09T12:40:00.007Z

Jitish Kallat

Jitish Kallat is one of those artists in India who had replaced traditional paintings and sculptures by machine-based images and assemblages to the centre of fine art practice.

In most of the works, Jitish Kallat makes a copy of a photograph (sometimes his own) with the help of low end machines like fax, photocopier, etc and on this image, Kallat then applies paint, etc to create the final image, which looks like graffiti, or pop art. The graffiti type works allows Kallat to make statements on current issues like in political posters. Thus with his art works Kallat along with his contemporaries had paved the way for more sophisticated technical works which are in fashion in India today.

Kallat though initially started as a painter and collagist, later made installations too. While his two dimensional works look like Graffiti, his installations are based mostly on the skeleton motif. Skeletons of automobiles, and inanimate objects are hallmarks of Kallat.

Death, violence, religious intolerance come recurrently in his works, which make his works very contemporary.

Fibre Glass Sculpture

Kallat is one of the most commercially successful artists of India. He had exhibited in many countries in Europe and is one of the youngest among India’s new generation of visual artists.

2009-03-01T10:13:00.007Z

Bose Krishnamachari

Bose Krishnamachari is one of India's best known faces of modern art. Though primarily an abstarctionist, he had started initially as a painter of landscapes and figurative works and then shifted to making installations and abstracts. His works changed over time as Krishnamachari matured from a painter to a curator and a mentor for younger artists and a teacher all rolled into one.

Krishnamachari has painted on a wide range of subjects. In his early realistic works, Krishnamachari had painted scenes from his personal life in realistic photographic manner. He had also put up shows in memory of older artists like Pablo Picasso and Syed Raza. In these works he lifted images of the older artists’ works and juxtaposed them against other impressions.

An installation of Bose Krishnamachari

But what made Krishnamachari popular were his abstracts which showed a kind of rare luminescence. These were so popular that Krishnamachari later put the same colour scheme on installations too. His installations normally involve arrangement of objects painted in his trademark colour-scheme. His other installations and videos never became much successful.

Krishnamachari is known also for organizing skills. He has curated many shows of other artists, sat in jury for art fairs. He runs a group of Young artists in Mumbai called ‘Bombay Boys’ whose works Krishnamachari exhibits in an annual show in Indian major art centres.

2009-02-14T02:00:00.005Z

Yang Shaobin

Born in 1963 in Hebei Province, China, Yang Shaobin had not started as an artist but as a polytechnic student, who drifted to art while his stay at the Song Zhuang Province. Song Zhuang Province then emerging as a centre for Chinese Avant garde art had attracted many important artists. In 1999 three artists living in Song Zhuang were selected for the 48th Venice Biennial; Yang was one of them. During this exhibition Yang presented his original style of work which was a contrary to what every modern painter was doing. While every modern painter was embracing cynical realism and pop art styles, Yang created images which were anti-neo art and surrealist.

Critic Sebastian Preuss has written of Yang's style: "His deep pictorial pathos impressively contradicts Neo-Pop, which predominates in all Western countries..." Yang’s style involves the use of realistic figurative paintings that get distorted somewhere to make it surrealist. In his works the central issue seems to be the tension between individual violence and compassion with the human creature. Contrasting other Chinese Contemporaries, his style involves lesser flat tones, and use of figures that are not necessarily Chinese.

In recent years Yang is also making sculptures, which are however not quite that good and are not that popular either.

Yang lives in Beijing but frequently travels to Vienna and is today a central figure in Vienna circle of action-artists.

2009-02-10T15:08:00.008Z

Takashi Murakami

Perhaps the most well known Japanese Artist of modern times, Takashi Murakami was born in 1962. He had started initially as an artist of traditional Japanese paintings (called Nihonga in Japanese) but later got attracted to popular present day Japanese culture ( Otaku) obsessed with cartoons, Anime and Manga comics, robotics, etc. Since then Murakami started producing works of art which takes imagery and ideas from popular culture. He in fact blurred the difference between fine art and commercial art and started a new style of art works which he called Superflat.

Murakami's art work

Murakami has revolutionized the art-practice in his own country by opening a company called Kaikai Kiki which employs other Superflat artists and a factory called Hiropon factory which employs people of varied profession to manufacture art works of various types, material and scale.

Murakami designed skate-boards

Superflat Art is today considered a movement in Japanese modern art which is followed by many new generation artists including Aya Takano, Chiho Aoshima, Rei Sato, and others, who hold an annual exhibition (called Geisai Art Fair) of such art jointly in New York, Tokyo and other places.

Takashi Murakami’s style constantly changes as he takes images from popular culture. But there are some characteristic features like flat colours, odd figures with disproportionate bodies, etc.

Today Murakami is one of the most commercially successful artists in the world and perhaps the most well known Asian artist. He travels widely as an artist, entrepreneur, designer, all rolled into one.

2009-02-04T10:27:00.003Z

Aya Takano

Born in 1976, Aya Takano is one of Japan’s popular modern day pop artists associated with the Superflat movement. She works for Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki company along side many other artists. Like her contemporaries, she is also influenced by the Japanese Manga or Anime cartoons but she highlights another aspect of these characters: eroticism. In her works, her heroines are often nude participating in suggested erotic acts.

Aya Takano puts forth the ideas and fantasies of her generation and in her life too she lives an ideal that is symptomatic of present day Japan. Like her generation that embraces professionalism and idealizes commercial success Takano takes art only for gaining success in material life; for her art is not an end in itself.

This is significantly different from artists ten years back. Aya Takano trades between commercial and fine art activities easily. She is a regular illustrator for Manga comics, an essayist and an artist as well. She hardly paints with traditional art-material. Her works are mostly computer graphics digitally printed on various types of material.

Aya Takano has exhibited in mostly France, USA and Japan. She is a regular contributor to the Superflat shows. Like most other atists who have made it big abroad, Aya Takano spend a large part of her life travelling abroad. She lives in Tokyo.

2009-01-27T11:52:00.004Z

Yashimoto Nara

Born in 1959, Yashimoto Nara is one of Japan’s contemporary masters who has largely remained away from any major group and established his own style of pop art. Unlike most of Japanese contemporary artists are obsessed with technology and robotics, Nara remains largely unaffected. His style pop art is also different from the works of the Kaikai Ki artists as his works are not just decorative or fantasy based, but also have serious undercurrents.

Nara’s most works include children’s faces. But the children look angry or cunning often brandishing a small weapon or some disturbing substance. Nara says that every one has a child in oneself and he portrays that child in the adult. Nara’s works thus show what Japan is undergoing these days, how Japanese culture is getting violent and disturbing in the wake of technical explosion. It is a telling on the contemporary psychological chaos that is Japan these days.

While many of Japan’s artists are exploring the various aspects of technological advancements and their impacts on society, Nara is probably the only major artist in Japan today who explores the psychological traits of modern Japan.

Yashimoto Nara had initially started as a painter, but in course of time he had started producing doll-like porcelain sculptures, commercial merchandise all with his painting-images.

Yashimoto Nara lives and works in Tokyo.

2009-01-23T02:08:00.005Z

Kenji Yanobe

Born in 1965, Kenji Yanobe grew up in Osaka at a time when Japanese popular media was flushed with science fiction tales and images. Kenji Yanobe brought these images into his art. Today Yanobe is one of the very unconventional artists of Japan whose works are entirely futuristic and derives its inspiration from world of robots. He is primarily an installation artist who makes fanatastic robotic sculptures including brightly-colored hazmat suits and tiny action figures with built-in geiger counters.

It is difficult to appreciate Kenji’s works in the context of fine arts as his works look more like childish toys inflated to huge sizes. But Kenji is to be appreciated in the context of Japanese technological world and it preoccupation with electronic and computer simulated robotics.

An installation aranged with a complete environment. Kenji Yanobe

Kenji had often exhibited his works in non-conventional sites like the World Expo or trade fairs where his works are viewed mostly by common people than art lovers. In a way Kenji is to Japan what futurists were to Italy and Germany in the 60s.

Like most Japanese contemporary artists Kenji too stays abroad (San Fransisco) and runs a complete unit to manufacture his art works, which involve as much mechanical understanding as the knowledge of art and aesthetics.

2009-01-18T09:56:00.004Z

Shinohara Ushio

In 1960s, Japanese art was witnessing the emergence of Gutai Group as the tour de force for the coming years. But parallel to this, another group of artists were working in Japan then, the influence of whom was to be felt later after 1999. This was the neo-Dadaist group led by Shinohara Ushio.

While Gutai Group's emphasis was deconstruction of beauty, Shinohara Ushio was taking art even a step further: "art without a planned form". Ushio introduced himself with his action paintings, like boxing paintings, where Ushio wore boxing gloves dipped in paints and punched them on canvas randomly. soon such eccentric performnaces of Ushio became popular, though nobody knew what to do with the final products of such performances.

But as an artist Shinohara Ushio had to make something saleable. So he created the Junk Motorcycle series, where he took trashed motorcycles and created sculptures and installations.

Shinohara Ushio’s thought was not new but something directly imported from America. Like most Japanese youth during this time, he became fascinated by the American culture and his art was similar in many ways to what American artists like jackson Pollock had once done. Thus Shinohara Ushio was seen as an East meets West ideal.

Shinohara was not initially appreciated in Japan, but it was in USA that he became popular. Shinohara lived in New York for a very long time before returning to Tokyo.

2009-01-14T04:01:00.010Z

Wang Guangyi

Wang Guangyi born in 1956 was one of the founding members of the New Art Movement of the 1980s and had achieved international fame much early. He had started painting when Chinese Government had liberalized the society on its own in 1980s. At that time the artists in China had started enjoying the new found freedom. The art of the era was not therefore critical about Chinese political establishment but was only exploring the juxtaposition of the old in contrast with the new changes.

Guangyi took up old propaganda posters of the Chinese communist party and put them up against logos of MNCs that were flooding Chinese markets.

Guangyi still does the same. His paintings only explore the irony that is gripping Chinese Society. While most famous artists of the day are cynical towards Cinese political establishment, Guangyi is not.

In this respect Guangyi is more committed to art than probably the rest. While artists like Yue Minjun and Rong Rong are plain critical of establishment without being part of it, Guangyi accepts the artist as a participant in the social process and captures only the irony of change in his works.

Guangyi’s works fall in a category called Political Pop where the word pop refers to the use of iconography as was done by the American pop artists. The style was once very popular in China. Today however Guangyi alone does such work.

Guangyi has held successful solo shows in South Korea, Switzerland, and mainland China. He lives in Beijing.

2009-01-11T10:46:00.006Z

Yue Minjun

Born in 1962, Yue Minjun is one of the most famous avant garde artists of modern China. Yue had joined the art field rather late after having worked in the oil industry for some time. In the early 1990s Yue Mingjun joined the artistic community at Yuan Ming Yuan which was always kept under surveillance by the officials in China. While in Yuan Ming Yuan, Yue Minjun developed his style of painting which involved the use of his own portrait in an animated laughter, using paints in such a way that the portraits looked plastic and unreal.

Yue has later started making sculptures too of the same laughing man’s face. Yue like some of the contemporary artists of China was appreciated by the west and sold more works abroad than within China.
In 1999, Yue Minjun was selected by Harald Szeemann for the Venice Biennale. Yue has later participated in 5th Shanghai Biennale, Art Beatus in Vancouver and many other shows abroad.

His most famous piece till date is the “Execution” which was auctioned at the highest price any Chinese work ever fetched.

2009-01-09T03:30:00.003Z

Zhang Xiaogang

Among the new band of Chinese contemporary artists, Zhang Xiaogang is probably the most different. While others like Yue Minjun and Fang Lijun are bold and loud, Zhang is more subtle and sublime. Zhang's paintings which imitate old black and white or sepia toned photographs are always painted in few colours with only a dash of bold colour occasionally. This makes Zhang's works very intense and yet soft.

Zhang's works show portarits of men, women and children in expresssionless manner, reminiscent of the olden days when photos were taken in studios. They thus remind us of the era that was in China.

The colours used occasionaly are symbolic like Red for Communism, etc. Zhang's works however have changed a lot over the years. Initially trained as an oil painter at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1982, Zhang had joined a group of young artists who came to international prominence during the 1980s. During this time Zhang was till experimenting wth Pop and Chinese realsitic styles.

Then he suddenly came to prominence with his "Mao goes pop" show in Sydney in1993. Since then Zhang has been showing his works in various countries and everywhere he has been successful.

Zhang is also the founder of an avant-garde artists' group in China which holds it shows internationally.

2009-01-08T02:35:00.000Z

Fang Lijun

Among the new generation of internationally famed Chinese Contemporarires, Fang Lijun's name comes at the top. Often been quoted as the leader of the new school of Cynical Realism (Wanshi xianshizhuyi), Fang had come to gain international recognition way back in the early 90s when his bald head men with distorted faces expressing a feeling of disillusionment associated with the years directly after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

Born in 1963 in Handai of the Hebei province, Fang Lijun endured a rather difficult childhood. Stigmatized as a ‘rich peasant’ during the Cultural Revolution. Fang routinely endured taunts and witnessed the humiliation of his family members and all this developed in him a strong cynicism about Chinese society.

No wonder that his views in the post-liberalization phase of China became most recognised and today he is a craze among the western art collectors.

Fang has participated in group exhibitions such as Mao goes Pop (1993), in Sydney, Australia, Inside-Out: New Chinese Art (1998), in New York, USA and 2003’s Alors la Chine in Paris, France. Moreover, Fang has held solo exhibitions in several countries, including Germany, Singapore, Amsterdam, USA, Japan and France. He has also participated twice at the Venice Biennale and at both the Sao Paulo and Kwangju Biennales.

Though primarily a painter, he has ventured into installation art and has made sculptures too. His sculptures like his paintings are ll about bald heads with distorted faces.

At 43 years old, he’s believed to be the richest avant-garde artist in China (though Zhang Xiaogang must be closing in). He owns six restaurants, a small hotel, drives a black Audi, has studios in Beijing and western Yunnan Province and was recently selected, along with Wang Guangyi and Zhang Xiaogang, to create a huge painting for the Shenzhen subway system.