Art, can give out a view of the world?
GUO Xiaoyan
The set of works which Wang Mai has accumulated several years are more like daily homework or “thinking notes”. It seems to have lots of uses: First, they exists as the artist’s mind clues, which are related to how to get his own independent judgment and thinking direction in such a complex uncontrollable world as an artist --- artists need some context to clarify their positions. Second, for an artist, is the subject of society “intervention” and “criticism” a kind of value judgment, options of actions, or a practical reflection to the social political power? The artist wants his own thoughts to compete against the future power of the world, to get a contemporary quality in advance; but what’s the meaning when the art associate with the future changes of the world? Perhaps, Wang Mai will precipitate out some thoughts and questions in his mind when he is doing these works. These drafts are all concerning about his opinions to many questions. For example: in such complex reality world, how the art deal with the language complexity and the various political intention? Wang Mai said:”my art expression is almost inseparable with some major events in China and the world. Around 2000, I started to focus more attention to some social problems. More exactly, I expanded my focus to the international events, such as media violence, etc. ……Started from the work , I concern about the conflict between east and west in my works too…… highlights the entanglements of “national interest” and “Energy”. I embodied “energy” into “Gas platform”, “threaten” into “shark”, “benefit” into “cow bone”. The installations and painting works, such as , , , reproduced the crises of global energy or the climate exchange in the creation ideas, and constructed a kind of contemporary method of Chinese traditional aesthetics from the visual point.” (From the interview with Wang Mai) Wang Mai places himself in the changing world, makes the anxiety of an era as his own background. These are related to his growth of the view of the world. In his those draft of thoughts, we can observe the artist’s work. We can find
Wang Mai will be placed in the current situation of the world is changing, will be an era of anxiety as their background, is associated with the growth of their own worldview. Wang Mai drawn to "think manuscripts to observe the work of the artist's role is specific. Among them, we can see through the "archaeological" to hide the memory to prove the artist's choice: step generation in the country as a whole nationwide large-scale future imagine the context of the growth of the world situation changes, they have a special attention and mind. In fact, until today, the future of China's imagination remains chaotic, vague and non-operation, but this imagination is placed in our educational lives, so when the satellite in reality frequently broke into outer space with super-phone, telephone, video flooding cut off the traditional spirit of direct contact with the distant things; the time of depression and genetic engineering of rockets, spacecraft and cloning technology to create high-quality gene carnival each other against the background of a barren future.