The rebellious ---- Banksy

I pay little attention to graffiti art, probably because I don't think they are serious. They are mostly temporary and the artists just want to have fun or make jokes. I guess there is nothing wrong with that. It's just me.

Banksy, the famous graffiti artist, made his fame with his unique, straightforward art and drew a lot of attention from the public. I do think he is very talented as an artist, but I don't like the attitude he conveys in his art. A lot of his works show a very negative attitude. Irony, anger, rebelliousness; to me, it's like a child yelling out his dissatisfaction without any smart solution.

A lot of his art makes fun of the authorities, British soldiers or guards especially. I don't know where the hate is from, maybe it's because I don't pay too much attention to politics. But I know there are a lot of people in this world have great anger and hate towards their government, I guess that's one of the reasons why Banksy's art acquired so many fans.

Some of the political ones, for example, the one on the left, are very hard for me to understand because of the culture and the different social system. But I know again he is trying to mock the authorities.

His work is usually dark, the opposite of happiness and content. I have to say he is really good at making a work that harmoniously incorporates itself with the surrounding environment and whatever is already there.

You can often see little girls in his art, a sweet little thing in a somewhat depressing setting. I can feel so strongly how the artists hates the world he lives in, and the authorities who he thinks is indirectly influencing his life or all the peoples' lives.

At least he is anti war, which I like.

This one is so depressing, but yet it may reflect some truth. Still, to me, it's always better to give people hope and encouragement than spreading negative ideas.

He does show witty humor in a lot of his art, and the works are always well executed. I like this last one shown here, it's like: I love you, with a short time limit. Very funny, but again, a depressing message. I guess art is just about expressing yourself, doesn't matter it's happy, unhappy, anger, or content. His art can probably make some people happy if they feel the same feelings. But people should always find the balance between peace and rebelliousness.

Construction or destruction ---- Lebbeus Woods

Reconstruction design of Electroprivreda building by Lebbeus Woods in 1994

"Architecture is war. War is architecture." Says the artist. It is strange that being an architect, Lebbeus Woods puts such a strong emotion, almost like anger into his artist theory. Yet it is this 'anger' that gives his work an unique sharp power, and leaves the viewers a vibrant impression.

I don't know why the artist decided to become a paper architect. I would say probably because most of his ideas are not realistic, they do not fit the real world, especially the rational architecture world. They are usually very industrial looking with a post-modern design, which gives the architecture a si-fi look with a living soul. When I look at the picture, it's like the building can be activated anytime and start walking.

The artist also loves to use sharp angular lines, forming all sorts of mostly triangular shapes, going into different directions. The movement of these industrial giants is what makes his work powerful.

Most of his work are reconstruction on ruins. The combination of the decay and the new. A strong soul is reborn from his devastated shell, living the tragic scene under his feet or burdened/attached to his new body. The sharp contrast of the artist's work is what makes it stand out.

Five artists

Janine Antoni: I personally don't like her that much because I think most of her works are way too self-centered. They don't involve a lot of other interesting things besides herself. Or maybe I just don't feel any connection with her or her work. The work that shows the most about her self love or self pity is Lick and Lather. When the two portraits were done, she licked the chocolate self and gently bathed the soap self. I can understand that she probably has some psychological struggle with herself about her appearance or something related. But to me it's silly to show such a strong personal self pity to the public. It doesn't contribute anything useful to other people or evoke any deep thinking about the world or anything around us. Anyways, this is just my subjective point of view, I may be completely wrong.

Eva Hesse, She makes beautiful things. Simple forms, fresh earth tone colors and delicate textures are the signature features about her work. I like how abstract her works are, they are usually dreamy and sometimes fantasy-like. I especially like how she always uses cheap materials and transforms them completely into amazing things. There are lots of possible ways for you to 'read' her work because they are usually not strictly defined by the artist. Or people can just simply appreciate the beauty it self. The work shows here is called 'Contingent', they are made of cheesecloth, latex, and fiberglass.

Caroline Broadhead used to be a fashion designer. A lot of her work still shows a deep influence from her fashion design experience; for example the piece shown here. It's like the patterns we often see on fabric, repetitive yet every individual is different. She made the patterns out of mirrors and put them on adjacent walls. Reflections, shadow and light, playing with each other, seems to be one of the things the artist likes to do the most.

Kiki Smith: I have to say I don't understand her or her work very much because they are so deeply culturally related. Ancient western myths, witches, sirens or death masks are the things I did not grow up with and hardly heard about in my culture. She is a weirdo to me with her mysterious and somewhat dark, creepy art pieces. They make me uncomfortable and constantly remind me of death. It says her work is about re-birth too; maybe it's all just in her imaginary world.The picture shown here is her work 'Sirens', bird men. I do not see a lot of hidden messages from a lot of her work; I think she is merely very interested in or relates to these kind of things personally and just wants to show them in art.

Tim Hawkinson, Uberorgan; It's an amazing installation with a gigantic size. The artist seems to be obsessed with biological organs. Imaging walking underneath this huge construction that looks like human organs; blood vessels, heart, liver hanging above your head: I would feel a bit disturbed. The artist chose a plastic like, semi transparent material that gives the work a floating effect in the air, I think that's a very smart thing to do with this project. Otherwise everything will look and feel way too heavy.

Book from the sky 天书 ---- Xu Bing

There is a part in me that's rooted in the traditional Chinese culture, especially Chinese calligraphy which I practiced for a couple of years when I was young. Another reason I'm so connected with it is that my dad is a calligraphy artist, you can easily find all sorts of calligraphy brushes, papers, ink and etc. in my house since as long as I can remember.

So at first I felt a little bit uncomfortable when I saw Xu Bing's work 'Book from the sky' which was made with numerous FAKE Chinese characters he invented by himself in traditional Chinese calligraphy form.

Maybe I shouldn't have told you those are all fake characters at the very beginning, so all of you who don't know Chinese could be amazed for a while and be over-whelmed with the mysterious, ancient eastern atmosphere the artist created.

This is one of the script pages for the previous art work.

It said here that the artist questions the "idea of communicating meaning through language, demonstrating how both meanings and written words can be easily manipulated." I thought about it and I do not think that's what it is. Simply because none of those characters makes any sense to me as a Chinese. The artist is not trying to communicate any kind of meaning through those characters at all. In China, people like to make a joke about writing which is hard to read or understand using the word 天书, which is the title of the artist's work, to gently laugh about the person who wrote it. Here the artist just took this common folk's joke, and transformed it into a beautiful art that not only Chinese people can understand. I looked some of the other works of Xu Bing, I found the similar things; like the work 鬼打墙 'Ghosts Pounding the Wall' which is also a folk saying in China to describe people who are trapped and lost walking in the dark, repeating the some route, feeling trapped with walls around, because the ghosts are tricking them and preventing them from getting out.

To me, the artist just wants to bring the interesting eastern culture to the west with his adept printmaking skill. I think for a lot of Chinese artists who are living in the USA, the culture and country that's influencing the world the most, they will feel more or less the need to show their own culture and to identify themselves, to let the westerns know about themselves a little more. The next artwork shows it too.

'Square Calligraphy Classroom', it's a classroom for foreigners to learn to practice the so-called 'New English Calligraphy' invented by the artist.

Here it is, the artist's system of English letters written with calligraphy. I don't know a single character on the page except some strokes and components. So don't think you are learning Chinese, you are not!

'The Glassy Surface of a Lake', is probably the most romantic work of his.

Come and get lost with me ---- China Tracy (Cao Fei)

I often think of Chinese young generation (from late 70s to late 90s, maybe even to the present) a lost generation. As the Chinese economy is growing so rapidly, the importance of synchronously spiritual growth of the Chinese people is completely ignored. The sole pursuit of money and success dominated Chinese people's life, so much so that money and success became the icon of the whole nation.

Living in a society full of bubbles of illusion of money and success, lacking of or without any trace of spiritual provision, the young generation has no means to find their individual identity. Without substantial success in reality, they struggle to find a place in reality for themselves, for their souls, thoughts, or emotions. We all become lonely individuals, lost and are searching in our own fantasy an answer we do not even know.

That's why in my opinion the Chinese artist Cao Fei created herself as China Tracy in the virtual world Second Life to experience different life styles, to give a vent for the emotions she has in real life, to give them a chance to explode. She herself represents millions of other contemporaneous Chinese people who are still struggling in reality; in the darkness of a soulless land.

i.Mirror by China Tracy (AKA: Cao Fei) Second Life Documentary Film
Cao Fei (Chinese, born 1978)

This is a picture captured from the video. If you are interested, I recommend you watch the whole video on youtube. Here are the links: i. Mirror Part 1 i. Mirror Part 2 i. Mirror Part 3

I personally don't think foreigners, especially westerners, will be able to understand very much about her illusionary piece of mind and her lonely soul filled with emotional chaos without fully understanding Chinese culture and the state of all aspects of the whole nation. For Chinese young generation, it's so easy to feel the lost, hurtful, and lonely sentiments from the video. For westerners, they mostly comment that the video is romantic and beautiful. However, that's not what I feel the most. Maybe there is a so-called romance in it, especially with the sentimental music. But deep down it is the only way, or almost the only way to feel strongly one's existence in reality, a way to find oneself; although all of it is built on an illusion. In the end, the question was not answered, the lost is still lost. It did not show the audience a hopeful message like some westerners commented, simply because the purpose of the video is NOT to show any hopefulness.

The following pictures are from her website caofei.com

Whose Utopia, Video 2006

Cosplayers / 2004

His world of imagination ---- Vito Acconci

I've always been fond of architecture, especially those which seem to be impossible to exist in reality; Those which can only appear in fantasy or some sort of alien world. Of course I do not see a lot of these kind of amazing structures. The ones I'm going to talk about today were created by Vito Acconci.

Island in the Mur River, Graz, Austria, amphitheater designed by Vito Acconci

When I first saw this, I got really fascinated because of the combination of modernism, unrealness, simplicity and elegance in one single structure. It serves as a bridge, but nobody would simply think of it as a bridge, it's more like a contemporary art theater or something far more then ordinary. It does have a bar and a coffee shop in it, it must be a great pleasure to sit inside the structure and have a drink.

Although being born in the 40's, the artist has very strong and modern aesthetic. The fluid of the lines of the building bring great elegance, and the fact that it's located in between a small peaceful river surrounded by plants gives the whole scene a remote and alien feeling. The shape of the structure is so distinct from what people usually see; it may be bizarre, but in a stunning way.

This is an even more bold and astounding design. It was for the performing arts center design competition for the city of Seoul. Unfortunately they did not pick this one, instead they picked to me an ugly and much less amazing design.

Vito Acconci has a very modern or even post-modern taste in beauty, you can tell strongly from this second design. The whole structure is like a gigantic spacecraft emerging from the undersea. It's 'floating' platform with bold pink color and crater surface challenge people's eyes because this is something people do not seen in the reality at all. Again, the whole structure is very fluid, matching the ever flowing sea water. To me, it's such an outstanding and exciting design it clearly ought to have been chosen.

Here is what the artist said in an interview about this architecture: "If you don't want to walk or drive across the bridge, you can come to the island by boat; you dock your boat in a crater. The largest craters are occupied: they're filled with transparent capsules, that function as hotel rooms. The Performing Arts Center proper is rotated on the floodable base of the island; it's cantilevered off the base, it escapes floods, it hovers above the water like a spacecraft."

I could not find a lot of information about this one, it's in a video presentation the artist did in 2006. Sometimes I think the artist just wants to implant his alien and unique imagination into our real world, but maybe it's usually very difficult to carry it out in the real world, and that's why we could only see the plans of his extraordinary architecture ideas. I deeply love all three designs I showed you today, I hope you can find the beauty in them as I did. To watch the video about the last design, go to http://www.dvblog.org/movies/01_2010/acconci/LMLaunchVitoAcconci_AcconciStudio_Presentation.mov