Communist Red Turns Commercial Pink - Primary Colours by Feng Zhengjie @ SAM

One of the featured exhibitions at the SAM is Primary Colours by Beijing based artist, Feng Zhengjie. 

 

First a disclaimer: 

All I know about Chinese modern art is that it's nicely gift wrapped in red tape and censorship. That, and many Chinese artists and galleries bid exorbitantly in auctions to buy back their own pieces of art, to increase the artworks', and the artists', value. 

 

I read about that in NEWSWEEK.  

 

So I'll be first to admit that I'm not one of those  arty-farts (a term I use with endearment) who connect immediately with Dali's or Picasso's or  Monet's works.  

 

Usually when faced with art of any sort, I'd first stare at it with a focused look of contemplation. Inside, I'd be praying desperately that no one asks my opinion, or at the very least someone says something meaningful before I do so I can take that cue and concoct some intellectual response of my own. 

 

Yet when faced with Feng's gargantuan Warhol-style oil portraits of women with diverging eyes, painted in neons of pink and turqoise, why was it that I get it? I really do. No need to read the text by the side to comprehend some abstract, enigmatic message some brilliant but probably disconnected artist wants to convey. 

 

Maybe it's because we share Asian roots in a Western influenced world. The tension of commercialism against the moral compass set by families before, the conflict of adopting appearances, mindsets and possibily, identities of another nation halfway round the globe are so aptly encapsulated in the synthetic, almost ghostly hues of luminescent smiles of Chinese women in fashion-editorial poses ripped from Vogue. 

 

Is that why their eyes diverge? Their souls are torn apart; they're empty, lifeless- pale imitations. Like the gucci bags we buy on our shopping sprees in Thailand. They've become mere phantoms, like the hues they're painted in.

 

Their souls or mine? 

 

The questions are not new, I've dealt with them countless times in GP lessons and thought of them very often. But to see all that captured in art and more importantly to experience that firsthand, is new to me.  

 

Now, that's what art's supposed to do.  Maybe I'll sign up for a crash course on art appreciation sometime soon.

 

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Link 

http://www.nhb.gov.sg/SAM/Home/Primary+Colours.htm

 

 

The exhibition ends 20 April 2008.