Venice, I was here
The mark of "I was here" is a common and vulgar graffiti mark found in China's scenic spots, walls, gravestones, mountains, and valleys. It’s a common behavior that some travelers who want to be remembered will, with knives or other sharp instruments, write their name on visible walls or bamboo. Compared to the works
of European’s artists like Basquia, Milando and Banksy, the thoughtless method of expressing oneself is quite different. The
latter artists have become an important model in the history of world art.
The 58th Venice Biennale exhibition theme: “May you live in Interesting Times” is a sentence from the Chinese curse which implies an era full of disturbance and turmoil. We view the paradox, as a way to lead people on how to emphasize artistic creations and critical universality. The exhibition aims to provide the audience with a deeply immersive and creative learning experience while leaving participants with a lasting impression.
The contemporary Chinese artist Jingdong Shen exhibition, “Shen Jingdong was here”, uses the classic slang from “I was here”. Jingdong Shen regards himself as a tourist or bystander trying to leave some traces on the most important stage of the international Venice Biennale contemporary art exhibit. To do so, he organized 70 different balloons and 20 paintings, for the installation that surrounds the exhibition space. These balloons look charmingly naive. The multi-sided exhibition walls are accompanied by his signature chickpea eye oil paintings of children in various shapes. The spaces are crowded, flourishing, aberrant and look like a
scattered, happy amusement park. Like a fairy tale theatre in the holy land of the Venice Biennale, which always stresses the academic avant-garde and original, the exhibit of “Shen Jingdong was here” is a unique and dramatic landscape.
Jingdong Shen told me that the exhibit was inspired from his son as well as his years of experience in the creation and study of contemporary art. In this way, he continued the art in an entertaining hip-hop language. The paintings and sculptures form a unique space and aura of affection, leading the audience into the exhibition space to participate in the interactive works. The works of art ask the audience to eliminate the worship, admiration and other concepts of bondage; so they can experience art from the temple of the art situation......
In the context of Shen Jingdong's art, equal dialogue and fair participation are very important to develop contemporary art at the present. There is no dispute over the laws of the jungle. The Venice Biennale exhibition is just for fun, the title of the exhibition "Shen Jingdong was here", seems like a frivolous and teasing language, but it reflects most of the things in the world. Here, fame, fortune, love and business, kings and civilians are all gone.
All of the posture, shape, language, form, volume, interpretation is weak and vapid......
As an artist born after the 1960s, Jingdong Shen has experienced the baptism of all the storms in Chinese society since the 1960s. After years of study in painting and a military career, Jingdong
Shen has become an influential artist in China's contemporary art to examines, reproduce and deconstruct the chaotic and complicated nature of all things behind the appearance of this bustling world. In the seemingly ridiculous story fragments and combination of the various objects of society he gives a clever tease and invitation to play. The humorous, cheerful and playful style of his works express all kinds of illusions in today's society. His iconic art symbol -- little eye of chicken and bean -- has become the two-dimensional code of his art, which is presented in the contemporary art world, forming the
original narrative style of Jingdong Shen
I firmly believe that the origins of art is a blend of magic, games and simulation. Since the birth of modern and contemporary art, expressionism has helped to reveal the global pattern of Chinese society in the context of life. civilization deconstruction problems in the hesitation, dilemma or helpless outcome...
circles. He uses his experience
Over the years, Jingdong Shen hurried to walk around the world of museums, art galleries, Biennale steps. His art and its academic value is not just the displayed content, but provides a new perspective and explanation of the social reality of liberation after the exhibition. Thus, making people rethink civilization's cycle of decline and the prosperity in order to influence humanity's most fundamental view of the world and it's behavior.
