I'm in with the in (art) crowd...
...or, the Chinese Damien Hirst?
"...Many of China's most successful artists were there, including Mr. Zhou. At the banquet afterward, upstairs at a fashionable restaurant, he strolled among tables, cigarette and wine glass in hand, hugging fellow artists and joining them in toasts. He was now firmly in the inner circle.
Asked how it felt, he grinned and said: 'Ten years ago I wanted to show people how easy it is to make art. And I did that. Now I'm on the list.'..."
full article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/arts/design/01zhou.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&th&emc=th
Posts
I thought this was a great article, too. I like the underlying sarcasm in his work. I wish I had more exposure to contemporary Chinese art.
I couldn't stand this article. I thought the author pulled a complete cop-out by not mentioning Mark Kostabi. He didn't have to headline it with 'The Chinese Kostabi', but c'mon...other people doing the paintings for him, art historical references, just subsitute joe camel head for kostabi nowhere man head and there you go. Maybe this guy is new to China but he's not new to the readers of the supposedly erudite readers of the NYTimes. I think every 10 years we're supposed to get amnesia and play the whole out over again.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about this article and artist...I was trying to convey some of that by quoting part of the article where the artist seems to think Success = Fame; however, his use of the artistic voyeur method is nothing new - Warhol, Judd, and most maddeningly (to me), Damien Hirst, including others, have all done this to a certain extent. It in fact seems to be a vestige of Modernism; not so much a part of the current art directions. All this being said, however, I still think that there's something vivacious about the whole thing...even if it's only part of the gargantuan Chinese machine that is just beginning to roll.