Everyone knew what Zhao Bandi was doing, but they all pretended not to know
Text | Ye Kuangzheng
Zhao Bandi came out of the mountain again. More than 3 years ago, after Zhao Bandi announced the end of his "panda era", the former "panda man" rarely appeared in the public media. Recently, the Beijing News and many other media have reported on his latest performance work: "Chinese Party Chopin".
The scene of this act is in Shanquan Town, a suburb of Chengdu. In the autumn rain that day, a pool of blue water stood a gorgeous grand piano, and the piano legs sank in the water. A girl dressed in black played Chopin's famous song, and for more than 2 hours, her feet were soaked in water. Zhao Bandi, wearing long rain boots, also stood in the pool. He propped up his easel, looked at the performers, painted two brushstrokes on the canvas in a fake way, and said he was "collecting materials."
Zhao Bandi, wearing long rain boots, also stood in the pool.
This scene is easy to think of, a parody of the "water ballet" that caused a hot discussion in the past few days. In fact, as early as May last year, Zhao Bandi painted an oil painting "China Lake C", which was the work of his thanks to collector Shik. A few fashionably dressed men and women, dressed in kneeless water, holding wine glasses and talking happily.
Hick's interpretation of the work is in place: "I think it's a metaphor, Zhao Bandi sees the current China as a party, everyone is standing in the water, we don't know what is in the water." Nor could we see through the muddy, muddy waters. "Zhao Bandi was still forward-looking as an artist, and later we did see a performance on the water." Chinese Party Chopin", in my opinion, is just a continuation of "China Lake C".
As a "party", there must always be Dajia to participate, and dozens of collectors and artists came to the scene to watch Zhao Bandi's behavior. There are international figures such as Uri Hick, the largest collector of Chinese contemporary art, Lawrence, owner of ShanghART Gallery, as well as local collectors such as Zhang Rui and Tang Ju, as well as various "great immortals" of avant-garde art. Although there are so many big jia, everyone's interpretation of Zhao Bandi's works is vague, obviously related to the current context, and everyone does not want to cause trouble. Zhao Bandi still consistently flashed his words and pointed to the east and the west.
The various "great immortals" of avant-garde art.
Letting people swallow the truth and dividing personalities is the most secretive and powerful zeitgeist today. Everyone knew what Zhao Bandi was doing, but they all pretended not to know, and Dajia and the reporters just silently gathered around, as if they were watching the boring behavior of a boring artist, in fact, they were watching their own sad hearts. Dedicating oneself to a boring act may seem ridiculous and absurd, but it hides the helplessness and despair of most people in this era.
As Zhao Bandi himself said: "Is this gorgeous ancient piano being sunk in the water like this, is it a show of wealth?" No, so what's the show today? I want to show off something on another level. I think that the world has different dimensions, and art is another level on which we touch the world. As a process art, Zhao Bandi obviously hopes that the viewer will discover themselves and discover their own views on reality from his actions.
The formal parody of the work seems to create a certain division between time and space and the viewer, and this sense of division is only to remind the viewer that even if you stand on the edge of the pool, everything you see is doomed to be one-sided. Like his past performance art, Zhao Bandi is not expecting understanding and interpretation, but insults and ridicule.
If you compare society to a theater, Zhao Bandi would like to create some accidents in Chopin's smooth music, such as the sudden fall of the piano cover and the sudden fall of the easel. In short, it is necessary to use a sudden bang to interrupt the smooth music of the player's power. The whole society will certainly not stop functioning because of this unexpected sound, and the music is still sounding, but Zhao Bandi hopes that the viewer's thoughts can be taken away by this unexpected sound.
Zhao Bandi has been playing the "voice of accident" in the art world.
For years, Zhao Bandi has been playing the "voice of accident" in the art world, and even if he takes off his panda uniform today, he still hopes that someone can stop his work and ask him what he is doing? The public will not regard the unexpected sound created by Zhao Bandi as real art, but it has been engraved into the memory of the times. Many years later, people may have forgotten the difficulties of this era, but they may remember this unexpected sound.
The electronic age seems to be deepening the depth of empathy and consciousness, but because the ears of power are completely deaf and the hands are waving more and more violently, this also reduces the language of most artists to glorify power or create chaos. For more than 10 years, Zhao Bandi was reluctant to join this ode group, and has always hoped to use his own actions to repent of the helplessness and suffering of art. He also acts righteously and evilly, and does not want to subvert anything, but he tries to use his own way to name those absurd social behaviors, to name the chaos and degeneration of an era.
He incurably opened himself up with his actions, from the early one-person Olympic Games, the Spring Festival condolence show, the fashion show of all levels of society, etc., to the "party in the water", all of which expect people to examine reality through art. However, because of his actions, the meaning is mostly ambiguous and opaque, and he brings an interactive, multi-faceted experience and media agitation. He did not want to be pleasing to the eye, and he did not want to provide a seemingly orderly order, and from his almost childish behavior, people saw Zhao Bandi's passion for dialogue with society.
He tried to show the invisible things of this age.
He expects to collide with all kinds of forces, power, society, the media, the popular idea, and so on, but in his dialogue, he does not provide questions and answers, like digging a cave under a dark land, he tries to show the invisible things of this era, those secret and fleeting feelings. His behavior is more like the liberation of social behavior, and more people may be able to return themselves to a state of freedom through his behavior, rather than obedience and surrender to social behavior.
For Zhao Handi, no matter what way he shows his art, his belief in art has not changed, that is, he believes that under all visible behaviors and appearances, there must be secrets hidden, and it must not be the impression of our hasty glance. Like this "Chinese Party Chopin" work, he wants to represent the invisible hand hidden behind the party. He wants to let his actions fall into living social relations and reconstruct the dialogue with reality through parody.
He hoped to stop the collusion and channeling with that reality, and to try to eliminate all flashy illusions. Therefore, the more Zhao Bandi shows his habitual behavior, the more surprising people are, and this surprise lies in the rediscovery of reality after the absence of power. He removes the background, complexity, and texture of the real act, so that the viewer can see a reality "elsewhere". He is not acting, but interrogating behavior; he is not in art, but in mourning art. His most fundamental theme is to leave a sample of the behavior of this age after the disappearance of the soul.
Zhao Bandi's behavior has witnessed him and destroyed him, and it seems that he is showing the wounds of society, but in fact, he is showing his own wounds. The ambiguity of his actions, the fragments of his words, his innocent face and his ambiguous body, all try to show that he is single-handedly bearing the darkness of reality. This is the terrible freedom of behavior of an artist after losing his identity, he keeps acting, organizing parties, and constantly talking and arguing, but what we see is actually only the wounded art itself.
Yes, reality cancels the prospect of art, but gives the artist an inescapable fate. Because of this separation, when human behavior becomes more and more incomprehensible, Zhao Bandi is trying to play a pathologist of human behavior. Each act attempts to reveal a lesion. The cruelty of reality makes this kind of behavior of the artist also become as funny as a clown, because there is always something unspeakable, and there is always a disease that becomes a part of humanity because it cannot be cured. Although in his recent works, Zhao Bandi has continuously strengthened the word "China", he actually points out that it is only a place where art has fallen.
Modern artists have always expected to find material from hell.
Walking into the crowd seems to make performance art vast, but the artist becomes fragmented in it. Zhao Bandi could not stimulate his own primal physical reactions through repeated actions, and what he showed was like a suffering body. Unlike the divine sense of The Crucifixion, He is more like a clumsy but determined imitation of the Crucifixion. When the victims were tortured, they had to shout, and Zhao Bandi saw the poetry of art from this shouting.
Modern artists have always hoped to find material from hell and gain the freedom of judgment by offending others. Zhao Bandi didn't even want to admit despair, he only showed the grand contempt in his heart. Of course, he doesn't need any authority to identify with his pride as an artist, he expects to be ridiculed, cursed, reviled, and misunderstood, and that's exactly how his performance art should be in relation to this era.
In the face of Zhao Bandi's works, reality has finally degenerated into an illusion, and art has become a mortgage for his life. But to lend or exchange anything, Zhao Bandi did not want to give an answer.
▌ Liugen is the author of today's headlines.
－END－
Who are the six roots?
Li Hui Ye Kuangzheng Green Tea Han Haoyue Pan Tsefu Wu Yunpu
Drunkenness can be enjoyed, and waking up can be written