I think that every artist's work for this era is valuable, and good artists should have judgment about the future.
--Song Yang
Song Yang, internationally renowned artist/musician, eight and a half years in France, founder of 798 Song Yang Art Museum/Fun Culture Company, art consultant of the United Nations Asia-Pacific Foundation for Sustainable Development. He was praised as a "young artistic opinion leader" by the UCCA Ullens Art Museum and a "difficult to define artist" by SURFACE Magazine in the United States.
- Her personal work Bad Girl was auctioned for millions of yuan
- Hermès Family Patti China Signed Artists
- More than 16 countries around the world Touring exhibition + lecture + book publishing
- Member of Beijing Chaoyang District Youth Federation, Director of Orchid Grass Fund of China Youth Development Foundation
- Distinguished Lecturer of Beijing Film Academy/Central Academy of Fine Arts/TED Animation Department
- At the end of 2008, Song Yang was appointed as the youngest judge of the World University Games;
- 2008 Beijing Creative & Design "Young Person of the Year" Gold Award;
- 2011 World University Games Global Visual Consultant + Alibaba Tao Doll Visual Judge + Jingdong Dog Mascot Visual Judge + Hangzhou Animation Festival Founding Committee Advisor;
- 2013, 2014, 2015 Artist of the Year, Fashion Group/ Fashion Home/ Art & Wealth/Boutique Shopping Guide/NEWYOUNGER, etc
- In 2018, it exclusively signed and signed the American Andy Warhol, the art cross-border contract signed the Forbidden City IP, SpongeBob SquarePants, Paul Frank large-billed monkey, Marvel's father Stan Lee, dunhuang museum, the world's four major museums, the Russian National Museum Hermitage Museum Picasso and other international first-line IP for art licensing release
- His works are collected by UNESCO/Today Art Museum in Beijing/National Gallery in Dubai/Adu Museum of Contemporary Art in France/National Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow/Museum of Contemporary Art in Copenhagen
- In 2020, he created the art theory of "Future links + future link address", and the United Nations recommended the English version to be released globally
- In 2020, he served as the rotating mayor of Sanya Tianya District and released the art to change the aesthetics of Chinese cities
- The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are the only artists to invite official Chinese derivatives
A: I am an artist who has been in 798 for 15 years, founded my own brand Song Yang Art, and established 16 different galleries and Song Yang Art Museum across the country. Every year, we do a young artist support program called "Asian Young Artists Nomination Exhibition", with me as the chief curator We have been doing it for 8 years, and every year we will exhibit in excellent academic institutions such as the National Art Museum of China, Bird's Nest, Water Cube, and Today Art Museum. We exhibit 6,000 to 8,000 artists and about 20,000 to 30,000 works every year. I hope to use my own strength to help excellent artists innovate and develop in all aspects.
A: As one of the first artists after the founding of the People's Republic of China, I went to Europe to publish comic art picture books Most of the books published in Europe and the United States at that time were largely devoted to promoting traditional Chinese culture, such as the four masterpieces and the image of Sun Wukong, which easily fit the Europeans' curious aesthetic of China. But I was particularly interested in creating a cultural image of contemporary Chinese youth, so I created "Bad Girl." She loves material things, loves to consume, and is influenced by many new cultures in Europe and the United States. And a lot of the things I painted about sensuality and eroticism back then have become very popular and popular today. I feel that every artist should turn what is of interest in life into the elements and themes of his creations and integrate them with the times.
Today, we have also published records for Bad Girl and exhibited worldwide, including the Pompidou Museum, the United Nations, the National Art Museum of China, the Today Art Museum, etc. I think that whether it is from the independent Bad Girl creation, or later commercial licensing we made to brands like Hermès and Nike, Bad Girl is a rare single art IP in China. I have been working on this work for 15 years, and I still work all night every day to this day, and she is a connection to the world, and I am proud of it.
A: The image of Bad Girl has undergone a particularly big transformation from the beginning of creation to today. In her early days, she was more of an independent creator of a very rebellious, cute or sexy figure. But today I'm going to make a full-fledged depiction of it. For example, sound and virtual reality, and the holographic intelligence we are doing with the University of California Artificial Intelligence Laboratory now. I wanted to turn her into a true icon of art.
We also plan to make a 1:1 live-action artificial intelligence Bad Girl next year, and then hold exhibitions and auctions at 798 and Sifang Art Museum. I think at the top of the logic of art culture and business, there are actually many things in technology, art and humanities that can meet. Early on I would have focused more on technology, but today I'm more focused on the definition and future of the Bad Girl project.
A: This year we signed two very big joint names, one with the Dunhuang Museum and the other with the Hermitage Museum. We made a secondary co-creation of the image of Bad Girl and the image of the traditional museum, just like the previous co-creation with brands such as Hermès, Nike, and Li Ning. We had a good market transition and influence before, so today I am not creating as a simple painter, because this work is not just an element of an image, I will consider its design form, as well as its future development and positioning in artificial intelligence. I need to keep my thought logic and what I want to do with this era. I think that every artist's work for this era is valuable, and good artists should have judgment about the future.
I think what we're doing now is a futuristic thing, and it's already been validated by a lot of business, and a lot of it has a relatively good result. If we can persist for 20 to 30 years, our new aesthetic view and logic will definitely have an impact on the youth culture of China and even the world.
A: I think for me to create is like painting, writing songs, falling in love, every new thing blends together, it is actually a process of exploration, but the mode is different. Last year, I published a new book at the United Nations in Hong Kong, "How to Develop the Art Business in the Future" Future links+ future links, which explains how art and business can be linked in one way.
I worked at the Song Yang Art Museum in 798 for 15 years, and signed more than 400 artists, some of whom were quickly commercially accepted, and many of whose works were bought by stars like Barbara, Wu Zun and Wu Kequn, but there were also many artists who basically disappeared after a year or two. During these 15 years, there may be thousands or even tens of thousands of artists who come and go. I think it is more important for every artist to live in the moment and be able to create something he really likes with different breakthroughs.
Everyone now sees some Internet celebrity videos on Douyin Kuaishou, although it is considered a very "vulgar" thing, but he does get huge traffic, and this huge traffic can help more people's artists like Yaoshui Brother, who can earn millions of dollars every month. So in this world, are tens of millions of big Internet celebrities like them more influential, or are the artists who are obscure and paint in a corner of Songzhuang or 798 more influential? I think the value judgments of each era are completely different.
Today, we hope that at least Song Yang Art and the artists who cooperate with our set of "Future Links" can live in the present, so that this creative way and aesthetic can be quickly recognized by business and mainstream. For example, we opened our first tide brand store at 798 this week, and turned many of the artists we signed, as well as Bag Girl, Dunhuang Museum, Forbidden City, SpongeBob SquarePants and other IPs into our tide brand. These paintings, which originally sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, were made into T-shirts that sold for hundreds of dollars. I think every era needs to have works that can have value and influence on more people, which is more important for this era.
A: I think that the NFT itself is an inevitable product of the development of the times to this stage, because for many artists and creators, the so-called elite wisdom or creative power, at a certain stage, there will be a convergence. When all creations are now more flattened, there will be more so-called civilian artists or ordinary creators, who need a new outlet.
So I think the decentralized approach of NFTs will help many artists who have no more commercial value to quickly gain market recognition. I think this is really a very revolutionary event, but at the same time because of its so-called decentralization, and the whole way of auction, I think there are still many drawbacks, there are many places in the middle that cannot be fully open and transparent, which is a process that needs to be explored and grown.
A: Traditional galleries and art museums usually only have a double to twice the growth rate, while Internet companies like Alibaba can basically achieve 20 to 40 times pe (price-to-earnings ratio), but in the industry like NFT, they are 60 to 100 times PE. Such an institution or individual cannot do something from the beginning in a down-to-earth manner. Most of these self-built platforms or new institutions want to get good resources, but they don't pay any costs. We also talked a lot with platforms like OpenSea and Huobi, as well as many other domestic platforms. We're only planning to do some work with one or two of the biggest companies right now, and it's very cautious.
I think because of the windfall profits in this industry, there are a lot of capital stories that seem to me to be very ridiculous. So I have a lot of good feelings about this industry, but at the same time I am very wary. I'm basically not going to work with any organization that does things at no cost at all. As a mature artist, you must have enough confidence and ability to choose your own cooperation objects, and have a very rational and clear judgment on each stage of your own creation and the stage of commercial realization.
A: We didn't think of many NFT artists as artists in the traditional sense, but in our opinion, they were more like a 3D proposal maker or an illustrator of images. But today the industry has become very hot, and you can work with brands like Gucci and LV.
As I said at the beginning, what is more important for every artist is to live in the present, that is, to grow with the times. A dozen years ago, there were thousands of artists who painted with us in 798, but after more than a decade, they have basically been wiped out, so you will find that this is not an individual problem, but an era is changing and advancing.
If Song Yang Art did not do a big exhibition, did not do an asian young artist nomination exhibition, did not do the field of IP authorization. We didn't cross over with People like Andy Warhol, or SpongeBob SquarePants, Bigzooka and The Father of Marvel, Stanley, and if we hadn't laid out artificial intelligence and tide shops today, then I believe that Song Yang Art would have disappeared a long time ago, so I think it's more important that you can move forward with a lot of what you want to do without limits, because any institution or artist has a cognitive limitation.
I think every artist can't just focus on the present, but also know what artists around the world are doing. Let the artist's ideology go through an iteration, and I think the value will be far greater than selling a million paintings. Because life itself and art history is a long run, in the end only the artist himself is remembered, if you disappear on this track, in fact, there is no value, every artist still has to live their own life, I think this is particularly important.
A: I think artists who think like this are basically doomed to be eliminated by this era. When Freud painted that kind of hyper-realistic work, the people around him stopped painting. In the end, with the exception of Freud, the group of people who painted hyperrealism or figurative expressionism with him at that time have completely disappeared, indicating that the individual has no way to reverse the progress of the entire era.
I especially like to look at history, not just art history, I found Andy Warhol to do Factory, to attract all the brands and him to do Interview magazine, to build his own system. Takashi Murakami's Kaikai Kiki and various trend art exhibitions; Song Yang Art, the touring exhibition of the Song Yang Art Museum, and the nomination exhibition of young Asian artists, in fact, there is no essential difference, but most of the artists do not turn away from the traditional way of playing to see the essence of the industry.
To this day, there is not a single artist who does not sell things, and the driving force of all artists is itself to be recognized by mass commerce, which is the influence that can leverage the entire industry and art history. It's just that because there was no Internet before, there was no such more open and transparent game format, so many people turned this industry into a very private, seemingly high-end thing.
I think that in today's track, the system of traditional art history and the so-called major academies of art that set these rules are very fragile today. I think all young people will have their own opinions, and this era will always choose artists who will think with their own minds.