Empty Sanji "Untitled" 1982 painting plate acrylic
Empty Mountain Base Mechanical Ji Life Size Standing Model 2015 Glass Fiber Reinforced Plastic, Iron, LED Neon
◎ Brother.J
Neither goddess worship nor male fantasy, but a copy of humanity.
- "Empty Mountain Base: Metropolis"
One exhibition in Shanghai that has won a lot of attention during the summer is "Empty Mountain Base: Metropolis" at the Hao Art Museum, which opens in June and will continue until the end of November. As Khlong Shanji's first large-scale institutional solo exhibition in China, this exhibition showcases the artist's work since the 1970s, including paintings, sculptures, installations, and the latest works in recent years.
Who is Khlong Sanji? He is the most famous illustrator in Japan. After graduating from art school in 1969 and working for an advertising agency, the release of Star Wars caused a robot boom, and Kushanji was commissioned by the business to create the image of a female robot, sexy robot, in 1978. Since then, Kushanji has continued the exploration of this image, constantly developing his own painting and presentation skills, forming a unique metallic aesthetic, and extending to the field of biology, in 1999, in cooperation with Sony, he created the world's first electro-mechanical dog "aibo", which was permanently collected by the Museum of Modern Art (moma) in New York in 2001. His mechanical Ji has also transformed into a physical sculpture, appearing frequently in exhibitions and public spaces.
As soon as we enter the Hao Art Museum, we are confronted with a 5.88-meter-tall mechanical statue of Ji, a huge female robot figure with a metallic luster and slightly outstretched arms, like a goddess who will soar in the future. After that, the exhibition enters the first section, "Robotized Creatures", which includes dinosaur paintings and dinosaur machine images of Kushanji, and robotized creatures have always been the interest and subject of Kushanji.
Next to the dinosaur sculpture, I was able to see the painting of the empty mountain base for the first time, which left me with the impression of being as delicate as a computer drawing. The details are real, the subject matter is quite surreal, and the blending and transition of colors is natural and perfect, this is the work of a pair of painters!
Later, I saw a documentary of Kōsanji's paintings, and sure enough, the artist used pencils, acrylics, and airbrush pens to create such vivid works, with countless details. Although the poster girl who appeared in the last century was the main inspiration for the start, Kuyamaji's depiction of mechanized creatures was indeed independently explored. The first album of Mechanical Ji, published in 1983, amazed everyone – the smooth, soft but indelible texture of the metal surface. On this point, he mentioned: "I have no assistants and no mentors. And his fine painting skills, hand-painted ingenuity, are also expressed in later sculptures, revealing a unique retro sense of handmade.
So in the exhibition, whether it is the sculptures of several mechanical Ji we see, or the mirror reflection effect in the last space, I have paid special attention to the meticulous treatment of the sculpture itself composed of glass fiber reinforced plastic, iron, aluminum, resin and other materials, as well as the perfection of the performance of the mirror house, it can be said that the fine sense of craftsmanship and the illusion achieved by relying on human ingenuity, compared with most of today's sound and light immersion experience, has a stronger retro futurism, while nostalgia, Let people have a sense of infinity in time and space.
But behind The Proud Painting Technique of Kuyama Ki, the most important thing is still the image of the series of robot women he has created. The exhibition's juxtaposition of Empty Sanji and Metropolis is the core code that provides this image interpretation: Metropolis refers to the German director Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, and Empty Sanji's mechanical ji image is influenced by the female robot image in Metropolis. At the exhibition site, we can also see Kōzanji's paintings of tribute to "Metropolis".
In Metropolis, the ruler commissions scientists to create a replica of the Virgin Mary, but this robot becomes the fuse that destroys the entire machine world. For the first time in the history of cinema, the birth of a female robot appears, and this robot character, here is both made and uncontrolled, both provoking desire and spawning evil.
The exhibition's paintings and sculptures of Mechanical Ji are placed in a scene space inspired by Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is bright and clean, but the interior decoration is relatively retro. In this fictional environment, mechanical Ji sculptures sit or stand, showing a seductive posture, but their expressions are like a metallic surface glowing with alloy light, without projecting any emotion, and on the wall background, there are paintings by Kōzan ki from the 1980s, his famous hand-drawn series of acrylic and spray guns, and various mechanical female figures expressed in this way.
Here we not only imagine that these sexy women with nearly perfect bodies and mechanical compositions that overcome the flesh, are they goddesses of the new era, or some kind of projection of male fantasies? Personally, I don't think it's either. If the goddess worship comes from the primitive matriarchal society where human beings place hopes for reproduction and survival, those naked goddesses can bless future generations like totems; while the women projected by male fantasies are entirely the product of a certain perspective, for alienating objects and objects of consumption.
Kuyamaji's work presents a more complex relationship. Privately, this series of seductive figures must have been admired and loved by the artist himself, who explores nudity through the appearance of a robot and does not shy away from his preferences, he once said, "Imagine how a cold mechanical beauty feels when you smile", and it seems that all men's exaggerated fantasies of women will be satisfied here for a moment.
Speaking of poster girls, this form of painting may date back to Mucha's graphic work. With the development of magazines such as Playboy and commercial consumer society, a female figure that is either sweet and sexy, or a snake and scorpion, can always stimulate the eyeballs and consumption, bringing a unique sense of beauty, and the iconic image is Marilyn Monroe, who appeared in Playboy in 1953. Kusan Ki also drew Marilyn Monroe's version of Mechanical Ji in 1982.
Women's self-examination is never simply sexy, if we look at the self-portraits of female artists, we know that women freely present their bodies in front of the camera, with a cunning purpose, either through posture or through the eyes, provocative and questioning the viewer, what do you see? What do you want to see from me? People who watch always feel a little embarrassed.
And Kōzanji's paintings seem to lack a certain provocation of gender reflection, replaced by a complex confusion about the unknown, and women seem to become the third kind of people, who are far away from humans but surrender to artists. They are almost perfect, but not perfect, and they always remind us of outer space, and of everything we fantasize about and fear, and at this point, as revealed in Metropolis, they do not possess human souls, but merely copies of female figures.
This feeling is perfectly reflected in the final mirror-like "Mechanical Hime-Levitation" installation. There are only 4 sculptures in total, because the mirror reflection has become innumerable, this dark room is very suitable for getting lost in it, unable to distinguish between true and false and confused, just like in the movie "Miss Shanghai", the heroine escapes into a mirror space and becomes an infinite number of doppelgangers. But here, it's our turn to get lost, and how to escape becoming a copy may not be a crazy selfie that can be solved.
Courtesy photo/ Hao Art Museum