WANG MAI: DETERMINED TO BE "VISUAL IDEOLOGIST"

Wang Mai was born in early 1970s, when China was in the period of “a sudden regain of consciousness”” after the Cultural Revolution and thousand of things were wait to be done. When he went to high school in 1980s, Western thoughts started to penetrate into China. All the literary youth were indulged in Western literature and philosophy. In early 1990s, he came to Beijing and prepared for the entrance exam of Central Academy of Fine Arts. But he failed and did not choose to try one more time; instead, he moved in Yuanmingyuan artist village by chance and started his “bohemian” life as an artist. He said the life in Yuanmingyuan had greatly influenced his later works. When he was a student, he read a lot about philosophy and theories but he could not get in-depth understanding due to the lack of interactions. However, during his stay in the artist village, he had a lot of time to discuss them with friends. In the end of 1990s, “miscarriage” of exhibition was quite normalhe often found his exhibitions or his friends’ exhibitions closed down on the day of opening. Against such a background, he turned to performance art, an art medium that could be “carried around”. As long as his body was not restrained, he could perform anytime, anywhere, which was cheap and convenient.

In 1997, Wang Mai created Code of Conduct-Me in the same Afternoon.. With him being the main character, this work demonstrated a “reallife edition” of fine people and fine deeds greatly advocated by textbooks and public media. The examples often shown on TV were performed in the form of short acts, such as: returning money found, offering seat to a pregnant woman, helping blind person go across the street and fighting bravely with an armed scoundrel. The performances were recorded in the form of photography. When talking about this work, he emphasized he did not want to scoff; on the contrary, because Chinese society was lack of works with moral strength, he wanted to create a moral drama by use of a comparatively absurd method.

In the performance work Spring Festival Gala Evening of 1999, Wang Mai used the example of Spring Festival Gala Evening, which is well-known by Chinese audiences. He chose the most classic and popular songs and short acts of the past few years, re-acted and re-composed them into a show having no difference compared to a real gala evening with hosting, songs, dances and short acts. The whole process lasted for one hour and more than twenty actors participated. He also invited many relatives and friends to be the audience. From the series of performance artworks he created in 1990s, one could clearly see what he wanted to express and the social phenomena he paid close attention to-the re-examination of the second reality created by public media.

In 2001, Wang Mai stared to create installations. He felt it was a need for creation. When things became extremely complicated, he needed a more comprehensive method to express them. His first installation was Double Towers of Acousma. In 2001, the 911 event brought limitless terror and shock to the U.S. and even the whole world. This important event also caused people to question the democratic and free society and criticize on Western ideology. In this work, he made two intersecting phantoscopes. They looked like skyscrapers, but they were supported by a “weak” pillar. In these phantoscopes, he put many famous building landmarks of the world. Besides, he juxtaposed the pictures of the owners of multinational cooperation, rich and power people with those of terrorists to form the bottom boards. In the different scenes that the phantoscopes presented, he did not rest his eyes on condemning the attack of terrorism, but on re-examining the faults of the injured party. In his opinion, the “terrorism” label could be used according to the need of international political policies. Who on earth was the enemy we faced? Who was the chief criminal that had caused the chaos?

In 2002, Wang Mai became one of the earliest artists to move in 798 art zone, which also became a transitional point of his art career. The focus of his creation changed to installation and painting. He discovered many “treasures”-stacks of electronic components and industrial garbage in 798. He started to consider how to use these “ready-made products”. In 2004, he read a piece of news -American scientists secretly made many experimental biologic products and they named these animals “mixed-blood hybridschimeras”. Based on this news, he created giant group installation Future Buddha. It was composed by seven groups of wooden utensils, a triptych fresco, five acrylic sketches and more than twenty sketches on tracing paper. He used the wooden models in the workshop to make a lot of “monster objects”. He ingeniously combined together the elements of religion, science and myth, trying to depict a world beyond the imagination of mankind, a critical point where morals and ethics were disappearing and transforming.

When creating installations, Wang Mai did not abandon painting. He found the current culture intersected with the traditional one and they formed many twisted and highly-secularized cultures. But few cultures that could be inherited from traditions developed. He created a series of paintings to reflect this nondescript status, among which, Huizong in 798 were a series of installations made up of paintings on paper. From afar, they looked like traditional Chinese ink and wash paintings of primitive simplicity. But if you looked close enough, you could discover the elaborate design of the artist. He used the official seal that he picked up in 798 as the stamp for traditional Chinese paintings. In the pictures, he grafted animal bodies, heads of beautiful ancient women and plants symbolizing China: bamboo, plum and pine, etc. With completely irrelevant signature and preface and postscript by Song huizong, they looked absurd yet humorous.

Wang Mai just finished the solo exhibition in May. He is busy preparing the exhibition that is going to open in UCCA in July. During the interview, he was learned and refined and modest. He said with a laugh that he was lucky instead of talented. He really appreciated his life and hoped to participate in more public welfares to show gratitude to the society and help the young artists grow.