Wang Jiazeng The Historical Contemporary 屏幕现实
Wang Jiazeng’s works are enriched by mass of abstract inspirations, as opposite to the image you may observe in the pictures themselves. The background evidenced the application of abstractionism, the selection of colors, the dull gray tone of the factory ambience. The adoption of homo-colored sky-earth background imposes the dense industrial scenario, and the tone has been the dominance throughout the process of creation. In addition, the way that pigments are applied in a full-scale reveals the track of brush movement on the canvas, a seemingly random, yet substantial expression of the artist’s comprehension of aesthetical value in his works. The shapes give you a feeling of geometrical patterns being successively painted in the background to form architectures and the space that platforms them. All those patterns, however, are not concrete, yet maintain symbolic division of geometrical space. Right before the space in question, are more specific images of workers, metal boxes and the workshops.
You are going through several visual layers, the abstract background, the blurred geometrical patterns and the people. To finalize the whole works, the artist utilize again the method in background painting, which not only plays up the atmosphere, but hazes the specific images, therefore the figures are no longer clear, they fade out and disappear into the overall atmosphere of the picture. The human figures are codified as lifeless being that are placed into the boxes. Wang Jiazeng’s works always concentrate on a symbol, yet go beyond – box-shaped railway wagons carry humans instead of cargo. The concept of replacing cargo with human interprets Wang’s criticism of modern production line that have turned human being into part of products it makes, and his mockery of realistic value of modern society and capitalist economy.
Metal boxes are Wang’s interpretation of industry and modern world as a whole. The box that confines people’s life is a simile of subsistence of people in modern economy during China’s development. In the 1950s and 60s, the realism art works expressed people’s ardor in constructing their motherland. In contrast, Wang incorporates people into the industrial system by deforming their human nature, and consequently interprets this age in a novel manner. Comparison of human with machine in his works is actually an inquiry of the community we are living in.
In early works of Wang, he symbolized the boxes as confinement of individuals. He showed us that people are passively arranged at positions. You will notice changes in his new works, further symbolic meaning is given to his boxes – his surpass of realism. In the above works, the metal boxes are hovering over the scene of the factory, and the geometrical patterns are divided into two parts – the boxes that originally interconnected with the factory are now over‐hanging, seemingly escaping from the system that endows them the characters. The brightness in tone implies that the escape is possible. Such scene can be captured also in his other new works, evolution of gray factories into buildings, automobiles and modernized environments. However the ropes that tie up the metal boxes remain unchanged. Modernization changes the format of confinement, not the nature of it and the characters in the picture still present deformed nature under such confinement. The historical faces of the characters in the pictures turn to a snapshot of the real world.
We don’t need to create a brand new character to fit into his latest works, which is quite different in genre from other modern works that use modern elements to depict new trend of life. Wang doesn’t try to be trendy, in contrary, he put new question in old background for reflection. His works serve as mirror to reflect the process of the industrial age and to arouse our reminiscence of the time we live in. In other words, nothing is more closer to our status quo than the description of his works. As much as the changes that have taken place in the environment, our struggle against confinement remain unchanged, something that we have forgot are touched again by Wang’s works. Wang Jiazeng’s works are about a section of history and what they give us is more than a simple retrospect of what we have experience in the past or a tradition we have lived through. They are about reminiscence of the reality and make us echo his understanding of the world, furthermore he finalizes his cognition. Such reflection will be helpful to our understanding of the status quo and will encourage us to select a path, a way to exceed ourselves. Why Wang Jiazeng’s works are complete modern art. The answer is they enquire the inside issues and awaken modern humans.
Contact 联系方式 Association Co-existences 网站 : www.coexistences.net ON/gallery : www.on-gallery.com Wang Lingyun 王凌云 : tel : 13810012292 / mail : wangly0410@gmail.com