Artist reveals opinion through realism
An ongoing exhibition of Zhao Bandi’s works at Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art showcases his unconventional ideas. Lin Qi reports.
Beijing-born artist Zhao Bandi says he uses a party as a metaphor for society. The 51-year-old adds that at a party he is able to observe what is happening and keep some distance from it.
His performance-like project Underwater Chopin Party staged on the outskirts of Chengdu in September 2016 was attended by friends, curators, gallerists and collectors.
The party was at a villa with a pool. There, 13-year-old Hu Tianke played Frederic Chopin’s works on a piano placed in the water. Zhao, who was also standing in the pool, painted on a canvas while she played.
The project generated two products — a video recording of the Chengdu party and an oil painting depicting the girl playing in water. They are now on show at Zhao Bandi: China Party at Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art.
Zhao says that like at a party there are a lot of elements and bustle in Chinese society, beneath which he sees worries and uncertainties.
The exhibition covers his 30-year career. Oil paintings from the late 1980s to the early 1990s are displayed.
They provided him initial fame as a realist painter, who uses rigid composition and measured brushstrokes.
Also on show is his Giant Panda series. Works are presented as performance-art videos, short films, installations and fashion designs that have made him controversial.
This assembly of works on loan from collectors around the world show his concerns with social issues via his “romantic and personal account of the country’s evolving reality”, UCCA director Philip Tinari says.
The earliest piece is the painting, The Lipstick Girl, which Zhao completed in 1987.
He was then a junior at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His instructor was Jin Shangyi, an established oil painter who initiated the country’s neo-classical realism in painting in the 1980s.
The piece shows Zhao’s exploration of this novel style. It earned him a place among young talented Chinese painters when it was displayed at exhibitions in the early 1990s.
Zhao says it has been nearly three decades since he saw The Lipstick Girl.
It was last sold to Taikang Insurance Group for 13.8 million yuan ($2.08 million) at a Beijing auction in 2015.
Zhao says he began to feel miserable about working on canvas even as he received acclaim.
“I was weak and anxious. Even after I completed a painting, I was not satisfied with it. I would wake up at midnight to check the work,” he says.
“I was afraid that I would disappoint myself.”
He felt like he was fighting on a battlefield when he faced canvases.
“I was lonely. I needed a change,” he says.
“Painting is a rather quiet process during which I don’t converse with the world but with myself. Thus, I want to do something that opens me up to people outside.”
That is why he stopped painting and started the Panda series around 1996.
“The panda is a public symbol, an icon of cuteness. So, I thought that if my creations were centered around it, they would be attractive to more people and help me forge closer relationships with society,” he says.
The panda is a recurring visual element in his works.
He poses with a toy panda for photographs used to make light-box installations. He staged a Bandi Panda Fashion runway show in 2007 in which models wore costumes Zhao designed to represent people from different walks of life. And he produced Let Panda Fly, a feature film, to raise money for a home for 46 elderly people in Kaifeng, Henan province, in 2013.
“I did not consider at first whether the works were artistically profound. It was the process that I cared about,” he says.
“I hope that art can be a medium to link artists and life through my works.”
The panda series sparked controversy as Zhao was accused of tarnishing the creature’s image.
“The panda in my works has nothing to do with the ones in zoos. Nor does it have anything to do with whether I like the panda or not,” he says, adding that it is like any other subject in an artwork.
“I created a world of pandas that challenges people’s mindsets. And they are angered and influenced because my works have power.”
He decided to end the series in 2013.
He says he surrendered to fatigue, both physically and mentally.
“I thought at the beginning that the series would be a lifelong commitment. But, one day, when I woke up in the morning, I decided to end it. Through this series I have changed the world a little bit, and I feel comforted,” he explains.
“I’m a good artist. That is enough for me.”
The exhibition also showcases another of Zhao’s oil works, My Garden, a self-portrait in which he stands behind a rail based on one in the residential community he lives in. Behind him is a blossoming garden. He gazes outside with a look of calmness and aloofness while wearing a black suit.
“There are so many forms of art right now. Still, I don’t want to follow the trends. The only way for me to keep a distance from mainstream art is to pick up the brush.”
He says this doesn’t mean that he will return to painting.
“I will paint some of the time.”
He says he feels confused but is sure that painting will not be the main part of his creations.
After the Chengdu party, Zhao was asked to stage similar projects.
“I will not do piano recitals again. Maybe, I will add something else,” he says.
“Who knows. Maybe, I will become a party king someday.”
Painting is a rather quiet process during which I don’t converse with the world but with myself.” Zhao Bandi, artist