Pictures at an exhibition

I haven’t been to a museum or art gallery for some time. A long time ago, I used to spend a lot of time visiting them, especially during weekdays and those that did not charge you anything for entrance. Free entrance and weekday visits often mean you can spend a lot of undisturbed time with the art pieces you like.

Being a mediocre art appreciator, I am always attached to a limited number of European artists whose works are often “commercialized.” Most of them are not contemporary but thrived in the modern art age. For those modern and contemporary local, Chinese or Oriental artists, I owe them an apology for being apathetic to their hard work. Very often, when there are traces of resemblance to some “great” artists in their works, I judge them as an imitation, or worse, a copy. I must admit I cannot help seeking out those traces whenever I notice the artists’ names are likely to be oriental. This is indeed my problem.

A friend asked me to go visit M+ three weeks ago. I wasn’t too keen, as I thought the entrance fee was expensive and the collection should be ordinary. He told me it was free until the mid-month, so we went on a weekday morning. Well, the building stunned me. It must be extremely costly to build and maintain. We planned to leave before 1:00 pm for lunch, but in the end we left at 4:30 pm with aching legs.

Most of the artworks were local and Chinese, or the artists had connections with the city and the country. My prejudices about these artworks remained unchanged. However, I was quite impressed by a large collection of contemporary artworks by artists in China in the last exhibition hall. There are a lot of references to western modern art in most pieces, but the way they were installed and displayed in the huge halls made them look great and iconic from a distance.

A few days later, I went back to the same museum again on my own. This decision surprised me. This time I spent the whole morning, more than three hours, looking at every single piece of artwork, taking pictures of those that intrigued me, and reading all the words in the curator’s notes in the hall for the Chinese artists. There were only a few visitors, mostly noisy, but they did not stay long after taking some selfies with the pieces they liked. It was an unexpected experience for me. I felt as if the artworks were singing a well-rehearsed song with different parts carefully put together. Instead of searching for more artistic mannerisms or resemblances to other masters, I tried to read their stories underneath the canvases and their feelings mixed with the charcoal and paint. When I left, I said to myself “The collection is a great piece of art!”

I was not connected to the art pieces with my eyes. What an experience!

I leave here parts of the memories and reflections of the artworks I gathered on the second day to remind me of the possibility of seeing things differently.

Tactile Art

The Second State

Fission

X? No. 4

Simulated Suicide Project Relating to "One"

1995.2

Family Tree

Standard Family

Family Theme: Quartet No.2

Eating

1998.12.4

Everybody Connects to Everybody

Mask: Rainbow

Bloodline: Big Family No.17

Rouge 1992

Great Criticism: Chanel

Silence of the Sea

Mao and Red Scarf on Tiananmen 2

Sea

St Thomas

Involvement-the Innocent Marcel 

Interception Underflow in Huixian City

From the Tiger's Mouth

I Graze Horse for My Motherland

The Popsicle Vendor

Bamboo Shoot

Imitating Qi Baishi

Untitled

The Twelfth Month

Chinese Cabbage Three News 500g

We went to look for love

The Good and the Bad

The Distortion of Eroticism - Chapter 13

Welcome the World Famous Brand

Art and Politics

They Recorded for the Future

Piece of Life

BBE July 1997

Sitting on the Wall - Guangzhou

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