STORY - final media project works

The final works of our new media research project.

STORY

Yanna, Soso and Minos produced in 2009

A Real Era

The contemporary asian art auction was hold on 6th April. I went there and witnessed the most time of the auction.

The result of auction appeared the serious polarized phenomenon, the works belonging to the famous artists attained an unprecedented high price and other works just got a minor price or some even didnot be sold.

Based on the final data, No.654 UNTILED by Zhang Xiaogang acquired the highest price of the auction with HK$ 4,820,000, and followed with No.662 HATS SERIES-ARMED FORCES by Yue Minjun for the price of HK$ 4,580,000. The third one was No. 677 MASK SERIES by Zeng Fanzhi, and the price was HK$ 3,620,000.

In another hand, the five contemporary Chinese conceptional art works the auction emphasised also didnot make the organizer disappointed. No.709 SIXTY-YEAR CYCLE CHARIOT by Huang Yongping made the deal with HK$ 3,380,000, the twice time of expected price and been the new record of artist self. And the other four conceptional art works were all surpassed the estimate price.

Reviewing these high price art works, we can notice that they are all created by the artists who have already got the significant status in the global art field. It is not suprised that to be known the result of their success though the contemporary Chinese art now is experiencing the ever harder time since 1980s. But for those younger artists, the result of the auction is not so optimistical. Most of them have not attained the estimate price, and part of them face the fate of failure. That indicates the situation of the contemporary Chinese art in the crisis of economy nowadays, the art collectors or art dealers prefer to pay a high price for the masters' works rather than runing a risk to invest the less well known artists even their works are actually good.

Under the prosperous appearance of the auction scene, that is the truth of the markets controlled by the captital. Neither the works of Yue Minjun nor Zen Fanzhi and Zhang Xiaogang, they can escape the title of political pop. And that is the main reason still stimulate the western society to pay attention to them in the result of the high prices in the auction. There is no one or two days since contemporary Chinese art have failed into the peep approach to the non-transparent Chinese social politics of the West. And the phenomenon is still continued... till now.

However I am so lucky to see some other art works with real art spirit appeared in the acution and got a nice price, like No.725 PUMPKIN by Yayoi Kuwama with the HK$ 2,720,000. Yayoi Kuwama is the most significant female artists in the past 30 years. Her unique and independent art style has an impact significance in the art field. Not like the works by the Chinese artists, her works are not related to any of the society or politics. What she cares about is the human themselves, the inner spirit. Her works are always filled with imagination and children temperament, what represents her strong personal desire to describle the world she feels. The works by her are not to complain the society, but to ask people to review their original intention of what they want to live in this world. As an artist, she is pure and great, absolutely.

Pumpkin by YAYOI KUSAMA

DREAM

Our world is a dream. Infinitely fake. A nightmare.
—— Nightmare Box Chuck Palahniuk

This afternoon, when I read the latest novel HAUNTED by Chuck Palahniuk who was the author of Fight Club, I was fascinated by his dark but significant personal style, especially this piece named Nightmare Box. The story told about the strength of a magic box through a mother who wanted to find the truth of her daughter's missing. She found each person who had once seen through this box would lose the previous self and became demented or suicided. When she got closer and closer to the truth, she became afraid of this truth. She realized the truth of her daughter's missing was also the truth of life, this virtual world. Nightmare box was the approach for people to realize that their "preening and struggle and worry—it’s all pointless.", and writer also said "All your problems and love affairs. They’re an illusion." That's the key point of this short novel, the world is a nightmare, all our endeavor for the better life (especially in Material Dimension) is useless. Everything will change, will flow, will back to earth eventually. Everything is the illusion.

The moment I saw the end of story, I reminded myself of traditional Japanese painting Ukiyo-e. Now the new show of Utagawa Kuniyoshi is at the Royal Academy of Arts, which retrospects the main masterpieces of this significant ukiyo-e master. Ukiyo-e is always said to be the origin which influenced the post-impressionist and abstractist. Coz it is no longer to be the representation for the real life, in stead of that, the intention of Ukiyo-e is more closer to describe the world in people's mind, an imaginary world. Trace back to the meaning of word ukiyo-e, it comes from Buddhism which means the illusory status of human realm. In another word, everything is nothing, heaven is also hell. In this kind of meaning, we can explain why the colors in ukiyo-e are so dreamlike and why the figures are all bizzare though they really exist. The answer I can get is the painting itself is the dream of the world. Taking a look at Utagawa Kuniyoshi's Young woman who looks like an old lady, c1847, the woman's face is painted some human bodies as like wrinkle. And another painting Octopus games, 1840-42 uses the octopus to instead the real people, and the octopus are all dressed like normal Japanese villagers.

Ukiyo-e is not just the equivalent of mythology paintings, what embodies in it is the abstruse philosophy of Buddhism. Just like what Chuck Palahniuk wrote in his book, "Our world is a dream. Infinitely fake. A nightmare. "

Young woman who looks like an old lady, c1847,by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

Octopus games, 1840-42,by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

The Solitary In City

ONE NIGHT IN GUANGZHOU

A Woman more than An Artist

I came to Guangzhou this afternoon for Ono Yoko's personal exhibiton FLY that I missed last time in Shanghai. There wasn't too much exhibits but occupied the whole second floor of Guangdong Art Museum with three video clips,three installtion art and a conception art. One of Yoko's works is the most popular one recent years named Wish Trees for Pasadena which is filled with the wish cards written by visitors. The Tree has been set into many coutries all over the world and becomes the new symbol of Yoko's appealling for peace. As we know, Ono Yoko is so significant in the art sphere mostly because of her an activist for peace and human rights since 1960s. With her well-known husband John Lennon, she has put her art career to the summit. And then with the short breakdown with Lennon(1973-1974), their son's birth(1975), Lennon's assassinate(1980), Yoko experienced the hardest period in her life. Life teaches her a lot and makes her the stronger will to devote herself into the art role of Pacifist. So in October 2007, the big white tower named IMAGINE PEACE TOWER designed by Yoko was completed in Iceland Reykjavik. The video recording the event was showing on the venue of museum all the time. Yoko said she wish the people all over the world could say I love you at the same time and also she said John was still with us at this moment. The name of tower IMAGINE PEACE is also the name of John Lennon's song in 1971.

That was the main theme of this exhibiton and also the main theme of Yoko's art works. But I was not so concerned with that, which captured my eyes was the end of that video, John Lennon finished his singing and turned his face to Yoko who was sitting beside him with a set of white dress. Yoko seemed so shy when she stared at Lennon. What was read by her expression was so complicated with dpressive happiness and nameless sorrow. Then Lennon kissed her unexpectedly and at that time she smiled eventually.

Her responce to Lennon impacted me a lot. I know it is the feeling of a woman who falls in love. Since she meet with Lennon, her life was mostly occupied by him. Though I once heard a lot of criticism to her before especially for her dominance of Lennon due to Lennon's death. Undoubtedly She always plays the powerful role in the relationship. As an Aquarius woman, she represents the typical characters of that constellation, creative, intelligent, sensible and powerful. And if we review the moment which John Lennon decided to love Yoko, we will find that was the period Lennon lost himself in a comfused status. The strength of Yoko was so powerful and pulled Lennon out of his chaos then found the new start point of his life. In that time, John Lennon needed a mentor or a mother to teach him how to do, Yoko did as he wished though maybe go too far afterward.

But she is not an ordinary woman, as a femal artist she has always been trying to break the conventional value on woman. She said being a woman means you must face more difficults than man, but in another word more taboos more creations. What she did is more than enough, it can be seen in the two rest videos FLY (1970 25mins) and CUT PIECE (performance art both in 1964 and 2003). From my view, the first one FLY shotting on the movement of a fly on a naked woman body gives the spectators especially males the new way to consider their attitude to woman. If the video is meaningful or erotic depends on the posture you throw on female. And the second video which Yoko sitted on the stage and her clothes was being cut by a man piece by piece till the bra. Yoko used this two video though seemly not aggressive to ask for people's attention on the women's humanilty. And it also standed for her not willing to be a conventinal housewilf position.

And then let us back to see what she did for John Lennon, she took care of him, guided him in his hardest period, suffered the pressure from the fans of Lennon, and this pressure forever lasts. She wants to be a better woman to Lennon but more than a woman to art, this is the paradox. The only reason she insists on this paradox even making her painful is love, the love to John Lennon. However powerful she expressed on her art works, the expression on the video she faced to Lennon told all.

Wish Trees for Pasadena 2008

Fly 1970

the venue

the video of Imagine Peace 1971

Young Man Falling

In a certain way it looks like the popular UK youth TV show SKINS, and the picture, the music, the atmosphere makes it similar with Iceland's film Nói albinói. Martin de Thurah came back with his new film Young Man Falling,absoutly a dark film on youth, the endless desperation for life. If it really just like the words MGMT sings " live fast and die young".

THIRTY-THREE

The video clip is directed by Billy Corgan and his girlfriend Yelena Yemchuk for The Smashing Pumpkins, which are mixed with surreal imagination and some certain of melancholy.

Yelena Yemchuk is a woman of many talents. The Kiev-born photographer, painter and film director is best known for her work with The Smashing Pumpkins- paticularly for the artwork on 1988's Adore.

Every scene of the vedio is corresponded with each sentence of lyrics, decribing the story of the sentence in a way full of imagination. I feel so sentimental when I watched this vedio, so I watched it again and again, dont wanna lose any subtle emotion of it.

The Smashing Pumpkins - Thirty-Three

Speak to me in a language I can hear humour me before I have to go

Deep in thought I forgive everyone

As the cluttered streets greet me once again

I know I cant be late, suppers waiting on the table

Tomorrows just an excuse away

So I pull my collar up and face the cold, on my own

The earth laughs beneath my heavy feet

At the blasphemy in my old jangly walk

Steeple guide me to my heart and home

The sun is out and up and down againI know

Ill make it, love can last forever

Graceful swans of never topple to the earth

And you can make it last, forever you

You can make it last, forever you

And for a moment I lose myself

Wrapped up in the pleasures of the world

Ive journeyed here and there and back again

But in the same old haunts I still find my friends

Mysteries not ready to reveal

Sympathies Im ready to return

Ill make the effort, love can last forever

Graceful swans of never topple to the earth

Tomorrows just an excuse

And you can make it last, forever you

You can make it last, forever you

AESTHETICS OF MONOCHROME

I happen to read an article about the dialog between Tadao Ando(Architect) and Rei Kawakubo(Fashion Designer), which theme is about Aesthetics of Monochrome. Ando began his talk with the description of The Wittgenstein House which designed by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein himself. He said the house expressed the ultimate pursuit of logic in architecture and created a kind of beaut with simplicity and serenity as the precise attitude Wittfenstein made to himself. However, Ando also pointed out that this kind of pursuit of logic in architecture as a space to live in could create a danger of losing sight of humanity. The much more attenion paid on the function made architecture remain a cold and tired shell. The buidings of Ando in a certain extend, still have a determination to bring people back to natural environment and no intentional avoidence of the influence of modernity on architecture. Undoubtly to say, the moderninty conception generated in the end of 19 century was the rebellion to the conventional aesthetics, it was the progress in the history of society but also conducted the fate of human being to a radical privatism age. If it can be said that the original intention of Ando is to break this conflict and to create a new law of balance, 20 years past, we can strongly feel this introspective potence in the works of Tadao Ando. Or to myself, it is dead certain.

Then Rei Kawakubo assured Ando’s worry about function of design from the view of her own conception of clothing design. These two Japanese architect and fashion designer born in 1941 and 1942. The same age of them results in a similar environment of growing, living and the receiving of western aesthetics, which makes their philosophy have quite similarity. Kawakubo’s former collections which astonished the Europe broke the pursuit of wearable philosophy in the mainstream fashion design group. Differing from Vivienne Westwood’s rebellion to social ideology, Kawakubo adopted the law of monochrome and decontructed the traditional cutting of clothing, which can be said she challenged the clothing industry beginning in the interior of clothing, the spiritual core of clothing. It isn’t so much that her works are the representation of her personality as that through her works she questiones if traditional esthetics value restricts the more possibilities of design. What Rei Kawakubo did is to return the soul to clothing, the soul once constrained under the functional shackles. In the way of Deconstrucionism, the contribution of Kawakubo is not only this, also can be seen on the influence on the later designers, including Ann Demeulemeester, Martin Margiela, Hussien Chalayan. They insist on the design of monochrome and make a lot of porgresses in the way of demonstrating the delicateness of the clothing itself.

Church On the Water

Tadao Ando

1988/Tomamu

Sweater and skirt,

Autumn/Winter 1995,

by Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons Noir.

THE DEATH OF IDEAL

When you still keep something in expectation, but you find that something is fleeing from your life.

Last night, i went to Hong Kong Arts Centre for the reason of Lai Shengchuan's lastest drama WRITING IN WATER. In spite of his reputation and huge success, I find myself a big disappointment with the drama and Lai.

Once been said to be the most famous Chinese theatre director, Lai Shengchuan, the founder of Taiwan shows mania. I should admit that I have been shocked when I first saw his distinguished drama Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land in 2006 even I was on the last row of the theatre. Some people laughed, some people cried, everyone could find his own sympathetic response of soul in the drama. Since that time, I remember his name and respect him as the most creative play writer in China, the dramas he writes could deeply touch people in their inner soul.

Comparing with his former works, his new drama Writing in Water I saw last night still follows his own personal style mixed sorrow and happy. It describes the unhappy status quo of the current Hong Kong people in economic crisis and tries to induce people how to find their real self. To outward seeming, the drama which included a lot of comedy elements to make audiences laugh and was over with a significance ending was so successful. However from another side, the whole drama was divided into 25 acts and each act only last 2-3 mins, which made the drama fragmentary and disrupted. Though it was just a creative play no need to care for every detail, there were many plots lacking evidence and seemed unnecessary. Even Lai Shengchuan himself admited that some details were just for fun and have no meaning for the theme of drama. Contrast to conpaction of Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land his first drama 20 years ago, the new drama looks like a fast food without deliberate thought.

Maybe it could be said the death of ideal. As people are young, they are always full of confidence of what they want to do . They devote themselves to their affectionate dream, without hesitation and fear. That's why Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land could be so touching. We could find our lost faith and love in it. But after 20 years, life always changes people into a mainstream value conception way, no exception to Lai. There is no enthusiasm, no vitality, no dream, no desperation , even sorrow and happy pretending obviously. Only remained, the trace of being squeezed by capitalism, the economic benefits behind of big success.

My friend cried at the end of the last act when the actress was reminded of her past mother, but I did not. I know she did not see Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land before, and in that time I did cry three years ago in the theatre when applause never ended. I wanna talk to her, if you see that drama, you will find your tear now is cheated by the after 20 years' Lai.

Lai Shengchuan with his lastest drama Writing In Water

END OF NOTHING

Do you still remember the ending of Antonioni's Blow Up? A bunch of dumb show actors were playing an nonexistent tennis match. Their eyes were so intently focused on the ball pretending it was real.

In 1948, John Cage, the American composer composed his famous piece 4'33" in the name of silence. 4'33" is consisted with three movements. Each movement has some small units of silent rhythmic durations. When the music is played, audience could be immersed in the huge silence and could feel what John Cage insisted that "There is no such thing as silence. Something is always happening that makes a sound".

And still fifty years ago, Yves Klein, the young French artist only 30 years old, put himself in a void space and tried to graspe the every subtle change happening around. He called this experience a La spécialisation de la sensibilité à l’état matière première en sensibilité picturale stabilisée, Le Vide (The Specialization of Sensibility in the Raw Material State into Stabilized Pictorial Sensibility, The Void). The exhibiton was hold in 1958, at Iris Clert Gallery in Paris. He removed everything in gallery except a large cabinet, painted every surface white, and then staged an elaborate entrance procedure for the first night.

Klein's void exhibiton astonished the mass and more than 3000 people were forced to queue up waiting to invite his empty room. And now, another void exhibiton is hold in Pompidou Centre for reviewing the 50 years history of Voids.

As what news described the exhibiton: A re-creation of different exhibitions spanning 50 years, the retrospective stretches through nine rooms, all of which are unashamedly devoid of content. The freshly painted walls are uniformly white, the floors all pale wood parquet. The only features that stand out – a thermostat here, an exit sign there, a piece of tissue lying discarded in the doorway – take on a strange and surely unprecedented significance.

The exhibiton reminded me of something about ZEN. There is one sentence in the Buddhist Scriptures, Form is emptiness. Though it is different meaning in the philosophy and in exhibiton Voids, in my view, silence or emptiness may be the most power thing in the world coz it is the beginning of the world and also it will be the end of the world even every person self.

So, a void exhibiton gives people a lot of private space and time to rethink the meaning of life. It appears in a art form and end in a philosophic way.


Various
Voids, a retrospective
Pompidou Centre,
Paris

waiting for a living monument

When I open my explorer, I see the news: one person, one hour. The British sculptor Antony Gormley plans to create a huge living monument supported by 2400 volunteers this summer. He said in the video, he wanted use this living monument to express the feeling of people who lived in London and what is more important is to create a new image of London.

The site, Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, has once reserved for statues of Kings and Generals. Now it opens to the ordinary people in London. They can do anything they want on the top of the monument. Every hour, 24 hours a day, 100 days without a break, a different person will make the Plinth their own.

The news reminds me of different definitions of counter-monument and anti-monument which referred in class before. And according to that definition, Gormley's living monument belongs to counter-monument, coz it doesnot throw away the icon of monument and just creates a new format of it. However, this new format has its own meaning which can be seen a symbol impling the resistence to the power politics.

Once been the place only served for upper class of a nation, now everybody can stand on it to make it their own. I want to say that humanity is not only the artist like to show.

See the video followed.


Antony Gormley on the Fourth Plinth from One & Other on Vimeo.

high art or just kitsch?

There is a question always confusing me a lot, what can be said a pure way to approach the real art or something called literature. Contemporary life, thousands and thousands informations surrounds us. There is a result: everything is concerned with money. If we talk about a movie, a book, especially an art work, we will naturally shift our topic to their force on the society. And what is the most obvious point about that is economic benefits they make. People always believe that money is the best way to judge onething triumphs or not, coz it determined whether it is welcomed by customers. But there has another misunderstanding that most people do not make decisions by theirselves, discourse power is always controlled by a few people depending on their taste or business strategy. I say it can be apparently seen in the Contemporary Art Markets both in China and West.

Yesterday I heard a piece of news about the famous artist Damien Hirst. It was said that a Spanish young artist made a sculpture depicting Damien Hirst shoot himself on the head in his famous glass tank with T-shirt painting his famous diamond skull. The work was named 4 the Love of Go(l)d which was borrowed from Hirst's own work For the Love of Gold.

I must admit that I was so suprised when I saw the news. I know it is an irony towards to Damien Hirst and before that I never know this young spanish artist name: Eugenio Merino. He said "I thought that, given that he thinks so much about money, his next work could be that he shot himself. Like that the value of his work would increase dramatically, Obviously, though, he would not be around to enjoy it."

He thought that Damien Hirst was too concerned about the profit of his work instead of art itself. indubitably, Hirst becomes the richest artist recent years relying on his bizarre art works including the diamond skull and the dead shark. To some extend, art will be a kitsch to Capitalism. Even if artists self do not mean this, others will throw this title on them. Just like everything has two side, in this event, money which once made the success of Hirst in the Art way now pushes him to another way of KITSCH.

But I wonder if this is Hirst's fault? No, I will not say that. Damien Hirst just did what he wanted and by accident he made it. That is the institution of Capitalism made Hirst succeed. People want to see something different, astonished, making them hurt. Curiosity and autosadism maybe are the two aspects in human nature and Damien Hirst captured that. He knows what is the weekness of human being , also of Capitalism. So, it is not art's business but Capitalism's.

And next, you see what happened. Eugenio Merino, this young Spanish artist used the same way of Hirst to make it anyway. By that, he earned himself $ 41,ooo, though it was just a piece of cake compared with Hirst's £50,000,000 diamond skull. But his perfect personal show made himself known to all in the name of GOD.

So, a pity, maybe. I don't know what else I can say. Art becomes a joke in my eyes, but I have not any strength to stop.

Right Hand, Left Hand

The couples in the Contemporary Art


Venue: Shanghai MoMA


Exhibition period: 2008.12.21-2009.2.22


Visiting the exhibition in a rainy day, I with my friends had not any conceptions of what the exhibition wanted to tell before we arrived there.

What Right hand, Left hand meant? and what was the relationship between it and art? I was so confused even after I finished my trip. A few weeks passed, when I thought all of the exhibits I saw, something came across my mind.


It could be said INFLUENCE, the influence between people and people, man and woman, creator and spectator, the influence that we even ignore but truely exists. People could easliy notice the things happening to us and seldom catch the influences of them, but the influences even subtle influences could slowly change people in an unobtrusive way.


The exhibition said so. Seeing through the whole exhibition, the artists who participating were 15 couples, like Qu Guangci and Xiang Jing, Rong Rong and Yingli, Chen Ke and Cao Jinping, Chen Shuxia and Liu Qinghe , etc. They are all active in the Chinese Contemporay Art Market. The exhibition wants to explore the influence between the couples that they try to make on each others.

In those art works, I noticed this one which created by Xiang Jing, one of the most famous contemporary sculptural artists. This piece of works was one of the two , another was two naked women named WE.

She was good at using naked woman sculpture to describe the lonely and ambigous relationship between people. The details of the sculpture were so meticulous as real human being. The expression on her face implied the emotion inner, especially being a woman.

And then I turned back to her husband Qu Guangci's sculpture named EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLIE. That was his personal style I could recognized at the first sight. He made a series of works in this style to express the trauma which pushed upon on the people who experienced in the recent 30 years after Cutrual Revolution.

In this art work, a little figure sculpture stood on the top of the branch. In my point of view, he represents the icon of the leader in the contemporary China. Maybe it was another expression of Politic Art.

In these couple's art works, one was from the feminine angle and another was in the masculine eyes. They were couples, so they shared the same conception in their works but did a different way to express it. Xiang Jing was more emotional and Qu Guangci felt like a bit more sensible.

Chinese Contemporary Art Retrospective Exhibition

The another exhibition I visited in Shanghai is DoLand Five Years-Chinese Contemporary Art Retrospective Exhibition( 2003.12.28-2008.12.28).

The exhibiton retrospects the development road of Chinese contemporary art in the past five years, and it can be said an important record of what is happening in China now.

There are more than 46 artists participating the exhibiton, many of them are active in the recent art market such as Wang Guangyi, Zhao Bandi, Zhang Dali, Song Tao, Gao Brothers and so on.

The exhibition mainly focuses on the artists in Shanghai and other places near Shanghai. They represents the central force in the Chinese contemporary art. Not only a retrospective exhibition it is, but also a new experimental try in the art road.


Some of exhibits have already been famous in the art sphere. Like Zhao Bandi's panda. And I am also happy to see more art works that I have never seen. Like Sun Xun's video art.

More and more Chinese contemporary artists emerging in the global art markets recent years, which in certain ways raises the reputation of Chinese artists. But in other way, political-pop and kitsh culture dominates the trend of art. In this exhibition, we can easily see that from these art works.

CHEMA MADOZ's Poetica

Exhibition period: 2009.1.11-2009.2.28

Venue: Spanish Consulate General in Shanghai

In the sping festival last month, i came back my home town Shanghai and visited several exhibitions there. Here is one of those.

The exhibition is named POETICA, a spanish word meaning poetic. It is a photography show operated by the Spanish photographer Chema Madoz. His works focus on the subtle things in the dairy life that people used to ignore. He uses some trick ways to fool the spectators' eyes in order to establish a model that makes viewers think deeply.

Like this photo, the auther hides a crutch in it pretending to be a banister. In the first sight of this, you could not ingnore of this subtle difference. But when you approach the photo, you could find the trick.

In the auther's words, he wants to express the existence of truth in front of the people. In some ways, it looks like the art works of post-modernity which aims to overthrow the traditional social ideology.

And in this photo, it describe a metal spoon in a glass and coming down like a soft sponge. That is impossible! How could be a metal spoon soft like this! You will be amazing when you see this photo. But that is the point what auther like to tell.

Thinking if the photo transfers the truth or not. We use to think that photography is a kind of tools recording the things really happen, but in another view, it could be not. The more you trust the photos, the more you will be cheated. That is the paradox of photography especially in the recent world.

It is the superrealism style that looks like Man Ray's works. Chema Madoz wants to post a new kind of view to explore the details in the daily life. Maybe it is not so innovative in the contemporary art, but the exhibiton hold in Shanghai is good for people to be learned of much more about art.

Vivienne Westwood A Life In Fashion

Exhibition Peroid
1 Dec. 2008 to 31 Jan. 2009

Venue
ArtisTree, 3/F Cornwall House, Taikoo Place, Island East

As a legend in the history of fashion,Vivienne Westwood represents the revolutional change ever happened in the last century's fashion industry.The exihibion mainly focuses on the 40 years history of this mistry fashion brand, exhibiting more than 150 sets of clothings that symbolizes the life style and idea of Vivienne Westwood.

Fashion also can be a kind of art. In the worldwide enviroment, fashion industry blooms the global economics. From the most people's view, fashion is something making people only care about their experience and what espect they refer to fashion is luxury. However, the aim of Vivienne Westwood exhibition is to overthrow the tradional definition of fashion industry, fashion can be an art and fashion can influence the society in its own way.

The exhibition is arranged by time sequence, begins with the Westwood's first boutique opened in 1971 named LET IT ROCK. Along with the success of the boutique, Vivienne and her husband McLaren raised PUNK in the youngster's society of that time and enjoying the idea of "using culture as a way of making troubles". The most famous punk band Sex Pistol emergenced in that time and managed by McLaren.

PUNK culture has influenced thousands and thousands young people in the last century. Viviennne Westwood printed the fragmentized Birtish national flag as a symbol on her T-shirt. What she wanted is to inform the world of the rebel value in the current post-war British society.

But that is just only one part of her early fashion career. She is a rebel aganist the traditional world, but she is rather than a designer. She can be said the artist fighting with the mainstream conception not only in what people dress also in the way which people think. She wants to change the world by herself what so impressed me a lot through her exhibiton.