Maleonn was born in Shanghai, China, where he studied and still lives. It is said he took portraits of around 200.000 people. He loaded up a truck with props and clothes and took to the roads to create a unique album called 'Studio Mobile'. It took seven months preparing before taking the first picture, and another ten months completing the project that took him all over China. The start of his epic journey was his eviction from the studio in an artist community by the government. Studio Mobile shows people from different life styles and origin in a staged setting, dressed up in Maleonn's outfits or costumes they brought.
Chinese contemporary artist, Zhong Biao was in1968 in Chongqing. He graduated from the Beijing Central Academy of Fine Arts. He has a unique painting style, a kind of explosive, realistic pop art, bringing past, present and future together in one story.
Zhong Biao; "I like to paint people in black and white because people are
temporary - they will eventually leave the world and become
the past. However, some buildings live longer than people;
they continue to exist in the world. This is why I paint people
in black and white and the background in colour. The contrast
with colour is to highlight this dichotomy.
Sometimes, unfortunate things suddenly appear - they become the
past, and then the future pushes forward. When today arrives, today
becomes the past. It's a continuous process - a cycle. And everyone
in the world is constituted from pieces of time. Therefore, in my
paintings I can freely co-ordinate the past, present and future.
I don’t want to force my own understanding or interpretation of
my paintings on the audience. The mixture of images within each
of my paintings is like a combination of controversial elements in
life. We don’t have to understand everything we see in each painting.
Like life, we cannot understand everything that we have seen or
experienced. In my paintings, Eastern and Western, historical and
modern opposites coexist, reflecting the reality of today’s lifestyle.
I have only one dream: That the people I have painted will, many
years from now, visit the people of the future on my behalf, taking
along with them this chaotic world." (from Art Scene China)
Bandit 9; "Made in China". Amazing reinvention of some classic motorcycles. All handbuilt, great design, limited editions and yet still affordable. Original and well constructed following their one code of design Bandit 9 machines are a joy to look at, and longing to drive one...
Want to read more on "the Bandit Code".
Personally affected by the Three Gorges Dam project in China, Yang Yi payed homage to his hometown in a series of beautiful digitally manipulated images. Together with other villages, farmland and historical sides his village was claimed by the waters of the Yangtze river. He captured the remainders of his childhood home grounds before it got submerged in the 400 miles long reservoir of the three gorges dam. Yang Yi; "I don’t intend to dwell on the meaning to be found in my photography.
What is important for me is that I came from that town. It is about all
that we have in common there: our accent, our spicy coriander, the nod
we give each other, a friendly signal to say hello when we pass one
another on the street, these streets that we have traveled alongside our
ancestors, that have herded us along together… this series was created
for all of that. It will be my personal memoir!" Born in Kaixian, Chongqing in 1971.
This young Chinese artist was born in DingDao in 1990. Leng Wen lives and works in Beijing. These C-prints from the desktop series are refreshing and promising.
Wang Qingsong's staged photographs are darkly humorous. You might feel the content to be absurd, but in fact it is highly critical towards consumerism and capitalism. The very large prints are of technical high standard. 'take a look at the urban people's life. we dine at mcdonald's, KFC,
and pizza hut. we drink cola, starbucks' coffe and lipton tea. we live
in roman fantasy, lincoln park, vancouver forest and east provence. we
drive benz, BMW and lamborghini. all these western consumer products
'modernize' this originally agricultural country. however such life in
high fashion is so ridiculous, contradictory and crazy. the chinese
traditions and elite culture fail to have energy and vigor, deserving to
be trashed. this is the contemporary china in its massive scale.' - Wang Qingsong.
