I was glad we had a chance to meet with Yun-Fei Ji in class today and get to hear directly from the artist about his work. It was very enlightening to hear about his work and the historical influences on his art. The time period he grew up in China was extremely turbulent. I studied abroad in China over the summer and was able to hear about the time period from others who’d lived through it, and I find it very interesting to hear different people’s perspectives about the period. His discussion about art he saw as a child in the history museum and how it was altered, in addition to the fact that we can’t read Yun-Fei’s works because it is written in Chinese reminded me of another Chinese artist I’ve studied whose work is also influenced by the Cultural Revolution. This artist named Xu Bing made one piece using thousands of fake Chinese characters to respond how language was used in the Cultural Revolution to push the ideas of Mao. He made characters that are aesthetically made to appear to be real characters, but have no meaning and make audiences uncomfortable because they are incomprehensible. I find works that respond to this time period and China’s current environment to be very fascinating. As an artist myself, I always appreciate getting to hear the perspective of the creator and understand better what they are responding to when they make their works.
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This is a really interesting personal connection to one Yun-Fei Ji’s responses that I found particularly interesting. It was fascinating to hear about how his work was inspired by his realization that history can be altered and unreliable. I think this concept also relates Yun-Fei’s work to Goya’s style of subversive socio-political critique, which became even more apparent when Yun-Fei began to tell us about the controversies over some of his work in China.
Very cool that you studied abroad in China and therefore have a greater understanding of what Yun-Fei was trying to get across with his work. Furthermore, I think it is interesting about Xu Bing and how his artwork takes on a different response to the Cultural Revolution. Being able to contrast these two artists and see how their work differs and is similar is very thought-provoking.