Who comes first, Song Yang or Bad Girl?

 

Written by Luo A Xue

 

It was a day in 2006 when I first met Song Yang. At that time, he was busy with preparing for his exhibition and sent some materials to me - an editor at his age. When reading through his resume with a long list of titles, artist, singer, model for fashion product, etc. I almost cried out and thought if I really bumped into a so-called super boy of the post-80 generation.  With great joy and curiosity, I invited Song Yang for a chat. He brought me a series of postcard of Bad Girl. With no reason, I began to like this self-adoring and cross-eye girl, especially when she is in Mona Lisa‘s style with unsatisfactory facial expression and no reserve at all. She is a girl like me.

 

Then I read his blog. It was a story about the lonely life of a boy and his cat in a small room. Painting, painting and painting. Little by little, he earned his fame. He went to different cities for promotion events and worked together with people much older than him.  It seems that all his grow-up experiences are completed in a sudden and the hardship is mentioned in passing.  After getting to know him well, I once asked Song Yang how long he slept a day. He did not answer my questions but only smiled back. Later, I read an article about him and got the answer.  When the journalist asked him what made him so outstanding and he said: “No sleep is the secret.”

 

He has been preparing for his new exhibition recently and the name is Elegance. After seeing some of his works before others, I laughed at him for the sexuality in his works and said to him that he should change the name of Bad Girl to Bad Woman.  Still, he just smiled with no comment.

 

I have seen Bad Girl since 2006 and I simply put the images of Bad Girl created during these 2 to 3 years as follows.  Bad Girl in 2006 is innocent, longing for wonderful life.  She fights against the boom naively and looks for easy happiness. Bad Girl in 2007, fighting back tears, has come to know how to turn her back to direction during blind worship and self-ridicule.  She overlooks tradition but in the meantime is restricted by it.  Bad Girl in 2008 seems find the secret to success. She places herself in danger and fear without knowing it and can only see grievances and helpless the dog’s eyes. Lips and Bad Girl are often seen together in Song Yang’s works.  The difference is, in 2006, Bad Girl tries to escape from temptation and in 2008 she puts herself into mouth as a desert.

 

If replacing Bad Girl in the above paragraph with I, we feel that we are the ones being described and we are the ones who feel sad for being understood, don’t we?  Sometimes, I am wondering who comes first, Song Yang or Bad Girl. No doubt that Song Yang creates this special girl with the Liu Hu Lan's hair style. But, without similar experiences, how can he create Bad Girl? Bad Girl is the incarnation of post-80ers and Song Yang is just one of them.

 

Enjoying innocence the cartoon world but in the meantime suffering from the cruelness of the real life and this is just the life post-80ers.  They are not like people before 70s who are full of aspiration and believe there is nothing that cannot be conquered.  They are not like post-90ers who know the relationship between money and benefit very well since their childhood and who are too realistic.

I do not specialize in art and I only cherish for the works that can arise my sympathy.  Those that only have good techniques are just artisans.  One reason why I like Song Yang’s painting is because he started with cartoon and has now transformed to oil painting, which makes it easy for people to accept from both narrative technique and art tension. Another reason is that he paints from the bottom of his heart to express his feelings and not use cartoon characters to draw dead dull.

 

In China, many painters can draw pretty characters, full of image signs of animals or human being, just like photo stickers. A generation of cartoon is the definition given by the art circle.  They think that post-80ers live in with candies and their eyes are full of visual expressions and mouth full of new phrase.  Therefore, only cartoon represent this generation.  But, I do not know whether they ever think about whom the cartoon generation cartoons about.

 

Quite a number of young artists draw new things from the view point of old generations.  Although their works are new, their attitude and aesthetics still stay in 1950s and 1960s.  What they are doing is just a cheap temptation for prolonging the daydream of old child.  They do not pant from the bottom of their heart and do not describe confusion with their thinking.  They are wearing masks and repeating the frequently repeated topics and the defined cognitions (perceptions) such as decadence as an adjective, confuse as a verb and obduracy as a noun.  The question is whether is cognition is real.

 

I comment on Bad Girl as one of the post-80ers and to memorize the youthful years owned before and the youthful years being owed as well.