Author Shu Yang

A discussion on the evolution of Gao Feng’s artwork

The best way to understand an artist is to analyze the changes undergone on his artworks through the course of time: to grasp the issues disclosed by his art and the method in which they are disclosed. An artist often remains focused on particular issues common to him and his style. From a series of artworks, it is possible to see how the artist faced these issues, thus discovering the artist’s way to make use of his wisdom. In order to understand Gao Feng’s recent art developments, it is necessary to pay attention to the development of his artworks in their entirety.

The first artwork made by Gao Feng that I saw is “Baptism”, a performance completed in 2001. In this work, after mixing 50 grams of his blood with 200 grams of his semen, Gao Feng finally brushes his teeth, and rinses his mouth with the mixture. At a time when the trend of “corpse-art” was the main tendency, Gao Feng’s performance was indeed filled with gentle and humoristic tones. The semen, which Gao Feng had been accumulating with efforts for more than three months, was less than half a bottle. In any case, this work enabled me to shed some light on the life Gao Feng led in Songzhuang. At that time I strongly believed that, art and life were driven by the same close logic. The subsequent performances of Gao Feng were more rational, but he needed a similar strong conviction in his art as well as a great courage in exhibiting his private living experiences. In the year 2000 in Beijing, many young artists, uninterested in profit making like Gao Feng, made what they strongly believed were extraordinary works of art. Performance art was the best tool for them to make themselves known and to be proud of themselves. In retrospect, it could be considered the golden period of performance art. Despite that, performance art is still the most ignored genre in Chinese art education. On one hand it is because Chinese traditional culture has inhibited people from knowing and using their own body as a resource; on the other hand, it is because it has often been demonized by those conservatives ruling the art field and unable to understand performance.

Most of Chinese performers have been trained academically in quite traditional media like painting and sculpture. Therefore, for these artists it is natural to jump from one artistic genre to the other, from performance, to painting, or sculpture. Gao Feng’s choice to move among different media is a natural choice. The organisms Gao Feng observes under the microscope have provided him with the inspiration to create his own micro organisms. But this is merely a literal understanding of his choice. Gao Feng’s early “Orange”, a performance piece and paintings in the same artwork, share some common elements, for example the sense of displacement they throw on purpose towards common sense (the mixture of blood and semen used to brush the teeth, or the artist’s naming the buttocks orange) as well as the use of forms of microscopic bodily organisms (sperm, or unclear spots over the bodies). These characteristics lay at the basis of Gao Feng’s art.
Gao Feng has named two of his series of paintings “Past existence” and “Present life”: these names derive from the fact that the paintings seem to belong to different periods. In the series “Past existence” the artist intervenes on ancient Chinese paintings by transforming them through the use of micro organisms.  The series “Present Life” which includes works like “Orange,” “Sketch,” “Blue cell,” “Mischievous reality” and other works, is a portrayal of micro organisms, as well.  These two series have been painted simultaneously so, they don’t follow the chronological order of Gao Feng’s creative logic, even if from the point of view of their content they portray and disclose two different periods. Gao Feng himself often feels puzzled by the chronological confusion involving “Past existence” and “Present life,” because these two series haven’t really been created following a chronological order. The creative process used to complete these two series is very similar, thus proving that people cannot understand the development of these artworks just through analyzing their titles. I am inclined not to emphasize the chronological order implied by “Past existence” and “Present life”, thus avoiding considering Gao Feng’s works just from the historical perspective expressed by the subjects he paints. I believe that in this way his painting style can emerge more vividly. But through the different chronological layers employed in Gao Feng’s works, it is indeed possible to discover the process of change undergone by his works.

After discovering the existence of  micro organisms through the use of the microscope, Gao Feng directly transforms this shapes into abstract patterns, like in the series “Blue cell” (2003), and “Past existence” (2004-2007), in which he uses these micro organisms to modify Chinese ancient paintings or in the series “Mischievous reality” (2006-2007), where he combines micro organism with real landscapes. The forms of these micro organisms from their florid blossoming gradually infect history and reality, like viruses that establish a new relationship with the outside world. So in the series “Sketch,” (2000-2006), the drawings of these micro organisms, seem to reveal the answer to the riddle for the audience: this series is one of the most original works by Gao Feng.

The unexplainable nature of painting

The first time I saw Gao Feng’s “Living organisms. Itinerant peddler in four seasons” part of the series “Past existence,” I was very surprised: the work consists of four parts, and each painting is 3,5 meters long. Once hung on the walls of Gao Feng’s studio this work conveys to people the feeling of standing in front of a fresco. Actually the size of a painting is a formal element which plays a key role, since large scale works are able to intensify visual tension. The characters of this painting, originally the Ming dynasty “Itinerant peddler in four seasons” have all been painted with Gao Feng’s trademark faces, and even the objects in the setting have been transformed into micro organisms. This approach has already been used in the previous series of painting entitled “Past existence” to describe Chinese traditional landscapes. The appearance of micro organisms in all these paintings has resulted in their becoming a kind of virus affecting infecting the pathology of traditional Chinese painting. Even if the series “Past existence” has employed Chinese traditional painting as medium; it has been transformed by adding micro organisms to the composition. The surface of traditional Chinese paintings and the figurative micro organisms are combined with great ease in a natural way.

The series “Past existence” has been created before the series “Mischievous reality” and represents Gao Feng’s recent artistic achievement. I don’t regard the changes Gao Feng has applied to these ancient classic Chinese paintings as a critique against tradition. This is because Gao Feng has employed the same methodology even in the series of paintings “Mischievous reality” which appeared later. This kind of intrusion in the structure and scenes of these paintings carried on through the use of viruses represents Gao Feng’s creative approach, and is filled with sarcastic and harsh tones.  Here it is not necessary to focus too much on the content of his paintings, since from Gao Feng’s works we can assume the ineffectiveness of giving an interpretation to the meaning of a painting. We can also infer that in his paintings, Gao Feng leaves the task of interpreting the meaning directly to the public. The interpretation of the meanings hidden in the series “Past existence” is the combination and the deepening of the interpretations conveyed by each single classic painting used by the artist. This interpretation can be seen also as a kind of “embellishing” the paintings themselves, or the already-bored and stiffed game of painting. Perhaps we can interpret it as an “in between” condition, a negation of the mentality which drives people’s minds to give interpretations to paintings. It is because microbes can infect any organisms with viruses that Gao Feng’s style is imbued with virtual tones, being filled with a nightmarish and surreal atmosphere, but nevertheless disclosing what turns out to be a bigoted world’s view.

Microbes in Gao Feng’s works give birth to a self-enclosed world, like in the series “Past existence”. The world disclosed in this series reveals even more clearly an impasse because of the use of old fashioned antiques. In this space where viruses spread, there is no room for the thought associations ruling the outside world: there is room just for the bizarre changes carried on consciously and meticulously by the artist. The world created by the artist belongs to the artistic realm, but it represents a challenge to our common understanding. The rules of Gao Feng’s game lead people to perceive that even if life has already been given an established sequence, “Past existence” can stimulate the birth of brand new spiritual changes. And this will help people unable to grasp firmly the meaning of his works to achieve an answer. In other words, Gao Feng’s series “Past existence” makes all possible interpretations meaningless and feeble. Therefore I like to consider Gao Feng’s paintings as a successful tool able to stimulate a crisis involving the interpretation of the different layers of meanings conveyed by an artwork.  The series “Past existence” combines classical Chinese paintings with viruses of various types, brings together rational and irrational elements. On this basis the interpretation of the artworks’ meaning completely belongs to the viewers who actively express their opinion independently from the ideas of the artist. Despite this, viewers are not able to free themselves from the difficulty of “giving an interpretation to the meaning of the artworks” wisely orchestrated by Gao Feng. Probably Gao Feng himself cannot either. But, when artworks are created according to certain fixed rules, their independent nature is able to resist the interpretation of meanings carried on by the artist and by the public. This happens for the ancient paintings employed by Gao Feng in the series “Past existence”, whose interpretation lies unsolved in the long river of history.  。Everyone has already lost the right to search the ultimate meaning of these paintings, because they have become history, a process in which human beings continuously produce new meanings. The highest risk of the series “Past existence” is trying to keep the interest and curiosity of the public alive. This is also a major challenge for the work of Gao Feng. This leads us to examine the issue of the public nature of these works, and whether these ancient paintings and Gao Feng’s viruses would be considered successful also in different cultural and historical contexts. This issue still remains valid also for the series “Mischievous reality” which shows Gao Feng’s interventions on reality. Painting and art are means to exercise human beings which don’t match with the worry about the interpretation of meanings. Art embraces the sense of pleasure derived from painting, derived from the viewers’ direct observation through their senses. Therefore the value of art consists of the continuous adjustment of the interpretations of art’s meanings.

"Virus infection" paintings

The series of paintings “Past existence” is the faithful copy from the point of view of the structure and of some details of some of China’s ancient classic paintings. This series gave me a new opportunity to appreciate the charm of ancient masterpieces: this is an interesting aspect of Gao Feng’s works. He exquisitely copied and at the same time changed these classic paintings, being able to arise my enthusiasm to watch these works much more than true to life copies would do. The feeling conveyed by Gao Feng’s work is completely different from that inspired by Duchamp’s intervention on Da Vinci’s Monna Lisa by painting a moustache on her face. This was aimed at overturning tradition through the use of conformist realism. The way in which the series “Past existence” changes ancient paintings is highly personal and even private: the artist remakes these works stressing the impossibility of drawing a lesson from somebody else’s experience. 
Therefore Gao Feng’s paintings don’t reveal any wide-ranging cultural issues; on the contrary they do reveal personal taste and inclinations. Maybe this aspect can help the viewers understand why Gao Feng has carried on “his infections under the form of viruses” so painstakingly.

The small scale reproductions of Gao Feng’s series “Past existence”, don’t give justice to the quality of Gao Feng’s works. So, in order to understand the paintings it is necessary to have a look at the real works. The reason why I want to stress this point is that the series “Past existence” from its size to its technique can easily loose its charm if seen in the form of reproductions. This also attests to Gao Feng’s painting technique maturity shown clearly in the series “Past existence,” and able to fully express the unique nature of this kind of painting. The artist has gone through a painstaking process to create these works. Looking at the number of paintings produced by Gao Feng, we assume his complete devotion to art. This can also be the reason why Gao Feng has gone through different changes one after the other in a relatively short period of time, thus letting his viruses spread more and more. The use of traditional painting as a turning point is not only Gao Feng’s characteristics. But, there still is something inexplicable about these various kinds of “viruses”: herein lies their attractiveness. Gao Feng’s viruses don’t have anything to do with history of art or reality. So viewers can feel puzzled by their sight. The only possible way to avoid this feeling, is avoiding interpreting. The fact that I don’t have anything to say about Gao Feng’s series “Past existence” proves my enthusiasm towards his works.

I don’t want to emphasize Gao Feng’s works either from the point of view of history of art or medicine, as may happen quite often. In this way, the works would appear rather pedant and complex, would lose their ambiguity and would lose much of the visual pleasure they convey. Gao Feng uses unknown micro organisms to create his paintings, but their richly decorated patterns stimulate the interaction with the viewers’ senses. This interaction follows people’s nature and embodies their instinctive disposition. Gao Feng makes use of viruses as the original code of his painting world, carrying on a virtual translation of history and reality. This inevitably results in the total collapse of the traditional way of working. Gao Feng’s art is not the product of deviousness; indeed it is the result of Gao Feng’s diligent and assiduous approach to art. Gao Feng’s viruses also examine the lack of conventions which people had always considered invulnerable.

The series “Past existence” attests to the maturity of Gao Feng’s “virus” paintings. This series allowed Gao Feng’s micro organisms to play a more and more decisive role. The success obtained by these micro organisms is not just a personal success. These viruses are successfully infecting also the Chinese painting market becoming hotter day after day. 
The fact that Gao Feng’s viruses continuously spread make them appear a kind of contemporary fantastic story.