Liu Zhuoquan
Fiona Hall
“Explore the ways in which Liu Zhuoquan and Fiona Hall reflect issues and ideas from their different social and cultural contexts. Refer to ONE work by each artist in the response.”
“Explore the ways in which Liu Zhuoquan and Fiona Hall reflect issues and ideas from their different social and cultural contexts. Refer to ONE work by each artist in the response.”
Compare and contrast Liu’s practice with that of Hall in order to write a critical account of each.
Select one work by Hall that connects in its material and conceptual properties to another by Liu Zhuoquan.
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The art making practice of Liu Zhuoquan and Fiona Hall directly echoes social issues and cultural notions that stem from their respective urban contexts. This can be inferred from Zhuoquan’s 2011 work where are you? that takes inspiration from the Cultural Revolution and Communist attitudes, and Hall’s 1990 work paradisus terrestris that references 18th/19th century European exploration and importation. Both installations contain common themes of natural biota, symbolic insurgency, ‘bottling up’ and restraint and create a reflective and resounding atmosphere with audiences. Through the cultural frame, both works comment upon vital world issues and combine core environmental and political notions into a greater understanding of self and identity through various social constructs. The work of Fiona Hall and Liu Zhuoquan transcends boundaries of commercial art in relation to the social perspectives of the Chinese and Australian communities from which they have grown and been manipulated by.
Zhuoquan works in collaboration with traditional ‘neihua’ craftsmen – an ancient art of inside painting that uses specialised procedures and brushes. Zhuoquan specifically references the beautiful snuff bottles that originated in the Ming and Qing dynasties and further translates them into a modern Chinese setting. The detritus bottles have been repurposed from a range of prior commodities and come in varying shapes/sizes. The delicate, individually painted interiors appeal to the visual sense of audiences. The fine brushes linked to this ancient practice are able to create immensely detailed and realistic depictions. The themes of Zhuoquan’s installation are linked to nature (plants and insects), the Cultural Revolution and Chinese and global contemporary events and/or issues. Zhuoquan transforms the exquisite yet inconspicuous practice of “snuff bottle” painting to phenomenal lengths. By amassing many rows together in fluid connection, he prevents audiences from registering them as their customary purpose, a memento of personal choice and individual connection, but rather as a commonality. Products of mass production and labour formed by the toiling hands behind the scenes that mould and shape the thriving markets of labour across the globe. By having a team of traditional artisans to assist him in creating his customary artistic concept, Zhuoquan’s practice connects to the works of other contemporary Chinese artists, like Ai WeiWei and Ah Xian. Audiences are confronted with a stark difference between the common tourist depictions of splashing waterfalls and prospering landscapes upon such bottles, and the gruesome anatomical and animalistic themes contained within Zhuoquan’s work.
Hall’s 1990 installation of botanical sculptures that emerge out of sardine tins form a recycled detritus material practice, also reminiscent of Zhuoquan’s neihua bottle painting practice he has incorporated in where are you? (2011). The sculptures allude to exotic and rare species, but also to the Western world’s notion of the Garden of Eden fuelled through 18th century imports of exotic wildlife by many European explorers. There was a belief that paradise was gradually becoming unattainable in the western world during this era, but these small tokens were a symbol of beauty amongst a rapidly evolving world. The title paradisus terrestris implies that paradise on earth is ‘genetic diversity’ and that paradise can be easily misplaced if we actively participate in environmental degradation. Where the tins lid has been peered in we are exposed to human body parts (hands, breasts, arms) instead of the expected seafood produce. This links to Zhuoquan’s use of recycled glass bottles in his sculptures that evoke the feeling of rundown objects of a marketplace – unwanted and out of place
In this way the works of Liu Zhuoquan and Fiona Hall create artworks that echo social issues and cultural notions that stem from their respective urban contexts.
The construction tied to the works of Liu Zhuoquan and Fiona Hall also reflect aims to address social issues and cultural notions lent from their respective urban backgrounds. In the case of Zhuquan, this is shown through his select of the ‘snake’ as a symbol and texture in his 2011 installation. Growing up in the political hearth of 1960s China, the snake was not a pop-cultural figment; it was seen as a subliminal terror. In Chinese mythology, snakes have always been considered a symbol of both malevolence and prosperity, making them a fitting subject choice for Zhuoquan’s 2011 work where are you? The snake-like forms hold connotations of both struggle and confusion Zhuoquan would have experienced during his childhood under Chinese Communist rule, but also act as an emblem of providence for the future to come. He has adapted the painstaking artisanal craft of ‘snuff bottle’ painting (neihua), as the customs placed behind this technique are ones that deeply reflect the whims and passive iconoclasm of modern Chinese history. His inclination towards glass bottles stems from early childhood memories of a nearby University chemistry department and his interest in the specimen bottles and forbidden lab areas. The bottles are also reminiscent of pharmacy tonics or childhood liquid-medication. The ‘mineral’ interiors convey a dark void, sealed tightly within and yet threatening to escape and wreak menace. This idea links ironically to the silver sardine tins of Hall’s work that expose human anatomical parts, untamed and yet attached by unseen forces - ghostly vessels of human consumption and environmental disregard. Both installations gives symbolic rise to the anxieties of generations that are pillaged of natural experiences. In the case of Hall, this is the environmental degradation and native species extinction. For Zhouquan, it refers to his childhood of constant fear and oppression under Communist regime during the Cultural Revolution. By conjuring both laboratory shelves and the rundown objects of a marketplace, Zhuoquan effectively sews together Western systems and Buddhist tendencies to understand the world in both materialistic and holistic manners.
The textured shapes that cover the bottles are intended to convey deeper tensions within Chinese society, the nature of the ‘discarded forms’ also speak of the mass waste that litters many city streets, unchecked.
In this way, it can be inferred that both artists have chosen to make defiant social and political statements that could potentially cause a stir in an already financial and resource fraught countries. However it can also be deduced that the ideas behind both works (workers, extinction, oppression, toil etc.) represent underlying hope for change and reversal to benefit both the planet and conserve fading traditional values.
The anatomical elements of Hall’s sculpture paradisus terrestris appears simultaneously humorous and confronting to audiences as they are prompted to create a stark juxtaposition between the natural and ‘utopian’ old world and the raw and “sexualised” modern one. As she stated in an interview for the 2015 Venice Biennale, “the realities of terrorism, war, climate change, environmental pillage and economic turmoil have become part of our daily conscience” and she further advocates for stronger recognition and proactive action to be taken by bodies of power and the public alike through her creative installations.
Fiona Hall is passionately concerned about environmental conservation, as she believes the natural world is being overtaxed by the demands of commercial profitability. This work acts as a reminder that some of the once most luxuriant areas of the world are now amongst the poorest. Meticulous attention to detail brings audiences face to face with the fragile beauty of nature and how it can be destroyed in a mere instant. On the other hand we then have Zhouquan’s work which deals directly with the surge of popular culture and commodities in urban China e.g. his chosen technique of ‘neihua’. Zhuoquan has elected to work in a more modern version of this artistic style. Where are you? initially suggests a traditional responsiveness, but upon closer inspection the glazed exterior holds many modern allusions e.g. smog of cityscape or the lifeless varnish of shop facades. Zhuoquan has spent a significant amount of time over recent years travelling to Tibet and experiencing the countries rich cultural platter. In doing so, the beliefs and practices of Tibetan Buddhism have come to influence a proportionate amount of his personal views and artistic practices. By using non-art materials in a conventional artistic manner, Zhuoquan and Hall both comment upon the human desire to control and classify natural existence when in reality, the wild and ‘untameable’ portrayal of nature isn’t something that can ever truly be contained. While Zhuoquan professes that his work closely examines his own conscious thoughts and feelings, as a practicing artist in Beijing his work is greatly influenced by his ever-changing surroundings. There is a constant thrum of destruction, movement, development, and shifts across the landscape. More tender desires to record ephemeral objects and treasures of memory and artistic passion are being rapidly drowned out by this ‘hum’ of urban dwelling. Zhuoquan has stated that there was precise artistic intention contained in creating such a large scale installation – “In China, the word independence has a special meaning. Independent thinking and individual behaviour has a potentially confronting meaning when living in a collective society and absolute political centred nation”. For the artist the bottles are like words; together they “describe the world”. This is how the works of Fiona Hall and Liu Zhouquan are keenly reflective of the artists urban contexts, considering how the works themselves overlap in terms of common incorporated themes - natural biota, symbolic insurgency, ‘bottling up’ and restraint regarding the disrespect for “out-dated techniques” and native/ancient realities.
In conclusion, the works where are you? (2011) by Liu Zhouquan and paradisius terestrius (1990) by Fiona Hall share a strong link in expressing the artists respective social and cultural opinions in the structures and techniques that have been cleverly used to craft them. Both works echo social issues and cultural notions that stem from their respective Chinese and Australian metropolitan contexts. Zhuoquan’s snuff bottles exude the anxieties of a generation who have endured vastly tangled shifts from the poverty and iconoclasm of the Cultural Revolution, to the economic renewal of China during the late 1980s and its upsurge in the capitalism of modern-day urban living. In contrast, Hall’s sculptures couples botany and body through keenly detailed construction from sardine and soft drink cans. One sardine can is left intact with its lid partially rolled down to reveal an erotic image impressed into aluminum. Each item is individually named with the plants name in the language of an Indigenous Australian group, the Latin classification of classic Western taxonomy and the common name. While Hall’s work reflects her intense passion for gardens and botany by considering humanity’s place among nature, Zhuoquan views it rather differently. He realises that art cannot make any significant changes to the situation in modern China, but can still spark interest and act as a symbol of “cultural struggle in a tight, sometimes suffocating environment” through the material choice of bottles that ‘encase and enclose’ the fear within both the artwork, and the Chinese populace. In their cultural and societal sensitivity, both works are a symbol of the unknown. The gallery lights that reflect off the nude metal in paradisius terrestrius pose a monochrome reflection of the viewer in the metal and this same dispassionate lack of colour is typical of Zhouquan’s work in which the ‘mineral’ cores convey a dark void, sealed tightly and yet threatening to escape. Perhaps colour clouds the purity of image and intention, the true face of power and natural hierarchy.
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刘卓泉