The China Project

177 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection WANG Qingsong Wang Qingsong’s art comments on the abundance of foreign consumer merchandise and multinational company imagery that has flooded the Chinese market since the mid 1990s. In 1999, Wang gained notoriety as a proponent of ‘gaudy art’, a term dubbed by leading contemporary Chinese art critic Li Xianting to express the garish appropriation of motifs from media and popular culture. In Night revels of Lao Li 2000, Wang expands ideas of the tawdry and the profane — elements central to ‘gaudy art’ — by constructing a photograph that references a well known historical painting; the tenth-century Tang-dynasty scroll, Night revels of Han Xizai by Gu Hongzhong. 1 For this earlier work, Emperor Li Yu ordered his court painter, Gu, to attend the lurid, indulgent parties of his Internal Secretary, Han Xizai. Emperor Li valued Han Xizai’s talent as a statesman and so chose to overlook his excessiveness, but he regretted not being able to see such activities with his own eyes and mistrusted his lieutenant’s activities. Hence Gu was sent to spy on these events and to gather evidence to support the Emperor’s suspicions that Han Xizai intended to usurp his imperial power. From memory, Gu produced an honest depiction of what he experienced — an image of erotic indulgence. Night revels of Han Xizai is much revered in China, and a key work in the Imperial Palace Collection, Beijing. In Night revels of Lao Li , Wang depicts himself in the dual role of court painter and spy. The term ‘Lao’ is used as an esteemed title when addressing one’s familiar senior, and here Wang has placed his friend, art critic Li Xianting, as the indulgent politician and initiator of the erotic revelry. In keeping with the composition of the original work, Wang hired female models and dressed them as prostitutes in kitsch and provocative attire, while tables were laden with contemporary, brand name consumables. In this work, Wang suggests that indulgent behaviour is as common a practice among high-ranking officials today as it was during the former dynastic rule of Emperor Li Yu. The ‘consorts’ appear to languish over the officials — in this case, Li Xianting and other Chinese art world figures, including the prominent curator of Chinese avant-garde art, Gu Zhenqing. By representing the Tang-dynasty court officials as members of today’s art elite, Wang deliberates on the analogies between historical and contemporary hierarchies. The photograph mirrors the multiple views of time that identify the continuous scroll format, but in a radically different way. Gu Hongzhong’s traditional scroll guarantees the viewer’s intimate engagement with the work, given that the scroll would be unrolled to depict only one screen image at a time. 2 Unlike the discretion of a scroll, however, in Wang’s expansively scaled photograph (at over nine metres long) all screen divisions are simultaneously visible. The viewer as voyeur gazes at the play of erotic indulgence, and in one section, Wang himself knowingly returns the viewer’s gaze. Wang Qingsong’s placement of himself as central and self-aware is deliberate, and a direct attempt to comment on modern China, using as his reference point the pertinent resonance of its cultural and political past. endnotes 1 The title of the Tang-dynasty scroll by Gu Hongzhong is also translated variously as Night entertainment of Han Xizai , Night banquet of Han Xiza i and Han Xizai gives a banquet. 2 For a more lengthy examination of the original scroll, see Wu Hung, ‘The “Night Entertainment of Han Xizai”’, in The Double Screen: Medium and Representation in Chinese Painting , Reaktion Books, London, 1996, pp.29–71. opposite Night revels of Lao Li (detail, and full image) 2000 Type C photograph, ed. 7/9 / 120 x 960cm / The James C Sourris Collection. Purchased 2002 with funds from James C Sourris through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation / Image courtesy: The artist above Attributed to Gu Hongzhong of the Five Dynasties (906-960) The Night Revels of Han Xizai (detail) date unknown Handscroll, ink and colours on silk / 28.7 x 335.5cm / Collection: Palace Museum, Beijing