Last night, during the opening of her show, a young Chinese woman from the "stinking ninth class" (i.e. a family of intellectuals) took a small group of us down to the gallery basement to show us some works in progress, and bitterly complain that nobody understood her paintings (however much we may be liking them)
For example, she had painted a display of flowering branches, and she explained how the ones in the foreground represented the self, the middle-ground was the self's immediate world of home/job/friends, and the flowers in the distance represented society and civilization - while each different species of flower had a special meaning known to those who specialize in flowers. She really seemed quite serious about all this. She had something important to communicate and people just weren't getting it. So now I'm wondering -- is there any law against her posting text next to every painting ? Would it make a difference if that text were more like poetry and less like an index of explanatory footnotes ? And it also occurred to me that, even though she practices European techniques, she comes from a world where extensive text and images are often displayed together, while we don't really expect that in our Euro-centered artworld, outside of Medieval manuscripts, illustrated books, and, of course, William Blake. Done anyone know of an artist who wants the display of his or her work to be accompanied by explanatory text ? (perhaps that happens in those museums of contemporary art that are so foreign to me) ____________________________________________________________ Come clean with a brand new shower. Click now! http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxSDIBMHllS0t94po3ZIeaLDj sDVnjjFxzTLogzEvORbZ5Cd9oAXa4/
