Contemporary Chinese female art and artists Essay

Introduction In the 1990s, China adopted western feminism and it influenced and rapidly raised the Chinese feminism concept. There were many themes of exhibition focused on female art and female artists, an example of this is the â€Å"Chinese Women Art Exhibition†1 â€Å"Chinese Women Art Exhibition† in 1998, the Frauen museum (Women’s Museum), Bonn, Germany â€Å"Ã¥ Å Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã©â€šÅ -ä ¸ ­Ã¥Å"‹å ¥ ³Ã¦â‚¬ §Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ ±â€¢Ã¢â‚¬ , é‚ ±Ã¨  Ã§ ­â€"åŠÆ', Ã¥ ¾ ·Ã¥Å"‹æ ³ ¢Ã¦  ©Ã¥ © ¦Ã¥ ¥ ³Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ Å¡Ã§â€° ©Ã© ¤ ¨, Ã¥ Æ'Ã¥ ±â€¢Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ ® ¶Ã¦Å"‰ä ¸ ­Ã¥Å"‹, æ ¸ ¯Ã¥  °Ã¥ Å Ã¦ µ ·Ã¥ ¤â€"å… ±Ã¨ ¨Ë†25ä º º. in 1998 and the â€Å"Century Female Art Exhibition†2 â€Å"Century Female Art Exhibition† in 1998, the China National Art Gallery, Beijing, China â€Å"ä ¸â€"ç ´â‚¬,Ã¥ ¥ ³Ã¦â‚¬ §Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ ±â€¢Ã¢â‚¬ , Ã¥ â€¡Ã¦â€" ¹Ã¨Ë†Å¸Ã§ ­â€"åŠÆ',ä ¸ ­Ã¥Å"‹èâ€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ§  â€Ã§ © ¶Ã©â„¢ ¢Ã¦â€"‡åÅ'â€"èâ€" Ã¨ ¡â€œ,Ã¥ ¤ §Ã¥Å" °Ã¨ ³â€¡Ã§â€ ¢Ã§ ® ¡Ã§ â€ Ã¦Å"䎪 Ã¥â€¦ ¬Ã¥  ¸Ã¤ ¸ »Ã¦Å' ,Ã¥ ±â€¢Ã¨ ¦ ½Ã§  »Ã¥ ±â€¢(é™ ¶Ã¥â€™ Ã§â„¢ ½Ã¤ ¸ »Ã¦Å' ),èâ€" Ã¥â€œ Ã¥ ±â€¢(Ã¥ ¾ Ã¨â„¢ ¹Ã¤ ¸ »Ã¦Å' ),Ã¥ ¤â€"Ã¥Å"˜å ±â€¢(ç ¾â€¦Ã© ºâ€"ä ¸ »Ã¦Å' ),ç‰ ¹Ã¥ ±â€¢(è ³Ë†Ã¦â€" ¹Ã¨Ë†Å¸Ã¤ ¸ »Ã¦Å' )四個éÆ' ¨Ã¥Ë†â€ .Ã¥ ±â€¢Ã¨ ¦ ½Ã¨ ¨ ­Ã§ «â€¹Ã¤ ¸â€°Ã¥â‚¬â€¹Ã§ Å½Ã©  â€¦:æâ€"‡åÅ'â€"èâ€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ ­ ¸Ã§ ¤ ¾Ã§ Å½(ç  ²Ã§ Å½Ã¨â‚¬â€¦:Ã¥ ¡Å¾Ã¥ £ ¬Ã¨â€" Ã¨ ¡â€œÃ¥ · ¥Ã¤ ½Å"Ã¥ ® ¤,劉è™ ¹,èâ€"݊ ¿ Ã§â€˜â€¢,æžâ€"Ã¥ ¤ ©Ã¨â€¹â€",æ ¢ Ã¦ ´ Ã© Ë†) æ‰ ¹Ã¨ ©â€¢Ã¥ ® ¶Ã§ Å½(ç  ²Ã§ Å½Ã¨â‚¬â€¦:Ã¥ §Å"æ  °,Ã¥ ­ «Ã¨â€˜â€º,æžâ€"Ã¥ » ¶,æâ€"‡é ³ ³Ã¥â€žâ‚¬,æ Å½Ã¨â„¢ ¹) æ” ¶Ã¨â€" Ã¥ ® ¶Ã§ Å½(ç  ²Ã§ Å½Ã¨â‚¬â€¦:Ã¥ ¤ Ã¤ ¿Å Ã¥ ¨Å",Ã¥ ¾ Ã¦Å¡ Ã§â€¡â€¢,Ã¥ ¼ µÃ¦ º «Ã¥ ¸â„¢,Ã¥ ­ «Ã© ¼Å½Ã§Å½â€°,Ã¥ ¾ Ã¨â„¢ ¹) in 1998. Only female artists could participate in this category of art exhibition. Although the exhibitions revealed the importance of women art in modern Chinese art, there was no specific description to define the quality of female art and female artists. From this it can be asked: What is Chinese female art and is it a category in the making of the modern and contemporary Chinese art? Contemporary Chinese art frequently referred to as avant-garde art, sustained to expand ever since the 1980’s as an improvement of contemporary, post-Cultural art developments. During this period, China opened the economic door to world and western influence poured into Chinese culture; bringing the concept of feminism in China. Furthermore, Chinese artist were also released from the control of extreme political condition, and female artists were set about to re-create their own image, contributing to a gradual awakening of women’s consciousness. Indeed, it is in this newly awakened consciousness that Chinese female art in contemporary world can be delineated. In this paper, I would like to discuss how three generation groups of female artists (1980s, 1990s, and overseas) present their works and how they express their female quality through those art pieces. Finally, I also would like to bring out the concept and definition of quality of female art in contemporary Chine se art. The ’85 New Wave Art’ movement brought about many young female artists who devoted themselves to approach the woman’s nature of body and also found new ways to present the attention on the female subject. Female artists alongside male artists, expressed their own attitudes towards contemporary China. In the beginning stages of this period, women artist paid little attention to their own expression through maintaining with the large scale influence and borrowing from modern western art. However, the nature of contemporary art developed so that the concept of women’s artistic consciousness started to emerge. After 1989, neo-expressionism brought new stage in China. Artists, both male and female, started to focus on the essence of human spirit and also emphasized on rational and critical concepts. Women’s consciousness began to emerge and women began to explore their own experience and find an appropriate way of expression in contemporary Chinese art. Most female artists pursued to define the essence of women’s consciousness or confirm women’s consciousness itself. They promoted freedom from traditional male-dominated society and pursued women’s equal position with men. Many women art exhibitions were also held in this period, and female art and female artists began to be paid attention. Since the 1980s, not only local Chinese female artists came about to give rise to Chinese women’s art, but some overseas Chinese female artists also worked to this end. They created the works through different experiences and feelings in looking for the essence of women’s consciousness. These artists mostly left China after the Cultural Revolution, prior to the social changes in China. They have their unique ways to present their ideas and expressions, like looking back to Chinese history and pursuing the art essences that they need. With differences in personal backgrounds and generations, female artists in all these three groups have varying and unique ways in presenting their art through different content and influence. But to Chinese female artists, the intention is to express their female touch and feeling in a changing Chinese society in which the women’s gender role is constantly changing and reshaping. In their art, females in these three groups share not only expressions and feelings based on their female sensitivity but also their observations to social concern. In the following sections, I choose three contemporary Chinese female artists, Hung Liu, Yu Hong, and Cui Xiuwen, and define the quality of female art through their works. Traditional female role in China Most literature focuses on Chinese culture and history with key stresses on the function of language, geography, philosophies, and art. On the other hand, women are missing in almost all fields. Chinese civilization’s culture and arts are male-dominated and male-oriented. Chinese art, whether primordial or contemporary, is art that instigated in or is practiced in China mostly by Chinese male artists. The arts of a society mirror man’s values and attitudes. Women were always portrayed as objects of observation by men. Moreover, according to I-Jing, â€Å"women are more naturally aligned with the spiritual and emotional bodies, which are more non-linear and spatially oriented (all those yin qualities); while men are more naturally aligned with the mental and physical bodies, which are more linear and temporally oriented (all those yang qualities).†3 Malin, David. 2006. Creating Sacred Space. Bodymath.com. http://www.bodymath.com/articles/archives/Feb06_Creating_Sacred_Space.pdf (February, 2006) Yang is mostly considered more important than yin, and is regarded as of secondary importance. This makes gender roles have typical stereotypes with women always portrayed with weakness and sickness. Chinese women had been confined to the family, at the mercy of their husbands for thousands of years. History and tradition have stifled women’s voices. In China, women lived within a society dominated by men, where women were not authorized to involve themselves in the public field and consequently were not integrated in historical descriptions. For example, in the Forbidden City, women were not allowed to walk in some public spaces because those spaces were symbolized as the male’s power and authority. â€Å"No woman ever took part in the grand ceremonies staged before the Hall of Supreme Harmony, which were supreme demonstrations of male ruling power.†4 Wu, Hung. Beyond Stereotypes: The Twelve Beauties in Qing Court Art and the â€Å"Dream of the Red Chamber†. Writing Women in Late Imperial China, ed. Ellen Widmer& Kang-I Sun Chang, 315-316. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997. Undertakings by Chinese women highlight the custom of foot binding succeeded from late Song to Ming Dynasties and even sustained to several indications into the 20th century. Foot binding has an effect to a degree in all classes of Chinese women and at a certain point, persuaded women to have bound feet and to dwell in the private sphere of their homes. Having bound feet was directly correlated to Chinese art in modern times. Contemporary Chinese women role The year 1976 marked a shift in political, economic, and cultural policy, a shift that erupted out of the self-imported isolation of three decades and opened China up to the outside world. Western influence started to come into China and brought many new concepts to strike Chinese society. During the 1980s, the western feminism also began to influence and raised rapidly women’s consciousness. â€Å"By the mid-1980’s, though, the plethora of newly founded women’s magazines explicitly discussed women’s problems at work and in the family. The pages of China Women’s News were filled with exposà ©s and denunciations of discrimination faced by women. â€Å"Feminist outcries† began to appear with some regularity in print. This recognition of gender inequality also found expression in the emergence of separate women’s organizations–schools, professional societies, and women’s studies groups.†5 Hershatter, Gail& Honig, Emily. Feminist Voices. Personal Voices: Chinese Women in the 1980’s. 308. Stanford, CA:Stanford University Press, 1988. Women became aware of their unequal state in society and began to pay attention on female issues. In 1990s, new modern women images emerged. Women focused on individual characteristic and pursued their confidence and profession. The new women were as strong and intellectual as men or better, and they could even afford more of what they desire without anymore having to depend on men and be at a lower statute in society. â€Å"Metropolis ran a special feature on women of talent in its November 1999 issue. One illustration show a confident woman pointing to the screen of her laptop computer while a male colleague with furrowed brow struggles to comprehend what he sees. An article entitled â€Å"Thirty Traits of the Talented Woman†6 â€Å"Thirty Traits of the Talented Woman† explains that the woman should be intelligent, sharp-witted, well-informed, knowledgeable, well-spoken, and has good taste; she is independent, self-respecting, and conscious of women’s equality; she if principled but gentle, with a good sense of humor, and easy to get along with. She is understanding, generous, and sensitive to the feelings to others, but not suspicious. She is a doer-straightforward, efficient, and self-controlled. She is a bit of a rebel but not confrontational. While she may be attractive to men, her attraction is based on personality, not beauty. Her life is well-balanced; love is never her only concern. Dadushi (Metropolis) 14 (November 1999): 102-103 lists her characteristics.†7 Julia F. Andrews and Kuiyi Shen. The New Chinese Woman and Lifestyle Magazines in the Late 1990s. Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society. Ed. Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen, and Paul G. Pickowicz, 151. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002 New modern women were portrayed as beautiful and intellectual individuals. They could stand in the same level in society with men. Contemporary Chinese female artists and works Contemporary Chinese female artists use a lot of ways to express and convey their feelings and this is done effectively in their image. Basically, there are five important themes involved in their works to describe their voice and thought. First, female artists usually use their sensitivity to express women’s touch through body and gesture. Body and gesture presentations help artists to voice their opinions and feelings accompanied with their understanding of being women. Cui Xiuwen8 Cui Xiuwen, born in Heilongjiang, China, 1970. She graduated with MFA from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China in 1996. Cui Xiuwen’s works have consistently engaged themes of sexuality and gender. Her paintings show the blurred boundary between public and private, and the relationship between history and memory. She uses a wide range of media and subject matters to explore the messages she wants to pass, bringing disturbing insights to bear on those issues. , her series works, â€Å"Lovers† (1999), she creates bold and sensitive relationship and intimate activity between man and woman. In the piece, she reveals both heterosexual and homosexual features, and presents a nervous sexual interaction that hints at Paul Cezanne’s colors. In â€Å"Lovers 5† (1999), strong and intense orange color background emphasizes the two human figures in the front when having sex, and also marks the nervous and excited atmosphere between them. While seeing this painting, the feeling is along with two figures through position, activity, and touch. This is primary human nature and human form however is heterosexual or homosexual. â€Å"†I create themes about gender, not themes about sexuality,† she explains. â€Å"I focus on human beings, only the human form in the world. If you want to know what it is to be human, you have to gain an insight into the relationship between man and woman.†Ã¢â‚¬ 9 Ma, Maggie. The Colors of Cui Xiuwen. Artzine: A Chinese Contemporary Art Portal. http://www.artzinechina.com/display_vol_aid168_en.html Yu Hong’s10 Yu Hong, born in Xi’an,China, 1966. 1995 earned MFA from the Central Academy of Fine arts, Beijing, China. Simple and realistic are the two best words to describe her works. Initially, Yu Hong’s paintings combine highly realistic portraits wit unreal surroundings and colorations, suggestion a sense of dislocation from the world. She presents her world and experience through works without any extraordinary images or ideas. Though paintings often represent a tranquil feeling, they depict the significance of life. Her early work, â€Å"Nude† (1988) was against masculinity appropriation of the spectacle of woman’s body in the Cultural Revolution. She portrays realistically, woman’s naked body, smooth and soft pose which present the touch and quality of female. Yu Hong reverses the traditional must-be female image. She depicts naked woman body in front only with red high heel shoes. â€Å"Chinese pictures of the human body, clothes or semi-clothed, (in a furtive pornography [of specifically erotic pictures]), are-to Western eyes-meager, schematic and inadequate†.11 Angela Zito & Tani E.Barlow.The Body Invisible in Chinese Art?. Body, Subject & Power in China. Chicago: The university of Chicago Press. There were no naked body images in traditional Chinese pictures, but here Yu Hong presented the naked woman body to represent the true nature and beauty of human form intended   against masculinity of the body and tradition. Another type of presentation, like Hung Liu’s12 Hung Liu, born in China on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, 1982 earned her MFA in mural painting from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China, immigrated to the United States later on and also earned MFA in visual arts from University of California, San Diego. She is interested in looking at how women existed in Chinese history for long time. Her works are touched with the painful reality of women’s status on China. As a Chinese woman and immigrant in the United States, Hung Liu chooses different ways to identify herself through looking back the Chinese history and portraying female issue on art work. Her paintings are based on late 19th and early 20th century Chinese photographs. Some were taken by foreign tourists, while others were taken by the Chinese. Often, the pictures are of beautiful young prostitutes. In traditional Chinese society, prostitutes belong to the low social class and disdained by people. But, indeed, they play an important role during that period, especially for photograph art and portrait paintings. In her work, â€Å"Odalisque† (1992), she creates a monumental altar to an anonymous woman, a turn of the century Chinese prostitute. Hung Liu reclaims a place in history for the Chinese prostitute by transforming the small photograph into large scale painting. â€Å"To the painting, with their flattened surfaces, Liu attaches wooden altars, on which she sets small jade-colored vases of glass flowers or tiny embroidered shoes for bound feet. Like the lacquer panels and the lifeless glass flowers, the prostitutes are mere decorations, passive, powerless, and empty in a culture that traditional counted emptiness as a female virtue.†13 Kim, Elaine H.1996. â€Å"Bad Women†: Asian American Visual Artists Hanh Thi Pham, Hung Liu, and Yong Soon Min. Feminist Studies, Inc. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3178131 The traditional Chinese clothing of the woman contrasts with the ornate, Western design of the sofa upon which she reclines and the flowered, Victorian-style backdrop. In addition, her gaze turns to the viewer and marks us conscious of viewer’s role as outside observers. The painting recalls the western artist, Edouard Manet’s painting, â€Å"Olympia† (1863). She touches a moment that registers the encounter between a past China and the trope of the prostitute, sexuality as commodity advertised through the relation of displayed body to the gaze of that Western technology, camera. â€Å"â€Å"I don’t want their stories to be forgotten; I don’t want them to disappear without a trace.† 14 Kim, Elaine H.1996. â€Å"Bad Women†: Asian American Visual Artists Hanh Thi Pham, Hung Liu, and Yong Soon Min. Feminist Studies, Inc. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3178131 As she says, she intends to document the anonymous women in history. Hung Liu’s painting combines western aesthetics with Chinese subject matter (prostitute), a cross-cultural blend that communicates her unique sense of beauty and emotion to the viewer through extraordinarily skillful handing of paint. Second, family and growing background are the significant influences to female artist when creating their works. Their works sometimes are revealed the images about family or childhood memory, and even extend to related personal expression and concern. Yu Hong, â€Å"Witness to Growth† (1966-2006), in which Yu Hong uses her own family photographs to create a self-portrait for each year of her life, and portraits for each year of her daughter’s life. The idea and composition of paintings dwell deeply in her concerned questions: What is the social expectation to female role in our society? How do these expectations build up the life of a woman? In this series of paintings, she not only narrates the story in how growing process, but also how society changes a woman’s life. Yu Hong discards an enthusiastic and rational thinking, but returns to the history by an imperturbable and objective manner instead. Yu Hong chooses a newspaper or magazine spread to complement each image of painting, and makes connection between private and public area of her own life. â€Å"Witness to Growth†(1995),a painting of herself aged twenty-nine years old, Yu Hong’s daughter lying on her body, family burden (role of mother) and society change (modern woman) bring heavy pressure and make her rethink the meaning of gender role and seek the balance between those roles. Next to the painting, artist places a contemporaneous China 1995 newspaper depicting â€Å"women waiting for job opportunity†. Chinese economy was flourishing rapidly during this period, and it also brought extremely competition in working position. Many women lost jobs, and many young girls lost opportunity of education. Society change quickly marked negative effect to female and deprived of their chance. At this time, western feminism came into China; women began to pursue their equality to men in society and also look for their female identity. This feminism trend aroused women to think about their roles between family and society as mothers and working women. In contrast, one year-old Yu Hong’s daughter, she seemed a new generation is growing. A new age is coming. The painting engages the juxtaposition of the weight of contemporary China’s history with the simplicity of life in its purest, most uncomplicated state of being. Here is a relatively quiet life lived in the midst of an almost constant political, cultural, and economic maelstrom. Yu Hong provides the necessary retreat into ordinary that enables the progression of life through the juxtaposition of the photograph and painting. Cultural Revolution was a significant historical event, especially rooted in people who grew up during this period. Hun Liu’s stunning reproductions of historical photographs of Chinese life, which address the cultural collisions she faced while coming of age during the decade of the Cultural Revolution in China. Personal items such as photographs were forbidden during Cultural Revolution, and her family destroyed most of their family photos out of fear. As a result, Hung Liu creates her paintings from anonymous photographs of historical China, particularly with reclaiming the lost histories of nameless women, has been strongly influenced by the losses she and her family suffered. Many of her paintings depict restrictive Chinese Cultural Revolution Scene and express her voice to against this history. Hung Liu’s painting, â€Å"Three Graces† (2001), the source photographs for this painting depict women in paramilitary uniforms in heroic poses, shown from below to give the appearance of greater height and stature. These fighters for Mao’s cause carry primitive rifles as they march forward to engage in the revolutionary struggle. During the Cultural Revolution, young students and young people were mobilized by Chinese government, called â€Å"red guards† or â€Å"Hong Wei Bing†. The Hong Wei Bing traveled throughout China, going to schools, universities, and institutions, spreading the teaching of Mao. They aimed to attack the old society (old ideas, cultures, manners, and customs) with violence, but indeed they followed blindly by government’s propaganda. And the Cultural Revolution also put young intellectuals and artist like Hung Liu into the rice fields to be â€Å"re-educated† by peasants. Hung Liu chooses plain clothes worn by the women in the original photographs with flowers, painted in the traditional Chinese style. The drips of oil paint that enliven the painting’s surface are a part of Western praxis with its reference to the personifications of beauty, charm, and grace. As she says, â€Å"â€Å"The oil washes and drips hat seep through my paintings contributes to a sense of loss while dissolving the historical authenticity of the photographs I paint from. Color is a way of making contact with subjects that are fading into the gray tones of history.†Ã¢â‚¬ 15 Going Away, Coming Home: 80 Blessings from Oakland Artist hung Liu. Port Of Oakland. http://www.museumca.org/press/pdf/Liu%20fact%20sheet%20fnl.pdf Through this revolutionary background, Hung Liu had experienced a deep touch. This painting not only looks for the memory of girls’ but also expresses Hung Liu’s feeling of the Cultural Revolution through the image and drip. Third, artists look for identifying women’s importance and missing recognition of social status because women in society are always ignored and made to play an unimportant role. Indeed, they are actually as significant as men in our world. Hung Liu’s paintings often narrate identity and story issues. She documents in her art the forgotten lives of anonymous people, especially those of women. She tries to recall their erased identity from society and appear their stories and meaning of existence back. Her work, â€Å"We have Been Naught We Shall Be all†(2007), a series of three canvases edged by bands to mimic widescreen film format, those works are inspired by Daughters of China (1949), a Ling Zifeng film based on the heroic actions of a group of women officers and soldiers during the Sino-Japanese War. Hung Liu’s empathetic response to the final moments of the women, as they carry a wounded comrade into the river to draw away enemy fire from the Chinese Resistance fighters, brings to the fore the theme of personal sacrifice. The images of women are taken by realistic presentation, Hung Liu bases on original photographic image of film. She reserves women’s face without any color and intends to keep their original identify and recall their heroic dignity, accompanied by respect. The paintings from left to right, it seems catching the moment and movement when women carrying the wounded body toward the front. Hung Liu uses the yellow color on three canvases, the background of left painting is coloring yellow, yellow is on wounded body and women’s figures of central canvas, and only little yellow color on right canvas. Moreover, yellow symbolizes the sharp memory. Hung Liu arranges the yellow on three canvases perfectly along with women’s action and moment. This presents a balance between image and time. Her art work is concerned about what has been lost in transit between female and history. Hung Liu desires to give those nameless women place in history, and she would like to identify those women as significant heroes in our society. As Hung Liu’s concept, Yu Hong creates the â€Å"She† series to portray the spirit and lives of women. The meaning of â€Å"existence† in our world is then recorded. Different career women have also played different roles to show their importance. â€Å"She-security guard†, Yu Hong arranges one photographic image picked by security guard aside with one oil painting made by her. The photographic image is taken in front of the museum in her leisure time. Security guard wears white shirt with likely smile. In the photo, she raises her hand and poses â€Å"YA†. Contrary to the next, the painting shows her working place. She wears yellow ochrecolor uniform and concentrate on her job with highly respect. The light is the parking light seems leading us to take a glance on her working place and tries to understand her work. Artist organizes this placement purposely and intent to show the importance of security guard in society. Yu Hong depicts the portrait image to let audience snoop security guard’s life between working place and personal life. She is the individual with singularity; no one can replace her in this career position. Yu Hong still presents her realistic style on paintings, and she intends to record different modern female in different levels of life. As she says, â€Å"If life can move slower, people can notice and pay attention in every detail and experience. I wish life could be freed from the restraint, so the essence of real life could be discovered. †16 â€Å"我å ° ±Ã¦Ëœ ¯Ã¥ ¸Å'æÅ"›ç”Ÿæ ´ »Ã§ ¯â‚¬Ã¥ ¥ Ã¦â€¦ ¢Ã¤ ¸â‚¬Ã© »Å¾, 這æ ¨ £Ã¤ º ºÃ¥â‚¬â€˜Ã¥  ¯Ã¤ » ¥Ã¥ ¾Å¾Ã¥ ® ¹Ã¥Å" °Ã§â€Å¸Ã¦ ´ », æ… ¢Ã¦â€¦ ¢Ã¥Å" °Ã© «â€Ã¦Å"Æ'. 我æ ³ ¨Ã©â€¡ Ã§ ´ °Ã§ ¯â‚¬,我å ¾Ë†Ã¥ ¸Å'æÅ"›ç”Ÿæ ´ »Ã¨Æ' ½Ã¥ ¤  Ã¦â€š  Ã§â€ž ¶Ã¤ ¸â‚¬Ã¤ ºâ€º, 這æ ¨ £Ã§â€Å¸Ã¦ ´ »Ã§Å¡â€žÃ¦Å" ¬Ã§Å"Ÿç‹€æ…‹æ‰ Ã¨Æ' ½Ã§Å"Ÿæ ­ £Ã¨ ¢ «Ã¤ º ºÃ¥â‚¬â€˜Ã§â„¢ ¼Ã¨ ¦ ºÃ¢â‚¬ . Enjoy the Life-Yu Hong. Febay.com. http://www.febay.com.cn/magazine/ArticleShow.asp?ArticleID=18433 (April, 2007) Yu Hong represents the reality of space on woman’s personal life and working life, elegant skills on portrait image, and female sensibility on woman’s experience. She also represents an inner desire of a female artist be responsible and conscious of women’s social status. Fourth, the present reality of sadness and pain of Chinese women who are suffering under a cruelly male-dominated world illustrate the image to challenge traditional patriarchy. In the works of Hung Liu, she has examined foot binding, practiced in China from the Song Dynasty until the beginning of the twentieth century. Many Chinese women’s feet were bound from birth to artificially confine their growth, distorting them into small, twisted fists that were sexually attractive to men. The painful, deforming practice of foot binding was used to make a Chinese woman walk in an extremely difficult way, but their mincing steps were considered delicate and lovely. Bound feet left women handicapped, which also ensured that they remained subservient. Moreover, it stressed the value of appearance while making a virtue of hiding one’s pain and suffering, making it a combination of esthetics and cruelty. In one piece of her work called â€Å"Bonsai† (1992), Hung Liu placed a photograph next to an anatomical line drawing showing the cross-section of a human body flanked on either side by Chinese characters. The only decipherable physiognomic attributes in this figural drawing are the heart, what appears to be a spine, and a suggestion of intestinal organs. What are most astonishing observations about this drawing are the absence of legs and the egg shape of the figure that almost mirrors the contour of the woman in the photograph. By placing these two images within the same interpretive context. Hung Liu has reinforced the notion of the woman’s incapacitated movement. Woman’s physical movement had been limited by the mutilation of her feet in the same way that a tiny bonsai tree is confined to restrict its growth. She had been bound by Chinese societal and cultural practices as an object of male gratification. Hung Liu shows the Chinese aesthetic tradition with cruel reality in male- dominated society. She also presents how unfair beauty standards were to women in the long period. As a Chinese woman, the piece would make a you think about your grand grandmother or grandmother suffering this pain in order to satisfy men’s taste and standard. Her art work is concerned about what has been severed from the surroundings. She touches the sadness and painful reality of women’s status in China. As a woman, she uses her sensibility to depict and voice for women’s gender role. From her paintings, not only narrate stories but also represent true reality in our society. The young artist Cui Xiuwen creates bold, sensitive caricatures of works as â€Å"Intersection Series† in 1998. In the piece, she records the full front side of a man’s naked body and dressed a young girl holding a rose. The painting is also done in connection with Cezanne’s colors and narrative story-telling and nervous relationship between female and male. Cui Xiuwen colors the girl’s dress and dog on green color. Green color symbolizes the protection from fears and anxieties connected with the demands of others (men). The rose is represented as girl’s pure virginity which is inviolate. Girl’s face also reveals innocence. On the contrary, man’ genitals are bit off by girl’s dog, blooding through his underwear. His extremely fearful and shocking face shows on his face with opened mouth and big eyes. In traditional Chinese society, patriarchy dominates the world and power. Genitals are the symbol of patriarchy. Cui Xiuwen boldly challenges to patriarchic society and tries to reverse the social position between female and male. In traditional Chinese art, art is confined to the men society. Women always played being viewed characters; men played viewer roles, but here, the artist breaks traditional art concept and reverses art presentation. The reversal shows Cui Xiuwen’s stance on the feminism. She makes up fictional story image to express her own challenging patriarchic desire. Intensive and extraordinary color and story throw a huge stone to the eyes of the audience. This also brings new dispute to contemporary Chinese society. Finally, concern about female and social issues, the year 1976 marked a shift in political, economic, and cultural policy, a shift that opened China up to the outside world. Afterward, society is changing rapidly. There are more and more social issues emerged such as teen-age crime and pregnant teen-age girl. Social value shifts to wrong path. Artists see this situation and use observations to bring the problem and question to audience. Yu Hong, she approaches new art presentation on â€Å"Figure and Ground†. The works portrays some young girls practicing gymnastics. Images seem simple, but paintings neatly summarized a sophisticated thread of thought the artist has been developing over the years, and they express that thought in a way that ties the works visually to certain aesthetic principles found in traditional Chinese painting. As a group, paintings represent a fresh vision and a new level in artist’s oeuvre. Each painting in the series depicts from one to three girls against a blank ground, bent into contorted positions as they practice gymnastics. Yu Hong bases the paintings on photographs she took at her daughter’s gymnastics class. The girls wear black leotards in addition to some combination of tight black pants, black and white striped shirt, and black slippers. â€Å"As the artist has said, the paintings â€Å"are all about girls doing artistic gymnastics. People, especially girls, have to change themselves to suit society.† The images are a simple but highly effective metaphor for the place of young girls in contemporary society.†17 Erickson, Britta. Figure and Ground: Yu Hong’s Gymnastics series. Yu Hong. Beijing, China: Loft. Although the students in Yu Hong’s daughter’s gymnastics class range in age from six to teenage, the age of the girls portrayed in Figure and Ground is narrowed to about nine to twelve. Those are the years when girls move from childhood to puberty and begin to come under the heavy pressure of society’s expectations. Teenage is a special period, and it is easy to lead a child to wrong path. Cui Xiuwen’s strength and certainty seems to have naturally transformed into a desire of the home, of having a family, and in a wish, difficult to admit but naturally inevitable, of maternity. This is what the images of her work, â€Å"Angel†, inspire. Artist approaches her own sensitive observation to current social issue related to young age girl. This work does not want to criticize a social and universal situation. It brings up the awareness and the realization of an individual as a singular feeling. Cui Xiuwen wants to express how a young mother, especially teen-age mother in China feels and what fears she has to face. She uses a young model to create strong emotions. Rows of white young girls, ghost like girls, and the same girl repeated over, and in the same state of pregnancy, but the figures are positioned at various scales, which express the different types of fear they have. Alone, staring at the horizon, scared and worried in a procession that goes from the Forbidden City and continues on what can be a highway such as the Beijing ring road o the expressway to the airport. This represents the time when society is changing, and girls are unable to go back to the prior time and have no choice but to go forwardt. They look at the front but only darkness is surrounding them. â€Å"â€Å"No longer wishing to see the outside world, reality, nor to be confronted by it or to have to deal with it†, is the artist’s explanation. Falling pregnant has distinctly different meanings and implications at different ages of woman. Both for the woman and it terms of how the external world judges the fact. Do they applaud or condemn. Cui Xiuwen asks â€Å"Can a woman choose to have a baby alone, single, because she bows to maternal instinct, and does not feel the need to be married?†Ã¢â‚¬ 18 Smith, Karen. Photo series â€Å"Angel† of 2006 and â€Å"One day in 2004†. Catalog of DF2 Gallery. Los Angeles:DF2 Gallery Cui Xiuwen brings the question to make the audience aware about the young pregnant girl’s problem rather than criticize her . She uses retrospective manner to represent the image on her works. Her works do not strike us, nor are they extraordinarily critical, but rather leave significant questions in our minds. Conclusion Yu Hong, Cui Xiuwen, and Hung Liu though are being in different generation groups; they all aim to represent female qualities and voice for women through their works. Yu Hong was brought into the world at the start of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, during which almost every aspect of Chinese life was being re-evaluated. When re-examining the historical evidence and cultural production of the period, it becomes difficult to imagine life being brought into the world during such a period of upheaval. In many cultural products that are marketed as personal memories, the political economic situation is placed directly into the foreground of the narrative, and personal details become a way of contextualizing the nation’s story. Yu Hong’s method of storytelling makes the personal much more central. Her generation, is a group existing between old (artists were trained as Russian realists) and young (artists were influence by emancipation movement) generations. Yu Hong’s works always present old tradition concept (family as central start point) and new social concept which is related to social issues. Cui Xiuwen has been called many things-avant-garde, transgressive, feminist, controversial, and even over-the-top-buts never creatively stagnant. She is born a new kind of human, who grew up in a relatively open social environment and came of age in the increasingly more globalised information age. Her paintings and later photographs are always with frank depictions of human sexuality and controversial issues, which present her ideas and feelings about the new modern society. But Hung Liu, she was born in 1948 in China. During the Cultural Revolution, she was sent to the country to work in the fields and be â€Å"reeducated†. Hung Liu studied the acceptable artistic style of Socialist Realism while in China. After immigrating to San Diego, she learned that it is important for an artist to think and that art is intertwined with, not separate from life. Her works depict the cultural mixing that takes place when an individual moves to a new country and also reality of hidden history in China. She much focuses on historical sources to present the image of reality. Three generation group of artists have their own unique presentations through their works and also are influenced on their own social backgrounds. But, female are the most important image and concepts of their commonality of works. By focusing on a female rather than on a male, three artists challenge a tradition of patriarchy. In the art pieces, the narrator (three female artists) and the protagonists (female image in works) are all women. As such, they present the viewer with a distinctively female view of the world. In historical constructions, women’s lives were generally touched only indirectly in contrast to their fathers, husbands, or brothers. Yu Hong, Cui Xiuwen, and Hung Liu show the women’s lives being immediately influenced by the external world and also their â€Å"existence† and â€Å"importance† in our society. History, society, and family have been great influences upon the development of female art in China. Because of the oppression that Chinese women have faced from a patriarchal society, female art exhibit intense emotions of sadness, pain, and revolution against the male dominated Chinese social stratification. There are many paintings, and photographs that depict the detrimental state that Chinese women were in during the more rigid periods of Chinese history. Various works of art from photos to paintings show female opposition against various Chinese traditions that have oppressed their gender for generations. Many female artists who driven by extreme emotion focused on work that mirrored their sense of retribution against male dominance. Art work that feature females â€Å"turning the tables† on men are common among more liberal female artists. There is also a lot of work that defy traditional Chinese art that is also patriarchal. Such works make use of non-conventional materials and subjects as a way to challenge the male dominated norms. This shows an image of the Chinese female artist as someone who wants to break free from an oppressive condition through the use of personal expression. The qualities linked with the use of the expression in art for them taking account of use of words importantly as the innermost artistic element, simplification, appropriation, representation of user or popular culture as well as art itself. The artists believe that art makes people realize the truth-at least the truth that is given to all to understand, and brings back eliminated women state in Chinese tradition. Chinese female artists have become more motivated to do art not only because of talent, but they convey reality and truth through art. In currently modern world, the majority is focusing on economic flourishing, globalization, and new technology. Most people have forgotten the essence of life and the simple things that make us live along with the many troubles of humanity and theses contemporary Chinese female artists, through exploring modern art are still preserving the real essence of making art and what art means to them, and the female artists also discover their own experience and find an appropriate way of expression in Chinese art. In relation to this, the female artist thus gives superior importance to the role of women in Chinese society. Many daring works aim to recognize female contribution to the family, government, and society which goes largely undistinguished in past generations. Here the Chinese female artists aim to open viewers’ hearts and minds to the true worth of the Chinese woman. Works of art that show how important Chinese women are also tend to show how much they are taken for granted. The Chinese woman artist was also found to be sensitive with the changing times. As society evolved over years of political, economic, and social change, so did female artistry change with it. In fact, female art can be concluded to be much more versatile than Chinese male art which is considered more traditional and unyielding to time. Another difference duly noted between male and female works of art in China was that females tend to express more depth and daringness in terms of depicting sensual subjects. Years of yearning for equality with their male partners have also implied years of dissatisfaction with how males see copulation rituals. The outlet of this repression can be observed with how meaningful and rich Chinese female works of sensual art are. The female artist takes her time to craft the intricate details that add flavor to a romantic scene. The female artist is able to bring out the humanity of a sensitive scene and does not confine the subject to feral lust. Instead, the focus is upon the intimateness of interaction that is not meant to sexually arouse but rather to emotionally move viewers. Lastly, the image of the Chinese female artist is one that is deeply devoted to the value of family. Influences from childhood memories can be seen in the works of many female artists and is regarded as a sense of personal beauty added to general themes. Those are the themes that provide the overall picture in which female art is framed. Chinese female art can be compared to a strong, demanding voice that echoes the grievances of an oppressed gender and outwardly shows how important it is and why people should take notice. It is forceful and bold, more than willing to reject the norms in order to convey its meaning to an internal society that it deems as largely unsympathetic to their concerns. At the same time, female art is delicate and sweet, showing not intent to please but a true expression of beauty. Lastly, it can be concluded that female art is greatly influenced by changing times and each generation of female artists have their own issues to face which are reflected in the works that they produce. Despite female art showing the capability of female artists, it is also a representation of quality artistic work. These qualities contents highly essence of female touch and voice, and also produce with strong female expression through the artworks. Female art is not only made by female artist, on contrary, it is an art with enthusiastic female quality. These five categories of female quality present the sense of female beauty and expression, artists’’ sensitivity of women, and extraordinary and skillful handling of paint. Observe the female art movement in the western society and Chinese society, there is no gap between them. In the west or China, the essence of quality of female art has maintained the same content and concept. In recently decade, female consciousness emerges and brings new concept to women. Women begin to understand themselves more and express their feelings to others. With a modern course of awareness in Chinese contemporary art in the global market, Chinese female artist are expectant that they will reach their ultimate objective; Chinese female artist must have a say. They will continue to explore and find a new way to express their art and voice for women, and the quality of female art will also get more abundant themes.