Swatch

"I instinctively realized that the foundation of creativity had to be linked with my living environment. In 1985, western culture, western philosophy, and western art came pouring into China, and that created a conundrum for me as an artist: how was my art supposed to develop? On the foundation of my native culture or from absorbed western influences? Artists at the time, including myself, were looking for the point of balance between the two and the possibilities inherent in combining them. By the '90s we were concerned with issues of contemporary art, and these issues had significance because of the different routes taken by cultures and the changes occurring between them. Beyond that, China went through tremendous changes politically, culturally, and economically between the 80s and 90s. From my point of view, the Great Criticism pieces are about a clash between western culture and socialist ideology, and the clash has greater meaning culturally than it does in purely artistic terms. I started the Great Criticism series in the late '80s and then I put it aside for a time. I came back to the theme later because, at first, its focus had been on things like Marlboro and Coke as social phenomena, and everyone knew that we were talking about these issues of mass appeal. But the critical focus is changing now. I've gone from extreme social commentary toward more purely artistic concerns, things that for the ordinary person may not be significant but which are immensely significant in artistic terms. That's the reason I've returned to this topic, because I want to look at these questions again from an artistic standpoint" (Wang quoted in C. Merewether, "An Interview with Wang Guangyi on the Socialist Visual Experience," at Timezone 8 Office, Beijing, July 18, 2002, in Wang Guangyi, Hong Kong 2002, pp. 27-35).