This week I visited the Saatchi gallery. The exhibition at current displays new art from China. Call it new, modern or contemporary art, it is the kind which usually causes a reaction from its audience. It may be a blissful realisation of the meaning of life or an angry, "that's not art!". Whether it is your cup of tea or not, I thought it was a playful exhibition and I often enjoy contemporary art for that reason. However it's also deeper than just fun and games. On closer inspection, and in some cases at first glance, it did feel quite disturbing to be stood in the gallery.
For example, standing below tens of naked life size human models hanging upside down from the ceiling, I wasn't quite sure what it represented. According to Zhang Dali, the artist, they portray immigrant workers who are from the rural areas all over China and work in construction sites in Chinese cities.
Zhang thinks they are the most important people of the Chinese race as they shape our physical reality. The bodies are hung upside down, because they represent the, "uncertainty of their life and their powerlessness in changing the own fates."
Sculptures of people featured heavily in other Chinese artists works too. Sun Yuan and Peng Yu created models of elderly men that look suspiciously like world leaders. They are placed in wheel chairs. One holds a beer can, another holds some toilet paper to blow his nose and they slowly wheel round the room satirically bumping into each other.
Perhaps one of the most visually shocking is the sculpture of a giant poo, spanning two metres in diameter. The textured detail does not politely refrain. It is as grotesque and repulsive as a giant number two can be.
One of my favourites by YueMinjun was that of the "Laughing Buddhas" (pictured above).
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