A Dual Reflection on the Intellectuals – Shen Jingdong and His Works
Text / Jiang Ming
As a well known contemporary artist, Shen Jingdong created a unique image style I named the “Post Pop”. But more of our research should be the background, meaning, schema aesthetic value of his works and the humanistic reflection as an intellectual.
After the 20th century, Post Pop appeared in a special significance of the cultural phenomenon after the mid-90s. In this particular wave of art, the post-pop artist’s creation presents many different forms of art. And the vast majority of artists are using the Chinese iconic symbolic images. Shen Jingdong’s work is one of the special style, he put the most significant image of the military cartoon in a humorous way to create a distinctive “Shen Jingdong style”. This pattern is visually identifiable, and its characteristics are markedly different from the works of other “post-pop” artists in the same period. Most of these works are mature after 2000, during which the Chinese art phenomenon can be used as a style to elaborate and study the Chinese consumerism during the period of cultural transformation and development.
As an artist who uses the typical image of the military to create experimental works, Shen Jingdong’s personal life experience undoubtedly played an important role. Born in 1965, Shen Jingdong is actually from a generation of the Cultural Revolution. This generation has a complex composition in terms of life and emotional experience because in this generation of growth, the special social environment will undoubtedly shape them into a contradictory generation.
The memory of the Cultural Revolution, the transformation of the 1980s, the changes of the 1990s have made Shen Jingdong constantly questioned the values of life, society and spirit, so much so that the view of the state and society became special in this generation’s instinct. The education of heroism in the past tells him that the grand blueprints that the country has portrayed for us are never dreamy. It is in this contradictory inner struggle, the spirit of self-struggle, Shen Jingdong reflect the self experience. And the pursuit of the true value of art, making him no longer satisfied with the orthodox thinking. In 1991, Shen Jingdong graduated from the Nanjing Art Institute and entered the Nanjing Military Region political front line art troupe. In this special group, he is responsible for the troupe of the drama stage art design. He worked for 10 years here, experiencing the serious life of the troops, the tight organization, the high degree of politics made his adventurous experimental creation absolutely bounded. And the inner desire of ‘freedom’ grew stronger. Until he decided to leave the army, to give up a sense of security; to go to Beijing instead to find his longing for the artistic ideal. The experience of this army life makes his image of the military has its own unique understanding, which is later gradually morphed to the image of the military as Shen Jingdong’s personal artistic language.
In Shen Jingdong’s thought, the image of the military has a special meaning and interpretation. In 1997 he acted in a drama when he had to wearing uniforms, this picture became his prototype in his later works. In an interview, he said: “It is a coincidence, we were filming, making a drama wearing a military uniform. After the film finished, I felt very strange. I felt interesting and also a very serious, very politicized feeling.I think my identity seems to have changed and then put it in the middle of an exhibition where it on display. This is the beginning of a person’s self-awakening, a generation from the collective unconscious to the pursuit of personal values of the process of transformation means the whole society ultimately changes. In a collective unconscious era, or in such a group, individuals do not want to pursue the value of self as being concerned about the self is a meaningless thing because the value orientation of the whole society is to advocate the selflessness of the spirit of sacrifice. In that era or in the group, we warmly believe that we are sacred to our comrades, friends, family, and ca not shirk responsibility. In fact, such a state of mind is that each of us in such an environment are being Self “ drowned”. We seem to be helping others, but in fact it is to save themselves.
As an artist his style mature after 2003, borrowed inspirations from folk clay figurines, puppets and cartoon features such as the heroic image of humor. In the visual experience, these works although inherited popular trends – ambiguous, cynical color creation, but in the composition, Shen Jingdong found his own special expression, thus creating a typical “Shen Jingdong style.” Such a schema has a definite identity and irreplaceability. The interpretation of this “Shen Jingdong” interpretation help us understand in-depth of a period of art development of the rich content.
The reason why I have determined that Shen Jingdong’s works have a typical Post-Pop nature, is that the principles of the commodity economy and the market economy make it no longer entirely from the principles of ideology, but more from the commercial law. People from the political way of life to the lifestyle of business and entertainment, so those orthodox, serious, simple schema is no longer able to apply the new needs of the times, and entertainment, humor, consumer, Pop visual identity of the schema must become a new image that people choose. What Shen Jingdong created is such a schema.
The heroic image is a humorized transformation, in Shen Jingdong’s image metaphor there is also a profound ideological content. In the face of Shen Jingdong, he created this seemingly simple schema, but behind the standardization of humorous image, is his deep reflection and personal value of the re-cognition. This is the duality of thinking and cognition of intellectuals with humanitarian and humanistic thoughts.
This is a profound question, which in fact involves our thinking about the state, life, society and value. Shen Jingdong’s “heroic series” and “harmony series” is triggered by an intellectual understanding of the fate of the country and personal values to rethink the metaphysical thinking. This reflection reflects the love of contemporary intellectuals of life, the pursuit of truth, the respect for the heresy of the heresy.
Since 2009, Shen Jingdong’s works, both in form and content, have some new explorations, such as “Bandage” series, “Little Prince” series… etc, these new series of works in the image language is still continued with a “Shen Jingdong Style “, but in the expression of content to broaden the theme, from the military image to a broader content on the change. From these changes, we see the artist trying to go beyond their own limitations of the bold attempt. As for the future, how Shen Jingdong works will develop, we still need to continue to observe, and I hope he can bring us more new surprises!
February 27, 2009 written in Beijing Dongba
Modified in April 2017