Established Chinese contemporary artist duo Tamen’s latest series of works ‘A Floating World’ create a real yet poetic illusion, a vision that is out of this world where sadness & the sense of loss are difficult to avoid, so we grab every object that presents us with a sense of security, belonging, memory, and belief. In ‘A Floating World’, we see world famous artworks floating, luxury brands floating, people floating. They represent a universal state of our urban life, our daily exhaustion attempt to synchronize with the vagaries of the world to maintain a decent image acceptable in the modern, while constantly yearning to return to the heart of peace.
Tamen’s works are closely linked to the consumer culture, accompanied by interesting multiple landscape juxtapositions, attempting to present the modern people’s confusion, a spiritual dilemma that people of Tamen’s generation experience. Family planning, cultural reformation and opening up, globalization, urbanization, the Internet era and so on. A kind of unsustainable social stimulation rooted in our past value system in today’s new world, people enslaved by self-creation and unawareness.
In Tamen’s ‘Floating World’, masterpieces of art, people and luxury brands have left their original positions and remain scattered across the land or floating on water. In this disorderly contemporary era, no one can escape from the dual paradox. We witness the existence of priceless treasures and count the market value of multi-trillion commercial giants, yet, we also question the waves in our sea of faith.