Aesthetics of Cold War | Sculptures | Sketch | Paintings | Prints |

WANG Guangyi The Materialist 2001 110.0 * 190.0 * 150.0 cm (43" * 75" * 59") Sculpture | Millet-coated polyester code: wgys02 / id:1032

This installation, in the same line of Wang Guangyi’s painting series Great Criticism, is made of fiber-reinforced polymer and its surface is covered with hulled millet. In the Great Criticism series, the image of the worker/peasant/soldier (the propaganda aesthetics of the Cultural Revolution) and Western consumption brands are juxtaposed, becoming the artist’s specific visual symbols. In the sculpture, workers/peasants/soldiers with their standard postures constitutes a vehicle for their paradoxical characteristics of critiquing and being critiqued, their sheer volumes convey a sense of absolute power, and their eyebrows show a sense of justice, which makes them look like heroes. However, even heroes cannot get rid of materials in modern society. Hulled millet materializes memory of the hard times, therefore the ‘hero’ covered with millets creates an unexpected mottled mixture of the belief of an era, the state ideology, and the history of economic system.