Modernism and Post-Modernism
Yip Wan Yee (Willa)
Student no. 2960645
Does Yayoi Kusama and Ai Weiwei achieve in self-reflexivity?
Word Count: 1474
26/11/2014
Lecture: Mr. Keith Bradbury
Art historian Dr. Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe who has describes the
theory on self-reflexivity as those post-modern artists is “reflexive” on
self-conscious which involves a process of thinking about themselves and
society in a deconstructive manner, be knowing of their cultural self in history,
and speed up the process of self-consciousness (Witcombe 2000). In this
matter I chose Yayoi Kusama and Ai Weiwei who have great involvement in it.
Through their art works we can see that Yayoi Kusama reflexives on her
psychic problem and Ai Weiwei were more care on social issues instead, and
in this assignment would like to mainly discuss about their installation art
works and how they involved in self-reflexivity.
Yayoi Kusama is best known for her “dot dot” art and also as Net painting,
most of her art work used dots as the main element since she
experienced hallucinations which make her see the dots all around and all the
time. She said that she want to see her own life, a dot, namely, one among
millions of particles. Her art obliterates herself and others with the void of a
net woven with an astronomical accumulation of dots (Kusama 2002,
pp.24-25). She admits herself as a self-reflexivity artist.
Author Lynn Zelevansky has an argument on Kusama‟s work that, for her,
there is no contradiction exists between aesthetic engagement and publicity,
or psychic disorder and emotional control, and there is no same perceptible
border between her and art too. (ed. Pollock 2008, p.132) She presents
herself in an all-encompassing way.
One of the good examples of her self-reflex art work is Kusama’s Peep
Show, also known as Endless Love Show in 1996 (Fig.1) was an octagonal
room which covered by mirrors and there have a small window that you could
stick your head in and the ceiling of it set up a series of lights, when turn the
lights on, the mirror will reflect them and visitors also lighting up the room as
figure one.
Psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan stressed the fact that our first recognition
Fig.1: Kusama‟s Peep Show: Endless Love Show‟ she
showed Endless Love Room 1966
of ourselves in the mirror is in a willed mistaken. He had elaborated that if we
face two or more mirrors we will be unpleasant and even disturbing on the
reflection of ourselves (Borch-Jacobsen 1991, p.232). And this effect is well
demonstrated by Kusama in her Peep Show (Fig.1), the mirror in the
installation offer a simulative experience of fragmentation and our reflection is
dispersed around the place to the point where we become (Bishop 2005,
p.90). As Kusama said “dots are symbol of the world, the earth is a dot, the
moon, the sun, the stars are all made of dots. You and me, we are dots” in the
interview of BBC Newsnight (`Kusama's Polka dot obsessed art comes to the
Tate ' 2012). She was not only reflecting herself in art but also brings us in too.
The Museum of Modern Art also described Kusama herself and her work
are very remarkable at that time, and often prescient in arts future
developments. Sharply personal, handmade, obsessive, remain an individual
and altogether unique appearance. (Museum Exhibitions and Programs 1998,
p.37).
As well as her latest installation artwork The Obliteration Room (Fig.2).
Yayoi constructed a large domestic environment, painting every wall, furniture,
and household decoration in a pure white. Visitors were given infinity of
colored dot stickers and invited to transform the room, turning it into a
vibrantly mottled explosion of color (Kusama’s Obliteration Room 2012). She
just not created the art work this time but also invited people to join the
progress of creation, let people participate in her world. Yayoi‟s self-reflexivity
is more about her experience in psycho problems, Ai Weiwei however is more
reflect in political and social issue.
Fig.2: The Obliteration Room 2012, Look Now See Forever exhibition at the
Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane
Meanwile in China, political artist Ai Weiwei is trying to present the desire
about the right value of freedom, justice of law and equality from people
through art ( Lin 2014, p.18). His self-reflexivity is more about the public issue
in large scale of production style which will explain in the content below.
Same is installation art, but unlike Yayoi Kusama, Weiwei‟s theme and
elements of work can make people feel that they are part of the metaphor in
social issue instead. Such as one hundred million seeds which have political
meaning ( Lin 2014, p.29). Ai weiwei‟s Sunflower seeds (Fig.3) was made by
1600 Chinese artisans in barehands one by one, follow the exactly the same
of Ming‟s ceramics produce progress and it took two and half years to finish
(Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour 2010).
The elements of his installation art works is a large scale. In particular the
Sunflower seeds, as he respond to a question that the relation of this art work,
he said that it related to many things, history, mass production but yet, each of
these seeds is made individual not mass production (Ai Weiwei: Without Fear
or Favour 2010).
An article elaborate that AiWeiwei‟s reflection is also the process of art
work making and organizing social activist campains, his experimantal
artwork and to illuminate social innjustices were also one of the reason that
he creats large-scale installation art such as Sunflower seeds (Fig.3)
(Natusch & Hawkins 2014, p.4).
Chinese people have been represent as sunflower that following Mao
(the sun) in the past. Author Christian Sorace has elaberate Ai use seeds to
present Chinese resident‟s pure potentiality of what they might become
when „it is imagined as a collective of individuals and what individuals might
become when they are collectively empowered as the people.‟(Sorace 2014,
p.411).
In BBC‟s television programe Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour ,
Fig.3: Ai Weiwei poses with a handful of seeds in the exhibition at Tate Modern.
curator Chris Dercon also explained that there is a time people have nothing
to eat but sunflower seeds, which help them survive and therefore Ai Weiwei
decided to memerize this part of history that we (chinese people) can
overcome, he himself have been participate in too as he like to eat sunflower
seeds during chit chat sometimes (2011). Ai‟s self-reflexivity is on helping
people to express themselves in the political metaphor, history, social issue
etc.
About the self-reflexivity, as professer Witcombe said that “reflexive” also
can be knowing of their cultural self in history (Witcombe 2000), Ai Weiwei‟s
reflexive is on the social problems that he has been through, in addition of
Sunflower seeds good example of self-reflexivity is Remembering (Fig.4).
Remembering is another installation art in large scale production about
social problems including the Jerry-built school which cost at least 5000
children dead in the Sichuan earthquake and the government‟s reaction on
this incident.
Remembering is an installation art that use nearly 9000 backpacks to
assemble a sentence “她在这个世界上开心地生活过七年” means she have
been happily live in the world for 7 years, which said by a mother whose kid
was dead in the school during earthquake. This mother does not need any
apologize and reparation since her daughter will never come back (Klayman
2012).
After the earthquake there had over 7000 school room collapsed. The
reason and evidence soon came out – the “tofu dreg schoolhouses” (豆腐渣校
舍) which cost more than five thousand young life dead and after that, those
children‟s parents start to protest asked for an investigation but turn out the
government decided to pay them money and even force them to be silenced.
On this matter Ai led a citizen investigation to collect the information of
deceased schoolchildren and did this installation work (Sorace 2014, p.412).
Fig.4: Remembering, Installation for the Haus der Kunst, 2009-2010.
Obviously this art work is another good example of Ai‟s self-reflexivity. He
did participate the whole incident, he use this way to remembering the little life
from the earthquake, those colorful backpags did shocked people and directly
lead them think about the children‟s death, the cover truth and the disapear
individual for group‟s aim. His work can always reflect a self intuition, attitude
on the social matter (Lin 2014, pp.40-41).
According to those anthorities whose views on Yayoi Kusama and Ai
Weiwei‟s involvement with the self-reflexivity, it can be said that they are
considered an important exponent of the self-reflexivity.
Yayoi Kusama particularly use dots to reflect her psycho problems (dots
elements) on her artworks and on the other hand Ai Weiwei however, is
reflecting himself in history specially social issue and political problems
through large number production method (one hundred million sunflower
seeds and nearly nine thousand school backpags). And there is no doubt that
these two artist has their own way in self-reflexivity.
Reference list:
Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour 2010, television program, BBC, UK,
16 November.
Bishop, Claire 2005, Installation Art: a crirical history, Routledge, New
York.
Borch-Jacobsen, Millel 1991, Lacan: The Absolute Master, Stanford
University Press, C.A..
Klayman, Alison 2012, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, documentury,
personal press, USA.
Kusama’s Obliteration Room 2012, television program, Tate,
Bloomberg, 14 March.
' Kusama's Polka dot obsessed art comes to the Tate ' 2012, Newsnight ,
9 February, retrieved 25 November 2014, via BBC News database.
Kusama, Yayoi 2002, Infinity Nets: The Autobiography of Yayoi
Kusama, Sakuhinsha, Tokyo.
Lin, Hsieh-Min 2014, "On Ai Weiwei‟s Art form the Publicness and Its
effect", Master Thesis, Department of Theatre Art National Sun
Yat-sen University, viewed 24 November 2014,
http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/getfile?URN=etd-001
0114-114037&filename=etd-0010114-114037.pdf
'Museum Exhibition and Programs' 1998, MoMA, vol. 1, no.4, pp.
36-43.
Natusch, Barry & Hawkins, Beryl 2014, „Mapping Nichols‟ Modes in
Documentary Film: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry and Helvetica‟, The IAFOR
Journal of Media, Communication and Film, Vol.1, Issue 2, pp.1-26.
Pollock, Griselda (ed.) 2008, Psychoanalysis and the Image:
Transdisciplinary Perspectives, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, New
Jersey.
Sorace, Christian 2014, 'China‟s Last Communist: Ai Weiwei', Critical
Inquiry, vol. 40, no. 2, pp. 396-419.
Witcombe, Christopher L.C.E. 2000, 'Modernism and Postmodernism',
viewed 24 November 2014,
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/modernism-b/modpostmod.html
List of Images:
Figure 1: Kusama‟s Peep Show: Endless Love Show‟ she
showed Endless Love Room 1966, from
http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/art/picture-galleries/2012/february/02/t
he-fantastical-world-of-yayoi-kusama/?idx=10&idx=10
Figure 2: The Obliteration Room 2012, Look Now See Forever
exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, from
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/01/yayoi-kusama-obiliteration-roo
m/
Figure 3: Ai Weiwei poses with a handful of seeds in the exhibition at
Tate Modern from
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2010/oct/11/aiwewe
i-sunflower-seeds-tate-modern
Figure 4: 'Remembering', Installation for the Haus der Kunst,
2009-2010, from
http://briannammarie.blogspot.hk/
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