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Available articles about Zhao Bandi
- 1. Artist or Ad Man? - The whimsical work of Zhao Bandi
- 2. Zhao Bandi
- 3. In the Name of Art- Zhao Bandi's Panda Couture
Artist or Ad Man? - The whimsical work of Zhao Bandi
Zhao Bandi is a soft-spoken, 34-year old graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, whose work has been shown in renowned galleries as far afield as New York, Rotterdam, London and Sydney. The Beijing-born and bred artist is also a celebrity in the capital, recently rising to fame in the unlikely field of public service advertising. Zhao's latest works are a series of photographs of himself and a toy panda bear, engaged in a cartoon speech-bubble dialogue about issues of concern to ordinary urban-dwellers-air pollution, violence, drug abuse and unemployment. The pictures were displayed at the prestigious Venice Biennale art show this year, among thousands of works from around the world including more than 50 pieces by 20 Mainland Chinese artists. Jaded critics arched their eyebrows at Zhao's photographs, and praised their "deadpan black humor" and "ironic wit."
But accolades from foreign art pundits don't explain Zhao's fame at home. He is recognized in Beijing because the same works that were catching the art world's attention in Venice were simultaneously being displayed on 300 lightboxes at different locations in Beijing's subway system, and on smaller posters inside the trains themselves.
Zhao's early panda work
The Beijing "exhibition" was not organized through an art gallery, but by the artist himself after extensive negotiations with the Beijing subway authorities. The lightboxes were paid for with sponsorship from Kodak, and a printing company that displayed their logo on the photographs.
The works stayed up in the subway for the month of May per contract, and many remain in place as the subway waits for a new paying client to fill the advertising space. Viewed by millions of commuters, Zhao and his panda have been extensively covered in the local press and featured on several television stations, including the central government-run China Central Television.
Zhao's official reception hasn't always been positive. He has been accused by the Beijing Youth Daily of plagiarizing the dialogue for one of the photographs in which Zhao asks the panda "Do you mind if I smoke?" "Do you mind if I am extinct?" the panda replies. The Communist Youth Organization journal cited an American anti-smoking campaign from the early 1990s that shows a man asking a female companion the same question. She replies: "Do you mind if I die?" Communist Youth Organization journals are not known for their appreciation of cross-cultural satire. Zhao has also encountered problems due to his personal appearance. Although he dresses smartly and does not look remotely like a hippie, one television interview with him was rejected as unsuitable by the censors because of his long hair.
Nonetheless, the naturally non-conformist Zhao is destined for further fame in the southern commercial center of Shenzhen, where he recently set up his posters on walls and pedestrian bridges. The photographs are being displayed as part of an exhibition, mostly of sculptures, entitled Balanced Existence: A Project for the Future of a Biological City that runs until the end of the year 2000.
Despite the exhibition's name hinting at art with a direct connection to Shenzhen, Zhao is the only artist whose works are displayed outside of the gallery where they are visible to pedestrians and people passing by in cars. Big Brother Billboards
To understand why Zhao's works are causing such a fuss, it is useful to consider the average public messages bombarding citizens every day.
1. STRENUOUSLY CARRY OUT THE FOUR DO'S CAMPAIGN!
2. BRING PROSPERITY TO THE MOTHERLAND THROUGH SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY!
3. HOLD HIGH THE BANNER OF DENG XIAOPING THOUGHT!
4. BE A CIVILIZED CITY DWELLER!
These slogans are displayed on billboards across the nation, in stark red
characters painted on whitewash, or printed across a background picture of
flowers or of Tian'anmen Gate. Although the slogans appear to mean nothing
at all, they are in fact trying to convey pragmatic messages that would, if
phrased in understandable terms, appeal to most citizens' common sense.
In plain language, these slogans mean:
1. Respect yourself. Behave well. Be alert. Be independent.
2. Get educated!
3. Get rich without harming the peasants and the workers.
4. Be nice to other people.
The copy-writing comrades at the Propaganda Bureau have not noticed that things have moved on since 1951 when everybody in the whole country knew the exact meaning of the "Three Anti's."
Ask a random ayi what the "three anti's" were and she will probably say: "Anti-corruption! Anti-waste! Anti-bureaucracy!"
Ask her what the "Four Do's" are, and she will probably say: "Eh! Maybe something to do with clean toilets?" While the marketing people at Marlboro, Motorola, and even the Miyun Peanut Factory know exactly how to get their message across to trans-millennial consumers, the Propaganda Bureau still insists on addressing the People (i.e. consumers) in drab Partyspeak. So even when they have something useful to say, like "Don't drink a bottle of Erguotou and then go for a drive" or "Don't throw your trash in the street," their message occupies the average Zhou's attention for approximately 0.1 nanoseconds. Enter Zhao Bandi, handsome, well-traveled artist with ponytail, and Mi, fluffy toy panda bear (Made in China).
Marching straight out of the art gallery into Beijing's subway system, Zhao and Mi have appealed to a broad range of people from old ladies to young hipsters with a mix of humor and concern for ordinary lives that is rarely given public expression in the PRC.
"Modern society lacks a sense of humor. Everything is too pedantic. Watch TV anytime: there are a few public service advertisements that say a funny thing or two, but they always end up saying: 'Don't do this, don't do that? "I want my public service advertisements to be human and to appeal to human feelings."
The Artist as a Young Advertising Man
Zhao began making a name for himself in 1993 when his oil paintings were displayed in a China Avant-Garde exhibition that toured Europe. Coveted participation in the Venice Biennale this year seems like a crowning achievement for a young artist, but Zhao has increasingly found the air in art galleries to be a little too stuffy. "In Venice I felt constricted," he says, "there was no connection between the art and society." Having works displayed on underground trains ensures a connection to society, but is it art?
"I don't really care what you call it?In my 'classical period' I painted and made sculptures and installations. Now I want to see if I can interact more directly with society in a beneficial way."
Zhao says he hopes to popularize public service advertisements, and to transform his work from its marginal, 'alternative' (linglei) status to mainstream acceptance where it can influence a society that is suffering from a lack of spiritual civilization.
He chose a panda bear as his comrade in arms in the struggle for public service because it is a rare and precious animal and a readily identifiable symbol of China. Despite this, Zhao says, no one has ever given the panda a lovable public face: "Think of the giant panda statue on the traffic circle near the Asian Games Village," he says, referring to a three-meter-tall fiber-glass Disney mutant built to entertain (or perhaps threaten) athletes who came to Beijing in 1992 to participate in the games. "That panda is a monster!"
Dialogue With Whom?
Although Zhao's latest works and his reluctance to talk about them as anything other than "public welfare advertisements" may seem a little like toadying to the powers-that-be, his statements about the Asian Games panda may be a clue to some of the more cutting commentary implicit in the photographs.
Like government propaganda, the Asian Games panda is large, ominous, shoddily-made and imposed on the public by a faceless authority. By contrast, Zhao's panda is cute, humorous and created by an identifiable individual. Zhao's protests notwithstanding, his 'public welfare advertisements' do not offer glib answers to the difficult problems they are addressing, and they at least entertain the masses on their way to work. One of the photos depicts Zhao standing on a freeway pedestrian bridge with his back to the camera, saying "I am laid off." The panda-holding the neckstrap of a pair of binoculars-says, "Here's a present for you, it will make you look farther." If you live in Beijing, you know that on most days binoculars will not help you see any farther, because the yellow-gray substance that passes as air is not penetrable beyond 50 meters. In the photograph, Zhao is staring into a particularly soupy-looking patch of atmosphere above the traffic-clogged Third Ring Road. Which is a nice metaphor for the prospects of many people who have actually been laid off in the past few years.
In another photograph from the series, Zhao wears a rubber Halloween mask, and asks the panda "Is there anything more terrible than me?" "It's DRUG!" answers Mi the panda.
How menacing does Zhao actually look wearing that silly mask? This little cartoon skit doesn't really seem intended to discourage anyone from "inhaling." There is another more subtle dialogue going on behind the words Zhao exchanges with little Mi. A look at some of Zhao's previous work reveals an abiding concern for the language of advertising and propaganda, and the power it has over people's dreams.
A 1998 photographic work depicts a large Hong Kong-style skyscraper. A glowing neon sign at the top of the building exhorts the viewer with a Cultural Revolution slogan written in English: "Never forget class struggle!" In 1996 Zhao produced the first of a series of 'calendar' photograph with alternative rock singer Zhang Qianqian. Simply titled Zhao Bandi and Zhang Qianqian, the photograph depicts Zhao steering a small boat through heavy green water lilies on a lake in Baiyangdian, Hebei province, the site of a Communist guerrilla victory over Japanese forces. Zhao wears a dressing gown; Zhang wears a feminine summer dress, short top and embraces a toy panda bear. Both have the kind of lyrical facial expressions that models assume when they pose for shmaltzy photo album covers and karaoke videos.
Both works depict a shiny, dreamy surface-the skyscraper and the luxurious-looking honeymoon scene-with a more sinister past hinted at by a Cultural Revolution slogan that most people would rather forget, and a place that reminds Chinese people of the bitter war against the invading Japanese Imperial Army.
Nuances such as these distinguish Zhao's works from advertising and its twin sister propaganda because no matter how much you speculate about what they mean, their message remains ambiguous. Breaking out of the art gallery and into public spaces does however send the citizens of Beijing one message that is perfectly clear: the days of government monopoly on public expression are long gone. Gone too, if Zhao has his way, is the gilded cage that contemporary Chinese art has been suffocating in since the first unofficial art emerged in the late 1970s, to the horror of the Ministry of Culture and the delight of fashionable collectors of art from countries where they don't write with the Roman alphabet.
Source: www.danwei.org - Magazine; Beijing Scene - 1999
Zhao Bandi
"In the form of posters and light boxes, the artist's latest series of photographic works is entitled Zhao Bandi and the panda. These computer-enhanced images come complete with strip-cartoon text recording the conversation between the artist and the panda, which is both an ideal companion and the charming and engaging symbol of China itself. The choice of the animal dates from work on Calendar for 1996, a sort of Jeff Koons composition laden with garlands of roses and intended as a playful parody of the illustrated calendars that are so popular in China. Details of everyday life - such as the artist's work-apron or plastic bucket - are placed in a very different setting, thus enhancing that sense of de-contextualization rendered most clearly by the girl in a night-dress who looks on in amazement - and perhaps disapproval - as an athletic Zhao Bandi holds the panda in his arms.
In all his works since then the artist has aimed for a sense of total displacement: the toy panda, the artist's own clothing and expression, the setting and the dialogues are all carefully-measured expressions of a very personal sense of humor. Taking commonplaces concerning personal hygiene and safety, the artist explores the most irrational and absurd aspects of those 'ideological campaigns that are still quite common in China. Details such as the hat he is wearing in Sagety is Everything, or the intent expression with which he drives while holding his hands on the wheel in a perfectly 'standard' position - all bring out the irony of his intent (as does the seat belt worn by the toy panda).
Zhao Bandi has always had a keen interest in details, even when he was producing large oil paintings. Though in a realistic style, these works managed to create an uncertain atmosphere that hinted at meanings well beyond mere technical proficiency and accuracy of representation. The paintings of the early 1990s - such as Xiao Zhang (1992) or Miss H. Jin (1990) - used odd-shaped canvasses (curved at the top, or with the rectangular form hung askew) in order to heighten the contrast between pictorial effect and the banality of subject-matter and setting. Perhaps this taste for the everyday was a reaction against the celebratory heavy-handedness of socialist realism; yet here this normal world is both decontextualized and ennobled, leaving one with a vivid sense of the unreal. The same could be said of Zhao Bandi's video works, which Karren Smith has described as 'experiments planned with care and then presented impeccably'."
Source: www.louislannoogallery.com - By Monica Dematte
In the Name of Art- Zhao Bandi's Panda Couture
On the evening of January 15, 2008, Zhao Bandi, together with his panda-style fashion dresses, went aboard the yacht named Jinmao Shengrong that was docked at the bank of Huangpu River, making his appearance in Shanghai.
Such a party for galleries, called "ShanghArt Evening: Graceful Arrival of Zhao Bandi and His Panda-style Fashion Dresses," attracted there a total of 70 domestic and foreign distinguished guests from circles of culture fashion, art collection, financial investment and other fields. The owner of Contrasts Gallery, Lin Mingzhu, artists Xue Song and Zhou Tiehai, modern dance artist Jin Xing, writer Mianmian, actress Zhang Jingchu, Chen Yifei's son Chen Lin -- almost all familiar faces in Shanghai art communities were seated there at the two western-style long dinning tables in the banquet hall on the third floor of the yacht. The cups went gaily round and the guests were talking enthusiastically.
The lovely "panda" ritual girls in black suits and white wigs with false hairy panda ears were shuttling back and forth at the door of the banquet hall, in the corridor of the staircases and around the overcoat check counter, like a mobile notice of an up-coming fashion show.
The video recording of the panda-style fashion release meeting that had made a sensation in the Beijing International Fashion Week two months ago was replayed on a projection television in the banquet hall. The show featured Zhao Bandi's panda-style fashions, depicting all types of people: "property sales girls" wore tall hats like pagoda buildings, "corrupt government officials" were dressed in coats with white on the left side and black on the right side, the upper garments of "fans" were like a huge bunch of flowers, "Luxury Brands Lovers " had all sorts of famous logos printed over their clothes ... Zhao Bandi had unique panda-like black and white attires custom-made for outstanding figures of various social classes, including "Web Celebrities," "lovely office secretaries," "Mistresses" as well as "real estate developers," "WTO," "successful people," etc. Zhao even invited there the prototype guest models of the dresses, such as 'Hibiscus Sister,' Yang Er Che Na Mu, Pan Shiyi, and others, who performed and exhibited on the T-stage.
These series of bold, jocular and sarcastic panda-style fashion dresses suddenly brought the high-sounding and remarkable artist into the focus of the media, and exposed him to both praise and blame from mass media or netizens. The native place of giant panda - Chengdu of Sichuan province was undoubtedly one of the places most concerned with Zhao's performing art, and the local government of Chengdu even told the media they would soon start a legislation process to establish the "Chengdu Municipal Giant Panda Protection Regulations," which was directed at similar "mischievous" behaviors towards giant pandas.
However, the ever independent-minded Zhao would never let himself disturbed by other people's opinions. At the party he recalled an event in 1936 when an American woman sailed from Huangpu River and shipped a panda out of China for the first time, and he believed his appearance on the Huangpu River in Shanghai in 2008 with his panda-style fashion dresses demonstrated the confidence of Chinese people. Hard to say if these emotional expressions came out of artistic innocence or out of his worldly wisdom, but it was obvious this performing artist, who had made "panda" the theme in his creations since 1999 and who always held a panda or had a panda fastened on the top of his head, was making determined efforts to have himself and the national treasure penetrate and even influence the life of the general public.
After the banquet, the panda-style fashion show began and nine sets of human fashion dresses came in turn: "the teachers," "the middle school girl students," "the nail households," "the woman homosexuals," "the corrupt government officials," "the law-court judges," "the fans of stars," and "the policemen," etc. Next, the following auction would lift the party mood to another climax.
Zhao designated the conjoint "police" uniform that was made of white genuine-leather and flanked by black pile as the only piece for auction from the panda-style fashion series. At the two sides of the dinning tables some domestic and foreign guests constantly raised hands to bid, and Lorenz Helbling, the owner of ShanghArt Gallery to which Zhao contracted, had bid three times. The starting price of 5,000 RMB yuan crawled all the way up to 50,000 yuan, 100,000 yuan, and 200,000 yuan respectively; when Lorenz Helbling bid 300,000 yuan at the critical point of 200,000 yuan, the "police" uniform readily left behind the sale prices of luxury brands like Dior, Chanel and other top-grade ready-made dresses. Its price kept soaring to strong art price categories; finally, Dai Zhiqiang, an ancient coins collector in Shanghai, won the bidding at a high price of 600,000 yuan.
Though the closing price was already 120 times the starting price, the buyer still remarked that, "as an art piece, it sells really cheap at 600,000 yuan," Zhao Bandi also claimed that 600,000 yuan was only a bottom-line price for his panda-style fashion dresses. The half-hour on-the-spot auction had testified to his anticipation of the "luxury index" for his panda-style fashion dresses.
In the name of art, Zhao Bandi looked so much serious; in the name of auction, the gap between 60,000 and 600,000 was only an irrational and effortless "zero." In a speech at the party he sighed, "For the first time Chinese people have come so closer to money, and now they begin to talk about luxury." He indicated that he "would honestly love to tell people through fashion shows what is luxury."
Some may believe he accomplished it.
Source: www.artzinechina.com - A Chinese Contemporary Art Portal - By Maggie Ma
