Luo Brothers 罗氏兄弟
From ArtSpeak China (ASC) Wiki
The three Luo Brothers, Weidong, Weiguo, and Weibing, are known for their kitschy paintings that seem to celebrate global consumer culture. The Luo Brothers’ paintings align themselves stylistically with a “pop” sensibility, charged by political fervor and informed by generations of local traditional craft-making techniques. The brothers have been living and collaborating in Beijing since 1996.
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[edit] Date & Place of Birth
The Luo Brothers were raised in Guilin, Guangxi Province, China. Luo Weidong was born in 1963, Luo Weiguo in 1964, and Luo Weibing in 1972.
[edit] Childhood & Family
The Luo Brothers grew up towards the end of the Cultural Revolution. In a telephone interview, Weidong, the oldest Luo brother, chose not to talk about that period of China's history. "Things are better now," he said. "I'd rather not talk about that. Things have changed so much, improved so much in China."[1]
[edit] Education & Development
In 1987, Weidong graduated from Guangxi Art College, and his brother Weiguo graduated from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. A decade later, in 1997, Weibing graduated from the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts in Beijing. The team now shares a typical Chinese courtyard home in the suburbs of Beijing.
[edit] Art
As the names Luo Wei Dong, Wei Guo and Wei Bing – "defenders" respectively of the “East”, the “country” and the “body”– might suggest, the Luo Brothers were born around the time of the Cultural Revolution in China, when nationalism still fuelled the hearts and minds of many people. Decades later and with its opening to the West, China now finds itself helter-skeltering into rapid economic development and modernization. The effect is disorientating, and ideological idolatry is replaced by a worship of consumer goods. On the anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China on October 1st, 2009, the streets boasted more Coca Cola advertisements than red national flags.
[edit] Style
The Luo Brothers’ work follows the trail initiated by Political Pop, which was a trend from the beginning of the nineties coined by critic Li Xianting, the exponents of which combined communist iconography with the symbolism of contemporary consumer society. The brothers emphasize their reference to popular culture by exploiting to the point of luridness bright colors, auspicious symbols, and eye-catching elements commonly seen in streets, shops, and houses in China. Frequently referred to as kitsch, [2]their work has also been described by Li Xianting as belonging to a Beijing-based trend called Gaudy Art.
The Luo Brothers’ repertoire, extremely varied, is expressed through compositions in which a brightly-colored horror vacui replaces the traditional alternation of empty space and form of the classical Chinese style. The most famous foreign brands (the omnipresent Coca Cola, Pepsi and Oreo are prime examples) take the place, in the collective imagination, of political slogans. Materialistic mentality supersedes the fervor for ideals resulting in a triumph of colors and techniques. As if to reinforce their lack of meaning or spirituality, all works by the Luo Brothers—with a few notable exceptions—share the same title: Welcome to the World Famous Brand. The brand under consideration, one assumes, is China itself, here turned into a cliche of its most banal self-representations.[3]
[edit] Tone
The Luo Brothers leave the tone of their paintings purposely ambiguous. Though their pictures seem to cast an exalting light on contemporary consumer culture, their exhibition record, which includes appearances alongside many Cynical Realist and anti-establishment artists, suggests otherwise. Shown here at a group exhibition at Chinese Contemporary gallery, Beijing, in 2008, Mao is a notable exception to the Luo Brothers' homogenization of titles, and also to their habit of avoiding oil paint.
[edit] Medium
It might seem ironic that to capture the glittering present, the Luo Brothers return to the past, employing two very traditional Chinese media across their repertoire: lacquer paint and ink-on-paper. The deeply saturated hues of lacquer paint, usually associated with decorative arts as opposed to fine art, creates an impenetrable gloss that completes the sheen of the material world depicted. The ink washes meanwhile are rendered in a hanging scroll format that at once recalls and parodies the tradition of classical Chinese painting. Authorial red seal impressions, a longstanding convention of literati works, appear here and there but are unconventionally placed, sometimes even at the centre of the picture plane. With their obsessive attention to detail and craftsmanship, at odds with the banality of the objects they depict, the Luo Brothers powerfully convey the dizzying disorientation, the joy and the emptiness that characterizes postmodern experience in societies across the world today.[4] The Luo Brothers also create sculptures, usually in fibreglass, which pursue like subject matter and possess the same kitsch iconography as the artists' signature paintings.
[edit] Emergence & Reception
Some see only the disillusionment in these pictures. China Contemporary Gallery in Beijing, who represents the Luo Brothers, addresses this criticism: "It is fashionable from the wise viewpoint of western art criticism to see only the cynical side of these juxtapositions—babies of good fortune holding aloft a laptop computer or a mouth watering hamburger, Mao's portrait presented as a backdrop to a karaoke show, more happy babies sporting three curly pigtails diving into three little red books on the back of a Coca Cola can. The cynic says this is the corruption of tradition, the corruption of things serious by vile consumerism. They have a point, there is certainly a lack of anything spiritual in the sugar and fat enriched cupcake land of the Luo Brothers' bouncy babies, but one must not forget that to many this is infinitely preferable to drab, dark and unicoloured red. These works are fun. This vision enjoys ‘new’ China. It revels in it. These works show the exuberant and merry: It is nature of choice.”[5]
[edit] Exhibitions
The Luo Brothers have had solo shows in Paris, Sydney and Hong Kong and have participated in many significant international group shows at venues in the UK, Australia, Brazil, USA, France, Switzerland and China. In 2002, they were invited by the Red Mansion Foundation to participate in the exhibition Dream 02, supported by Visiting Arts, which brought together the works of 24 artists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.[4]
[edit] References
- ↑ http://www2.thorn.net/~alexa/clips/Brothers%20in%20Art%20as%20Well%20as%20Life.htm
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.redmansion.co.uk/artists/luobrothers.htm
- ↑ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_4_95/ai_n18791360/
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 http://www.culturebase.net/artist.php?1524
- ↑ http://www.chinesecontemporary.com/luo_bros.htm
[edit] Links
88MoCCA: The museum of Chinese contemporary art on the web: Luo Brothers
