I first printed Titian's work Venus and Cupid and the Organist and pasted it onto a piece of canvas. I... Read More
I first printed Titian's work Venus and Cupid and the Organist and pasted it onto a piece of canvas. I then painted some Chinese soldiers from the 1960s in front of the Venus, with their backs to the viewer (but also symbolising the present), and then I changed the background of the work to a landscape from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, with 'Long live the Great Leader Mao Zedong' written on the building. However, it is this abruptness that reveals the new possibilities of art in the context of contemporary globalisation; the encounter and fusion of different histories and civilisations, supported by modern communication media.
The second point is that the soldiers in green symbolise an intervention of the present viewing into history, thus alienating the original image and altering its inherent historical significance. Like the double meaning of the title of the work, the Cultural Revolution is first and foremost a historical event that took place in China in the twentieth century, but it also indicates the disappearance of the original boundaries of culture in the contemporary context, and is thus full of 'ambiguity' and 'uncertainty'. "Such a characteristic will also give rise to a greater 'need for prolonged reflection on history'.
