Beyond Cartoon by Mila Bollansee

Beyond Cartoon

Asian Contemporary Art Group Exhibition

A cartoon is any of several forms of illustration with varied meanings. Its name is derived from the Italian “cartone” or the Dutch “karton” meaning strong, heavy paper or pasteboard. Several Italian Renaissance masters like Leonardo Da Vinci or Raphael used cartoons as studies for paintings or tapestries. However the British artist Hogarth and the Spaniard Goya were among the first serious artists to use cartoons in the 18th Century as visual symbols or metaphors to criticize society.

In modern times cartoons have expanded to print media, with a humorous or ironic intent. They have acted as metaphors to illustrate social and political situations. Comic strips first appeared in newspapers in the early years of the 20th Century in the United States. They also appeared in Europe, more precisely in Britain and in Belgium in the twenties and the thirties. The famous Belgian cartoonist Hergé had the adventures of his iconic character “Tintin” bound into comic books. After the Second World War comic strips became very popular in the United States. Besides humour, adventure and drama were also represented in this medium.

Conversely “manga” is the Japanese word for comics which appeared around the same time in Japan, but has deeper roots as it is closely intertwined with the complex history of Japanese art. In Hokusai’s days “mangas” were random sketches from which albums of prints were made.

Comics and manga are now widely read by people of all ages and this contributes to their world-wide success. The broad range of topics that is evoked in both appeals to young and old from all races.In today’s society cartoons have also ventured into the realm of animation, because of the similarities between comic strips and animated movies. These animated pictures feature anthropomorphized animals, superheroes, children adventures and other styles. Science-fiction films also use cartoonish type characters, which are commercialized in licensed images and products.

Shadow play on the other hand is an ancient form of storytelling and is sometimes considered to be the earliest example of animation. It is believed that shadow play originated in China during the Han Dynasty in the second or first century before Christ, when emperor Wu asked his court officers to bring one of his deceased concubines back to life. They obliged and created a shape of the concubine using donkey leather and animating her joints by using separate pieces of leather. Later on shadow play spread all over Asia. Indonesia was also a major centre for shadow plays, which were inspired by the classical Indian tales of the Ramayana and Mahabharata dating back to the middle years of the 1st Century before Christ. These plays nearly always portray battles between good and evil and constitute admirable morality tales. French missionaries took shadow play back from China to France in the 18thCentury, from where it spread to neighbouring European countries. The humour, satirical wit, and moral lessons contained in the shadow plays are a kind of ancient bridge to today’s cartoons and therefore also tremendously influence and inspire contemporary art in Asia.

American pop-artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were ground-breaking in their confrontations between high and low arts, among which comic strips were categorized. They used motifs and references from popular comics in the sixties and made them an integral part of high art. Even noted abstract expressionist Philip Guston returned to figurative painting in a cartoon like manner in the late sixties in New York. Around the same period two members of the French “Narrative Figuration” movement, Gudmundur Erro and Bernard Rancillac made abundant use of cartoons in their paintings. Two American graffiti artists, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring even went a step further in the eighties and used cartoons or caricatures to address political and social questions, as well as religious and moral taboos. From that time onwards, the visual potency of comic characters, style and narrative structures allows artists to address important and difficult political questions and to expose materialism and consumerism in contemporary life in ways that are critical and playful in tandem.

In the meantime Asian artists were not sitting idle either and a few pioneers emerged in the eighties.The Japanese Takashi Murakami quickly became disillusioned with “nihonga” or traditional painting and his obsession with animation and manga led him to a new superflat style, used in paintings, sculptures or in marketable commercial products, like vinyl figurines, plush toys and even t-shirts and posters full of cartoon like images.

In the nineties the Korean artists Dongi Lee created a new character, ”Atomaus”, derived from the Japanese Atom, an animation hero and the Disney icon Mickey Mouse, thus making a synthesis between East and West cartoons. Lee constructs narratives in which “Atomaus” lives his adventures in real and imaginary worlds. Dongi Lee’s use of clean lines and surfaces require extreme technical skill and he has honed his technique during several years to attain the near perfection comparable to the one obtained in mechanically produced prints.

During the same period the Indonesian Heri Dono intensely studied “shadow puppetry” with a famous puppeteer in Java and started combining mythological puppet characters with cartoon like figures on flat looking paintings. Later on he used the same figures to construct his impressive installations.Whereas Murakami’s work is mainly a visual feast and Dongi Lee’s is a dream like narrative, Heri Dono resolutely addressed political and social questions with his characteristic wit and biting political satire.

Liu Ye is the pioneer among the Chinese cartoon artists and although he is very much a child of the Cultural Revolution, his work is deeply personal and not only a reaction to the evolution of Chinese society, but also a reaction to Vermeer and Mondrian, the Western painters who influenced his work.They inspired his colour palette and it is certain that Mondrian’s strict and philosophical approach of art left its mark on Liu Ye. During his studies in Europe Liu Ye was fascinated by the cartoonist Dick Bruna and he started using some of his signature cartoons, like the rabbit, in his paintings. Contemporary art navigates between two poles: the conceptual, intellectual, philosophical one and the one that triggers our perceptions, feelings and senses. Liu Ye is one of the first really contemporary artists in China as his works incorporate so many ingredients: philosophy, the history of painting, symbols, emotion, irony and melancholy. Quite a programme that is put on stage like in a movie set on seemingly innocuous, childish, charming paintings while drama is lurking behind the corner.

Few people can escape the revolution in every day life as they have no control over it. Therefore it is fair to say that the post 70-generation artists, who are the main protagonists of this exhibition, were shaped by all the changes that took place after the Cultural Revolution in China or by the changes in the political or social system in other Asian countries. The other revolution, the communication revolution, plays no less a role in shaping the personalities, the attitudes and the concerns of the cartoon generation, which is a fitting term for this new breed of artists. TV, computers, the Internet and the digitalization of our world have created visual memories, powerful images and a new sound universe. Furthermore economic development has led to material well-being for the middle classes and has created a real consumer culture.

Young Asian artists have been deeply moulded by these changes and try to find their balance by expressing their feelings towards this ever changing world. Cartoon Art is an excellent medium for Asian artists as it allows them to use their intellect as well as their senses in order to create artworks that are authentic, creative and relevant to contemporary life. The immediacy of Cartoon Art penetrates directly into the soul of the audience. The images speak for themselves and the works are therefore less of a riddle than other recent contemporary art. After Japan’s early forays into cartoon art, China has resolutely taken the leadership role and a multitude of its artists operate in this style. Whereas “Cynical Realism” was a criticism of politics and ideology, “Cartoon Art” is much more subtle and personal as each artist finds his own way to comment on what he or she perceives in his society.

Interestingly enough, because of the one-child policy and because of overall feminine emancipation, a lot of female artists have suddenly emerged in China. Often they marry fellow artists after their academic graduation and go on to work together or at least in a parallel direction. An excellent example is the artistic couple of Chen Fei and Luo Hui who were raised in Guangdong and came to live in Beijing where they discovered that reality was a far cry from what they were taught at school. This created an overall disillusion for both of them and led to personal frustrations which they express in their artworks. Chen Fei’s meatballs are simplified human bodies with a large mouth that can devour all their desires, without dissimulating their overwhelming sense of satisfaction. His works are pictures of avarice, greed and a never fully satisfied desire to consume and they represent the very personal way in which Chen Fei criticizes certain features of consumer society. His meatballs constantly vomit jewellery, cosmetics and other luxury products. They even slit their bellies in order to show off their possessions. It seems that these actions kind of relieve them and allow them to feel good again. Chen Fei uses a cartoon like linguistic style to achieve his goal which is a powerful criticism of materialism.

His wife Luo Hui tries to escape reality and her early works bring us into a realm of happy parks populated with floating animals like rabbits and insects. They reveal a certain inside feeling of disillusionment with society that she endeavours to replace with a more ideal vision, a kind of expectancy of a better, happier and merrier society. In her more recent works Luo Hui has developed her signature cartoon character, an invented hybrid creature with wide, bulbous eyes and a pointed snout. It is inspired by the “Huli Jing” or fox spirit in Chinese mythology. Her cartoon figure is androgynous and can turn out to be good or evil. The opera singers, the nurses tending carps with glucose or her series of icons are laudable characters that entertain, heal or service their fellow citizens or some popular animals. She is obviously concerned with the well-being of fish, which is further proof of the artist’s deep sense of morality. Stunning video animations where Chen Fei and Luo Hui’s characters intermingle are irresistibly humorous and they attest to the potential of the “Star Couple” of Chinese cartoon artists.

Chen Ke’s prepubescent girls are often represented surrounded or dressed in richly imagined textiles or alongside fantastical creatures in a desolated landscape. They usher in a world of fantasy, dreams and melancholy but just as easily can bring us to a kind of impending doom or end of the world feeling.Her girls are torn between the desire to discover society and the fear to grow up and lose the protection they have enjoyed in their childhood. It is a typical feeling for the one-child generation which is fragile and easily hurt when it enters society. Her classical technique and rich imagery remind us of Liu Ye’s work. Both use children with a cartoon like look who seem to be threatened by something we can only try to guess at.

Li Jikai’s diminutive boys are the male equivalent of Chen Ke’s girls. They look like forlorn figures wandering in fields after a major catastrophe and appear to stop growing and even to stop struggling against the world. The artist is a surrealistic dreamer only concerned by his inner melancholic world. However his imagination is fertile and ranges from dust heaps, boats on wild seas, airplanes flying like birds, magic reality on a simple table, children standing on giant mushrooms or tall wooden stakes.Especially from height children seem to be ignorant of danger and keep dreaming or meditating.Li Jikai’s boy has followed a strange evolution from an aviator to a boy with closed eyes then to a superman with rabbit ears and tails. Since 2005 the boy’s image has become more realistic again with facial expressions that clearly show sadness and confusion. More than any other artist in the cartoon generation he makes us experience the spiritual void in consumer society. Li Jikai’s work is no doubt autobiographical and it will be our privilege to see if a fresher, happier image of the boy will emerge in the years to come. His work is “Cartoon Art” at its best as it delves deep into the human soul and mixes magic, mystery, feelings and spirituality in his eerie masterpieces.

Xiong Yu like Li Jikai is very much obsessed by himself and this might be induced by the superiority of the only child or the ivory tower of the electronic world. He has created a lonely character with sad but beautiful eyes, big eyelashes and a thin and elongated neck, who is dressed in black or white close-fitting plastic clothes. His character is often represented floating in pool water illuminated by light that gives a sense of illusion and transparency. Accessories like feathers or exotic animals add to the strangeness of his compositions, which are no doubt influenced by plastic characters in electronic games. Forests are also a favourite hiding and resting place for his hero. What strikes us is the loneliness of the hero, who seems to wish to retreat from the world like some children who retreat into their own, shunning the larger community of common people and hiding behind their computer or their electronic toys. Nevertheless there is a deep poetic and spiritual quality in his paintings which build a ray of hope in a world where human relationships have become very impersonal.

Han Yajuan’s heroine is a fashionable, daring and sophisticated lady who is not afraid to face the world and enjoy it. In her Charlie’s Angels series she even takes on the role of an American film heroine in a revisited Asian version. The fashion world is ubiquitous in her work as branded apparel and accessories from the most glamorous European brands enhance the appeal and the power of her dream girl. This dream girl is not a self-portrait of the artist, but rather a kind of ideal she would like to be able to achieve. Driving a luxurious car, dressed in the most fashionable apparel and having access to the latest technology is a dream come true for most young females on the planet today. Han Yajuan’s career plan is however much more ambitious than the coverage of fashionable, attractive Asian ladies. She is continuously striving to improve and her latest works incorporate other elements like space and architecture in order to give them a more holistic dimension. Han Yajuan is the embodiment of Chinese ambition, the will to experiment and to get better, to develop and supersede her competitors. Video-animation is also one of her passions and she is determined to pursue her developments in that field.

Yang Na is even younger than Han Yajuan and also creates a persona that is kind of her alter ego, but a persona that is born out of sexual fantasy, the global cultural landscape and the possibilities offered by medicine or science to change and improve one’s body and image. Obviously this can also be done virtually by creating imaginary physical identities via the internet. Yang Na’s young, provocative girls exude feminine and sexual power and try to portray a kind of ideal, but this time a sexy and trendy ideal, where make-up plays a dominant role. Her images are caricatures and could be called the cartoons of the future, where the feature character is not drawn in the classic way but is a hybrid that can be created by using digital techniques. Her purpose is to make us think about present life in China, the free, uninhibited life where barriers, taboos and moral obligations seem to gradually disappear.

Mu Lei is a merry young Chinese painter who appears to be carefree and confident, but behind the veneer there is the loneliness and the melancholy that pervades his soul and his works. Beneath their colourful appearance people are often greyish inside and that is why Mu Lei mostly paints brooding faces in grey colours, painted in liquid strokes. Mu Lei shows us that he is aware that behind the material enrichment experienced, a lot of people’s lives are spiritually empty and filled with anxiety and uncertainty. He alternatively represents cartoon like characters or more realistic contemporary faces with some of the trappings of their new-found materialistic well-being. In Mu Lei’s painting the main character is a bright, clever Chinese girl flanked by a cold B2 battle plane. The B2 is just a representation of culture and power, while Mu Lei likes to use a girl as the main challenger to so-called powerful authority. In the graphical world, power would be inverted; usual things in the girl’s hand, such as a colourful Chinese cloud like cotton candy, a firecracker, glasses, etc. all become powerful fatal weapons. Mu Lei wants to show a girl playing in a happy mood, but he adds an ironic and tricky touch to it in order to break the mood. Recent works are often diptychs and the direction of each canvas can be inverted which means that the main character’s action can cycle.

Zhang Hui’s style is more realistic as she works from photographs and gives us delightful renditions of the “Beijing doll”, a girl character that is portrayed in various activities and moods. Although she sometimes uses bright colours, most of her paintings or drawings are in black, white and grey tints.Her idealized girls, often represented in a dream-like atmosphere, endeavour to picture a world of fantasy and imagination that is separated from the harsh realities of life.

The Taiwanese artist Ma Chungfu is proficient in videos, sculptures and painting and conjures up an imaginary world of robots with human features. These robots can appear to be alternatively menacing, especially when they march like in an army parade, or more friendly when they are represented as individual dolls. They have cartoon like forms and warn mankind of a future where robots will increasingly influence or even control our lives. Ma Chungfu’s work is strongly driven by animation techniques and leads us into one of the directions into which Cartoon Art might morph in the next decades.

A recent trend in contemporary art is crossover, whereby famous designers like the Taiwanese Jeff Shi try their hand at high art. Their long-standing training and practice in graphical arts and their innate sense of colour and form often provide stunning effects in their artworks. Jeff Shi is equally adept at three-dimensional photographs wherein a cartoon like figure seems to float in space or colourful paintings where a myriad of symbols, figures and objects help him achieve sumptuous effects, full of aesthetic and spiritual intensity. Jeff Shi has created Zha Long, a loveable, innocent but also rebellious Tattoo Baby, that has the look of ordinary babies but features a tattoo pattern as delicate as porcelain combined with deep black almond eyes that are the signs of his determination and profound wisdom. Zha Long is a combination of two legendary heroes admired by Jeff Shi: Bruce Lee, the martial arts and screen legend and Na Cha Deity, the only rebellious teenager praised in Chinese literature.Uprightness, invention and creativity are the traits shared by both and aspired to by Jeff Shi. Because of their universal qualities of honesty, sincerity and bravery both Bruce Lee and Na Cha Deity have transcended the limitations of time and space. Jeff Shi’s artworks will make his virtual creation Zha Long follow in their footsteps and the soul that his character possesses gives the artist infinite possibilities to develop his creations.

Eddie Hara is a seasoned Indonesian artist who started off as a playful, childlike colourist influenced by Art Brut, Paul Klee and Niki de St. Phalle, all European artists. Living on and off in Europe and in Indonesia Eddie Hara used to be a kind of marginal artist who was not afraid to give his opinions on political problems, sexism, gender issues and racial issues, environmental problems, the prevalent poverty and the resulting violence in our society. Despite this serious aspect in his art, his canvases which are populated by mutant women and strange animals display a solid dose of irony and humour.
His latest work, mostly in black and white testifies to the maturity and technical proficiency the artist has achieved in the last few years.

The other Indonesian featured in the exhibition Ayu Arista Murti is a youthful enthusiastic and creative lady, willing to experiment in order to find new ways of expression. She is part of the new urban generation that tries to make sense of today’s world by finding personal answers to external elements, and communicating these answers to their audience. Her style is humorous, very close to comics but at the same time manages to give us a snapshot of Indonesian society which is one of her main themes. Her painting “Miss Blue and Bubbles” ushers us into a world of youth, fantasy and dreams.

The Japanese Ryoko Kato depicts allegorical fictions wherein she impersonates herself as a little girl who is living in a dream-like world populated by wise animals like the polar bear for example but who is at the same time often shown as the psychological victim of Japan’s industrial environment.Her characters often appear sad and express disappointment and disorientation.

Hiroyuki Matsuura is a very mature Japanese artist who comes from the world of graphic design. He steps directly from the world of animation into the world of fine arts and circulates between graphic design, graffiti and high art. In a way he does for his epoch what Lichtenstein and Warhol have done some 30 years ago by incorporating forms of low art into high art. His psychedelic, audacious and layered colours are computer generated and his schematic forms add to the cartoon like aspect of his characters. These characters are a bridge between the harsh reality of the real world and the digital fantasy that allows humans to escape from their worries, to find comfort, solace and to immerse themselves into an imaginary universe. His art is partly based on traditional ornaments which are reworked with state of the art techniques and bring us straight into a futuristic digital realm.

The two young Korean representatives in the exhibition were both born around 1980 and strive to use their imagination to paint subjects that are relevant to contemporary life. Donghyun Son paints familiar characters from Hollywood movies and Disney animation films. Robocop, Darth Vader, Batman and the Ninja Turtles are some of the images he portrays on yellow tinted Korean paper. He repositions contemporary Western cartoon heroes with the methods of traditional oriental painting and adds titles with phonics in Chinese characters in order to approach the specificity of Oriental portraits. His refined technique produces very strict, clean and artful images that convey a sense of trends, passing of time, change and new phenomena in contemporary society.

Sojung Lee expresses her subconscious and internal experiences in connection to sexual desire, confession, guilty pleasures and a tendency to self-mutilation. The starting point of her works can be found in her imaginative process of expanding space, a pleasant and altogether painful sensation.Lee begins by drawing a body part which nearly automatically develops into organic shapes and symbolic objects. One could object that Sojung Lee’s work is not directly linked to cartoons, but it is a kind of advanced futuristic vision of new images that will evolve after the cartoons we know today.

As a conclusion I would like to stress that this intensive foray into “Asian Cartoon Art” has shown us its immense expressive diversity that mixes feelings like joy and sorrow with deeper spiritual reflections on the evolution of our society. It is also an extremely humorous medium that resolutely stands on its own, but which can also be mixed with other mediums like animation and video. Looking at the strong foundations on which “Cartoon Art” has been built and at the advanced forms that start to emerge there is no doubt that “Cartoon Art” will continue to evolve and I do hope it will always retain a visual style that is an eternal repository of mankind’s immortal youthful and joyous spirit.

Mila Bollansee
Beijing Feb 2008