Author: Fanglei Chen

Shunga is a type of Japanese erotic art typically executed as a kind of ukiyo-e, often in woodblock print format which is usually painted for the purpose of education.

In Kyõsai’s paintings, however, we often see him depicting images in grotesque ways or adding demons and monsters to them. I think it’s a disguised way of saying that these sexual things are not positive scenes.

In this painting of the Vagina Daruma, Daruma, originally the founder of Buddhist Zen Buddhism, spent nine years facing the wall, reflecting and practising in mind in order to reach the state of Zen.

In this painting, the face of Daruma Doll has been replaced with a vagina. The metaphor for the kabuki’s ten years of indentured life with Brothel is even more torturous than the druma’s initiation at the time.

An intimate couple is interrupted by an aroused demon (oni) who’s running from behind a folding screen with a fan in his hand.

A intimate couple is wildly disturbed by an evil spirit on a climactic moment.

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This exhibition is at first glance a digital installation of several colourful pieces of art of various sizes. At first glance, this exhibition is a digital installation of several colourful pieces of art of various sizes. But a closer look reveals that the author’s use of materials has also been considered.

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The work uses three main colouring techniques. Oil on Canvas, Oil on Wooden panel, and Gold leaf on wooden panel. Gold leaf is distinctly different in gloss and colour from the other two oils. Of the works painted with the oil, although the effect is similar from a distance, some textural differences can be seen at closer inspection.

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As you can see the Oil on Wooden Panel colours are evenly distributed and in a uniform state. The Oil on Canvas, on the other hand, has shaded layers of colour as it does not fit perfectly when wrapped.

And even with the same material, the author has made distinctions in the details. I thought it was a mistake on the part of the author that some of the colours went outside the canvas of the front digital area. It was not until I saw another work where the author had evenly and meticulously coloured the edges that I realized that this was to reflect the randomness.

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This is an exhibition full of colourful digital figures. Each number is paired with a dice next to it. A throw is made once a day and depending on the number thrown, the technician makes changes to the numbers on the wall.

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The first floor is a dark space. On each of the four walls of a room is placed a whiteboard of different sizes. The sizes of the boards are 5 x 5, 7 x 7, and 9 x 9. There are lots of flashing numbers on them.

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At first, I thought those numbers are flashing in a random sequence. After observing for a really long time, it is found that each number is counting down from 9 to 0. Then it changes color, start counting down from 9 to 0 again. The interesting thing is each number has its own pace counting down. Overall, the board shows us a random flash of numbers, however, each unit is doing well-ordered progress.

I think that this is perhaps the state of life that the author wanted to express. We have a regular daily routine, but it is not uniform and dull. As a whole, it is a colourful and dramatic life.

Vorticism was an avant-garde art movement that emerged in London in June 1914. Its aim was to create a new type of art for a changing, modern world.

Unfortunately, the campaign lasted only two years, but the work produced in that short time is very distinctive and striking.

Wyndham Lewis as the leader in this movement, his “Composition” is certainly a classic piece. This work appears at first glance to be a patchwork of colors and a clash of bodies. The sharp, scalloped corners of the upper section are very attractive to the eye. After focusing on this part, one gradually sees what looks like two embracing human figures.

A Dancing Couple. The woman, on the right, bends backward. The white parallelogram halfway up the right edge is perhaps her hair. The pleated curving architectural form at the bottom center could be her skirt.

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All three paintings depict dancers. William Roberts’ figures are more figurative than those of Wyndham Lewis. The figures are clearly visible, although close to the background. In contrast, Wyndham’s has a connotation that requires deeper study. Beyond that, David Bomberg’s is more abstract. Personally, I like this kind of work. It has a kind of simplification of the object and construction of geometry that we often use when doing flat layouts.

Also, these two paintings are also some of my favorites. Edward Wadsworth’s ‘the open window’ defocuses the view outside the window and frames the window. At the same time, the drawing of the exterior reminds me of this image from the Warner Bros. title sequence looking down on the town.

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Again, Edward Wadsworth’s ‘Abstract Composition’ reminds me of Escher’s Endless Staircase.

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Overall, the works of the Vorticism period are imbued with a powerful sense of structure, figurative, and at the same time geometrically generated abstraction.

After seeing the Francis Bacon: Man and Beast exhibition, I was impressed by two things in his paintings.

The second is the distinctive spatial structure of the lines he has added to the painting. This may be related to his early career as an interior designer. In terms of brushwork, there are even some structural lines that were added last. The purpose of these lines may not only be for corrective space, but in many cases, from his upbringing, a kind of cryptic reference to the cage, the restraint.

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I tried the part of the painting by Head I with the structural line in the upper right corner. As you can see, with the addition of the structural lines, the space in the background changes from the original boundless darkness to a limited, narrow, shadowy space. This also fits better with the atmosphere that Bacon is trying to convey.

In the painting ‘Fury’, the presence of structural lines gives the impression of a roof over the space. But it is also the illogical lines that make the overall space confusing and contradictory.

I really like this use of lines to express space. In modern architecture it is often the case that frames are used with transparent materials and the sense of space is expressed simply through the lines.

In a way, this is also an expression of less is more.

After seeing the Francis Bacon: Man and Beast exhibition, I was impressed by two things in his paintings.

The first is his portrayal of the oral cavity. Even before reading his biography, I noticed his emphasis on the mouth. This started with the first painting ‘Head I’ as we entered the gallery. and then the creature ‘Fury’, as well as his copies of Eric Hosking and Cyril Newberry’s ‘Bird in Action’, he made the mouth the focus.

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Once, in a bookshop in Paris, he found an old medical treatise on diseases of the oral cavity. The book had beautiful hand-colored plates, showing what Bacon called the “glitter and color” of the inside of the mouth, the glistening membranes. He bought the book and cherished it all his life. He said that he always hoped he could paint the mouth as Monet had painted sunsets.

The moment that the mouth showed its insides most unashamedly, Bacon realized, was when it screamed. In his studio, he kept a still of the Odessa Steps massacre from Eisenstein’s “Battleship Potemkin”: an old woman, gashed in the face by one of the imperial soldiers, screams violently, her shattered pince-nez hanging from her eyes and blood coursing down her cheek. 

Francis Bacon draws attention to his violent aesthetic through the focus on the mouth, which is exposed during the scream.This is an interesting and sensible point.

This booth showcases a very attractive material, luminous rock panels. Often we consider the use of light to give a sense of atmosphere in dark spaces, but the idea of using a material that has a luminous effect in itself is very original.

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This was a building materials exhibition. One of the things that attracted me was that one of the stands, called Surface Matter, had samples of materials in the form of sweets. A “candy pool” was available where you could pick up and take away small samples. It was fun and interactive at the same time.

Feb.1st-Tate Modern Museum

For all the exhibits, this one attracted me the most for it is so normal which I thought I could find a similar one on a construction site. I really can not figure it by myself what does this is a piece of art trying to express.

It is said that Takamatsu tries to demonstrate single material’s intrinsic transformative potential as well as its singularity by manipulating it. In focusing the audience’s attention on different aspects or qualities of a given material, these works hint at the complexity of the most simple, everyday objects.

Also, The geometric shape of Oneness of Concrete suggests a dialogue with contemporaneous Western minimalist sculpture by artists including Donald Judd and Sol LeWitt and the irregularity of the concrete rubble in the sculpture’s interior alludes to the detritus of building works.

I found it quite interesting sharing a similar idea with the From Surface to Surface. Koshimizu investigates the substance of wood by sawing planks into different shapes, exposing their surface qualities through different kinds of repetitive cuts.

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As the picture shows, when we cut longitudinally, the wood takes on an extremely rough surface effect. When we cut horizontally, the surface is very smooth and has a distinctly regular grain pattern. Interestingly, when we cut at a slope, the surface is also smooth, but the fine lines of grain are lost. Instead, there are irregular colour variations in the form of blocks of colour.

I can’t help thinking of Ando who plays with the concrete material so well that uses this single material in various constructions making those buildings have their diversity. A single material can be so diverse by cutting it or polishing it or any other manipulating methods.

Don’t be limited by a single thing. There are an infinite number of ways to manipulate it, and these ways will create possibilities for you constantly.

This is the design work of Neri&Hu and the original building is an old townhouse located in a lane in Shanghai. The magical lane houses, which were once the dominant fabric that made urban Shanghai the intoxicating place that it was in the 1930s, are now slowly being demolished, taken over by high-density developments all over the city. Neri&Hu was commissioned to reconstruct a dilapidated lane house left with almost nothing except its glorious shell in the historic and artistic Tianzifang area in Shanghai, and the mission was to transform it into three separate apartment units.

Neri&Hu added spatial interest through new insertions and skylights to accentuate the architectural integrity of such a typology, contemporizing it for today’s lifestyle.

The original facade has been stripped of its decorative elements over the past 60 years, and the large floor-to-ceiling windows have been inserted into the front facade to improve the quality of light in each living room, while the black facade makes the building ‘disappear’ at the entrance to the alley. The old, non-conforming wooden staircase has been replaced by a new steel staircase, which also serves as a link between the three different levels.

I am a fan of the idea of adding a modern element to an old building. The challenge is to retain the traditional character of the building while bringing it up to date, which is a difficult balance to find. Coincidentally, the interior design studio I worked for before was located opposite this building, but I have to say that the two are on a completely different level. The previous firm’s design was simply a complete refurbishment of the interior parts, without keeping any of the classic elements of the old lane, and the end result, although not lame, was just a very ordinary private house with no sense of design to speak of. I often look at the building through the window from the office of the studio. In its color scheme and choice of materials, it can be said to blend in with the rest of the buildings in Tianzifang, yet it is clearly different from the neighboring houses, a paradoxically independent presence that forms a very harmonious residential area with the neighborhood.

The interior design of the building uses the colors and some of the materials of the original building to decorate the areas while using materials such as concrete to enhance the overall feeling of aging. In a way, it has inspired my approach to this series of renovation projects.