Interview with Yang Shaobin

This interview was realized through email. The interviewer is Maurizio Giuffardi, Professor at the Venice Art Academy in Italy. He lectures on Formalism and the theory of psychology, as well as portraiture in the fine arts. This interview came about because I was in the Milan Contemporary Art Center this year in June, when I did this interview for the “Skin to Skin” exhibition.

MG: Maurizio Giuffrdi: Is your inspiration drawn from the realistic confrontations in boxing,

or from the street fights of hoodlums?

YSB: Actually, the first things one will sense in any environment are images and sound. It’s true that like many people I enjoy watching boxing matches. What fascinates me most is when the arch of the boxer’s eyebrow is smashed, and from the wound comes a sort of viscous, bright material that’s very beautiful when it glistens. To me, it’s like a ferocious animal which is agitated and excited by sniffing fresh blood. This sort of instinctive reaction, I think, is elemental. Like cooking rice, which requires various meat and vegetable ingredients, this is a part of my creative resource. The crux of the matter is the artist’s psychological reaction to what lies behind these images, and if he’s able to convert the material into a meaningful product. If he has the capability to handle this information - not just the main points but what’s closely bound up in the environment you exist in - this is a sort of intensity and apprehension. Everyone’s used to powerful confrontation in any sort of violence, but there’s actually a kind of violence that is a more frightening one than we see, which I call “soft violence.” In this power system, the harm inflicted on people by this sort of soft violence is far more cruel than that inflicted on the flesh. In reality, when the audience looks at my work it often overlooks this soft component within; this is also a reaction under the pressure of the power system.

MG: Are the scenarios in your works inspired by fights,

or are they guided by the senseless mauling among animals?

YSB: This is a means of expression, just like other emotions. For example, if a person has reason to say something, he must also express it appropriately. Both these inspirations you mentioned are absolutely correct. They’re the conductors and resources of my creation, as well as a crucial support. Works must demonstrate themselves through pictures in order for the audience to have a foundation to understand the works upon, and so this sort of picture expresses the insecurity and cruelty of man.

MG: The violence perceived in your works comes from the external world,

from this world. It delivers something unexpected;

it’s like bestial combat or something else, like man,

man against man in combat, or man against beast.

YSB: The temperament of all good artists’ works is benevolent and austere, which is not where I started from. Violence has no gender or nationality. Violence is based upon nothing but possession and plunder, and moreover the methods of violence are so effective. The sites in this world where widespread violence is committed are horrendous. This is an inescapable reality. Anti-violent propositions like that of the African-American Malcolm X can only represent the weak faction. We’re sympathetic to his proposal, but if you look at realistic results, it’s still an overly idealistic idea. You talked about delivering something unexpected to people; this is a very professional question and one relevant to my style. The function of art is precisely to reveal understanding outside the experience of the majority. There’s a saying I’m fond of: “Reality always makes people feel strange and afraid, while hypocrisy makes people feel graceful and lithe.” All truth sets out from a mental perspective, to display the unique impressions of one’s psyche. In the process of painting, a very strange secretion occurs, an inexplicable rush in one’s body - it’s a very individual biological phenomenon. Some say that I’m constructing fear and terror. The person drawn in the work process has already ceased to be of importance, because he’s just an object anyway, while the depicted subject resembles a monster emerging from the cracks.

MG: Your works gave me thoughts of violence, as they originate from the external world as it is perceived by people.

Your works are monochromatic - why do you use the colour red, regardless of whether it’s skin or scenery?

YSB: The Communist Party’s revolution, the red flag, Red China... from the time I was little I knew the connotations of red. It’s a colour which the west fears and discriminates against. That was the earliest impression, and also a definition which the west gave to China. Eventually this memory became engaged in my artwork and I began using red. So I think it can’t be separated from my background. When you feel that you’ve been pressurize d by the colour red longer and longer, it becomes an unshakeable lingering. When I’m using red, it has the same viscous sensation as plasma, and so its function in the subject of violence is effective - monochromatic and pure, powerful, evident on first sight, not distracting, and with a shocking effect.

MG: Can your works be perceived as self-portraits?

YSB: They’re psychological self-portraits.

MG: If they’e self-portraits, could that imply that you’ve separated yourself into two or more personalities,

so that you’re both the perpetrator and the victim?

YSB: It’s like this: I cleave myself open for everyone to see in order to violate the audience’s senses. Some say on seeing my works, the emotion you express is that of someone who’s had sulphuric acid thrown on them. Others say, the people you draw look like a piece of meat boiling in water, the white areas are very beautiful, like the colour which appears when the blood’s been boiled away. I want to be an onlooker, but I can’t bear the lightness which an onlooker bears, because life is ultimately heavy. The intersection of social relations in this power-centered world mirrored by the system makes me horrified and anxious. In reality this system is breeding sick people, where our bodies and spirits are the victims. This world is one that causes people to produce pain.

MG: In your works there’s a body which has produced another body, or some other body.

This seems to me a sort of intense accumulation of violence and self-awareness,

which has caused the spontaneous production of such violence. Is it? Have you had such feelings,

that there’s a fount of strength, a kind of potential within you that tortures you, like a demon?

YSB: The way you put it is like self-torture. The use of individual bodies makes people remember the existence of questions; from my point of view this clue is quite clear. I feel quite wretched about the complex nature of such intense accumulation. The body’s reserve of power has long been suppressed, a sort of capability which can’t be released. My choice of violence as a subject proves that I want to release these inhibitions.

MG: In the combat scenes you depict,

what’s the symbolic meaning of the white stuff secreted from people’s wounds,

in particular that which flows from the nostrils?

YSB: It’s a sort of decomposing secretion, or a poison. I’m still very much taken with the uniqueness of people. If I’m in the hospital I like looking at those people on the brink of death, with their bloodless nails and wounds.

MG: De you think you can find anything related to traditional Chinese art in your work?

And do you know the works of Rainer and Bacon? Apart from modern art,

which contemporary of yours in art do you admire?

For example, how do you evaluate the works of Bruce Nauman?

YSB: I don’t think there’s any, because I haven’t made any works related to traditional culture, and maybe people don’t believe me even if I say this, but there’s no use in stretching it too far. But the culture of violence was very developed in traditional China. For example, because of the wars going on in the Song dynasty, there was a kind of food called “human food,” which was cannibalism. It’s very cruel to regard man as food, to be able to freely order any part of the anatomy.

I don’t know the artist Rainer, but I know of Bacon.

I really like Bruce Nauman, he’s a master. You can feel he has a lot of experience with life, and he’s deeply intellectual. When you look at his work there’s a kind of pain which enters you.