Isaac Aden on Wei Xiaoguang's Yes, but
Over the past year it has been my pleasure to meet and watch the development of one of the most promising young painters I have encountered in years, namely, Wei Xiaoguang. On Tuesday, May 13th, 2014, I was present at his performance Yes, but at Hunter college. The performance began before the audience was present. I was actually the first person there and it had already begun, breaking all social norms of a panel, no introduction, the speakers speaking as the audience arrived, beginning before a single audience member was present, etc. The panelists were, to be reviled through their comments, critiquing the audience and the room as a relational aesthetic piece, as it was unfolding. Mr. Wei was speaking through a voice modifier that raised the pitch of his voice with a silly result. However the whole thing was executed with the appropriate level of seriousness expected from a panel discussion. It felt to me like a neo Dada panel or a post Fluxes event, albeit completely serious.
Once the performance was finished, in an unforeseen manner I was asked to join the panel as a critic to discuss Mr. Wei’s paintings. This unexpected event, and the repetition of the panel made me feel like I was still in a performance. Wei commented that he believed painting could be social practice however when I pressed whether he thought his paintings were he said no. I commented that I believed that the whole performance aspect involved in his work was quite clever and interesting; it serves perfectly as self reflexive, especially in regards to his works I think this is going to be something big I + II. Those two paintings depict a panel talking about art a representation of a photograph of a brush stroke painted with Wei’s signature Photoshop Realism style and an “actual brush stroke defying the flatness of the rest of the canvas.
I commented that the whole performative apparatus while being highly clever and entertaining distracted from the more significant meat of the exhibition, which are Wei’s paintings. I feel the performative attitude of his panel beckons an insider’s identification and requests compliance in the clever parody. All in all this whole extra pictorial apparatus serves one primary function, and that is to give an entertainment value to his work. There is a part of me that thinks he is doing every thing right in this regard, such as parodying seriousness with the voice modifier, etc. In essence he is creating a relational aesthetic practice that is parallel to his painting practice, one in which the final result is spectacle.
Critically speaking this strategy is widely used in the art world; the difference is that with Wei’s work once the spectacle has passed you are still left with some wonderful paintings. So the question for me seems to be does that interfere, is it necessary, or is it just a smoke screen that delays a more serious read? What I feel happening is that my feelings on the work keep changing. I think this is good because it is a sign of dynamic work. For example my personal attraction to certain works is in conflict with what I respond to logically.
My conclusion thus far is; that in the grand scheme of things the performative aspect of the work will be limited by its obvious durational limitations, as a result the work will most frequently boil down to the handling of paint and content. I feel Wei will be very successful because his work is self-aware. His content compliments the viewer on being dedicated to a discourse on art and in this manner it is not institutional critique, it is not quite its opposite like I said before, but it is the clever parody will make it very popular with in the institution because of its inherent humor. To that I would say: Yes, but, I would question how the work can transcend being just a joke. I believe Wei’s faculty for painting to be accomplished and his work smacks of intelligence, and so I feel the challenge between him and truly great paintings will be to for his work to transcend beyond a to narrowly focused audience, most likely achieved through selection and expansion of content.