Red boys on the seashore. Installations by Chen Wenling

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Chinese author Chen Wenling - personality is bright and extraordinary. We have already seen this by the example of his sculptural installation. "Big golden farting bull"and the Red Memory project only reinforces this belief.

The series of installations "Red Memory", on which the author worked in 2001-2007, is a sculptural image of boys, whose faces and postures express a variety of emotions. All the boys are naked and their bodies are painted red. Chen Wenling preferred that this part of his work be available to as many people as possible, and therefore the original installations periodically appear right in the open air - in most cases on the beach.

It is noteworthy that different art critics interpret Chen Wenling's installations in different ways. To one, red boys resemble newborns, which symbolize the purity of the human soul in classical culture. Others draw parallels with the "red guard" during the Cultural Revolution in China. Still others believe that we are talking about the bombing of Xiamen (the author's hometown), which was an important strategic point during the war.

And those who know Chen Wenling personally are sure that the installations of "Red Memory" are the author's story about himself. In 1996, a young couple was robbed on Xiamen Beach, and the man received many stab wounds. This case became one of the bloodiest in the local criminal history, and the injured man, as it is already clear, was Chen Wenling himself. It was only by a miracle that the author managed to survive and, perhaps, "Red Memory" is his memories of that terrible incident.

Chen Wenling was born in 1969 in China. Graduated from the Xiamen Academy of Arts and Design. The author has many personal and group exhibitions in the USA, China, Korea, Japan, Australia and other countries.