A Group of Artists
Wu Chen
武晨
Production date
2009
Object Detail
Media
acrylic on canvas
Measurements
200 x 450 cm (triptych)
Notes
Wu Chen thinks the artworld is like ‘an underworld of gangsters’: his group of naked, bondage-masked figures in this triptych, furiously smoking, drinking and fornicating whilst wielding their paint-brushes like weapons, creates a distinctly ‘gangsta’ atmosphere. Even the cats in the central panel are copulating. Above the heads of the savage artists an array of shapes and symbols are scattered across the background, including stars and flowers. Dildo-like planes, some wearing condoms, appear to explode amidst the spattered paint. Is Wu Chen celebrating this frenzied debauchery, or rather pointing out the ephemeral nature of earthly pleasure in the manner of the Dutch and Flemish old masters that he admires? The deliberately crude style of this work has been described as the artist’s ‘Mo Lei Tau’ humour, a Cantonese genre of anarchic slapstick characterised by absurdity and creative word play.
Accession number
2014.060