Competition: Find Art Cliches, Win Art Stuff
By now you’ve probably picked up your own copy of our August issue, which we packed with images to get your art juices flowing. My favorite: a crayon-on-paper rendition of a certain royal matron. You know which one I’m talking about. (See p4.)
Stoked by such visions of creative genius, many of you might even have begun planning your trips to the various art zones we mapped out for you. This is our reminder: Don't forget your cameras! Our friends at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) and FEI Space are offering awesome prizes to those of you who send in photos of yourselves with the art clichés we listed on p15. Read on for more details.
The only people who like to see clichés in Chinese contemporary art are the sinfully rich collectors who bought those artworks when their makers were fresh out of CAFA. As those artists won acclaim, their early works became canonical and their value skyrocketed. Seeing a lucrative bandwagon, other aspiring artists jumped on. These visual ideas may have been striking and bold once, but their impact has long since been diluted by repetition and imitation.
Our list of Chinese contemporary art clichés:
- Dinosaurs
- Pepsi logos
- Giant babies
- Giant heads
- Laughing heads
- Tiananmen Square
- Ink-and-wash … but modern!
- RMB 100 notes
- Bright enameled finishes
- Dripping red paint
- Looking forlorn
- Capitalist images, socialist slogans
- Socialist images, capitalist slogans
- Girl with bangs
- Factories (as galleries/subjects)
- “East meets West”
- Blue-and-white ceramics
- Childhood objects
- (Topless) ethnic minority woman
- Wrinkled villager
We’ll give you the entire month of August to snap yourself with as many of these as you can – each photograph is worth one point. The only other requirement is that your photos are taken in Beijing – doesn’t matter where the artist of the work is from. Email your photos to win@thebeijinger.com, and the five readers with the most points will each win a gift pack that includes:
- A large art-themed notebook (see covers, below)
- Tickets to UCCA exhibits
- Tickets to UCCA art cinema
- RMB 100 voucher for FEI Space (good for total checkout of RMB 500 or more)
We’re also giving away the expertly crafted pair of shoes that graced our front cover.
Nabbing these beauties takes a little less work, but a little more luck. Just email us at win@thebeijinger.com expressing your interest in the shoes, and we’ll randomly select a winner.
For both the art gift packs and the shoes, we’ll need to receive your entries by August 31, so don’t drag your feet. And thanks for playing!
