VOELZ CHANDLER: Art of change from China

Mary Voelz Chandler

Published January 18, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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The Luo Brothers' painted fiberglass Welcome! Welcome! (Lounging Baby), part of a series of their "baby" sculptures.

Feng Zhengjie's oil on canvas Chinese Portrait.

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Consider "Face East" a title with multiple meanings.

On one hand, this new show at Robischon Gallery is all about colorful, raucous art from China held together by a focus on figuration.

Yet the exhibition also offers an opportunity to turn in that direction and again take the pulse of a nation that continues on a path of incredible change - for good and for bad.

The same was true in November 2006, when the gallery opened "Under the Radar." That show referred in various ways to the Denver Art Museum's "RADAR: Selections From the Collection of Vicki and Kent Logan," but certainly had its own personality and objectives.

For months, news out of China has been rife with lead-heavy toys, murky seafood and, my personal favorite, poisoned toothpaste - a host of exports from a country that is moving as if it felt a knife at its back.

But in "Face East," the export is art that addresses happiness, isolation, prosperity, change and the power of irrepressible symbols of identity.

Foremost among those is a simple three-letter word: Mao, the long-time party chairman and cultural and societal arbiter whose image has been part of the Pop art scene for decades. (How odd, then, that some of the Mao work had a hard time making it out of China. Is this a case of pre-Olympics jitters?)

Perhaps the nation's best-recognized export, the Chairman appears in "Face East" in Robischon's front gallery: two sleek Mao jackets, one black and one white, made in fiberglass by Sui Jianguo; a quartet of Fashion and Mao ceramics by Suo Tan, in which the leader's head is covered with elegant traditional floral motifs, and the enigmatic Hello, Yu Fan's formally dressed male figure whose face is partially obscured and whose outstretched arm ends in a hand that seems to push a viewer away. It's a fine mixed signal, a greeting that is as eerie as it is beautifully crafted. And it stands next to one of the artist's most hypnotic sculptures: Mr. W, a dreamy, masterfully painted young man, a reference to Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther.

Also installed in this space is two-dimensional imagery by two other artists who've been in the trenches for years: Zhang Xiaogang's flat, flat paintings of sad-faced families and children, and a trio of Zhang Dali's C-prints of threatened architectural sites, overlaid by his silhouette in neon. They are instantly recognizable as his work, and commentary that makes its point about change.

In the next two galleries, things become more expansive, with work by artists who are part of a new wave. This includes paintings by Zhao Bo, represented by a massive grid of diptychs from his "Fragments" series, featuring his bulgy-eyed folks in various situations; the hard-edged colors of Feng Zhengjie's portraits, where the women - in fuschia, turquoise and white - appear to have lost their blood, or their souls; and the strong, layered imagery of those who populate Pu Jie's No Problem #4.

In terms of dimensional work, the mood brightens considerably, with the Luo Brothers' homage to kitsch and capitalist consumerism, the babies of Welcome! Welcome!, and Chen Wenling's Happy Life, a monumental, bright red commoner hoisting a big fat pig. There's food on the table tonight, and in Song Dong's Eating Landscape, a wry video on consumption and greed.

"Face East" continues into the Viewing Room - and beyond, into storage. So don't stop too soon.

Will this Chinese banquet become an annual tradition? Gallery owners Jim Robischon and Jennifer Doran toured artists' studios in China last spring, and found a wealth of material. But Doran said any future shows from that country will emerge intuitively, not by the calendar.

In the spirit of connoisseurship, that makes perfect sense.

Face East

* What: Contemporary art from China by artists including Zhang Xiaogang, Yu Fan, Zhang Dali, Zhao Bo and the Luo Brothers

* Where and when: Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee St.; through March 1

* Information: 303-298-7788, robischongallery.com

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