I Don't Always Get Art

Here's a little known fact about me:
When I was little, the big, gold framed and brightly colored Marilyn Monroe Warhol picture in my brother's room used to scare the living shit out of me.

Some people grew up terrorized by clowns, I grew up terrorized by her

Thinking back back, I have to question whether my big brother bought that picture as an appreciation for pop art or simply to ward off pesky little sisters such as myself.

My big brother has always been quite a fan of contemporary art.
It comes naturally with his built in attraction to all things valuable, collectible and limited-he gets it from my dad-the antique collectors-side.

We spent Saturday afternoon at the 798 art district, a labyrinth of art studios, galleries and coffee shops in Beijing. It used to be a bunch of old factory buildings during the Communist era but was reconstructed into an art center in the 90s (I'm thinking because it was cheap).

I love my big brother to bits. Ignore my fat face.

I'd been there on two previous occasions, one on which the weather was too cold and the exhibitions too few, another in which I was in the company of one very bored and grumpy 6 year old. Neither were too pleasant and I got dizzy going around with no sense of direction.

The weather on Saturday was hot and sunny and the art district was filled with tourists, photographers and art browsers-after all, my brother said, not everyone can take a 500,000,000 yuan piece of art to go.

The place was prettier than I remembered it to be, and cleaner-though that might be on account of the Olympics. We wandered in and out of the many art exhibitions, my brother asking for the price of the occasional piece of art or getting excited to see the original work of some artist he knew. I wandered around pondering the how the bolts and clogs in the twisted mind of artists and sculptures turned-can't have looked very pretty with lines across my forehead trying to figure out what the guy who had made a giant doughnut (or wheel) out of black clothing (including a pair of CK boxers which caught my eye) was really trying to say.

Or the person who made towns and cities out of cloth and suitcases.
Or the one who painted crying people in front of Chinese landmarks, like the Birds Nest.

And then there was the guy who pretty much makes dinosaur sculptures for a living. Big T-Rexes, small T-Rexes, black T-Rexes, bright pink T-Rexes.

A million bucks for a little, glossy dinosaur, that my friends, is the power of branding.

It was very Alice in Wonderland, very peculiar.

My brother repeatedly remarked about how great the art galleries in Beijing were compared to the crappy Shanghai ones- which was alot coming from him. He has, in his 3 visits to see me, criticized everything from the transportation to the Grand Hyatt buffet in Beijing.

It was certainly more fun to walk around the place with him because he'd been reading about this sort of thing and knew which ones were a big deal.

My brother's favorite artist is this guy named Yue Min Jun, who's trademark is painting these deliriously happy looking people, with the same face, same squinted eyes and same wide-open, laughing mouths- he figured his paintings looked cheerful.

How is this not disturbing!?

I kind found their happy expressions more or less disturbing, call me paranoid but their laughter looks forced and phoney, I mean for god's sake, what are they so freakishly happy about?! Is this the artist's way of saying Don't take Life seriously?!

Shudders

I suppose it's like writing, everything amounts to nothing until someone discovers and recognizes you.
Then the money and copyrights just comes rolling in, and the tissue you wiped your snot with becomes a collectors item.