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From: Rodney Ward Category: Art Date: 30 October 2008 Time: 06:54 AM Review: The time has come , the Walrus said, well, thats the inferred directive from the Central Office of Artspeak, apart from an extremely shoddy little apology by Julian Schnabel - who no one ever took at all seriously anyway, the work is of Contemporary Chinese Artists whose exhibits are installed in this amazingly beautiful building. I'm surprised how much I liked this show but rather disappointingly I can identify the actual reasons for my attraction to it, disappointing because theres not a lot of wallop in the content - now I know you will say, that that is what contemporary art should be dealing with - "surface", etc but it does feel to me as though Charles Saatchi has looked at what the likes of Hirst and his army of nar'do wells have done to the Warhola Factory ethos, reincarnated as the rather shabby now, Britart or YBA and given a brief to the SinoArt or YCA and this is what they've come up with. All so wretchedly knowing, but through it all there are some sparks, I think its a good show for anyone interested in technique because these materials have been manipulated by "otherness", the materials themselves are quite familiar, oil paint, canvas etc even the much vaunted Dog Chews are actually sheets of hide which any book art practitioner uses as vellum but it made good media copy I guess, its just that in the hands of these artists the material speaks in another language - so to speak, my favourite artist is Wang Guangya who's reworking of the pop idiom produces some very striking painting, again, its quite interesting to peer through the tangible object and meditate on the approach. The subject matter - influenced by our perception of Chinese Politics tend to seem nieve or blatantly ignoring the elephant in the room, but then, that kind of work is blithely extolled in western galleries too, look at Sam Taylor Wood, I mean, the only people interested are the vacuous so called celebrities she "works with". This is the problem, I keep comparing the Chinese work with western art, and Warhol simply persists in my equation, I know I should'nt but whats a flower farmer to do? Love it Bite it is a very good piece and that work itself and the building are worth the effort (Liu Wei) (dog chew piece), the scale and the light conducting qualities of the vellum are outstanding. At this point , because it is saliently connected to the aforementioned Love it Bite it artwork, I have to mention the sanded floorboards in the Old Duke of Yorks H Q now the Saatchi Gallery, they must be original and they are about two feet wide, do you realise what sort of a tree can produce that much timber in a lovely long and totally straight line ? Well, never mind, its a sodding big one, I'll wager a jumped up pantry boys annual income that those floorboards are an imperial inch thick or even thicker to boot. What does this say? The floorboards are not nailed or glued or screwed. No. They are wooden pegged, using the same timber the royal carpenter would bore (as I'm doing now) a hole and force a peg of the same wood just as us plebs would use a nail, these pegs can be seen if you really look hard, anyway they look some handsome and are the ideal domain for the large floor work. Some how those posh floorboards say something interesting about the Saatchi presence, not just Corporate Glob Heads riding on the coat tails of Royalty but other stuff about the foundations of our disintegrating society (wether you think its disintegrating or not you'll concede its ever changing). The most wonderful exhibit, an outstanding painting entitled Gift by Li Songsong, rather oddly reminiscent of the germ of genius that so quickly died in Schnabels first (albeit late) stirrings, an expressionistic painting utilizing a photographic device in its monochromatic execution. (there I go - comparing again) I recommend a visit because the entrance is free and the experience is positive, the shop is mercifully low key and there are all those rather dubious cafes just outside to reflect on those floorboard sizes. As we say on Samson, "why did'nt Saatchi include BANK in the SinoArt YCA brief ?