Since soon it's All Saints' Day and we are in Halloween theme and strange characters, dark and misshapen I propose taking inspiration from an artist who has no problem showing the bestial side of man. Sculptures by Liu Xue are your new Halloween nightmare… Watch and shudder!
The collection is called We are the world and is created by Liu Xue, class 1983, creating sculptures that are so fascinating and engaging a real mix between human beings and mythological monster, probably something that looks very much like a childhood nightmare. The viewer is fascinated and horrified at the same time and also upset by realistic component that surrounds these sculptures half man, half animal.
In a sense it is like the artist had started to portray any subject, but with well-defined physical characteristics, and he had finished down sculpting best-matching animal counterpart.
The artist reveals a great irony realizing these curious hybrids, the same kind of irony that Disney often uses to humanize animals, more or less tender, by its stories. Why do not we charge even with the multinational of entertainment?
Liu Xue: these hybrid sculptures represent us?
Think carefully: the obese man with a resigned expression might seem a pig with curly tail, resigned himself to future of tasty bacon, and what about the skinny type, thin and nervous air that turns into a greyhound, that is a bundle of nerves and muscles ready to shoot?
The Oriental culture, with its complex mythology, repeatedly used to shocking characters sometimes violent, which they are not always represented as monsters shelled and bleeding, just think of the Japanese artist Yoshimasa Tsuchiya with wood smooth carves animals from the looks meek who turn out to be evil spirits from the devastating otherworldly powers.
As for the mysterious figures, feminine and masculine hybridized with the hen and duck web, increasingly in turmoil, it's repeatedly exposed to a theory that even I couldn't understand if it responds to real or imaginative interpretation: the Chinese terms to indicate the animals “hen” and “duck” would sound strikingly similar to “prostitute” and “male prostitute” which would explain the poses and looks particularly alluring.
On site by Liu Xue You can see many of the photos that are related to the manufacturing process and follow all the steps together with the artist and his entourage that contributes to the creation of the pieces.
One thing is certain it's really hard to figure out what feelings try in front of one of these works: I am shocked and fascinated? What do the artist want to tell me? ? Perhaps his goal is just to have fun?
What do you think? What these sculptures mean to you ?
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