« Puppets » Show – October, 2001Today, the artist does not lead art anymore. He does not decide anymore more. He does not live it any more. Who decides then? Who makes art today? : The curator of Biennal is making an exhibition concept under the aegis of a security bearer and collecting all which relates to it; the director of the Art Centre president to the choice of which art work or which artist in residence. The eyes that make the Contemporary art today are those of the professionals in the field, institutionally formed and empowered to judge, to collect, weigh, analyze, the value of » fashionable » methods. The hero of the artistic activity, the one that thinks it, who renders it sensitive, who gives it life, who assembles it, who makes it intelligible, current and to be known to the public , is not the artist anymore, but the curator.And this established fact arranges rather the artist… that far from rebelling, gives satisfaction to his backer, to his paternity… and in accordance with his visions, to his choices, to his tastes.And if he is in lack, a godsend nowadays… captivated by the new productions of the technological era! So many new paternities to covet under the cover of New Communication Tools and New Media. To communicate technologically, not to say anything anymore:a spearhead.
This renunciation to the identity, the artist began it at the end of the 1960 s. The 21st century completely opens his arms. What disposal! In charge no more of the being. Leave labels » artistic » and » hand-crafted » to mix. Take one for another. Pass incognito inside. The soul is sold. All at last liberated of the toil to live the being, the responsibility to endorse ones own risks.
The » Puppets » are of those. We play the game. We conform ourselves. We exist only by our only rudimentary… common place, powerlessness and briefness. We do not distinguish ourselves by any soul state or personal feeling, by any conviction. We comply with the look and with the desire of others: we do not claim, or have no identity. This is our reality in the field. This is all this that imports us. And we assume it.
We claim on the other hand from the whole world, stateless and of all the countries, dispersed, spread in the whole, out-of-place profiteers of a situation highly techniciste ideal to obliterate ourselves and to melt us inside. We are very happy corpses.
Du Zhenjun