CHENG Yuzheng: Some Things After Autumn

Since 2012, I have consistently utilized various media—painting, drawing, collage, ready-made objects, video, and documentation—in a Dadaist manner to explore the impact of different aspects of art production on the multiple added values of artworks. These efforts culminate in a ensemble of different works titled Some Things After Autumn.

From art history, I have drawn upon many elements, the most significant source being the Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock. I am particularly interested in his multiple symbolic roles: he is an icon of 20th-century modernism and continues to have significant influence today; he also symbolizes the shift of the art center from Paris to New York; he invented a completely apolitical style of painting, which, however, became a tool laden with ideological significance; his works are regarded as the pinnacle of painting, while he himself has been mythologized as the quintessential male genius—admired yet fundamentally misunderstood by the public. Pollock created revolutionary avant-garde art, but in the course of art history, this art has been transformed into commercial currency on the art market. Today, headlines about the auction prices of his works often eclipse discussions of the paintings themselves… These different roles have both causal connections and inherent contradictions.

Throughout the project, I aim to reveal this process within the art system through the interactions and cross-references among the individual works. In my paintings, in particular, I deliberately adopt a creative approach that distances itself from the contemporary, transforming the act of painting into a theatrical gesture. These works create a condensed context, raising questions and attempting to provide answers to one another.