Text  /  Cao  Siyu

After  2013,  Gao  Yu  didn’t  have  any  solo  exhibitions.  He  shaked  off  the  dust,  went  back  to  Chongqing  from  Beijing,  opened  a  bar  by  the  Jialing  River   "Mr.  Tipsy ".  This  drink  about  going  home,  he  has  drunk  more  than  four  years,  drinking  and  drinking,  he  saw  Long  Museum  standing  across  the  river  someday.   "If  there  is  an  exhibition  at  the  opposite  side  of  the  river,  it  is  necessary  to  get  a  LED  panda  to  run  on  the  whole  building,  even  alive  in  the  evening. "  Gao  Yu  drunk  a  glass  of  whisky,  spit  this  drunk  word.  When  he  said  that,  a  panda  ran  out  across  the  river,  I  must  be  drunk.

Gao  Yu’s  studio  in  Chongqing  is  not  big,  a  floor  fan  could  stand  the  summer.  When  I  visited  him,  two  assistants  are  completing  the  inking  and  rubbing  part  of  the  woodcut  print  painting  Reform  the  Loafers.  The  wood  board  has  a  large  volume,  the  carving  is  very  complex,  uneven  situation  couldn’t  avoid,  the  assistant  were  very  careful,  fearing  of  touching  the  compulsive  nerves  of  Boss  Gao,  and  have  to  come  over  once  more.

The  studio  is  rough,  messy,  not  like  the  delicacy  of  Gao  Yu’s  outfit.  He  wears  a  suit  vest  when  he  paints,  with  polished  shoes,  if  painting  oil  drops  on  it,  it  will  be  a  big  thing  with  raging  fire.  In  this  perfect  tailored,  compact  even  without  leaving  no  room  outfit,  what  a  kind  of  soul  lives  inside?  Watching  him  passing  through  the  noisy  streets  of  Chongqing,  I  thought,  this  man  is  perhaps  too  close  to  the  chaotic  reality,  and  too  far  away  in  the  same  time.

"Unreality  II "  is  the  result  of  Gao  Yu  four  years’  living  along  back  in  Chongqing’s  street  life,  it’s  the  inevitable  self  re-positioning  in  the  isolated  island  of  creation.  Around  2012,  he  began  to  look  for  the  image,  text  and  history  consisting  China  today’s  ideology  from  the  visual  system  of  China  traditional  painting  and  folk  art,  in  the  grand  narrative,  he  placed  himself  in  the  dissociated  height,  righteousness  above  family  loyaty  –  this  is  in  the  former  exhibition   "Unrealisty ",  the  world  constructed  in   "King  Yu  Tamed  the  Flood "  and   "Moving  Mountains   ",   "Dragon  Slaying ".

But  different  from  the  state  of   "Dragon  Slaying "  in  2012,  Gao  Yu  said  he  is  no  longer  an  angry  young  man,  but  a  desperate  middle-aged  man.  I  take   "despair "  as  the  result  of  these  years  of  hard  work  –  the  reality  noticed  in  the  depths  of  real  world  by  immersing  in  the  daily  life.  Touching  the  truth,  means  to  have  to  face  yourself  and  face  up  to  the  fact  that  you  don 't  want  to  admit  it.  For  Gao  Yu,  this   "admission "  means  the  reconstruction  of  major  relationships  -  divorce,  returning  to  individual  creation  and  the  study  to  complex  factors  behind  Chinese  ideology...    All  these,  is  like  the  boy  to  lay  down   "Dragon  Slayer "  knife,  and  become  a  Buddha   "Investigate  a  Topic "  kind  of  words,  are  all  in  the  works.

Gao  Yu  said,  today 's  society  has  been  verified  in  George  Orwell 's  1984  and  Aldous  Hexley 's  Brave  New  world  at  the  same  time.  We  are  forced  to  love  things  we  may  not  love,  we  are  forced  to  exercise  the  right  that  we  may  not  believe  -   "violence  control "  and   "entertainment  to  death "  has  the  same  outcome,  people  define  happiness  in  the  double  design  of   "limited "  and   "planned ".  The  wonders  that  Gao  Yu  saw  from  it,  has  the  popular   "Chicken  Blood  Therapy "  in  the  Cultural  Revolution,  and  Wang  Shikuo 's   "Reforming  the  Loafers ";  the  Chang’e  myth  rewrite  by  Chinese  spaceflight,  also  the  consolation  brought  by  the  porn  industry  in  the  Internet  era...  The  information  related  to  the  times  and  fate  is  buried  in  the  old  artist 's  comic  manuscript,  the  calendar  posters  hanging  in  people’s  home,  the  debates  and  fight  about   "ultra-left "  or   "ultra-right "  under  the  top-set  current  news  of  Weibo,  the  live  Webcast  stars  overgrown  on  the  internet,  the  Wechat  circles  that  can’t  read  enough,  can’t  delete  them  all...  This  is  the  Gao  Yu’  daily,  also  our  daily.

Accordingly,  the  path  close  to  reality  is  not  only  in  the  life,  but  also  in  the  creation  itself.  The  narrative  is  grand,  Gao  Yu  painting  exhausted  the  way  of  painting  to  response  to  previous  experience.  He  said,  that  the  world  has  nothing  new,  so  he  chooses  the  image  and  text  in  the  collective  memory  to  involve  in  the  creation.  The  text  on  the  work  is  as  important  as  the  paint  on  the  picture,  which  form  the  narrative  space  and  the  reading  experience  in  the  mean  time.  Gao  Yu  has  changed  the  past  manufacturing  process  in  crafted  artisan  style,  he  regains  the  fun  in  calligraphy  and  painting.  Of  course,  he  has  also  chosen  other  ways,  such  as  woodcut,  wood  carving,  acrylic  spray,  robot  device  and  so  on,  in  his  words,   "Chinese  painting,  oil,  print,  sculpture "  all  come  in.

Diversification  in  the  method  doesn’t  mean  the  subversion  of  the  language  itself,  even  though  the  looking  of  these  works  is  so  different.  An  important  part  of  understanding  art  is  the  definition  of  classical.  In  the  eyes  of  Gao  Yu,  well  ingrained  reading  and  viewing,  could  build  a  classic  concept.  To  him,  tracing  from  comic  books,  picture  books  and  calendar  back  to  the  folk  art,  looks  like  you  can  find  the  answer.  These  visual  experiences  not  only  affect  the  independent  aesthetic  of  a  line,  but  also  the  important  evidence  of  why  the  world  looks  like  this  today.

Because  no  longer  demanding  process  and  details  like  before,  also  no  longer  clinging  to  the  language  itself,  Gao  Yu  lives  much  more  comfortable.  When  he  gives  the  Jade  Rabbit  on  the  Moon  life,  it  took  hundreds  of  thousands  to  make  his  own  Jade  Rabbit  robot;  when  he  needs  to  use  acrylic  to  spray  paint  the  picture  effect  of  80s  last  century,  he  invited  well-known  spray  painting  professionals  to  complete  the  creation  together;  when  he  needs  to  use  the  sketch  texture  to  echo  the  realistic  situation  of   "Orwell "  and   "Huxley ",  he  painted  in  the  picture  all  the  way  to  the  end;  and  even  wood  craving,  are  finished  by  the  workers  independently  according  to  a  draft  manuscript...

In  the  work  Longing,  the  little  boy  lying  on  the  grass  looks  into  the  distance,  his  face  is  1.6  meters  wide.   "Total  blank  when  painting,  nothing, "  Gao  Yu  told  me.  So  when  we  talk  about  the   "unrealistic "  nothingness  in  the  reality,  is  it  void?  People  are  easy  to  despair  when  drunk,  and  Gao  Yu  chooses  to  talk  about  reality  in  perpetual  drunk.