Author(s)

Bo Huang

Corresponding Author

Bo Huang

Abstract

Abstract: A new current of the creative use of Chinese mythological images by Chinese young artists has developed strongly, especially in video art exploration practices, in the new century. Based on their upbringing and the contemporary reality of life in China, the young artists represented by Qiu Anxiong, Wu Junyong and Lu Yang have used mythological narrative from different aspects and in different forms to diagnose the disease of human hubris spawned by the concept of scientific supremacy of human imperialism and the power of capital; to describe and simulate the real world absurd and carnival; and to destroy and tamper with the real flesh to synthesize the undefined digital human. The images in these works highlight the artists' deep observation of the obsessively spectacle and consumption in our society. But the paradox is that while they are criticizing, their artistic logic is thought to have the tendency of populization because of falling into the value and landscape of their criticism in different degree. This is a warning laying upon the current and future artists who aspire to art.

Keywords

Key words: video Art; Mythological Images; Heterogeneous Images; Populism