A gift from Ruth Hander

I try to express the process of the clashing, intertwining and interacting between the status quo of China, the traditional culture, the need of the reality and western culture in this series. The scene between the processes is also my goal. The Gift from Ruth Handler and Proper are the latest works of mine. They originate from my career and life experience and at the same time a concomitant of my personal thoughts that is deepened by the shift of the society. As for the academic level they provide a chance for a dissection to the combination of the eastern and western cultures in China and the scene that is triggered in between.

Prosper is a work of my latest creation. I apply the traditional landscape and Barbie dolls: the waved mountains, vast sea, and withered pines in the near. A Barbie girl and a rabbit beside her seem to be calling or replying her companies under the sea. This is a work full of metaphor—with prosperity and surges underneath. The economic construction for the past thirty years has let China make great success at material level. Traffic, urban construction and physical lives have been improved. Such a change could be called prosperity. But we are still poor at a mental level. Our thoughts are sealed, a lack of fairness in society and other fights are twisted together, forming a huge crisis latently. The thirty-year-long revolution has not solved the problems that China is facing. The opening of market and the stand-still thoughts produce a vortex for the society. This is our status quo. And this is the situation that entailed under the influence of the western civilization for China.     

    Some make find a conflict in this series of images. But it is a warning, a critic and perhaps a new call for the reality. It unfolds the hope inside me and the anticipation for the harmonious fusion of the East and West.

Jiang Heng at Guangzhou,2011