Laughing and giggling at an absurd reality

• Source: Global Times
• [02:46 November 27 2009]
• Comments

In one corner you'll find "Value," bite-sized collage drawings of human body parts, every limb, organ and article of clothing conveniently labeled with a price tag. 

In another corner, you'll find "The Greatest Team on Earth," a watercolor caricature of Barcelona FC's first eleven, featuring helpful lines that measure each player's respective height, and the length of their cartoonishly long genitals, which extend from their bodies at perfectly righted angles. 

These works and more, including some very entertaining diptychs and triptychs, comprise Henan-born artist Cao Yingbin's first solo Beijing show People's Park, currently on display at the F2 Gallery in Caochangdi. 

In one nighttime painting, "Liberation," a utility truck loaded to the brink with fattened pigs heads off into the darkness, likely towards an abattoir. The expressions on two of the pigs' faces, looking directly at the viewer, can be seen. Meanwhile, a third pig adjacent to them falls over itself trying to jump from the moving vehicle, as if trying to escape. 

Shasha Liu, F2 Gallery director, said that laughter has been the most common response gallery viewers have had to Cao's microcosmic and iconographic paintings, drawings and sculptures. 

When asked if it bothered him that most seemed to be giggling when viewing his work, Cao responded, "Of course not. I'm laughing and giggling myself when I'm drawing the pictures. Life itself is fun." 

"There's a childlike innocence found in my drawings, and kids have better imaginations than adults. They hold a beer bottle and say it's like a pig's mouth. That's wisdom, right there. Adults lose this kind of imagination when they grow up and become restricted from these kinds of experiences." 

Minute dissections of mundane, everyday animate and inanimate objects pervade Cao's paintings, begging the question: Is the artist's intention simply to take delight in absurdity?