![]() ![]() To me, the conspicuous absence of those two names, in the otherwise frank & entertaining interview with Pan, suggests that both Shaw & Ford are far too much of an influence for him to consciously acknowledge. Yes, I'm a fan of both, so maybe I'm just seeing their particular brands of totem symbolism everywhere. ![]() with the exception of the critical fellatio of 'Art Forum', 'Art International', et cetera. Mu Pan's charmingly genocidal wargy-porn is boiling with the flora & fauna of Natural History masters like Audubon or Nicolas Robert, sometimes structured according to the kaleidoscopic symmetry of the mandala, & at other times - as mentioned earlier - filtered via the pictographic languages of Raqib Shaw & Walton Ford. I'll take Mu Pan over 99.999% of the Modernist douchebags celebrated in textbooks promulgating the Marxist-revisionism of Art History, confidently betting on the spry 'Gen-X'-er over the mouldering 'Gen-P' Euro-skeletons, according to whatever variables you care to apply to this ridiculous hypothetical contest of artistical awesomeness. in which there is a Communist Berserker-Toad, armed with the serrated forelimb of a Praying Mantis, astride the shell of his War Tortoise, preparing to slaughter a company of The Croaking Leopard Frog Resistance? Of course you have. Haven't you ever gazed in anxious silence at one of the many Yves Klein canvases featuring a solid field of his trademarked 'Klein International Blue', desperately wishing it was a very-blue pond. And if you said 'Yes', you're lying to yourself, and you're going to hell or an Atheist Oblivion. Has anyone ever felt anything looking at Piet Mondrian's multi-colored squares inside black & white grids? Besides boredom? No? FUCK No. and far, FAR better than most of the Modernist & Postmodernist con-artists bilking hollowed-out 1%ers as they try to impress whoever-the-fuck with their manufactured tastes. There are quite a few more artists in the High-Low ghetto, meanwhile, who can capture the attention, engage the intellect, & challenge the viewer themselves - the abyss gazing back - almost as well as the artists just mentioned. I don't think I could conscientiously use the word 'entertaining' to describe more than a handful of 'mainstream' contemporary artists - Ford, Shaw, Akira Yamaguchi, Wolfe Von Lenkiewicz, Ali Banisadr, Glenn Brown, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Jonas Burgert, Daniel Pitin, Mark Tansey, Manabu Ikeda, Vincent Desiderio, Aida Makoto, Neo Rauch, and Ruprecht Von Kaufmann - all of whom represent the best & the brightest. No true artist or artist-illustrator should ever focus on producing 'entertaining' work, unless it's done purely for their OWN entertainment, and that's exactly the engine that drives Mu Pan. Historical context & hidden symbolism & all the exciting intellectual crap that gets the art-hags scribbling. AND SO: like Bosch's 'The Temptation of St.Anthony' or 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' (of which Pan, like Shaw, provides his own wonderfully grotesque reinterpretation) there's micro & macroscopic stories crawling across every square inch of Mu Pan's wood & paper, a riot of jokes & mysteries & blasphemies that are both endlessly compelling & - *GASP* - entertaining! There's depth in those details, too. But perspective, realism, telling stories! Clement Greenberg, undead Pope of Marxist Modernism, will need a brand new Circle in Artist Hell for that shit. Figurative art alone is enough to automatically condemn the artist's soul to a quiet spot on the 7th Circle, where they're tattooed with sulfuric acid for all eternity. There's plenty of art school technique, & a complete lack of art school pretense, as Pan apparently gives zero fucks, repeatedly & blissfully committing the cardinal Modernist sin of Narrative. every page exploding with violence & vibrance & visionary brilliance. ![]() The Taiwanese-born art-movement-on-legs known as Mu Pan brings us Brueghelian battlescapes via Raqib Shaw, Walton Ford, Ukiyo-e, Henry Darger, Hasbro, et cetera ad infinitum. "'Every monster I draw is actually a self-portrait.'" - Mu Pan, p.100 'American Fried Rice: The Art of Mu Pan') Unnatural History - Dinocidal Murder-Monkeys & the Great Frog Wars of Goatfucker Pond (A.K.A. ![]()
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