Charlotte Eschenlohr “Call the now“, 2016
- at Being3 gallery/Bejing
Charlotte Eschenlohr, a German artist who lives and works in Beijing, distills her observations on contemporary society primarily through the artistic form of collage. What better way could there be Collage, a medium of expression where de-centralization, deconstruction, and reconstruction co-exist, is a fitting way to articulate a global perspective without a parochial nationalistic mentality.
This exhibition presents five series by Charlotte: Dragon Fly, All Is Real, Strange Pureness, Easiness, and Call the Now. In Dragon Fly and All Is Real, photographs that are seemingly collected at random by the artist are combined with fragments of words and hand drawings, and together they reflect an air of playfulness and chance. The seven fairies from the legendary tale of the meeting at the Magpie Bridge with Dong Yong clash with erotic portrayals, neon glamour, and a hyperreal cheap prettiness; statues of Buddha are paired up with food and sex; Terracotta Warriors and illustrations of tiger heads meet the modern dame; street scenes showing the facades of various stores stand side by side with a hotel reception counter showing a traditional Chinese painting of peonies hung in the background; and skyscrapers, calligraphy, and Western brands are all intertwined. The combination of this free imagery and symbolism, however, releases meanings that are powerful and allegorical: a “composite China” that embodies archaic feudal ideas, ancient culture, and consumerism as a nation of pseudo-traditions and post-modernity. As an expatriate artist from Germany, Charlotte is struck by the diversity of phenomena in contemporary Chinese society, and she brings together these images and symbols, juxtaposing them in her works. What is presented to us are enlightening pictures of the “reality” of this country of the “dragon tattoo,” where cultural debris and waste confront the fragmentation of modern life.
In both the Strange Pureness and Easiness series we observe a heightened depiction of the subjectivity of the artist. Deploying the methods of commercial posters, Charlotte takes their luscious, disorderly, and cheap attitudes as a point of departure to depict the multitude of phantoms found in commercial culture, the desires of everyday life, and traditional heritage in the era of globalization, which in turn disrupts and destroys the fairy tales of commodity, tastes of fashion, and the order of rationality fervently pursued in our public life today. The spirit of Dada art resides in Charlotte’s work through the dissection and introspection of daily life that is being packaged in increasingly charming wrapping paper.
The latest series Call the Now makes use of appropriated feminine imagery, ranging from classical portraits of the Roman goddess Venus to the modern women frequently envisioned in mass media. As an embodiment of love and beauty, Venus has been the object of admiration and celebration for generations. From the Venus de Milo by the ancient Greek artist Alexandros to The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli during the Renaissance, the representations of Venus are the fruit of an idolization of the goddess. Currently, the worship of the goddess manifests itself through the deconstruction of the classics and the construction of a new image of the ordinary woman that prevails in mass media. The Venus that bears the label of “Gemäldegalerie Staatliche Museen zu Berlin” (Gemäldegalerie State Museum of Berlin) has vaporized, and a “new goddess” wearing designer labels is taking the stage. Charlotte assembles an image of women created by mass media through means that are magical as much as they are naturalistic. With slender figures and high heels, all of them are an embodiment of the liberated concept of love, beauty, and the avant-garde – even men can’t help but cover their eyes and exclaim – but the truth is they are nothing but an image for consumerism produced by the commercial society we live in. This image is not only useless in improving the social status of women, but actually degrades women as the prey of commodity. In this time of mass media, the myth concocted by consumerist culture is torn up in Call the Now.
Today, collage is no longer a medium of novelty for the artist: what makes a piece of collage artwork stand out is the simplicity of the method and the acuteness of the conception. In an audacious manner, Charlotte borrows from the chaotic form of daily life and the cheesy images of mass media, and edits them together without any beautifying or judgmental alteration. Immediately, meanings emerge like oracles, and hallucinatory reality is returned to veracity and purity.