Wu Junyong's animation DVD works are the most exciting creations to
come from the younger generation of contemporary Chinese artists. The
combination of image, sound and text combine to give a pulsating
vision of newly rich, urban Chinese society. Just as the great
contemporary painters of the previous generation of the Chinese avant
garde captured the zeitgeist of China in the 1990s, Wu Junyong captures
it of wealthy China in 2007.
Wait Us Rich, 2006, the artist's first work available for acquisition
by collectors, is a young man's take on nouveau riche society. The
artist conveys that world's excesses, energy, brashness and power. The
images that make up the DVD in themselves are sufficient to portray the
desires of new money but the combination with music, voice and text
quadruples the power of the message. Just as this newly wealthy society
with its great capacity for acquisition is aggressively continuing to
push forward, grow and succeed at the fastest possible rate, the
multimedia nature of Wu Junyong's work is equally intense, resonating
with rhythm, absolute conviction and energy.
Wu Junyong's newst works, the Opera series - Opera I, II and III -, form a satirical comment on politics. Originating from the wholly Chinese context in which Wu Junyong lives and works, never having left China before January 2007, the artist believes him comments are extendable to politicians and politics worldwide. Politicians, like actors or characters in a DVD, perform on a stage. Their platform for expression and self promotion also serves to expose all the ridicule and human frailties of their situation. The combination of image and sound give a vision of a surreal domain in which these characters operate.