SEX

The trip to “MoCA Shanghai Envisage Ⅲ Reflection of Minds” last week was very inspiring. I was especially impressed by the sculpture work of Tang Yin “Origin: No.11 bronze”. It is one of the series which “are a positive confirmation about the power of life, a new understanding and essential explanation about the origin of human being”( quoted from the work information). Obviously Tang Yin thinks that the origin of life is sex, so the series of sculpture feature two people having sex, more people having sex, people and snake having sex, etc. I found it interesting that the Chinese artist used snake in this work. As far as I know, the story of snake and original sin is told in the Bible, not in Chinese religion. Why does a Chinese artist have to express a sexual idea using implication from other culture? Chinese do have a very open attitude towards sex in the history. There is a “Chinese Museum of Sex Culture” in Wuzhen, Zhejiang province. It is the only one of its kind in China. There are a lot of topics for artists who interested in sexuality to explore, and sexuality is not a very common subject in contemporary art in China. The past fifty years are probably the most conservative period in China in terms of sexuality. People today will still feel embarrassed to talk about sexuality in public. But artist should be the pioneer of changes of social concepts. That is why I am looking forward to see more interesting works portraying the topic of sexuality in China.