Ten+Years+of+Moving+Rainbow+-+Xiong+Wenyun

=Moving Rainbow by Xiong Wenyun=



Artwork Identification

 * Title: Moving Rainbow
 * Artist: Xiong Wenyun 熊文韵 (b. 1953)
 * Date: 1998 - 2001
 * Period: Contemporary
 * Country of Origin: China
 * Cultural/Ethnic Affiliation: China/Tibet
 * Medium: Photography, Video, Mixed Media
 * Dimension: Various
 * Museum/Collection: Unknown
 * Current Location: Unknown

Introduction
This multimedia project by Xiong Wenyun was composed along the Sichuan/Tibetan and Qinghai/Tibetan highways, logging highways that runs through remote mountain villages. She drew her inspiration from the colorful clothing of the local ethnic groups and from the Buddhist prayer flags. She uses color as a way to talk about conflict between modern civilization and traditional cultures, man and nature and harmonious living (ArtSpeakChina.org).

Descriptive Analysis
This series is made up of several location-specific installations over a three year period. The installations were documented with photography and video. Xiong Wenyun uses bright, vibrant colors to cover the canopies of trucks, the ends of logs on trucks, the doorways to various buildings along the highways, rocks, small figures (described as pagodas), and colored flags underwater. Her color scheme is sourced from the local clothing as well as Buddhist prayer flags. The colors are high-chroma and pure in red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet. The flags, doorways, and canopies or tarpaulins are "colored" with solid dyed fabric while the rocks, pagodas and log ends are all painted. Color is a central, almost exclusive, formal focus of this work. The other component of this work is movement through the landscape. This is accomplished through the physical movement of the motorcades as they travel the highways that connect Shanghai and Beijing to Tibet, by coloring rocks and doorways along the highways and through the movement of flags. In doing so, she has incorporated the surrounding environment as well. Another component, not an element of design, is community. These installations are very public and close work with the local populations to seem them realized. Her along with her partners, used the installations to communicate environmental protection. They held exhibitions, collected signatures, distributed information, and invited people to make photographs (GG-Art.com).

The trucks used are all working/industrial trucks, such as logging vehicles. Xiong Wenyun, in cooperation with the drivers, colors the canopies of trucks or the ends of logs they carry. Some trucks are individual and the colored tarpaulins also contain a small square of text. There are different structures featured with the colored fabric hanging in the entryways, some are in better repair than others, some seem to be actual homes while others may be truck stops, all of them are structures that belong to the local peoples. The pagoda, flag and rock images are not as heavily published as the motorcades and doorways. The pagodas appear to be made and colored by the artist using chalk. They were placed in color order in various scenes. The rocks that are colored, possibly also with chalk, appear to be fairly large and located in fields along the highways. The flag images use pennet flags, also in color order, that are submerged in creeks and flow downward with the water.


 * [[image:motocade1.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:motocade2.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:motocade3.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:motocade4.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] ||
 * [[image:structure1.jpg width="220" caption="http://floresenelatico.es/"]] || [[image:structure2.jpg width="220" caption="http://floresenelatico.es/"]] || [[image:structure3.jpg width="220" caption="http://floresenelatico.es/"]] || [[image:structure4.jpg width="220" caption="http://floresenelatico.es/"]] ||
 * [[image:wood1.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:wood2.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:rock1.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:rock2.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] ||
 * [[image:flag1.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:flag2.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:pagoda1.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] || [[image:pagoda2.jpg width="220" caption="http://www.threeshadows.cn/"]] ||

Formal and Contextual Analysis
In Xiong's early years, she was sent for [|re-education] to the Tibetan region. She spent time with the people and culture this region. Here she was influenced by the culture of Tibet which carries into her artwork (99ys.com). After studying and teaching in Japan for several years, she decided to come back to Tibet to create work that engaged a larger audience. [|Tibet] is a hot button issue in China and is a topic generally avoid in the art world. What Xiong tries to approach is the relationship the local peoples have with their natural surrounds and the environmental damage wrought in the name of progress. The project worked by avoiding political overtone and instead focusing on the natural landscape and local culture.

The two main elements at work in these pieces are color and movement. Both work in tandem to evoke an emotional response that can be shared by a much larger audience than one would find in a gallery. Her use of color is pure, simple and spiritual. It reflects the surrounding culture from which she draws her inspiration. It is meant to be a physical representation of the culture and the people and how they fit within the landscape and the dialog they create; to illustrate the meeting point between man and nature, to discuss the clash between modern civilization an traditional culture, and to explore harmonious living (GG-Art.com). The solid use of color is a powerful representation of that dialog, it creates and fills that space and draws the surroundings into the piece. Tibetans “say that this color sequence comes from rainbows, and that rainbows are god’s ladders” (Goodman). Xiong's use of color speaks to the interaction between the people and landscape as something sacred. The large blocks are also easily spotted and viewed, giving the work a practicality that allows people traveling by vehicle a chance to view the work and also, in the case of the trucks, allows pedestrians and other vehicles to see the work before the trucks quickly pass. The movement of the color is the other half of the equation. Moving the color over the landscape also shows the relationship of the people to the land through the physical presence of it draping and flowing over the highways and land. The movement of the works allow for an even large audience to partake and interact. Many people who might not otherwise have a chance to view contemporary works of art are a little bit closer.

This larger audience also has a chance to explore the environmental issues Xiong explores as well. One local said to her upon seeing the red-painted logs, "the woods are bleeding". The canopies that were given to the drivers we made to promise to refrain from littering, curb emissions and encourage passengers to not litter as well (Ma, 2001). Thus the audience becomes part of the work itself. The use of the colors that are inspired from the local culture also have an environmental bent, she shows that the older culture managed to live and prosper in the fragile environment without destroying it and by embracing this, further damage can be avoided.