WANG MAI THE FACTORY DENIZEN
Han Yuhai

1) Is Wang Mai an artist or an artificer? He is an artificer who makes matter metamorph into adroitness. He is an artist because the adroitness that he creates is not a machine, it is a beautiful mechanism. And a beautiful machine is called an “installation.” Wang Mai’s installation art is the use of mechanized media to make art. This is also why Wang Mai dwells in a factory. Furthermore, he wants to make the factory into a cradle for artists.

2) Is he a philosopher or is he a dreamer who lets his imagination run wild? One of the greatest discoveries made by philosophers in recent years is that man is a machine, that man is a horologe, the mere widgets and wing-nuts that make up a machine. Society is also a machine, but it operates on different types of relationships, and man is the total sum of these social relationships. There are many who are well read but do not understand this logic. On the other hand, Wang Mai is not well read, but he understands this logic. This is why I say Wang Mai is a genius, which is also to say that he is someone who lets his imagination run wild.

3) Wang Mai is a romanticist that expresses his emotions. The men and women in his works are all machines - androids. Androids do not love; they do not even have sex. The sexual relationship between androids is not the fervorant fiery passion of primitives and savages. The sexual relationship between androids can be a perfectly planned out gymnastics exercise and performance that rivals those seen at Olympic competitions. The work of Wang Mai allows us to see the comedy in ourselves, but this situation is also something he can do absolutely nothing about.

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