EXHIBITED:
Alive & Kicking, Museum of Contemporary Art Chengdu, Sichuan, October 24 - 41216

This sculpture is to be sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist.

◎YOUTH IS FOR REMINISCENCE

By Zhang Guoquan

“What is the meaning of being a collector?” The abruptness of the question from my friend – a longtime collector himself – caught me off guard. After just two glasses of wine that evening, he was already slightly inebriated.

After stalling for moment, I retorted, “Well, how would you define love?”

Silence. He slowly nodded and, with a slight grin, said, “Let’s make a toast – to youth!”

The history of art is the accumulation of artists’ biographies written over the years by critics, curators, and editors. In the long run, those who throw their hat into ring of the art market rarely if ever play even a minor role in this grand history. If you are just a passer-by, will you find yourself ineffably sentimental after a glamorous party?

Then, we returned to the initial question about what it means to be a collector.

Some collect for a sense of achievement, proving they are far-sighted. Some collect for a sense of satisfaction, feeling proud about owning masterpieces. Some collect to support and encourage younger artists. Some collect to possess and pass on remarkable works for later generations. Some collect to be part of history. Some collect to have lofty topics to discuss in the presence of high society. Still others collect to make money. And some people collect because they simply must possess things that other people have. To be sure, some people also become collectors simply because they want to appreciate good art.

“I’m the type that simply likes to appreciate good art,” he responded hastily. Although I knew he also had all the other eight reasons, I still believed him because of the works of “comics and cartoon art,” things I still didn't know how to define them in the history of art, sitting at his and her house.

Apparently, it is too early to tell how comics and cartoons, anime and even otaku culture will be positioned and valued in the history of contemporary art. However, elementary and shallow criticisms have never stopped attacking them. In the eyes of critics who value classic and mainstream art, those works are just immature things. As a representation of contemporary culture, however, do visual arts only have to be broad-sighted, visionary, and even politically correct? Do people’s everyday lives and dreams have to be set aside as being marginal and irrelevant? Such questions, unfortunately, are often overlooked in the world of art, a realm ostensibly filled with infinite possibilities. We often seem to ignore “the comfort art brings” from the perspective of collectors’ psychological context.

Deer Men, One Piece, Angry Little Girls, Little Wanderer, Gatchaman, Mazinger Z, and many other characters from cartoons, comic books and even mythologies have more or less related to and connected with our growing experience. When the eyes between the work and the collector meet, those fragmented memories in the past seem to have been awoken instantly, exuding a kind of slight melancholic feelings and lukewarm touch, which is why viewers are easier to resonate with comic and cartoon art.

As Japanese writer Banana Yoshimoto puts it — with a far more vivid and poetic explanation — “Yoshitomo’s works arose a distant but familiar scent on a cold night of an exotic land in me. The scent of rain travelled across the window of childhood with a puff of refreshing fragrance assailing the nostrils. I recalled myself holding the breath when carefully watching a bug crawling on a leave. A room of four snowy pale walls unfortunately carried the sadness of wooden floor. Pieces in the past have gradually filled the whole realm of my consciousness since the very day I invited him to draw for my novel.”

If art is an act of spiritual healing, then collecting art is doubly so!

Collector Kurokawa, a salaryman who grew up in a single parent household, once recalled, “I always wanted to find someone to be there with me, but I refused to let others know. I even pretended to be self-willed in order to conceal my loneliness. In fact, I am lonelier than anyone can imagine. I am terribly sympathetic to the kids drawn by Yoshitomo Nara. I perceived the loneliness hidden behind those bad kids because I saw myself in them. It was such big reverberation in my heart that triggered long-buried memories of my childhood, making me uncontrollably want to collect his works and bring them home. Being with those characters in his paintings every day has gradually healed my wounded heart.” (Kurokawa might be the collector, who owns the works by Yoshitomo Nara at most)

“This has nothing to do with art or depth. A thing you are attracted to means you have feelings for it. Isn’t that the same as love?”

“That’s why I compare collecting to love. However, perhaps your comparison is more appropriate. You are collecting the youth that already faded away!”

“Everyone has their own romantic history, and everyone has their own youth. They are all irreplaceable.”

“The value of contemporary culture lies in its irreplaceable nature. It belongs to this generation, the generation that is alive.”

Xin Yiwu, author of To Our Youth That is Fading Away, said, “Youth is for reminiscence.” Through the eyes of cartoon and comic artists, we return to our youth. The true value of youth, however, is beyond estimate...