2016年CRI A Camel Tattooed with Datura Stramonium on Display in Beijing

Yang Maoyuan is a Chinese multidisciplinary artist particularly noted 1 for his taxidermy techniques to misshape an animal, like camels and horses. 

He has recently had a piece of his artwork on exhibition at the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum. The artist explains why he created his artwork on a camel.

"I have a strong interest in camels, since the animal is a bridge to cultural divisions. As we mentioned camels are cargo 2 carriers within China's remote western region for both transporting commodities and facilitating cultural exchange. On the back of a camel, visitors can find a big ball inscribed 3 with a stramonium design." 

Yang Maoyuan is very interested in the concept of the "sphere," considered as a symbol of harmony and perfect representation of reality in the Western culture.

In his artwork on a camel, the animal loses its original form by just retaining four legs and become a strange figure bearing a spherical 4 balloon on its back. 

According to the artist, the repetitive use of the sphere, associated with the action of blowing, is interpreted as a metaphor 5 of life: the ultimate substantial form of our universe and the original source of all beings.

But one new feature about the misshaped camel is that the animal has a tattoo 6 of Datura stramonium, as Yang Maoyuan explains:

"Plants convey to people the law of growth in life, including the blossoming of flowers and burgeoning 7 of tree leaves. This is the law for being a living being. This is what I think about stramonium, aside from its meaning in religion."

As we all know Datura stramonium is often found in the remote waste ground, and also camel is a tall desert-dwelling creature. The artist said these two things appeared frequently during his previous travelling experiences at Takla Makan desert, Lop Nur and Loulan ruins. And loaded with archaeological connotations, this trip is behind his artistic 8 creations.

"The route from Jiuquan to Dunhuang before entering the desert area and then reaching further to the Middle-East, like Iraq, used to be a key travel route, which gradually faded out and is now little known to the outside world. The evolution of blending different nationalities has generated unique cultures, which were once buried and have now been rediscovered. The process of discovery aroused my interest." 

Along with three other artists, Fang 9 Lijin, Wang Yin and Xiao Yu, Yang Maoyuan's several other artworks are also on display at an exhibition titled Clues 3 in the Beijing Minsheng Art Museum. 

The Clues series exhibition was initiated 10 in 2005, and held every five years. 

The current exhibition aims to present the creative working of these four artists over the past five years, thereby 11 trying a new investigating pattern of Chinese contemporary art ecology. It will run until June 12th. 

For Studio Plus, I'm Wang Lei.