Spent monday afternoon at the studio making maquettes of my grafiti sculptures, because the metalworker who was to make them was due at the studio later. He arived late, then Thomas later than him, so by the time we actually got to dicussing the feasibility in terms of cost and production, it was already way past hometime. Anyway, his quote was high so we decided to explore the possibility of making the piece in fibreglass, using another worker who had a factory in the north of the city. Unfortunately it was VERY north, and took an hour to get to his house in a taxi, and a further 20 mins to reach his workshop in god knows where wasteland beyond baoshan. He works in a big shed, uses clay to build the mould then applies the fibreglass around the hardened mould. The place was strewn with wire, welding tools, shovels, chisels, lumps of clay in varying sizes and dryness, cracked sculptures that had over dried and wet clay pieces under construction. A makeshift vat constructed of breezeblocks contained a hideous looking mixture of fibrous material and grey mulch, with an old broom handle caked in the half dried liquid as a giant spoon. There were empty plaster cast shells of the moulds from kids funfair toys, mac donalds fake trees with eyes and smiley mouths, random ugly tableux commissioned for unknown characterless retail outlets. It was a strange place to come to commission the realisation of my modern urban masterpiece.
One reason for soliciting the assistance of a local fibreglass tradesman, is that his own 'low art' of manufature and creativity for industry is a worthy artform nonetheless, and he and I should stand shoulder to shoulder in the creative process, with each due their acclaim on the name plaque in an exhibition. The other defining factor is that he is Chinese. A Chinese name on the name plaque, even only as workshop assistant, will increase the saleability of the item. I would have sold my 6 paintings (currently on display at Island6) long ago, had the name been asian, not european. Nobody comes to china to buy european art. And the Chinese middle class are not yt tuned in to Western art- they are tuned to Western Buick cars, Western apple iPhones, Western wine and Western luxury luggage- but they are yet to extend their embrace to more subtle manifestations of flaunting wealth such as high art. But it will come, my gallery assures me. Before I leave Shanghai, I wonder? That depends- on how quickly tastes develop, and how slowly I tire of metropolitania with rice.
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