在我看来，曾浩如同一只候鸟，反反复复的迁徙于中国的北方南方之间。南中国曾是他的工作糊口之地——他在广东一度有一份正式工作；而北中国，却是他的精神栖息所——他把自己的画室安放在了北京。他随着迁徙而不断转换角色：在北京他被看成南方人，回到广东又变成了北方人。这种不期而来的变化，似乎可以是一种文化隐喻，并恰巧成为解读曾浩作品的一把隐秘钥匙。

经历长期的学院派训练之后，曾浩并没有陷入技巧的沼泽，或迷失于纯艺术的迷宫。在图像泛滥的年代，单纯意义上的唯美画面除了让人惊艳一瞥，恐怕很难有更多的作为——显然，这不是一个严肃的艺术家所愿接受的。然而，艺术家自有策略。正像风车不停旋转，艺术也总是依靠在时代疾风中转换态度而获得强大的电力——这实在是一件非常有意思的事情。

大概在照相术出现之前，绘画往往承载着记录甚至道德说教的沉重职责，这一点，中外概莫能外。三国时期的大才子曹植在《画赞序》这样叙述绘画的功用：“观画者，见三皇五帝，莫不仰戴；见三季异主，莫不悲惋……见淫夫妒妇，莫不侧目；见令妃顺后，莫不喜贵。是知存乎鉴戒者图画也。”不妨再看一个法国的例子：1723年，启蒙主义运动兴起。伏尔泰、卢梭、狄德罗等人进行旨在反对贵族文化的大规模的文化教育运动。这些学者在自己的著作里嘲弄和攻击没落的贵族，剧作家博马舍高喊：“贵族不再具有存在的权利了！”狄德罗骂专事美化贵族生活的画家布歇是“堕落的艺术家”。于是，拥护这一运动的文学艺术家不断出现（绘画上，最典型的代表是夏尔丹和格瑞兹）。在这里，画家与作品的评判标准一目了然——可以这样说，绘画变成了历史的镜鉴以及道德的凌烟阁。

19世纪30年代照相术的发明成为一道分水岭，它将原本属于绘画的描摹物象的任务给剥夺了，艺术界开始探索绘画除了描摹客观的物象以外，还能做些什么？后印象派、超现实主义、抽象表现主义等等流派都在呼应这个问题，上世纪40年代以来抽象艺术成为潮流，它主张绘画通过色彩、线条、画面结构和表层肌理的处理表达本体所具有的一切美学因素，表达艺术家个体对生活的独特感受和态度，改用一句庄子的话：吾生也有涯，而形式也无涯——然而这同样存在危险。20世纪60年代走向大众，面向消费的波普艺术无疑展示了图像前所未有的力量。艺术家在形式大地上的极度驰骋，似乎日渐逼近边界：我们已然到达了一个图像与形式无度夸张的时代——其泛滥程度，恐怕是连高瞻远瞩如写下《机械复制时代的艺术品》的本雅明，也会大为吃惊——随之而来的无奈后果是观者的疲惫，以及图像意义的递减。无论于艺术家或受众，这实在不是一件好事。

如前所述，图像的功能日趋衰弱，这正是需要意义的强心针救助之时。图像的观念传达，重新成为几乎大部分进入当代的艺术家所无可回避的课题。

《爱我吗？》系列作品的图式一目了然，观者将会陡然发现一个门神与靓女的情色世界——门神在后，美女当前；门神似乎成为点缀的背景，但是观者会看到，门神伸向美女身体的手充满着情欲的威胁。这种后现代的无厘头表达，以及画面简洁强烈的构成感，使得《爱我吗？》系列在画面形式语言上具有了鲜明的当代性——然而，这尚不是曾浩最为着力的地方。在表面的情色与波普之后，隐藏着他对“他者”与自身文化的频频追问乃至调侃，以及，客位与主位的有趣转移。这一切，使得曾浩的这种注视成为他者看他者的目光。

“他者的目光”原本是一个在当代人类学中频频现身的词，它指的是一种人类目光的主动位移。从摩尔根的《古代社会》到马林诺夫斯基的田野调查，西方人类学家寻找到相对于西方文明来说的“异文化”，并顺利地让这些原始的“异文化”成为“进步的西方”的注脚。随着对非西方社会研究的深入，人类学家开始怀疑自己是不是把自身的文化立场带到研究之中去，以致影响了对对象描述的公正性——人类学强烈的反省色彩由此滥觞。新的人类学不仅仅要面对与研究“他者”，而且还要体察“他者”的目光。文化冲突与多元，已然成为无法回避的强大事实。因此，目前我们所看到的人类学，是一门非常奇特的学科。它提供给我们的知识有一半是关于这个世界的，有一半是关于它自身的。

在系列里，门神至少具有双重身份。一方面，它与传统文化密切相连——门神是中国民俗中最多信仰的神祗之一，其历史之久、流传之广、种类之多在民间诸神中最为突出，国人信仰门神之俗早在春秋战国时期就已出现，后来门神还有了具体的人名，如汉代的神荼、郁垒，唐代的秦叔宝、尉迟敬德，旧俗中，除夕家家户户要换门神，人们喜欢这种五颜六色的吉祥门画，贴门神对于营造欢度佳节的喜庆气氛不可或缺；门神另一方面的身份，则是由曾浩作品不和谐的并置强行产生：妩媚性感的女性，以及置于其身体之上的侵犯性的手，使得门神的男性意味被有意的凸出。如此，画家的文化指向经由门神与美女的文化象征以及二者性别意识的强化而得以显现。同时，作品的意义直指作为第三世界文化身份在西方强权文化下的当代自觉与反抗——东方文化身份的确认。

中国的与西方的种种文化纠葛与冲突，一直是双方学者关注的重要对象。同样，一个当代的艺术家，也必须在适当的时候，以适当的方式发言。曾浩的前期作品，一以贯之的注意于此，并且不断地寻求着最为匹配的图式语言——毕竟，架上绘画不是哲学，亦非学术，图式的修炼对于画家至为紧要。曾浩更早一些时期的类似作品之中，形象繁复，色调沉郁，像是一声复杂而沉重的叹息。到了近期的《爱我吗？》系列，曾浩似乎开始变得更为豁达，四川人的幽默天性不由自主地流溢出来——文化之重与生命之重在戏谑玩世的关照之下，竟有了前卫与飞翔的气息。此时，画面构成已经简化，背景空无，惟余相缠绕的男女主角。《爱我吗？》4号作品，门神仅以灰色画成，大理石雕一般，配合美女身上夺目的红色，二者的关系展现出一种暴力的诱惑之感；从5号作品开始，曾浩开始引入年画的强烈色彩对比，使得二者的冲突与纠缠进入魔幻的虚无空间，正如作品名的双重读法（《爱我吗？》或者《 Love me not ?》）,作品展现出男女主角互为他者的复杂情境。门神与美女、亲密与疏远（他们的眼睛几乎就未曾对视过）、暴力与柔情、轻与重、眩晕与清醒……种种元素密集的压缩在简化的形式集装箱中，使作品有了一种难以说清的暧昧品质。而作者，似乎隐身于这暧昧的意义迷雾之后，调侃的问着我们：“爱我吗？Love me not ?”

中与西，抗拒与接纳，这是一个宏大的思索对象，但曾浩的思路并未止步于此——其后的作品《欲望》系列之中，一种迷惑妩媚的现世之感开始铺现，而作者作为他者的身份更加隐秘。观者可以注意到，《爱我吗？》系列中重要的门神意象似乎已经变成美女的同谋，并且逐步淡出，多幅作品里只剩下直冲画面咄咄逼人的美女形象，她们如此诱惑却又无比空无，如此逼近同时无比遥远。

近代，庞大中国的步伐一度过于沉重缓慢，古老帝国的尊严一次次的被西方的新锐力量羞辱；经历一次次的痛定思痛奋起直追之后，中国近十几年的社会转型风雷激荡——全面的经济崛起令世人刮目相看，另一方面，文化品质的巨变令人始料未及。几乎是迅雷不及掩耳，中国已经猛然跳入一个前所未有的消费时代。

可以说，中国旧有价值观念已经被空前大规模的受到颠覆——面对对外开放所带来的文化变迁和社会转型，传统的文化规范不断面临冲击而不断裂变，本土文化正在经历着一个去地方化、去传统化过程。有学者指出，在中国价值观转型中，其核心变现在于所谓“城市世纪”的到来。城市不仅是一个实际指称，同时也变成一种价值标杆。据统计，1990－2001年这11年间，中国大陆地级城市数量由188个增加到269个，人口超百万的特大城市由31个增加到41个，城市覆盖的面积占全国国土面积的比重由1990年的20％增加到42.6％。到2007年，城镇人口更是达到 59379万人，占总人口比重44.9％，比1990年提高了17.5个百分点。与上述数字指标相对应的是城市意识与城市价值观的全线高扬——消费意识的崛起与推广，成为城市化价值观的重要支柱。美国学者麦吉本在他的名著《消费的欲望》一书中，一针见血的指出消费社会的口号就是“你是世界上最重要的……所有的一切都以你的欲望为中心”。这个全民物质的时代中，高度发达的商业网络，加上无所不在的媒体兴风作浪，催促着人们迅速甩掉精神追求的羁绊，奔向没有灵魂的欲望之乡。一场消费的革命，已经在中国城市发生。它波澜壮阔，影响深远，把成千上万的民众卷入其中，深刻地改变了我们的生存模式、生活质量和社会境遇。

非常敏锐的，如同一名古老的炼金术士，曾浩从浩大的消费之流中，拈出欲望的主线，以此提炼出强有力的视觉形象狠狠的投掷到画布之上——这巨大而膨胀的塑料感美女充塞画面，如此触目惊心，令人一见难忘。与《爱我吗？》系列一样，美女作为画面意象，包含着极为多重的指代面向，可以说，这是一个极为机智的意象选择。

美女既是实指，更是象征。作为造化所钟，美女给人美感，引人注目，在消费社会中的最大功用是可以催生巨大的“注意力经济”——“美女经济”由是产生。在消费的逻辑圈里，美女经济被如此定义：“围绕美女资源进行财富创造与分配的经济活动。其宗旨是开发美丽资源，服务市场经济。其本质是以美丽为介质，传播、提升、放大经济价值”。 美女一方面成为消费社会的催情剂，另一方面甚至直接成为消费对象。这个消费文化迅猛发展的时代里，美女形象变成了某种符号乃至图腾，或被感官效应简化成一个普遍的欲望标本——美女们都必须向消费社会奉献自己的身体，在人们审视的目光中与灵魂、物质财富都割裂了联系，她被塑造成一个类似X-MAN一般的神奇人种，独立于社会而存在。作为美女的每个细节准则，都来源于对美女犹如对陈列柜中的商品一样的观看。英国学者卢瑞（Celia Lury）认为：“消费主义是指这样一种生活方式：消费的目的不是为了实际需求的满足，而是不断追求被制造出来、被刺激起来的欲望的满足。换句话说，人们所消费的，不是商品和服务的使用价值，而是它们的符号象征意义。”在消费主义（consumerism）的旗帜下，不仅追求物质性欲望享受被披上了合法的外衣，而且追逐身体欲望的快感也成为了一种时尚。

《欲望》系列用力所在，正是呈现出了当下这个消费主义文化盛行时代的重要符码———欲望化的魅惑景观。时尚的粉红或者粉蓝色调之中，美女如同充气娃娃，已经膨胀到不能自持的边际，我们几乎可以预感到她们即将炸破的危险未来。这一极度膨胀的体型，似乎源自史前时代欧洲大陆史前时代普遍出现的原始维纳斯形象，又像是过分夸张的花花公子女郎（有意思的是，无论是前者或者后者，都与不同时代的欲望指向密切关联）。曾浩以一种极为明显的去笔触方法进行描绘，这种方式最终在画面上形成具有明显指向性的符号意向——除了美女身份的多重面向，观者同样很容易注意到，构成美女身体的强烈塑料感：塑料光滑、胀大、诱人然而用过即弃，这正是消费社会另一欲望象征。与高消费的生活方式相对应，传统经济生产方式也在消费主义影响下变成了一种对自然资源造成高消耗、高破坏的生产方式。商品经济从生产传统耐用商品的经济，已经在相当程度上转变为一种生产“用过即扔”产品的经济，许多传统的耐用商品已被短期寿命的商品甚至一次性商品所取代。这些用过即扔的商品或商品包装造成对资源的极大浪费，形成了大量污染环境的垃圾。廉价却又几乎万能的塑料，成为“瞬间消费”的最佳媒介。

伪高潮状态中的美女，光滑而危险的塑料感，充满揶揄意味的漂浮泡泡，这一切构成时尚醒目的图像，而暗藏在其中的冷静旁观者比《爱我吗？》系列更为隐晦不明。注视着欲望波涛汹涌的当代，作为观察的他者，如同那个渐渐淡出的门神，曾浩退居到画布深处，默然无语。

2008年5月

—Chen Gang

In my eyes Zeng Hao is a seasonal bird that migrates back and forth between the northern and southern China. Southern China is where he wins his bread—by having an official job in Guangdong; while Northern China is where his spirit nests—and thus he locates his studio in Beijing. His identity rotates constantly as he migrates: In Beijing he is seen as a Southerner, and when he returns to Guangdong he is seen as a Northerner. This circumstantial transformation can be seen as a cultural metaphor, which becomes a secretive key to reading Zeng Hao’s works.

After long terms of academic training, Zeng Hao did not get trapped in the marshes of craftsmanship, nor did he lose himself in the maze of fine art. In an era of redundant imagery, a picture with no other purpose than its aesthetic appeals hardly has any value than winning mere seconds of stunned glimpses from its viewers. Undoubtedly, this is not a fact easily accepted by a serious artist. However, artists have their own strategies. Art, like rotating windmills, relies on transforming attitudes in high winds in order to gather its enormous power—this is truly a peculiar matter.

Before the emergence of photographic technology, painting carried the responsibility of recording history and conducting moral teachings. There were no exceptions globally. Cao Zhi, the accomplished poet, also the prince of the state of Cao Wei in the Three Kingdom Period, described the function of painting in Preface of Painting Appreciation : “When admiring a painting, viewers will awe and bow before emperors  of their majesty; they will sigh with regrets before fatuous rulers who have lead a kingdom to its grave; they will look away in contempt before lewd men and women; they will praise before ladies and empresses for their highness and honor. Paintings act as guidelines and teachings of humanity and morality.”  Take France as another example: In 1723 the Enlightenment Movement emerged. Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and others supported large scale cultural and educational movements that aimed against the aristocratic culture and lifestyle. These scholars ridiculed and attacked the declination of aristocracy through their work. Playwright Beaumarchais shouted "The aristocrats no longer have the right to exist!" while Diderot scolded painter Boucher who specialized in beautifying the aristocrati life to be a "degenerate artist". As a result, many more artists and writers emerged to support the movement. (In painting, Chardin and Greuze were the most typical representatives). Here, the standards for artists and their work are clear at a glance – painting became the mirror of history, and the honour roll of morality.

In 1930s the invention of photography created a divergence. It replaced painting’s role of representing reality. The art world began to explore new possibilities for painting other than realistically tracing its subject. Post Impressionism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and other movements all have responded to this issue. From the 1940s, Abstraction became the trend. It advocated painting to express its own aesthetic factors as well as artists’ individual life experience and attitude through different approaches in colour, line, composition structure and texture. To summerize by reappropriating a saying of Zhuang Zi:  Life is limitless, thus form is limitless— But this too has its risks. In the 1960s, Pop Art undoubtedly demonstrated unprecedented power by bringing art to consumerism and the masses. Artists galloped on form as their earth, with each gallop coming closer to the end of its territory: We have arrived to an era where image and form are infinitely exaggerated—Perhaps even Walter Benjamin, who has shown great foresight in his writing The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, would be surprised by the degree of its redundancy—consequences being the viewers’ exhaustion, and the the diminishing meaning of images. This is not a positive outcome for either artists or audiences.

As mentioned above, the functionality of image continueed to languish, and now would be a critical time for meaning to act as a booster shot in order for the tide to turn. The convey of concepts through painting regained its status as a challenge unavoidable to most contemporary artists.

The composition of the series Love Me Not? are fairly straight forward: Audiences enter an erotic world of Door Gods and Beauties—with the Door God in the back, and a beautiful women in the foreground. The Door God seems more likely to be a decorative element for the background, but the audience will come to alert of the Door God’s lustful, threatening hand reaching toward the Beauty’s body. This post-modernist nonsensical expression and the intensive construction of concise yet bold image planes makes the Love Me Not? series develop distinctive contemporary features in both form and language. Yet this is not the most important aspect of Zeng Hao’s considerations. Beyond the surface of its erotic pop-art appearance hides his frequent questioning and ridicules towards his own culture and “otherness”, as well as the fascinating shifting from the etic to emic. Everything comes together and form Zeng Hao’s gaze into stares between an “other” to another.

“The Other’s Gaze” was originally a term frequently used in contemporary anthropology that referred to the active shifting of people’s view. From Morgan’s Ancient Society to Malinowski’s field studies, Western anthropologists discovered relative “foreign cultures” to Western civilization, and has successfully led these “foreign cultures” become the footnotes of a “developing west”. As the studies on non-western societies went deeper, anthropologists began to suspect whether they have affected the fairness to the description of objects by bringing their own cultural standpoint into the research—thus beginning on a series of self reflection in anthropology. The new anthropology not only needs to face and research “the others”, it also needs to observe the views of “the other”. Multiculturalism and cultural conflicts are now unescapable facts. From what we have seen, modern anthropology is a peculiar discipline. Half of the knowledge it gifts us are of this world, and the other half on the discipline itself.

In the series, the Door God has at least two identities. One is closely connected with traditional culture—Door God is the most widely worshipped deity in Chinese folk beliefs. Its history, variety, and influences are outstanding comparing to all other Chinese folk deities. The customs for Chinese people of worshipping Door Gods have appeared as early as the Warring State Period. Later, the Door God acquired specific names, for instance Shen Tan, Yu Lei of the Han Dynasty,  Qin Shubao, Chiwei Jingde of the Tang Dynasty. In older customs, each household follows the tradition of renewing their Door God on New Year’s Eve. People enjoyed these auspicious and colorful images, and by hanging pictures of Door Gods, a festive atmosphere was created in celebration of the holiday season. The Door God’s other identity, is created through the jarring juxtaposition forced upon by Zeng Hao: The sexual and feminine Women, the threatening, invasive hand placed on her body, deliberately magnifies the male identity of the Door God. Thus, the artist’s cultural references are carried out by the cultural metaphors, gender awareness, intensified gender differences of the Door God and the Beauty. At the same time, the meaning of the work lies in pinpointing the contemporary self reflection and resistance of a third world cultural identity under the culture of the western superpowers—this is a confirmation to an Oriental identity.

China’s various cultural entanglements and conflicts with the West have been important matters concerned by scholars from both sides. A contemporary artist should also address the matter in the appropriate manner, at the appropriate time. Zeng Hao’s earlier works consistently reflected on this matter, and continues to seek the most suitable formal language—after all, painting is not philosophy, nor is it academic. The practice on form and image is critical for a painter. Zeng Hao’s similar works from an even earlier period are mostly of complicated figures, gloomy color tones, as if a difficult and lifeless sigh. But in the recent Love Me Not? series, Zeng Hao became more open-minded, his humorous Sichuanese nature spills out involuntarily. Through cynical and ridiculed remarks, the ponderous topics of culture and life have surprisingly gained some lightness and modernity. Now, the formal compositions have been simplified to a hollow background and tangled subjects of our male and female figures. In the No.4 painting of Love Me Not? series, the Door God is painted in gray scale, giving an impression of a marble sculpture. Working together with the stunning red color of the Beauty, the relationship between the two presents a violent temptation. Starting with No. 5, Zeng Hao incorporated strong contrast in color taken from traditional Chinese New Year paintings, which heightens the conflict and entanglement of the two figures, taking them into a magical space of nothingness. Just like the double meaning in the title Love Me Not?, the works suggest a complex situation where the male and female figures are both in the role of the “other” simultaneously. The Door God and the Beauty, intimacy and distance (their eyes have never met), violence and tenderness, lightness and heaviness, vertigo and sobriety…gathered elements are compressed in a container of simplified form, giving the works an ambiguous quality. Yet the artist, hiding himself within the mystic fog, and teases us: “Love me? Love me not?”

China and the West’s opposition and acceptance is a great matter of consideration, but Zeng Hao’s train of thought did not end here—in his later work Desire series presents an illusive and alluring mundane, yet the identity of the artist as an “other” becomes more concealed. The audience is able to notice in the Love Me Not? series how the image of the Door God and its intention have already shifted in becoming the accomplice of the Beauty, slowly fading out of the picture, leaving a large number of works with only the confronting image of the Beauty. They appear to be temptuous yet hollow, they seem so close to us yet they are so distant.

In modern times, the footsteps of the humongous China have been heavy, the dignity of an ancient empire has been humiliated over and over by emerging new powers of the West. After going through lessons from past painful experiences to recollecting itself, China’s past  decades have undergone surging transformation—the drastic economic rise have impressed the rest of the world. On the other hand, the upheaval cultural quality is also greatly unexpected. In lightning speed, China suddenly plunged into an unprecedented era of consumption.

China’s old values have been subjected to an unprecedented large-scale subversion—facing cultural change and social transformation brought by opening itself to the outside world, traditional cultural norms continue to face the impact of constant fissioning. Local culture is undergoing a process of deterritorialization, and where traditions are also going through a process of fading. Some scholars have pointed out that in the middle of China’s transition of its value systems, its main alternations are based on the arrival of the “city century”. City is not only a practical term, but the word has become a benchmark for value. According to statistics, in the 11 year period between1990-2001, the number of prefecture level cities in mainland China increased from 188 to 269, while mega cities with population over one million increased from 31 to 41. The percentage of city land area of the country rose from 20% in 1991 to today’s 42.6%. As of 2007, the urban population have reached 59,379 people, 44.9%  share of the total population, increasing 17.5% from the year 1990. These figures corresponded with increased appraisal of urban awareness and urban values—the rise of consumer awareness and promotions became the steady support for urbanization values. American scholar McKibben wrote in his famous book Consumer Desires sharply pointed out the slogan of consumer society: “You are the most important thing in this world...... everything revolves around a center that is your desire.” In this mass materialized era, highly developed commercial networks combined with ubiquitous media that constantly stirs up trouble, influenced people to quickly get rid of the fetters of spiritual pursuit, and run toward soulless desires and temptations. A consumerism revolution has begun in the cities of China. It is magnificent, by reaching its hand to millions of people, and has changed our survival mode, living quality and social circumstance.

Zeng Hao’s keen observation makes him similar to an ancient alchemist who sorts out the mainline as temptation, from there he extracts dynamic visual imagery that he fiercely places upon his canvases—the enormous, swelling plastic Beauty fills the canvas, affecting viewers with shock and a hard to forget memory. Similar to the Love Me Not? series, the Beauty as the the subject contains various references. It is a witty choice to choose this as the subject matter.

The Beauty is not only a representational figure of reality, but it is also a metaphor. Beauty provides aesthetic, attracts peoples’ attention, and in a consumerist society their best function is to prompt immense “Attention Economy”—thus leading to a “Beauty Economy”. In consumer logic, Beauty Economy is defined as such: “Economic activities that centers beauty resources to develop wealth and distribution. Its purpose is to develop beauty resources, servicing market economy, and its essence being using beauty as a media to disseminate, enhance, and enlarge its economic value.” Beauty on the one hand is the aphrodisiac of consumer society, on the other hand it is the object of consumption. In an era of rapid development of consumer culture, the Beauty has been degraded into a symbol, a totem, or even a specimen by the sensory effects of today’s society—Beautiful women must sacrifice their body to consumer society, and break ties to her own soul, materiality, wealth, under the judgmental glares of the public. She has been modeled into a majestic being like X-MAN who exists outside of the society. Every criteria for evaluating a beautiful women can go back to the way people stare at consumer products displayed on market shelves. British scholar Celia Lury believes that “Consumerism refers to a certain lifestyle: the purpose of consuming is not to meet actual needs, but is an endless pursuit to satisfying  stimulated desires. In other words, what people are consuming are not the use value of the commodity or service, but are their symbols and representation.” Under the flag of consumerism, not only did materiality and sexual desires become legitimate goals to pursuit, the thrills of going after the animalistic temptations and desire became a kind of fashion.

The strength of the Desire series is how it presents a contemporary symbol prevalent in consumerism culture—a lustful landscape of temptation and desire. Surrounding in hues of fashionable pinks and blues, beautiful women were painted in images comparable to sex dolls that have inflated to an unsustainable degree. We can almost foresee their explosion in the near future. The greatly inflated body types seemed to have originated from ancient European’s depiction of Venus, but at the same time one can relate it to an exaggerated image of a Playboy girl (Interesting enough, both the former and later are closely related to desires pinpointed to different eras). Zeng Hao uses a highly obvious brush stroke removal method that gives away a recognizable intention of referencing to symbol—aside from the multiple identity of the Beauty, audiences can easily see the plastic quality of the female bodies: smooth, plastic, swelling, tempting yet disposable. The image is a representation of another consumer society desire. In order to correspond to the high consumption lifestyles, traditional economic modes of production have also transformed into modes that are highly consuming and destructive to natural resources. The production of commodity economy has shifted from traditional durable products to short lifespan products, and eventually replaced by disposable products. These disposable commodity and packaging have wasted huge amount of resources, creating large amounts of pollution and garbage for our natural environment. The cheap yet versatile material plastic became the best material of “instant consumption”.

Beautiful women in faked orgasms, smooth and dangerous plastic textured skins, floating bubbles that embeds with cynicism all comes together to construct an apparent fashionable image. Yet the “others” that conceal themselves within are even more obscure than the ones in the Love Me Not? series. Starring at the ferocious contemporary desires, as an observer, Zeng Hao relegates himself silently to the depths of his canvas in silence, similar to his gradually faded out Door Gods.

May 2008