GUO JIAN

Curated by John McDonald

GUO JIAN

Curated by John McDonald

Rochfort Gallery


According to Guo Jian, his artistic expression and creation are deeply rooted in his personal life experiences and family history. 

Growing up in the late years of the Cultural Revolution, he and his peers sported military style caps, skipped school and roamed the streets. In fact, the school was closed for an entire year. One day, one of schoolmates showed up wearing a pair of very dark sunglasses, causing huge excitement among the group. In those days, sunglasses were associated with villains in novels and films. Ironically, when revolutionary characters wore sunglasses as a way of disguising themselves as villains for the revolutionary cause, they looked exceptionally heroic and stylish. In our town, youngsters who dared to show off wearing sunglasses were privately idolised as “smooth gangsters” who were seen as being influenced by bourgeois ideology, before the word “cool” came around as a popular catchphrase. 

As revolutionary, idealistic, and artistic youths, we were greatly drawn to the idea of looking and behaving like “smooth gangsters” we saw in fiction and films We wore military caps, dangled cigarettes from our lips, and sported sunglasses. However, the only sunglasses available to us were of very poor quality - dark as thick ink that you could not see through them. Egged on by my schoolmates to chat up with a pretty girl in the town, I put on my mate’s super-dark sunglasses and went up to the girl. As I could not see anything, by the time I felt that I got close to the girl, I could only see her shoes by looking down beneath my sunglasses. Before I opened my mouth, I was slapped hard in the face. My schoolmates laughed hysterically as I stood there, stunned, humiliated, and embarrassed. Wearing the super-dark sunglasses had blinded me, making me oblivious to danger. 

My father was conscripted into the army when he was 14 years old. He had no idea that his father and two uncles had been classified as evil landlords and sentenced to death. By the time he was discharged and returned home, his father and two uncles were gone. His mother had remarried and moved to a remote village. Their house had been confiscated by the village revolutionary committee. 

When I joined the army at 17, both my parents and I knew I would be sent to the battlefield. But growing up as a revolutionary idealist, I, along with my generation and my father’s generation, worshipped heroism. Soldiers fighting on the battlefield were symbols of that heroism. Yet our idealism was blind, just as I had been blinded by those super-dark sunglasses. We were oblivious to the risks and dangers right in front of our eyes. This reflection led me to create this series of paintings featuring figures wearing sunglasses. When we become blind idealists, we cannot see the dangers and harm around us. We also grow numb due to a lack of love and affection.

When I was in high school, we were not allowed to read books labelled as counter-revolutionary or listen to songs banned for promoting “pornographic emotions”. To get around this, we hid banned books inside volumes of Mao Zedong Thoughts, pretending we were reading Mao Zedong Thoughts. At midnight, under the covers with a flashlight, we copied the lyrics of banned songs. I continued doing this during my time in the army and later on at university. 

Growing up in China during those days, we were so familiar with the officially promoted cover figures on magazines, books, and posters. These figures were as popular in China as cover girls on Playboy magazines were in the West, though for entirely different reasons and purposes. In my artwork, I experiment with image swapping and overlaying to create a contemporary visual effect. There is no pornographic intent. Rather, I explore the juxtaposition of two distinctive types of popular imagery, from different eras and contexts, to reconstruct a contemporary viewing experience.

(Chinese by Guo Jian. English by Jing Han)


Curator John McDonald

John McDonald is Australia’s most influential art critic, having served as long-term columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald for over three decades. He is known for his incisive and insightful writing, which can be found on his site, everything the.com. A judge of many art awards, and a former Head of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia, John was the curator for the landmark NGA exhibition, ‘Federation: Australian Art and Society 1901-2000’. His work is known around the world, with Chinese art being a topic of special interest.

GUO JIAN
NOTHING ABOUT EROTIC BUT PLAYBOY

CURATOR
JOHN MCDONALD

16 APR - 7 JUN 2025
Ground Floor, 317 Pacific Hwy, North Sydney NSW 2060

VIP PREVIEW
16 - 18 Apr 2025
10 am - 6 pm

OPENING & MEET THE ARTIST
Saturday 26 Apr 2025
1 - 3 pm




Appearing In This Exhibition
Jian Guo
Jian Guo

GUO Jian was born in Guizhou in 1963. He graduated with a BA from the Central University for Nationalities (now Minzu University of China) in Beijing in 1989. From 1992 to 2014, GUO Jian lived and worked in between Australia and China. GUO Jian has participated in numerous group and solo exhibitions across the world and won many awards including the 1st Prize Fisher’s Ghost Art Prize in 2000 and the 1st Prize Liverpool Art Prize in 2003. His works have also been featured in various prestigious collections, including the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra and the Art Gallery of Queensland in Brisbane. GUO Jian’s works have been commissioned for various projects, including the backdrop for the main stage of the Big Day Out Rock Festival Tour of Australia and New Zealand, and the Visible Arts Foundation Installation Arts Project at Republic Tower in Melbourne, Australia.

Date & Time
Saturday

26 April 2025

Start - 1:00 pm Saturday

7 June 2025

End - 6:00 pm Australia/Sydney
Artists
Location

Rochfort Gallery

317 Pacific Highway,
North Sydney NSW 2060
Australia
0422 039 834
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Organiser

Rochfort Gallery

0422 039 834
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