GUO JIAN
GUO JIAN
“In the later years of the Cultural Revolution, my classmates and I wore military caps every day and constantly schemed ways to bunk off school. In fact, school was suspended entirely for a whole year. One day, a classmate suddenly brought in a pair of sunglasses, and we were incredibly excited. At that time, sunglasses were typically depicted in films or Cultural Revolution literature as a hallmark of villains. However, revolutionary heroes, when disguising themselves as villains for revolutionary purposes, also wore sunglasses and were praised as exceptionally heroic and stylish. In our locality, the earliest ordinary young people who dared openly to wear sunglasses were viewed as being influenced by bourgeois capitalism, labelled as 'poisonous weeds' and little hooligans. Becoming delinquent was fashionable among our group, caught between revolutionary idealist literature and the bourgeois temptation. Back then, we didn't have the word 'cool'; instead, we used 'pi,' which essentially meant very cool. With sunglasses, you gained the dual 'pi' of being both revolutionary and villainous. Wearing military uniforms and caps, smoking a cigarette, and sporting sunglasses, you could swagger around town like those young 'pi' hooligans with sunglasses, perms, or 'Afro' hairstyles, going around confidently to 'shua mazi' (an old slang for picking up girls). In our area, 'mazi' was a term that combined both 'bad girl' and 'pretty girl.' Sunglasses then were mostly poor quality—so dark you could hardly see anything, truly as black as ink. The pair my classmate brought was exactly this type. Seeing him look so 'pi,' I imagined I'd look just as 'pi' wearing them.
NOTHING ABOUT EROTIC BUT PLAYBOY
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

Untitled No.2 (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
126 x 177 cm
POA

Untitled No.3 (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
102 x 137.5 cm
POA

Nothing About Erotic But Playboy A (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
102 x 137. 5 cm
POA

Nothing About Erotic But Playboy B (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
117 x 117 cm
POA

Guo Jian
Nothing About Erotic But Playboy C (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
122 x 183 cm
POA

Guo Jian
Nothing About Erotic But Playboy D (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
102 x 137.5 cm
POA

Nothing About Erotic But Playboy E (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
137.5 x 102 cm
POA

1979 (2021)
Oil on canvas
49.5 x 59.5 cm
POA

Playboy No.1 (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
61 x 45.5 cm
POA

Playboy No.2 (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
61 x 46 cm
POA

Playboy No.3 (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
61 x 45.5 cm
POA

Playboy No.4 (2025)
Acrylic on canvas
61 x 45.5 cm
POA
限 量 购 藏 说 明
Appearing In This Exhibition
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.