I’d planned to ask Elephant for the article behind his monicker, but upon seeing him in man, the interrogate seems broach. The hoarse 26-year-old is wearing baggy jeans and an oversized gray sweatshirt, and standard a stop above the rest of the press at Jing’an Cathedral on a working Saturday morning.
Though he certainly looks the part, the launching of his off-the-wall alias is his surname, 项 (xiang), which is clear-cut the same as the Chinese little talk for “elephant” -- 象.
Elephant’s two sins
There are two things Elephant cannot bear.
The first is the disposition of Chinese artists to emulate Western styles, aiming for the chill particular at the expense of authenticity.
The understudy, and perhaps graver sin in Elephant’s eyes, comes from artists who pay a symbolic obeisance to historic Chinese art forms, but haven’t put much cogitating into the implication of their business.
“You can see lavishness of that transcribe of obsession at Moganshan Lu, ” he says. “On the integument it looks Chinese, but there’s no viewpoint behind it. Unprejudiced because someone paints a variety part of ink on a scroll, that doesn’t settle their calling Chinese. A adolescent could do that.”
...
Read more...