It is not an unusual strategy in the art world to endow the paintings with contemporariness through intervening current affairs. However, unlike pictures, paintings always lag behind in reflecting the current affairs. Paintings are different from characters also. Their comments on current affairs are not accurate enough. Therefore, it is better to say that the integration of paintings in current affairs exposes its posteriority rather than its contemporariness.

　　However, Wang Shuping’s paintings are exception. By introducing G20 Summit skillfully, Wang Shuping’s paintings touched the nerve of the contemporary society. They made us cool down our minds to think about the important issues which face human being at the present time.

　　The important issue facing the world today is international politics. It becomes ever more important in the times of globalization. Globalization has not only shortened the distances between countries, but also changed the nature of many issues such as ecology, resources, nuclear power, population, financial crisis, epidemic diseases and internet security. They are not problems of an individual country any more, but the mutual problems faced by the whole globe. In this situation, the international organizations like G20 Summit appeared and are engaged in the discussion of the critical issues of the world.

　　It is undeniable that the highest level of international organizations like G20 Summit are still dominated by men. Even though there were four female who participated in the G20 Summit in Seoul, it was merely 1/5 of the total members. Plus, all these female leaders have masculine characteristics at different level. With the sensitivity of being female artist, Wang Shuping detected the male hegemony in contemporary international politics and the problems that may arise from it. So she made a totally new explanation of G20 Summit from the viewing angle of women, which not only let us find the other side of the centre of contemporary international political power, but also let us gain some new knowledge of some important international affairs.

　　Different from most of the male artists who like thinking of the problems from the perspective of documentation and recurrence, Wang Shuping’s thoughts of G20 Summit is completely from female’s perspective. Except the symbolic props for meetings like microphones and conference tables, audience cannot see any traces of G20 Summit. Leaders from all countries are replaced by highly homogenized fashionable females. Though their postures and facial expressions are slightly different, they make people feel they are wearing the same mask in general. With the highly simplified and abstract background, the whole scene gives us a typical surrealistic feeling. The use of surrealistic scenes full of recreational colors in substitution for serious realistic event is a particular conversion caused by the viewing angle of female. This kind of conversion would bring a series of chain reaction and change the original looks of matters beyond recognition.

　　First, the fashionablization of political issues. Since the cold war, the worldwide ideological conflicts have almost collapsed. Political conflicts have evolved into naked relationship of economic interests. Along with the transition towards aesthetic economy in global economy, the production and consumption patterns today have changed substantially. The production and consumption nowadays do not aim at necessities any more, but wills instead. Necessities are limited and can be satisfied with certainty. For example, people eat when they are hungry and stop eating when full. But wishes are unlimited and the satisfaction is uncertain. For instance, the wishes for beauty can never be satisfied because people always want to be more and more beautiful after having been. Among all the wishes, there is a wish becoming particularly noticeable, which is freshness and to be fashionable along with freshness. Today’s economic production and consumption have been fashionablized to a great extent. As a result, just like producing fashionable clothes, in the field of productions as small an object as a mobile phone and as large as a car or real estate, new styles are always put forward constantly to satisfy the consumers’ wishes to be fashinable and individual. To adapt to the fashionablized global economy, international politics also reveals some features of fashion. These features can be seen from the new topics being proposed every season or year, in the same way as new clothing styles coming into fashion yearly or seasonally. New fashion style can’t always be better than old fashion style, but it is good enough to be popular as long as it is new. Also, new topics are not always more important than old ones, yet they are good enough to attract attention as long as they are new. The features of fashionablization of global politics and economy are especially demonstrated in emerging G20 Summit. With female’s sensitivity, Wang Shuping grasped the new tendency of global politics and economy and expressed her understandings on it by transforming G20 Summit. In fact, the fashionablization of global politics and economy is the evolution of human being from patriarchal society to matriarchal society. Though Wang Shuping did not take extreme means in resistance like most feminist artists do, her works on the transformation of G20 Summit can be regarded as the most powerful expression on the feminization of human being so far.

　　Second, the gamification of political relations. In correspondence with the fashionablization of global politics and economy, the political relations have been gamifized. Since the end of the Second World War, although there were relatively big scale wars in certain regions, worldwide wars have been phased out. Since then, the military and ideological relations in politics have been weakened and converted into game-like relations. To cope with both domestic and international affairs, politicians in all countries implement various policies, thus different kinds of game-like relationships have been formed. G20 Summit nowadays is actually a big game among the leaders of great powers. Wang Shuping’s oil paintings reveal the characteristics of gamification in today’s international politics. These characteristics not only can be seen from the way leaders are replaced by women symbolizing different characters in games, but also from their standard postures and facial expressions. The homogenized expression greatly exposes the characteristics of games. The significant differences between games and reality are the falseness and fabulosity of games. Today, global political relations all look like deceptive games on surface at least. The truth and substance behind it are not primary any more. The homogenized figures in Wang Shuping’s paintings depict the characteristics of gamification in current political relations.

　　Now, let’s turn back to see what kind of world Wang Shuping has created for us. It is a world which feminized the power or a world empowering the women? Anyways, both points of view can be supported by the pictures. However, what I mean to say is that we can feel a world consisted of fashionable women from the paintings directly if we ignore these rational analysis. Despite the fact that the figures in Wang Shuping’s paintings are homogenized and of a kind of abstract existence, the colors and strokes of her drawings are full of emotional density. The integration of these two aspects creates a pure and emotional atmosphere. It is a typical impression which women give to us. It is like the world in spring with peach blossoms which makes people feel clean and beautiful. Sometimes it is blended with melancholy, disconsolation and coldness. Maybe because of the chill in the spring air or the concerns of the transient beauty. Nevertheless, from my perspective, I would rather to regard it as spiritual destination like the Peach Garden depicted by ancient Chinese scholars and artists.

　　In the temporal world today full of desires, vanity and power struggle, how we wish there were a pure world where we can relax our minds. It is impossible for us to find the pastoral Peach Garden (Chinese Utopia) at Tao Yuanming’s times any more. Maybe the Peach Garden today can only be found in innocent female world. For this reason, Yi Ying saw the dwelling of spirit from Wang Shuping’s paintings. I hope this dwelling of spirit does not refer to the personal world of Wang Shuping, but the general spiritual approach for people nowadays. Hopefully, the audience can find the destination of spirit from Wang Shuping’s paintings.

　　Many people regard Wang Shuping as feminist artist because it is usually regarded as a way of defensing women’s rights by replacing male leaders with female images. But comparing with western female artists, Wang Shuping’s works are more like the expression of personal emotions rather than the expression of ideology. In contrast of the feminist artists who go to extremes to express their feminist ideology, Wang Shuping’s art is closer to the nature of female world. Maybe just as what the Chan master Qingyuan Weixin said:” Right before I practiced Zen meditation thirty years ago, I saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers. Then, I learnt some knowledge and started to find the gate of the truth, the mountains I saw were no longer mountains and rivers were no longer rivers. Now, lying beyond emotional experiences and logical knowledge, the mountains I see has turnes out to be mountains again and the rivers again as rivers." Feminist art returns to its original peace after having faced extreme challenges. Wang Shuping’s paintings revealed some of the symptoms of feminist art right after the return.

　　Weixiu Garden, Peking University

　　January 15, 2012