Michelangelo Effect
By Ky Kuo
Michelangelo (1475-1564) is Xavier Wei's real hero. They both have a weakness for semi- to bare-naked bodies and both are obsessed with all kinds of muscle expressions. Their works look so “indecent” and eventually make you doubt the legitimacy of the concept, and these works also reveal in the flesh the divinity of creation.
People admire Michelangelo because he knew how to display the Bible's superhuman world with nudity. Standing in front of his art pieces today, even after five centuries, we can still feel his protagonists’ sadness, determination, powerlessness, and the eternal battle between the flesh and the soul. His works have accomplished an impossible task: they are completely figurative but transcend the figuration. His Adam is not just Adam, but a collectivity of all possible Adams, or a sample slice of Adamness. He blew a breath on the wall, on the marble, and the characters sealed in the mythology began to wake up one after another.
In contrast to his hero, Xavier Wei is far less ambitious, although he is also an artisan who goes to work every day and a hipster who cares for literature (see his Facebook). He has a bunch of mythical figures as spiritual neighbors. Occasionally they pop out in his paintings, showing us what is going on in his dreamland. Sometimes we find mermaids and mermen undulating in the waves with enigmatic smiles; sometimes we come across a Saint Sebastian pierced by arrows, quietly enjoying the pain like a Stoic philosopher. Wei’s characters seem to have a curious charm: they can use circumstances as a knack of meditation and achieve moksha anytime, anywhere.
However, these pictures of fantasy are only a small part of Wei's production. What interests him the most is to make portraits of his friends. He has a longing to go afar but also a craving to root deep. After graduating from Tunghai University and finishing his military service, he went to France to pursue postgraduate study in art. Since then he lives in Paris and has never thought about moving again. At the end of the last century, terrorism was not a constant threat for Paris; the mainstream values in the city were still "liberty, equality, fraternity", and foreigners were still “welcomed”. Only this Paris can continuously provide him with the multicultural stimuli he needs. Visiting Wei’s exhibition is much like watching a United Nations show of nudism: every race is represented, black and white, fat and thin, … almost an illustrated collection for comparative anthropology.
With the exception of some sporadic group portraits set in the forest or in nature, his paintings are mostly portraits of one person. To highlight the characteristics and quirkiness of his protagonists, Wei has chosen a simplistic composition almost bereft of depth. There are only two plans in the picture: foreground and background. This reminds us of medieval saint portraiture alla giottesca – the perspective was still not the norm and the Renaissance was yet to come. Dimensionality reduces but mystery increases.
The background of his painting is usually minimalistic, a single-color field if not a simple setting, such as a door, a window, a curtain, a sofa, or somber corridors. He has figured out an exit mechanism for his protagonists from the beginning, which seems to warn the viewers: "What you see is only an aspect of this person. There is much more about him that we cannot know." In some rare cases, the background is filled with exuberant plants to contrast a bright figure emerging out of the thick green. The bodies treated in this luxury way are generally young and gorgeous; they bring to mind a faun full of animalistic energy, trembling with awakening desire.
The figures in the foreground are always big, out of proportion, as if they are crammed into the frame. However, this stifling arrangement creates immediately an intimate atmosphere, and those figures named Paolo, Thierry, Ken, P&G seem to be our old buddies too. They cross their arms or flaunt themselves, facing us with openness or in a somewhat defensive posture, looking at the camera or in other direction… If we keep watching them for a while, suddenly, they cease to be themselves, cease to be others, and become us. We then meet ourselves in the mirror of paintings.
The encounter is predestined. This is the encounter of Adam with Eve. She was actually one of his ribs, but he didn't know. Only after she was taken out of him and molded into a woman did he become aware of his own anima, his feminine side. Gender fluctuates; no wonder Michelangelo’s female figures look so muscular and masculine.
This is also why Wei's paintings are so ambiguous and so transparent at the same time. They are loaded with sensuality but have nothing to do with eroticism; they don't critique, just spread out the truth and let us see. There is an innocent love here. His love for his friends and this world is, in fact, a form of self-love, and it is because of this self-love that the universe expands and all creation begins.
The universal love is within self-love. All serious artists who create with life are just different variations of this same theme.