March 11th, 2010 by Rachel | Tags: Anthropology, China, Factory Workers, Luiz Coelho, Painting | No Comments »
A Brazilian artist, Luiz Coelho, created a marvelous painting series to create awareness of what goes on behind the materials we own and voice the concerns of the factory life in China. The bloodstain on items speaks for itself in the images of his paintings.
Coelho’s work serves as an example of how artists like the photographers, Lewis Hines and Eugene Smith, can change the world by creating works of art that promote awareness of issues in the contemporary society. Hines’ work led to the creation of child labor law and Smith’s work resulted in the government’s recognition of and compensation of those who were suffering from this severe medical condition.
Here are a few of Coelho’s paintings and also an image of his installation, which speaks more than a thousand words and his artist statement:
This series explores issues of oppression and exploitation disguised under mass-produced items we buy in our daily errands.
Buy Oppression (2009) is an installation that emulates a fake department store, with clothes for sale. These, however, have “marks of oppression”: blood stains, dirt, holes and other marks that laborers often suffer due to overwork, bad environmental conditions and accidents. People are invited to choose the clothes they intend to “buy” and wear them at the changing room, which mimics a sweatshop. Its dirty walls are covered with labor rights posters from around the world, and news about from trustworthy news sources, while hidden speakers play continuously the oppressive sound of twenty sewing machines.
In The New Religion (2008), the work that generated this series, religious imagery that is mass-produced by people who most likely do not even know what it is about give to us a powerful statement about the new religion that is dominating our daily lives.
Made in China (2008) presents objects that were really made in China, along some others had their tags deliberately changed, in order to engage the viewer with the not so unrealistic possibility of having such objects really made in mass-production environments. At the end, is it possible to realize with certainty what could not have been made in China?
Constructed Realities (2009) is composed by four simple paintings, which show ordinary objects bought in our daily errands. However, every painted was done in layers, which hide levels of information. Such layers are shown as a slideshow, on screens positioned directly under the paintings. They reveal that, many times, we contribute directly to the oppression of different people around the world by consuming common products.
As I mentioned in the post on the film Manufactured Landscape, it is very difficult to think about this topic as there are many materials such as clothing that are essential to our life. However, I’d also think that there is a need to improve the quality of the working places in China and other countries around the world. While the labor regulations in China did improve some since a law was enacted in 2008, the government in China are still not enforcing it greatly according to a source. However, at least the issues are being brought to the attention of the public through advocacy and viewing works of art such as Coelho’s and Edward Burtynsky’s and causing huge embarrassments to the companies (I hope!).
