2005-2006

As critic Li Xiating said, Cynical Realists such as Fang Lijun “have shifted the up-down observation of the world to our eye level, and restored them into the everyday reality of our surroundings, using the hooligan approach to describe episodes in life he was familiar with, nonchalant, coincidental, or even absurd.”

2005-2006 embraces this restoration of everyday reality by exhibiting the opposition between violence and apathy, reflecting the fundamental problem of society as lack of resistance to socially subjected conditions. The violent aggression of these bald and infantile figures holding weapons, contrasted with their apathy towards being trapped in a cage renders them vulnerable. Through the unease it emits to its audience, the work of Fang Lijun not only becomes a critique of his own native cultural framework but also a representation of all contemporary societies that make individuals susceptible to external control and abuse.