This Dinosaur means a lot - he marks our first foray into buying art that is over $500 - in other words, art that you want to plan a room around; art that you tell people not to put their drinks on; and art that makes us feel as though we have tapped into something so clever that if others don't get it, then it's clearly their loss; OK, art that gives us an excuse to sound pretentious. Oh yeah, he does all that.
Not to mention that we love the thought of having a Red Dinosaur from China in our humble abode, completely upending any allusions to banal domestic normalcy. He makes us cool. Like the quintessential travel souvenir, we often depend on him saying more about us, than about himself.
Not that there isn't a lot for him to say. And before you are impressed, let me admit that we bought him at a museum gift store following an outstanding solo exhibition of his artist, Sui Jianguo. Sui's dealer from Paris had happened to send over a few images to the gift shop for general sale, and we were two of the lucky recipients.
I often wonder, however, if this textured glossy red T-rex, standing about 2 ft high with MADE IN CHINA embossed on his belly, is speaking to a specific moment that so defines *our* immediate anxieties about China right now, perhaps he will appear naively dated in just a few years.
Obviously his meanings are layered: although resembling a toy, his size and weight (of polyurethane) shows there is more significance to him than what meets the eye, and the lure of his bright, nobbly surface is seductive. Our own "addiction" to China in multiple industries hits home. But it's a dinosaur, and it's red (heralding the 'extinction' of 'red' China?) - it all seems incredibly current, vital and slyly humorous. Sui Jianguo's own relationship and history with both strongly Communist and emerging capitalist China is complex and, in his own mind, without a definitive conclusion.
But maybe my kids will be learning Mandarin and won't have to go to a special school to do it. And maybe once China begins to call in its debts to the U.S., our relationship will change from one of cautious anxiety to begrudging resignation. And maybe our fabulously exciting, and foreboding, dinosaur will one day lose its potency in the face of these rapid global changes.
But I hope not. As an art historian, I need to depend on its meaning changing with time, but not diluting its impact in the process. Because, well, he rocks.
