Exploring Contemporary Art: Song Dong's 36 Calendars

Song Dong said

“ The Mayans have their own calendar… everybody can have their own calendar, their own way to experience time.”

Song Dong used the hanging calendar as the background and drew on it to record his memories for 36 years. His calendar started from 1987.

He also said

“I live in art and art lives in me.”

Indeed, everyday we are living in art and everything can be art.

Song Dong turned his memory into art , he turned a normal hanging calendar into art.

I like the style of this art work, that sketching is the most causal form of art that we may be in touch with such form of art everyday. Eg. when we get bored during the lesson, we will do sketching on our notebook. Using such form to create a art which is highly related to daily life is the most appropriate form.

It is really a personal art piece. It is Song Dong’s autobiography or diary that it is only about Song Dong’s personal memories of the past 36 years. However, Song Dong’s personal view of the past 36 years, somehow can represent the view or memory of the general public, because some of them are collective memory， such as, the death of Steve Job, the death of Michael Jackson, 911, facebook and Tiananmen Square protests etc.

the death of Michael Jackson


911

facebook

Also, as Song Dong is a Beijing-based artist, quite a lot of content of his calendars are about things or history of China, such as Tiananmen Square protests.

The part that invite audience to colouring amending and rewriting Song Dong’s calendar is the part that impressed me the most. Because, everyone has his/her own memory and interpretation of the past/ history, so it is really interesting how they add their memory beyond Song Dong’s. I think interaction is one of the most important elements of contemporary art and I like the idea of how Song Dong interact with the audience.