Most spatially prominent in the exhibition was Panda Fashion Show, a work of astute sartorial satire that was first staged at the Chinese International Fashion Week in Beijing in 2007, and then at the Palais de Tokyo two years later. Placed at the center of the exhibition space were mannequins adorned in panda-themed outfits representing 33 tongue-in-cheek archetypes that Zhao believed constituted Chinese society in the late 2000s: school kid, real estate agent, internet celebrity, prisoner, prostitute, corrupt official and more. Screens showed models strutting down the catwalk to a techno soundtrack and the laughs and exclamations of the Chinese audience. More social commentary is embedded within the fashion show when a doctor and nurse join the caricature of affluence: “Look at how only the rich can afford healthcare,” Zhao is saying.

Along one side of the space are four amateur-style recordings of Zhao’s performances, which were satirical and creative interventions into official events (such as government visits) and administrative spaces (such as courtrooms). Opposite these is a different type of video work, Let Panda Fly (2013), Zhao’s highly polished movie made for a mass cinema audience. The semi-fictionalized depiction tells the story of a real charity campaign launched by the artist, who invited 20,000 children to create artworks to be sold at auction, with the funds raised channeled into the construction of a nursing home. The film is littered with indiscreetly veiled criticisms of various aspects of Chinese society, such as parenting, public welfare, the wealth divide and the education system’s ethos that focuses on examinations and in the process destroys the creativity of schoolchildren. However, we are presented with a genuinely happy ending: art does effect social change.  

Relegated to their own corner, a collection of canvases were tucked away from the exhibition’s artworks that offered more overt social commentary. These paintings were somber and lonely affairs, offering a mini-survey of Zhao’s career as a painter, from student of social realism to a pensive aesthetic developed more recently—but with the addition of jarring objects like CCTV cameras or bright neon lights. The newest works in the show were the painting-video combination of China Party and China Party – Chopin (both 2017). The latter shows a so-called “party” organized by Zhao, at which he painted a young woman who played a composition by Chopin on a piano while she slowly sank into a lake.

In this survey, Zhao Bandi was successfully presented as an artist who has been on a mission to intervene in society, to make a difference with art. To do this, Zhao gave up painting, but we discover that he has recently returned to the medium. The two intertwined artworks, China Party and China Party – Chopin, ended the show on what seems to be Zhao’s attempt to assimilate the dominant practices of his career. They feel like something of a solemn endnote, an unintended ode to the difficulty of the task, this art for social change, which Zhao lumbered himself with when he first put down his paintbrush. 

Zhao Bandi’s “China Party” is on view at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, until October 22, 2017.

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