The Lost Gods Under Popism -“Black Box” year 2022 August Textes by Black Box-LiPeng(Art critic) There are moments when we ask ourselves strange questions, such as "Am I, at this moment, the true version of myself?" This reflects a loss of self-identity. In kchaoz's The Lost Myth Figures, this question is posed to the audience through the characters in the paintings, reminiscent of the themes in British author Neil Gaiman's American Gods. However, while American Gods depicts a conflict between the old-world gods (from classical times) and the new-world gods representing modern life and technology (such as the internet and media), where both sides resist the gradual erosion of their identities, kchaoz's work delves into a complete loss of identity, symbolizing a spiritual crisis faced by modern individuals. In kchaoz's early series, there is a recurring character of a young boy, named ogé by the artist—a reversal of "ego," representing an "inverted" self. This contemplation of self-identity stems from the artist's exploration of how the cultural influences absorbed during childhood shape later self-awareness, and how these cultural symbols become part of collective behaviors within real-world industrial chains, permeating people's lives. It at least begins to probe the question of where self-identity (the self) originates. Under certain philosophical premises, this "self" is assumed to be a form of "episteme" or "cognitive type" shaped by language (or schemas). This idea draws from Saussurean linguistics, Wittgenstein's concepts of logical units and schematized "forms" in logical philosophy, and incorporates elements from psychology and Foucault's notion of "episteme," among other contemporary philosophical influences. Here, as a philosophical characteristic of the era, it attempts to understand what the "self" truly is, potentially evolving into a psychoanalytic technique. And after this extensive analysis, the "self" seems to vanish. What kchaoz seeks to explore is the reality of the system shaped or constructed by popular culture for contemporary emerging humans. At least for the artist themselves, what does it mean for kchaoz to become a pop artist within popular culture? How does popular culture shape this world? And what lies behind popular culture? In 2015, the artist created a virtual company called "GlobalHobby," adopting the concept of an amusement park to investigate the relationship between consumer spaces and exchange spaces. By leveraging the mechanisms of the contemporary art market—including the dictatorship of images (dictature de l'image), the extraction and appropriation of symbols (l'appropriation), and crowdfunding—the artist collaborated with various artistic assistants to blur the lines between artistic creation and commodity production. This approach deconstructs key elements such as artistic creation, exchange, and collection, even questioning the value motivations and origins of mass consumer psychology. Thus, in the series Myth Around the Corner, the eyes of all characters are either obscured or entirely absent from the frame, deliberately removing the "gaze in painting" and further intensifying the atmosphere of subjective disorientation. Here, kchaoz builds on the anonymous symbol of the black square, integrating Lucio Fontana's slashed canvas motifs and Roy Lichtenstein's dotted patterns, which intersect spatially, much like in the Common Sense series, to form the obstructions over the characters' eyes. The emergence of this symbol clearly merges the most quintessentially American pop art dots with Fontana's slashes, which symbolize a decisive rupture of pictorial space. This fusion reflects kchaoz's tension between rebellion against and integration with pop art. Just as Fontana's anti-painting actions became painting itself, and anti-art in contemporary art has become contemporary art itself, any act of rebellion seems to turn into a joke—a form of mockery or play. Here, it circles back to a new variation of the initial theme: What is the identity of "art"? Has it, too, become a form of "identity loss"? In essence, it parallels the classic question posed by American novelist Raymond Carver: What are we talking about when we talk about love? In the creative journey of kchaoz's pop art, the artist has consistently pursued certain themes and questions. In the "Myth around the corner" series, the artist seems to return to a period of youthful reminiscence. This reflects the artist's suspension of contemporary issues and a desire to return to a more primal artistic impulse and passion. Here, kchaoz recalls a summer when his father borrowed a stack of art books from the library for him. Those moments spent lying in an air-conditioned room flipping through these books filled with Western art are among kchaoz's most cherished memories. The artist rediscovered these symbols from Western art history and, drawing on Greek mythology, used a technique akin to cinematic mise-en-scène to recompose images from their original sources through digital technology, creating new images that reflect the artist's vision. Thus, we see a form of pop art based on intertwined emotional memories. It is deeply personal, imbued with the artist's passion and complexity. Here, we also witness a reinterpretation of classical and contemporary art historical symbols through a pop art lens. As kchaoz integrates various techniques—from Japanese and American comics to influences from Kaws, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, and Takashi Murakami—he transforms Rubens' classic painting "The Judgment of Paris" into "Moder Paris," Gerhard Richter's photorealistic painting "Betty" into the profile and back views of figures in multiple works, and Peter Doig's multi-layered "Figures in a Red Boat" into "Figures in Salon." It is evident that nearly every element and image in the works has a genuine origin, and while the artist seems to dissolve the original impressions, they still build certain connections. This showcases a novel method of image collage, where even the techniques are derived from various pop art methods. It forms a kind of popular culture Ship of Theseus. Kchaoz incorporates popular symbols from different eras, even the pop culture that permeated his formative years, into this ever-deconstructed and renewed ship on the sea of popular culture. This is also evident in the "Those Flowers" series, which reflects a rethinking and recreation of Andy Warhol's flower series. As kchaoz notes, in French, "la fille" (girl) and "la fleur" (flower) are both feminine nouns. The artist further details the flowers, zooming in to create a visual focus reminiscent of consumer advertising aimed at girls. Clearly, consumerism is the economic manifestation of popular culture. Through generational cultural shifts, it erodes the original meaning of existence, much like the Ship of Theseus, a concept that kchaoz continually contemplates. However, the artist seems to want to delve deeper, exploring whether there is a more fundamental aesthetic principle behind what makes something popular. At least in the context of consumerism, the representation of girls and flowers offers a clue, as economics in liberalism views the market as a natural law of motion and mechanism. After all, pop art itself originated from commercial art, serving as visual propaganda that became embedded in popular culture. The term "pop" originally comes from the 18th-century slang for "lollypop," later used in "soda pop" to denote the sound of opening a carbonated drink. Clearly, pop is first associated with sensory pleasure, engaging taste, sight, and hearing to open up the public's sensory enjoyment. Just as a lollipop suggests richer sensory desires, the resulting lightness, pleasure, and bodily channels of craving all become aesthetic expressions under the sensory transformation of pop. Indeed, kchaoz himself revels in the purity of color and the desires it evokes, a purity that visually amplifies simple desires. He has built a color library, experimenting with various color combinations for the same artwork to select the most suitable palette.