The new issue of City Weekend hits the streets today. The cover of our issue was designed by local artist Chen Hangfeng. He talks to us about the ideas behind his work.

City Weekend: Hey Hangfeng, tell us about our cover.

Chen Hangfeng: This fits into the “Logomania” a series of work I’ve been producing for the past four or five years. Much of the work I do takes corporate logos and creates symmetrical patterns out of them.

They look like traditional Chinese designs, but when you look closer you see they are made up of corporate logos. I’ve done paper cuts and prints that way, plus functional items like carpet patterns and furniture. I’ve even designed tattoos.

Originally, I wanted to do a paper cut for your cover, but we couldn’t figure out a way to print it so I did this montage of recognizable, iconic shapes, but simplified into silhouettes. I just want to create a sort of pattern that will be recognizable and make people think about what surrounds us, and what's the value of those.

CW: Is there a value judgment in the work—do you think the saturation of brands is a negative thing?

CH: Certainly it's negative. Commercialization is a problem for the whole world. Two-hundred years ago religion was the opiate for the masses, now commercialization is the opiate of the people. You need to create something for people to buy and fill out their desires, to keep them busy and working hard. That’s what brands do.

CW: The tension between art and commercialism—there was a lot of talk about that at our discussion with the organizers of the JUE festival for this issue's cover story. What do you think about the level of creativity in Shanghai?

CH: Beijing has more galleries and more artists, but in terms of the quality of art coming out of each city, Shanghai and Beijing are at least equals. In fact, I see a lot of people copying each other in Beijing, but in Shanghai people are very wary of copying each other and so I think Shanghai’s output is much more original, much more healthy.

Artists in Shanghai are more aware of their situation, rather than being self-indulgent, but this is a deep issue and it's a long process, for people outside the circle it's really hard to see the truth. A lot of what is going on in Beijing seems just hype. In Beijing the scene is much more cliquey--to be an artist you have to hang out with an established group of artists, you have to be friends with the right people.

CW: What other themes do you tackle with your work?

CH: Globalisation and culturalal transmutation. Last year I did a performance piece using 200kg of ice cream (click "view all images" above to see shots from this show). I used it to sculpt a glacier and then all the people who came to the art show got to eat the sculpture. It was part of a group show dealing with environmental issues at the creative complex at 800 Changde Lu. About 1,000 people came and more than half of them ate my sculpture. It was called "From Zero to 37 Degrees"--the process of ice cream heating up to human body temperature. On one level it was about the glaciers melting but on another it was about human desire and greed—our hunger for luxury products and food is what’s destroying the environment, just like eating food that’s bad for us, like ice cream, destroys our health.

For more information about the artist, contact his gallery, Art Labor. To see more of Chen's work, visit his graphic design website and fine art site.

Find the new City Weekend, with Chen's cover, around the city now.