It was in
1988 when Zhang Peili realized his
"30 X 30", one of the first
examples of Chinese video art. "30
X 30", a two hour sequence showing
the artist breaking and reassembling
a mirror over and over again, with
its sobriety and its obvious Chan-Buddhist
absurdity - at the time called grey
humor - is not only typical of the
contemporary Chinese art of the late
1980s, but also shows the main characteristics
of early Chinese video art. Fixed
camera positions, endlessly drawn
out shots, underlying the absurdity
and strangeness of the image or performance
documented, or again the medium of
the video installation, typical of
Zhang's later works, were main features
of Chinese video art until the middle
of the 1990s. Since 1988, fifteen
years have passed, and video art in
China today is as pluralistic and
colorful as Chinese society. Next
to Zhang Peili, Wang Gongxin, Wang
Jianwei, Chen Shaoxiong, Hu Jieming,
Li Yongbing, Liang Juhui, Song Dong,
Qiu Zhijie, Wu Wenguang, Xu Tan, Yan
Lei, Zhu Jia, and Feng Mengbo belong
to a first group of artists working
with video and new media in China.
Zhang, once pioneer, is today the
head of the first multi media art
department at a Chinese academy, the
New Media Art Center of the China
Fine Arts Academy in Hangzhou. Zhang
Peili's style, once experimental,
today rather tends to be academic,
still showing the quest to create
a kind of universal visual language
and to set aesthetic and technical
standards. The emergence of this kind
of academism within the field of the
relatively young Chinese video art
guarantees the backing necessary for
experimentally working younger generations.
Since the mid-1990s, with more easily
accessible technical equipment and
information, video has become a major
form of expression of young Chinese
artists. A young generation primarily
experimenting with video, film, and
other new media has emerged in the
urban centers, in particular in Beijing,
Shanghai and Guangzhou. These young
artists, mainly born in the 1960s
and 1970s - for example Cao Fei, Jiang
Zhi, Jin Jiangbo, Lu Chunsheng, Shi
Yong, Weng Fen, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong,
Yang Zhenzhong, Zheng Guogu and others
- not only gained immediate recognition
in the Chinese art scene but also
garnered success on an international
level rather quickly. Since the late
1990s video and multi media art works
of Chinese artists have been selected
for numerous international video festivals
and have been presented at high-profile
exhibitions, such as the documenta
X in Kassel in 1997 (Feng Mengbo,
Wang Jianwei) or the documenta XI
(2002) (Feng Mengbo,Yang Fudong) or
again the 50th Venice Biennial (2003)
(Cao Fei, Chen Shaoxiong, Gu Dexin,
Jiang Zhi, Liang Juhui, Yang Fudong,
Yang Zhenzhong, Zhang Peili, Zhu Jia).
The
Haudenschild Collection is the first
collection focusing on Chinese photography
and video art, thus giving witness
to the importance of these media.
The present exhibition features
video works from the collection
by artists born in the 1960s and
1970s and working in the Southern
Chinese urban centers Shanghai and
Guangzhou. Certainly, this generation's
enormous interest in the medium
video cannot merely be ascribed
to the increasing accessibility
of technical equipment and know-how.
Having grown to maturity in a society
in rapid transition, where the fleetness
of change makes an individual's
life's perspective appear totally
unpredictable and where omnipresent
media play major roles in determining
the perception of what is real and
what is imaginary, video (and photography
alike) might be a most adequate
and direct medium not only to capture
the overwhelming changes of personal
life, urban environment, and of
society, but also to convey the
feelings of uncertainty and vagueness
felt by the majority of the young
generation. Yang Fudong describes
these feelings as a distance to
life that is evident in the videos
and films of his contemporaries
on a conceptual and on an aesthetic
level. Alienation and perception
are major themes, and the wish to
grasp reality and take hold of this
ever-changing life, is at the origin
of the quest to integrate art into
life, or to consider art a "by-product
of life". On an aesthetic level
this distance generates a kind of
poetic melancholic mood and humor
typical of this generation of artists.
Yang
Fudong (1971) graduated from the
China Fine Arts Academy in Hangzhou
and moved to Shanghai in 1998. The
so-called literati short films,
as well as the Chinese cinema of
the 1920s/1930s and the Yuefen-style
typical of the Shanghai petit bourgeoisie
of the early 20th century are important
references for Yang. His strongly
narrative videos, films, and photographic
series can be read as allegories
of the alienated city-dwellers'
lives. The narratives enfold sometimes
in high-rise apartment and office-buildings,
the typical environment of the new
middle-class Chinese of the metropolis,
the so-called "white-collar"
(bailing), like for example in "City
Lights" ("Chengshi zhi
guang") and "Honey"
("Mi") - both part of
the present exhibition - sometimes
in a dreamlike setting reminiscent
of traditional Chinese gardens and
the Chinese literati landscape,
like for example in "Su Xiaoxiao"
(2001), "Tonight's Moon"
(2000), and "Liulan" (2003).
"City Lights" (2000, 6
minutes, color) recounts the life
of such a white-collar, performing
his prescribed every-day ritual,
sometimes feeling like standing
besides himself and being left alone
with his solitary but ready-made
dreams of a modern life. The stereotype
of him holding and passing on an
umbrella occurs throughout the video.
"Honey" (2003, color),
evocative of some ominous spy-story,
similarly is set in some apartment
and backyard of high-rise buildings
in the metropolis. The image of
a young mundane girl moving from
one place to another, or in the
company of blankly gazing, discreet
men in Mao-suits appears throughout
the video. Close-ups of her body
and dress might hint to the nature
of relationship between the protagonists.
But the story Yang recounts never
gets explicit, only suggesting the
possibility of their interaction
through the creation of a never
fulfilled suspense. Even though
Yang Fudong's works have a strong
narrative component their message
is never clear. Yang rather creates
a filament of allusive images, underscored
by sound and text, letting the viewer
alone with a multitude of ambiguous
insinuations that he calls "abstract
imagery". According to Yang,
"abstract imagery" can
convey the inexplicit feelings of
the individual and engender a transformation
of perception.
The
transformation of perception is
also a concern of Shanghai-based
Yang Zhenzhong. Yang (1968) who
graduated from the oil painting
department of the China Fine Arts
Academy in Hangzhou in 1993, started
working with video and photography
in 1995. His approach is rather
metaphorical than narrative. His
videos often start from witty ideas,
using the repetition of images and
the rhythmic coordination of sound,
language and image. "922 Grains
of Rice" ("922 ke mi",
2000, 8 min., color) plays with
the interaction of the image of
a cock and a chicken pecking grains
of rice and the sound of a male
and female voice counting the number
of pecked grains. "Let's Puff"
("Wo chui", 2003, Zone
of Urgency, 50th Venice Biennial)
similarly starts from the interplay
of two images: a young woman puffing
and a busy street. Every time the
woman is puffing, the image of the
street moves away from the viewer.
The rhythm of the traffic and the
angle of perception are altered
with the rhythm of the woman's breath.
Yang's often playful videos could
be called visual reflections. Individual
perception and experience, as for
example in his "I Will Die"
("Wo hui si de", 2000),
are the starting point for the transformation
of perception, as Yang points out:
"Sometimes I feel that if you
deal with individual experience
on a certain level it becomes universal
experience. (…) That's not to say
I think theory is of no importance,
actually art is also not that important,
they are all the by-products of
life."
Guangzhou-based
Chen Shaoxiong (1962) who graduated
from the Guangzhou Fine Arts Academy
is one of the pioneers of Chinese
video art. With him, the concept
to lead art back into life, or to
consider art a by-product of life
takes a more radical and subversive
stance. As with other artists of
the Cantonese avant-garde, for him
the creation of an allusive imagery
is less important. Being a member
of the Big Tail Elephants Working
Group (Daweixiang gongzuo xiaozu),
called "urban guerrilla"
by Hou Hanru , Chen searches a direct
interaction with his urban environment.
The perception of reality again
is the artist's concern. Chen's
early videos of performances, such
as "Five Hours" (1993),
as well as his "Sight-Adjusters"
(1996), installations with split-screen
videos, and his "Streets"
(1997- today), a series of three-dimensional
photo collages, tend to reveal perception
as a conceptual construct depending
on outer conditions, such as the
rapidly changing urban environment.
"Figure Anti-Terrorism"
("Huayang fankong", 2003,
Zone of Urgency, 50th Venice Biennial),
which is part of the present exhibition,
is Chen Shaoxiong's answer to the
global anti-terrorism campaign.
The computer-generated video installation
consists of a chessboard - the figures
are airplanes and buildings - and
two video projections that show
high-rise buildings in the southern
metropolis of Guangzhou using different
tricks to avoid the impact of approaching
airplanes. Chen's work is not only
a witty comment on current events,
but also a reflection on how the
perception of the urban environment
changed after September 11. On a
more general level, Chen's work
explores how the real-time mediation
of a real event that had formerly
only been thinkable as imaginary
redefined the limits of perception.
Within these newly defined limits,
video can act as an expansion of
reality.
|
