香格纳画廊 ShanghART Gallery Booth A4, Hall A Projects by Yang Fudong Yang Zhenzhong Xu Zhen Yang Fudong, Robber South (2001), single channel video, 18, ed. of 10
Yang Fudong, Robber South (2001), single channel video, 18, ed. of 10
In a scene from Robber South (2001), which tells the story of a young man in the city making a living as a fruit seller while dreaming of becoming a businessman, the protagonist watches as a subway train pulls into a station, and in an instant the focus of his attention switches seamlessly to a deep blue sky. Compass in hand, he walks from house to house, tracing each door and wall with his fingers, a metaphor for his search for his own place in the city. Yang Fudong was born in 1971 in Beijing. He trained as a painter in China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. Starting in the late 1990 s Yang Fudong embarked on a career in the mediums of film and video. He is among the most successful and influential young Chinese artists today. Yang Fudong participated twice at the Venice Biennale (2003/2007), First Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art (2005), 1st International Sharjah Biennale (2005), 1st Prague Biennale (2003) and 5th Shanghai Biennale (2004), The 5th AsiaPacific Triennial of Contmeporary Art (2006). He has had solo-shows at most acclaimed institutions such as Kunsthalle Wien (2005), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2005), Castello di Rivoli (Torino, 2005), The Moore Space (Miami, 2003), and ARC/Musee d Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2003). Recent solo-exhibitions include The Museo Esteban Vicente, Spain (2008), GL STRAND, Copenhagen, Denmark (2008), ShanghART H-Space, Shanghai (2007), Marian Goodman Gallery, NYC, US (2007), Parasol Unit, London, UK (2006).
Yang Zhenzhong, I Will Die (2000 - ongoing), 6-channel video installation, various running time, ed. of 5 Following the much-acclaimed presentation of I Will Die at the last Venice Biennale (2007), ShanghART is proud to premier the installation at ABMB. Beyond political concerns, beyond the state of the nation and China s extraordinary moment now in world history, there is something more poignant, more urgent, for each of us. The message is simple and irresistible, and taken as a title for Yang s ongoing sequence of series of video pieces, I will die. Ten series so far, made in different languages (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, French, Dutch, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic), participants are simply seen turned to the camera, responding to the artist s request that they say those words. Some are deadpan, other camp it up, some grasp the meaning of what they are saying with more or less gravitas some, after all, are children and some are frankly complicit in the making of an art work. Whatever, however I will die is said, there can be no denial. These people, seen on video, like hostages in some awful kidnapping scenario, are living proof of their liveliness (they were there), foretelling their deaths. What could be more straightforward and more profound? Yang s use of video in this case is a masterstroke. These are snapshots of people like us, who have left traces on discs or tape that would be recognized by friends and family, and to us who don t know them, well, they could be dead by now. Video is time-based, and so are we, and no matter where we come from, how old we are, how much we play around with the idea, the conclusion
of our mortality inevitably comes around. I Will Die is one of those works of art that happens every now and then and is so obvious, so elegant in its simplicity, it seems incredible that no-one has done it before. It is an ultimate video work, in more ways than one, an extraordinary distillation of an artistic practice that couldn t be more preoccupied with the nature of what is real. Jonathan Watkins, IKON Gallery, 2006 Born in Xiaoshan in 1968, Yang Zhengzhong now lives and works in Shanghai. He graduated from the oil painting department of the China Fine Arts Academy in Hangzhou in 1993 and began working with video and photography in 1995. Yang Zhengshong s work has showed at major biennales and triennials including twice at Venice (2003/2007), and at institutions such at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2003), MoMA, New York (2004), Musee d Art Contemporain, Lyon (2004), Astrup Fearley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2005), Kunstmuseum Bern (2005), Hamburger Kunsthalle (2006), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2006), Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Finland (2007), Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London (2007), The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2007), Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation, Vienna (2007/2008), Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2008), The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2008), and the National Museum of Fine Art, Beijing (2008).
Xu Zhen, BaBa MaMa (2003/2008), performance with two persons
Xu Zhen, BaBa MaMa (2003/2008), performance with two persons Born in 1977, Xu Zhen started out making videos that focused on the body and public space in a manner reminiscent of early Bruce Nauman or Vito Acconci: For example, the four minute video Rainbow, 1998, shows a person s back growing increasingly red, the result of slaps heard on the sound track but never seen. Xu s practice since has become only more provocative in the political realm, even though he in a manner perhaps befitting a provocateur claims that Shanghai artists don t pay attention to politics. One of his most compelling recent pieces 12 91, 2005, is a sculpture of a military tank, made out of high-density foam, iron and resin. Sullied with dried dirt, its exterior imprinted with the marks of people s hands and feet, the work seems a angst-ridden cast burdened with a continuing history of rebellion and oppression. Clearly, Xu s sociopolitical appraisals distance him from the hers of contemporary Chinese artists. And the breadth of his practice, in all its seeming spontaneity and surprising inflections and turns, only complicates the attempt to pin him down to any single position within his country s art scene or, indeed, within cultural production at large. Ironically, at a time when China s cultural activities are on the map as never before in the modern period driven by successive waves of economic expansion, new galleries, museum s, biennials, and record-breaking auctions these qualities might make Xu emblematic of his moment. Hans Ulrich Obrist, ARTFORUM, 2007 Xu Zhen was born in 1977 and graduated from the Shanghai School of Arts and Craft in 1996. He currently resides and works in Shanghai. He participated at PERFORMA 07, New York (2007), and at the 49th Venice Biennale (2005), and has since exhibited his works widely at institutions such as MoMA, New York (2004), V&A, London (2004), Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2004), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2005), Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco (2005), Astrup Fearley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2005), Kunstmuseum Bern (2005), Hamburger Kunsthalle (2006), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2006)De Appel, (Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2006), Museum Boijmanns van Beuningen (Rotterdam, 2006), PS1 Contemporary Art Center (New York, 2006), Museum of Contemporary Art (Shanghai, 2006), Tate Liverpool (2007), Kunsthaus Graz (2008), and The National Museum of Art, Osaka (2008).
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