Gossip showdown at the water cooler: Don't shoot the messenger!

Ok, big rant here...

I've been thinking about an artist's role in claiming recognition for their works...and as much as I hate to say it (I'm fairly confident I'm going to spark some friction with other students in the class if they ever read this), I'm not so sure many of the contemporary Chinese artists we've examined always deserve credit for their work. *ducks and hides*

Why on earth would I say something like that? Because of people like Huang Yan, the gentleman who has other people paint on his body - and somehow manages to garner artistic credit for it. I mean sure, he may or may not have conceived of the "brilliant" idea, but when you get down to it he's not actually doing anything. Giving this man credit for creating art is meaningless when his role is entirely passive - a dead body could just as easily serve as a canvas yet would not receive artistic credit as the main *artist* of a project as this man does. And no matter how I try to reframe it, this is always my fundamental personal problem with contemporary art.

Plenty of other artists play relatively passive roles in their project yet do not deserve such a harsh criticism because they actually have artistic input in their projects to some extent. Allowing Huang Yan to receive credit for essentially being a canvas for someone else's painting is laughable and completely absurd. Besides, I couldn't even find a picture of one of the man's 'works' online and I'm more than willing to take this as an omen.

Ok, that part of my rant is done. Now onto better things (and actual artists).



(Note: the image to the right is Zhang O's 'Daddy and I No. 29' and was found here.)

Oh, Zhang O. What the hell have you done? As much as I am both simulataneously mesmerized and offended, I can't help but remain indecisive as to her motives. I see 1 of 2 scenarios arising in interpreting this piece (and the 'Daddy and I' series in general).

Scenario #1: This piece is ironically literally true to it's title. By naming the series 'Daddy and I', Zhang O hopes to help eliminate antiquated familial misconceptions by showing that families nowadays are no longer tied down by bloodlines or even nationalities. This assumes that the girl in the picture is either adopted by or is guarded by the man in the picture despite their obvious racial differences. Parenthood has transcended its traditional cultural, racial and gender boundaries. Wow! And if this is the case, then kudos to her for making such a bold statement. And even more so job well done for featuring men in nurturing roles for once instead of only women. It's refreshing to see both genders portrayed as nurturing for a change.

Needless to say, as optimistic as I am and as much as I'd like Scenario #1 to be the artist's intent - I honestly don't think the piece is designed to work that way.

Hmm...

Scenario #2: The piece is an incredibly harsh commentary on the intentions of foreigners in China and perhaps East Asia as a whole. Specifically male foreigners and even more specifically caucasian male foreigners. The men in the pictures are in some sort of perverse relationship with the girls and are accordingly completely out of place both in East Asia and in the picture. The underlying message is that any relationship between a white male and an East Asian woman is inherently negative, perverse, and completely unacceptable. Perhaps the white male is the West and the young girl is China.

Get some self-confidence Zhang O.

I wonder if she was burned in the past by a bad relationship and this is her way of seeking revenge. Or perhaps if she is simply racist and overly nationalistic. As a white male and specifically a white male in a relationship with an East Asian girl (my age, not 5 years old you perverts) I can't help but be offended.

Why are all of the creepy men in the pictures white males? Surely other foreigners are just as bad as we supposedly are?

Surely *gasp* East Asian men do bad things as well?
Surely *gasp* East Asian women do bad things as well?
And surely *gasp* humans as a whole do bad things?

Picking on one specific race and gender doesn't fix anything. It only serves to obfuscate whatever problem exists and bring everyone farther away from a solution. As for Scenario #2, well what can I say? The world is negative enough already without more misguided hate.

So for my own personal satisfaction I'm going to be choosing to interpret the piece via Scenario #1. And in doing so I applaud Zhang O for making such a positive message in such a bold way. Transcending race, gender and cultural stereotypes! I feel like the world's improving already!

Hey, what do you know? I just reclaimed the piece and turned something overly negative into something beautiful!

I hope it pisses you off Zhang O.

this Sunday

Hi everyone,

on 5pm, 3rd June, this Sunday, 140 sq meter team is holding a
presentation from Lijiang Studio in the gallery. they will introduce
their studio, and few artists, who do residency programme there will
present their works . So, if you are free, come around...

www.lijiangstudio.org/
Lijiang Studio is a new international artists residency in the
mountains of NW Yunnan Province, China.

Defne

Laugh Now Cry Later

An exhibition of New York University's emerging artists on display at Island6. June 9th- 17th Opening: June 9, 6PM Island 6, 120 Moganshan Road, Building 6

With Catherine Ahearn, Cara Chan, Joseph Cocciardi, Jamie Feldmar, Robyn Fukumoto, Susan Heinick, Thomas McDonell, Borna Sammak, Sara Wojcik

Curated: Jasmin Tsou.

Charles in Charge

Charles in Charge
by Lauren Collins May 28, 2007

The art dealer Charles Saatchi spends a lot of time sitting at his desk. You might, too, if your desk were more of a table, capacious enough to occupy almost an entire wall of a parlor-floor room in your Belgravia town house; if its placement allowed you to hear snatches of birdsong and to look onto leafy Eaton Square; if its surface were laden with monographs, notebooks, a pewter platter of cookies, several bright-colored plastic cigarette lighters, and a Mrs. Potato Head toy.

In the midst of this tableau, Saatchi’s computer, a black flat-screen desktop, occupies a clutter-free zone toward the front. In the past, he didn’t use it much—“I can Google things up, and that’s about the extent of it,” he said—but, lately, he has been spending three hours a day pecking away at his gallery’s ever-expanding Web site. “This site happened only because I had nothing to do,” Saatchi, who is sixty-three, said. He has been waiting almost a year for the construction of a new gallery in London, and, in the meantime, he explained, the young people in his life suggested that he stake a claim on the Internet. “Oh, yes, I see, this is the modern world,” he recalled, of his awakening. “I was kicked by my staff, who said, ‘Oy, wake up,’ and by my daughters, who called me a double loser,” he said, splaying both thumbs and forefingers into L-shapes, and smacking them against his forehead.

A year ago, Saatchi launched Your Gallery, a free online forum where anyone in the world can create a profile page and display his or her art work. “I’m hoping that the site is encouraging to people who find the art world a little daunting,” he said. Within a month, thirteen hundred artists had signed up, and Saatchi followed with STUART, a spinoff page focussing on student artists. Next came a magazine, a street-art gallery, a debate forum, and Showdown, a biweekly contest at the end of which two pieces of art are voted on by viewers. “We stole Showdown from the most fantastic site, Hot or Not—the one where you put people up and say, ‘Would you or wouldn’t you?’ ” Saatchi said. “We think of something, and we just stick another box on,” he went on, stubbing a Silk Cut cigarette into a silver chalice.

By January, the online galleries were drawing more than five million hits a day, but Saatchi noticed a problem: a quorum of artists from China were attempting to communicate with their English-speaking contemporaries, without much luck. Saatchi tried an automatic translation service, but the results were spotty: a section that ought to have read “New Art from China,” for instance, was interpreted as “New Art from Porcelain.” Saatchi said, “That’s what makes Chinese translating systems so frustrating—the language comes out as gobbledygook.” An improved Mandarin site went live last month.

“I don’t do business travel,” Saatchi said, announcing his intention to create similar sites for speakers of Russian, Hindi, Japanese, and Spanish. “I haven’t been to America in five years. I’m very good at feigning terrible wasting diseases at the last minute. Nigella”—Saatchi is married to the cook and writer Nigella Lawson—“gave me this great thing where if you’re in the middle of a phone call it makes the noise of a baby or a deliveryman.” When he launched Your Gallery, Saatchi pledged, in the name of giving others a chance, to desist for a year from buying artists he discovered there. The year is almost up. “I’ve got a list of people I think are very, very good,” he said. “It fills up two sides of an A4 envelope.”

Lawson, wearing an apron, popped in and said, “Can I get you anything?”

“Hello, darling, what are you up to?” Saatchi responded.

“It’s a madhouse in here,” Lawson said, and explained that she was doing a photo shoot downstairs. Nevertheless, she gamely agreed to give a demonstration on her Pilates machine for a curious visitor. “I need my stirrups!” she yelled to Saatchi, who was happy to help.

Becoming Eurotrash

I was momentarily jolted out of the mindlessness of our usual wednesday lecture yesterday by the guest lecturer introducing us to Shi Yong. Since there's always a high chance that A.) people are skipping the class or B.) no one is paying attention, I thought it might be fruitful for me to share this information with everyone else so that should you fall into category A or B, you can still share a piece of enlightenment. I'll be concise: I think Shi Yong's faux-commercialization is brilliant.

*ahem*


(Note: original image available here). So you're probably wondering who Shi Yong is and what gender he or she might be. Ok, no problem. I have you covered there. You can blame his audience for the gender discrepency as I'll attempt to explain from my understanding. Shi Yong is a Shanghai based artist, and a certifiably male (though you can't necessarily tell by looking at his eurotrash outfit as I'll explain later). From what I can see, I would say he has introduced a fake consumerist grapple over his own image - and subsequently marketed that image by incorporating it into most if not all of his future projects. Here's where the brilliant component comes in (at least I think so): considering that Shi Yong allowed westerners to critique his art by their own sense of aesthetics, he has effectively created a sort of consumer loop in feeding it back out to them. If Europeans find Shi Yong's pieces amusing for their outlandish fashion statements and/or marketing, they have only themselves to blame because they voted on his current outfit.

And about that Eurotrash outfit...




(Note: the original images for the above and to the right available here). Ah post-colonialism and the old world! What the hell were people thinking (specifically in Vienna from 1997-1998) when they chose his outfit? The cat's out of the bag at this point, as Shi Yong has taken his newfound image and run with it as far as he can. And my oh my how far he's gone! Even with my precursory glance there appear to be some really wonderful permutations of this European-bastardized faux-commercial image. Take the image to the right for example. The idea is nothing particularly new - we're all aware that we're slaves to our jobs and that our place in society strangles us by the limitations imposed by collectivization. That's nothing new, but what separates Shi Yong from the many others who have attempted to address this topic is his blatantly artificial image. His implementation is simply suitable for the subject by using a viewer-influenced and obviously artificial image. Rather than rehash the same painting repeatedly into ad-infinium as do some other Chinese painters who shall remain anonymous, Shi Yong purposefully molds his own molded image into new wonderfully urban mutations. This is the first time I've been really intruiged by a Chinese artist for the underlying social "message" as well as aesthetic value of the work itself, and I look forward to finding more satirical Shi Yong pieces in the future. In the meantime, if I hopefully convinced anyone else to check him out, a mini-biography is available at Shanghart, and the Bizart Shi Yong gallery is available here.

MoCa, Art in America in Review, a little late.

So I finally got my act together and went to check out what the Guggenheim thinks is a good representation of art in America. I can’t in good conscience say that I’ve experienced the full breadth of the exhibit (all 300 years of it) as I have yet to visit the installment at the Shanghai museum, but at least now I know what’s supposedly going on in contemporary art. And what is it that’s going on? A bunch of TV’s arranged in shrubbery with synchronized 80’s themed videos playing on them. Actually, with the exception of this ridiculous and yet admittedly amusing piece by Nam June Paik, I really enjoyed a lot of the works. Matthew Barney’s “The Cremaster Cycle,” for example really fascinated me. He had a whole room to himself and there were about five or six TV’s arranged in a circle hanging from the ceiling with five or six entirely different videos playing on them. I certainly didn’t understand what was going on but the visuals were intriguing and while they didn’t make any sort of sense to me, there was a narrative element to them that kept me interested for a while. He also had some music playing that, surprisingly, suited all of the videos well even though I’m pretty sure it was only meant to apply to one video at a time. I’m sure his huge budget didn’t hurt either.

As for more hilarious video art, Paul Chan’s “Tin Drum Trilogy” was pretty entertaining. I only had the chance to watch part of one of the videos, as they were each at least 30 minutes long. The one I watched involved the heads of some political figures like Condoleezza Rice and John Ashcroft superimposed on the bodies of soldiers in Iraq. Simultaneously each “character (the political figures)” is heard speaking some nonsensical prose over really attention-grabbing, experimental music. Needless to say, I was only interested in the music.

Some of my favorite pieces included things like Kara Walker’s “Resurrection!” which upon further investigation, I found is meant (along with the rest of her work) to evoke the stereotypes of the south, African Americans and slavery. The work is made of silhouettes painted (I think?) to the wall and decorated by several colorful pink and blue projections that make the work look fun and full of life. Yet upon closer inspection on the silhouettes one realizes the dark side of the piece as they are all holding dead bodies, heads on sticks and other, you know, typical things. For purely aesthetic reasons I also really loved the exploding cinema painting on the way up to the second floor but unfortunately the name of the artist escapes me.

While none of the artists’ messages really made an impression on me I found them all (or most of them) aesthetically pleasing and that proved to be enough for the self-indulgent art lover that I am.

June 1

3 Solo Exhibitions by Zhang Dali, Ren Hong, Wang Lang/Liu Xinhua

" Three Unities"        3 Solo Exhibitions by Zhang Dali, Ren Hong, Wang Lang/Liu Xinhua

 

Artist s:                        Zhang Dali, Ren Hong, Wang Lang/Liu Xinhua

Curator s:                   Mathieu Borysevicz , Yan Yang

Organiser/Venue:     ddmwarehouse

Exhibition Dates:      May 26^th - June 2 4^th 2007

Opening:                    May 26^th, 2007 (Sat.) 8 pm

Entry:                          Free

 

 

Aristotle articulated the precepts of early Greek drama as the three "unities": unity of place, unity of time and unity of action. Under the roof of DDM Warehouse from 5/26/07 �C 6/27/07 three solo shows by Beijing based artists will be enacted: Zhang Dali, Ren Hong, and Liu Xinhua/Wang Lang. These artists of the Cultural Revolution generation transform the DDM warehouse into a stage where never-before exhibited works will be dramatically presented to the Shanghai audience.

 

Zhang Dali , the bad boy artist whose ubiquitous and mysterious graffiti took Beijing by force in the mid-1990's, and who has since gone on to achieve international fame, proudly presents his powerful new series of bronze sculptural works. Juxtaposing life size animals with human figures, these surrealist unions are rife with symbolic implications of a bestial violence that pervades our society and environment. Zhang Dali has recently been profiled in both ART Forum and Art in America for his participation in The Gwanju Biennial. His "Chinese Offspring" sculptures have also been recently acquired by famous British collector, Charles Saatchi and are profiled on the website:

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/zhang_dali.htm

 

Artists, Wang Lang  and Liu Xinhua pair up for the first time to present their long-term, labor-intensive work "Implemental Photography". Both artists have turned from their performance art backgrounds to work as semioticians in the creation of an extensive image archive. Culling thousands of images from newspapers, pictorials and advertisements this duo has deconstructed the legacy of propaganda and perhaps of photography itself. You will never look at a photograph the same way again.

 

In "Red Romanticism", a new painting series by Ren Hong, the artist presents images from 1960 and 70-era collective consciousness, which are then filtered through kaleidoscopic patterns. Various charged forms such as butterflies, arrows, birds and urns are meticulously repeated across the canvas surface reflecting the artists' childhood and her ambiguous nostalgia for a colorful age of idealism and innocence. These tediously made oil paintings are made to look effortless like soft, hypnotic daydreams.

 

ddmwarehouse

713 Dong Daming Rd. 3F Shanghai, China 200080

Tel: +86 21 3501 3212      Fax: +86 21 3501 3340

Opening Hours: 11:00-19:00 Tues.-Sun. (no fee)

www.ddmwarehouse.org

info@ddmwarehouse.org

 

 

Bus Lines (ddm) ： 13,19,25,33,37,921,922,868,875 to Gao Yang Rd.

Yiwu update

Hi everyone,
I spoke to the Program Director and Professor of the Management Class last night, and it looks like the trip to Yiwu is cancelled for good, mainly b/c of logistical reasons. The best way to get there is from Hangzhou, by taking a bus. But then, I am also told a car or a van would be handy to go from one wholesale place to the other, unless one goes there only for the market. If we do not have permission to use the van of NYU, who volunteers to drive up there?

Liu Jianhua's Yiwu Report/Proposal was on view at the Shanghai Biennial past Fall.



More of his works you can find here.
Some stats:
"Yiwu, 300 kilometers away from Shanghai, is the largest market of petty commodity wholesales in the world where various foreign buyers go to place orders."

It is a "world supermarket". 3,000 booths, 10 major exhibition halls, an exhibition area of 70,000 square meters, 1,700 participating enterprises from more than 20 foreign countries and 25 domestic provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, 12,000 overseas merchants from 120 countries and regions� Such are the latest records created by the 2005 Yiwu International Commodities Fair (hereinafter abbreviated as Yiwu Fair).

At present, there live 1.6 million people in Yiwu city; but over a million people engaged in construction and business from outside live there year in and year out. Within this small city covering only 1,105 square kilometers, there are 6,000 permanent foreign merchants from more than 100 countries and regions in the world going there to stock commodities and 566 representative offices of overseas companies approved to be established there in Yiwu.

Usually, an army of over 200,000 purchasers send out commodities to 212 countries and regions at an average scale of more than 1,000 international standard containers there each day. In 2005, the trade volume of Yiwu exceeded US$20 billion with its container exports breaking through 400,000 each day.

Without an advantaged geographical location as well as abundant products, Yiwu's comprehensive development level ranked the 17th among the top 100 counties and cities and its urban competitiveness ranked the top among all county-level cities in Zhejiang in 2004. Its per capita GDP achieved US$5,000, its fiscal revenues RMB2.95 billion, and the per capita net incomes of rural residents there RMB6,969. More surprisingly, the possession volume of cars is 26 per hundred households.

Yiwu has developed its unique advantages. The over 100,000 dealers and 200,000 coming-and-going merchants in the market of petty commodities have constituted a huge selling group and a huge buying group respectively.


More here

San Yuan Li

San Yuan Li, a collaborative project by Ou Ning, Cao Fei and U-thèque members, is a case study of the typical "village-amidst-the-city" phenomenon in the process of urbanization in Guangzhou. Commissioned by Hou Hanru for Z.O.U.(Zone of Urgency), 50th Biennale di Venezia, 2003

More here.

China Pavillion- China Tracy by Cao Fei

This Saturday at MOCA

Hmm...it wasn't necessarily the bread throwing, and it wasn't the pile of naked bodies either. I can't help but be morbidly fascinated with Zhang Huan, and I blame it all entirely on the meatsuit. Now don't get me wrong, I'm well aware that none of this is 'tame,' but I found myself wondering just how far this guy would go to shock the art world. And lo and behold, I have found...



The lovely picture to your right. I'm well aware that the discerning reader may be asking themselves at this point "gosh, what could possibly be so shocking about this picture?" In an effort to protect any particularly sensitive readers I'm not going to post the related images - but in true democratic spirit I'll provide the link so you can check the entire piece out yourself: http://www.vvork.com/?p=1649. And for the rest of us I'll provide a rich description of Zhang Huan simulating sex with a donkey - whoops, guess I already described the collection. If you want more *gasp* shocking pictures, check out this one: here. But be forewarned, it's not for the weak at heart. You basically get a front row seat for watching Zhang Huan simulating suicide in a bathtub. Popcorn, anyone?

What?! My thoughts exactly dear reader. I would like to bring up the question of whether or not some contemporary Chinese art is being done purely for the sake of shock. I realize for some people this will cheapen the aesthetic value of the art - assuming you even find aesthetic value in watching a man 'bond' with a donkey. Personally, as long as a piece is interesting, I don't really care whether Zhang Huan is copulating with a donkey or teletubbies or whatever. But I can easily envision some critics and viewers either being offended or simply overwhelmed so as to divert their attention away from the art.

Is there a purpose for having a shocking piece simply for the sake of shock? I would argue that there is, but it depends on how you value art. If you only pay attention to a more superficial aesthetic sense you will never see the fascinating twist behind more grotesque pieces. Likewise if you look for an overinflated meaning in a grotesque piece I suppose you'll find it. And I suppose you'll come up with some strange, overinflated reason as to why Zhang Huan is both mounting and being mounted by a donkey. I'm happy not having a fake explanation and I'm content with writing the whole thing off as a shock contest. But here's the kicker: shock for shock's sake is fine with me. I personally envision art's purpose as being catalytic for thought and reflection. It doesn't have to be beautiful and it doesn't even necessarily have to have a reason for existing. Let's be honest, there's no reason that I can think of for the sake of Zhang Huan's defense in this case. And you know, that's perfectly ok. He did the piece for shock value, and guess what...it shocked me. Job well done Zhang Huan. I suppose having sex with a donkey is not really too flattering, but at least he still has all his fingers. Which is more than I can say for Shi Qiong.

all the posts i've failed to post

shanghai sculpture garden review:
Upon entrance: the lawn at Shanghai Sculpture Garden is just a preview of the crazy mismatched conglomerate of ideas going on within the warehouse space. Those who enter the space are immediately greeted by a brick car, 6 characters riding a 6 person bicycle, a piece consisting of metal bars infringing upon a tree, in addition to countless other odds and ends scattered around the compound’s lawn. Inside the actual warehouse, the visitors experience a similar setup- an exact replica of the outside (only different stuff to look at). The space is overwhelmingly cluttered with mismatched sculptures- an enormous overweight sumo wrestler juxtaposed a wavelike floor piece composed of miniature wooden men; a giant cartoon-ish yellow horse trots besides a ceilings length spider like machine. There is no rhyme or reason. The only thing in common to this collection was the artists’ Chinese heritage.
As usual-many of the sculptures were reminiscent of western artworks as well as familiar objects- some pieces could have even been mistaken as a Giacometti, Jeff Koons, or other kitschy enlarged gift shop-looking decorations.
Nonetheless, the space was enormous, and acted as a great showcase for whatever. The fact that the space functioned as a museum as well as office space was pretty impressive.


Art for Sale

Yang Zhenzhong explores the technique of placing artwork out of the context of a gallery/museum and into the context of a place more readily available to the masses- a shopping mall. Knowing that he would reach a different type of crowd, he clears out a store in Shanghai Plaza and revamps it in order to present contemporary artwork to a wider public. Art becomes accessible to all, just like any other readily available coveted product. Various artists stocked shelves with original pieces, mainly: altered items, original ideas, and anything that took the form of knickknacks. However, despite the variety of product, the widest complaint was that the work was not ‘decorative’ enough for certain taste.
Art re-contextualized--this idea has been executed in multiple ways and in multiple forms. As I watched the documentation of Art for Sale, the first thing that I associated this piece with was shop dropping. Those who take part in this particular act usually revamp certain objects to their personal vision and return them to the area from which they purchased it. In effect, the artists aim towards tossing up the usual store display by breaking up the stark display of commercialism. Yang Zhenzong’s show was similar in the sense that artwork was being brought down from the realm hoity-toity art collectors and into the hands of ordinary consumers. Artists were given the opportunity to circulate their products in a different manner. However, instead of taking the title of an impostor product, the show worked in the artist’ favor to openly display their products.


Hangzhou Academy

For China's emerging art scene, Hangzhou Academy seems to be the place to study. In fact, this university had far better facilities than most art schools I've been too-->New York. I may have been so impressed by the architecture and enormity of the place to really notice anything else.
immediate observations:
Pros: 1. Different buildings dedicated to separate studio concentrations- photo, digital, sculpture, etc. –this isolates the students and allows them to be only influenced by people/facilities pertaining to their specific field. 2. Instruction by/ exposure to ‘big name’ Chinese artists. 3. great facilities
Cons: Limitations- 1. University closed on weekends/closing early. 2. Empty rooms that could potentially be used as studio space.
UH? Although the facilities at Hangzhou University kick NYU’s ass, the only reason I would opt for NYU’s education is the freedom of choice in terms of classes. I can’t tell whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. It seems like the students at Hangzhou are pretty much screwed if they want to change concentrations. One student said that he blindly chose to study New Media, even though he had no idea what it entailed. The studio kids are not permitted to switch. On the other hand, by concentrating solely in one area, students are allowed to intently explore that medium in far greater depth than they would have if they were working with a variety of media.

As for meeting Zhong Peili- he provided us with short clips of a number of his videos.—the trend seemed to be one object/scenario shot at three different perspectives such as: washing a chicken, eating a tomato, scratching various parts of the body, etc. These were all simplistic scenes portraying a simple/mundane activity.
The only disappointing aspect was of course the language barrier. Our interview/understanding of his work was inhibited, and the translations seemed terse and tiresome. However, it was rather accommodating to have the Chinese students’ translate his ideas and include individual input.

PastForward opening

You are Cordially invited to PastForward, an exhibition that
re-examines historical consciousness through a group of artists whose
own lives have paralleled the tumultuous and dynamic history of modern
China. Zhang Dali, Ren Hong, Liu Xinhua/Wang Lang, Sheng Qi and Zhang
Nian all grew up during the Cultural Revolution and came of age during
China's early years of economic reform. The group, all friends since
the mid-eighties, use distinctly diverse methods to explore the
representation of social reality throughout history. From fiberglass
casts of migrant workers to oil painting and photo archiving, from the
Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen and beyond, this exhibition shows us
that the past is still forever in front of us.

Opening Reception this Saturday May 12, 2007
Oriental Vista Collections 5.12.07 – 6.10.07
Shaoxing Lu no. 19 Shanghai
021 5465 7768