英语角 angle

Defne Ayas on a New Media Student Show in Hangzhou

2008.01.27

In the 1980s, the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts boasted the most extensive reference room on international contemporary art in all of China. Its elite student body and literati tradition congealed to make it the birthplace of a number of the avant-garde collectives and movements that we now refer to collectively as the '85 New Wave. Now renamed the China Academy of Art, this Hangzhou school—alma mater to many of China's notable artists and a creative reservoir for the nearby Shanghai art scene—recently presented Shall See, an exhibition of works by senior students from its New Media Art Department. Curated in four different parts by guest faculty members and artists Yang Zhenzhong and Chen Shaoxiong, the showcase was on view January 16-18 at various locations in Hangzhou.

Wang Lang, I dream I'm dissappearing in the dream, video projection on bed, 2008.

Not unlike the satellite fairs one sees in Miami hotels during Art Basel Miami Beach, the exhibition titled Checkroom was installed at a youth hostel in downtown Hangzhou, with video works on view in its many rooms. A lobby installation by Ahn Zheng Mo involved a vertical video projection of a color photo scanner and automated sequences of fast food images. Yang Yunling's multi-screen video installation captured seventeen years of birthday celebrations in seventeen days. Wang Lang's video of a person seen sleeping on his side was projected onto a hotel bed. All in all, Checkroom had the effect of a media frenzy that mixed art and everyday life, providing at its best a kaleidoscopic glimpse into the students' interests at this time.

Staged in an industrial basement off a downtown alley, a second exhibition, Red, grappled with issues of art and feminism. Red featured only female artists, and once again, some of the works on view consisted of rudimentary, D.I.Y. video art that treated the video camera as a recently invented tool, pointing it at whatever crossed the artist’s immediate path. The exhibition's highlights included Jin Xin's Woman Chair, an abstract sculpture made out of gleaming heating wire on Asbestos board and the non-narrative, charcoal drawing animation, Mark by Wang Shiwei.

Huang Liya, The Phone is Ringing, video installation, 2008.

Among the video bombardment in both shows, Huang Liya’s telephone-activated artwork made the greatest impression. While many other students seemed to have relied on single, static camera shots, shying away from exploring in-depth the possibilities of their medium, Huang's The Telephone is Ringing offered a refreshing dose of creative engagement with its site and context. Visitors were invited to pick up the phone as it rang within the rooms of the hostel, connecting them directly to a sex worker. The audience got to speak with and “get to know” the worker, immediately putting them in the variegated position of a voyeur, client, audience or a potential friend. Calls were unscripted and based on the conversational interests of the speakers. Another artist who was not afraid of tapping both the moment and the public’s reaction was Sun Huiyuan. Dressed in an U.S. military uniform, he drove through the city on a tricycle equipped with plastic missiles and a propane tank emitting bursts of flames. The Hangzhou police eventually busted him, but this didn’t stop him from wearing his camouflage costume when attending the show’s other activities. His work was part of Tricyles, an exhibition on the move that wavered throughout the city.

Sun Huiyuan busted by the police.

Photo by Zhang Lehua

Opening day ended with a performance piece staged at an oyster restaurant near the academy. The piece was created and acted by Cheng Jun, Wu Shao'en, Yao Luqing and Zhang Yangying. A tad intoxicated with their love for each other (“A loves B，B loves C, but C loves A, another actress is the mirror of B”), the performers’ improvisational study of narcissism (which also involved the audience) proved full of elements familiar from "experimental theater." Though the piece was embellished with the use of live video feeds, poetic movements, and lots of fabric wrappings for the performers themselves, it was not evocative or technologically savvy enough to captivate the student and faculty audience in its entirety.

For more than 20 years, Zhang Peili, the undisputed pioneer of video art in China, has been teaching at China Academy of Art, appointed founding head of its New Media Department in 2003. Encouraging a learning environment founded on experimentation, critical reflection and the exploration of new forms of expressions. Zhang continuously arranges both local and international guest lecturers for his students. This exhibition displayed the lively results of Yang Zhenzhong and Chen Shaoxiong’s session with the students. Let's hope that this showcase will prove invaluable in helping these budding artists to manage the next stages of their embryonic careers.