Time Traveller 时光旅行者: Huang Yongping 黄永砅, Liu Jianhua 刘建华, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu 孙原&彭禹, Yan Lei 颜磊, Curator: Ella Liao 廖薇
RockbundArt Museum,20 Huqiu Rd,Shanghai / September 20 –December 9, 2012
Rockbund Art Museum likes to show work that is large and spectacular, yet simple and direct at the same time. The latest show confirm the direction set be previous shows.
Floor 2 features huge, spectacular sculptures of fishes with fish hooks by Huang Yongping (黄永砅). The surprise for tall persons (like me): If you climb under the belly of the fish, you can actually look inside. The sculpture has both an inside and an outside, the exhibition continues inside the belly of the fish (knives in one belly and scriptures in another.) I was guessing it is referring to some subconscious freudist theories, but the exhibition pamphlet informed me that these are references to some “well-known tales from Chinese history”). Anyway the work was fun to explore, and to take photos of.
Floor 3 has been converted to a screening room: Dark with two little benches. On a large screen one can see a video/film by Sun Yuan & Peng Yu (孙原&彭禹) that is over 80 minutes long. The content is an absurd performance. Waiters/bodyguards standing in a square formation around a red carpet, on which different settings alternate: An old man in a suit surrounded by stuffed wild animals, a setting of stainless steel kitchen furniture… static shots are interrupted by the closing and opening of a red curtain (recorded in the video). It is an absurd setting testing the viewer’s patience, yet at the same time weird enough to stimulate some thoughts about the actual meaning.
Floor 4 has wall painted in brick red hung by painting side by side as in the early galleries hundred years ago. It is a continuation of the work that Yan Lei (颜磊) showed on Documenta 13 in Kassel: A few hundred paintings commissioned to painters-for-hire based on images the artist randomly collected on-line. Each day a painting was taken to the car factory and repainted in monochrome. In Rockbund, ZZZ employs the opposite process: An “erased” (empty) canvas is given to the painter-for-hire, and the painter for hire is free to interpret the “title” (a few words describing what could be seen on the internet image). On one hand the room offers ‘a lot’ to see, on the other hand what is important (the process) is not visible.
Floor 5 features a much more subtle work by Liu Jianhua (刘建华), yet also in large scale: Porcelain sculptures of empty paper sheets (bigger than A1), and flat green-colored porcelain reliefs. Here it is the subtle and delicate material which the works are made of that impresses. The impression oscillates between ‘nothing’ and ‘something’. But in the end, this is still a very traditional sculpture, with a slightly unusual motive.
Floor 6 houses the coffee and tea shop as usual, giving space for rest and reflection. In addition a small exhibition of the history of the building in which the museum is located was added.
All floors added together once again offered a wonderful and enjoyable art exhibition. One could object that this exhibition was not enough critical or intellectual, and I sense a connection between the exhibition strategy and the whole Rockbund redevelopment strategy: This is a place where art is a luxury of life and not a tool for criticizing or questioning an existing order. However one should not dwell on this. Rockbund Art Museum is providing a space for appreciation of art and contemplation, a space to relax with art: A rare space in Shanghai.