MCLC: video art exhibit

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Andrew Field <shanghaidrew at gmail.com>
Subject: video Art exhibit
***********************************************************

Some of you who are in Shanghai may be interested in this posting on my
website, about the video art retrospective currently on at the Minsheng
Art Museum.  Anyone interested in contemporary Chinese art should go see
this exhibition. For images, go directly to the link below.

Andrew

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Source: Shanghai Journal
(11/16/11):<http://shanghaijournal.squarespace.com/journal/2011/11/16/video
-art-in-china-the-minsheng-art-museum.html>

Video Art in China @ The Minsheng Art Museum
By Andrew Field


I'd been hearing rumors for a while that the area known as Red Town (hong
fang) hadn't succeeded as a creative art cluster.  That just isn't true.
Today I took my daughter Sarah to visit the Minsheng Art Museum.  They
were holding an exhibition on 30 years of Chinese video art.  This is a
must-see for anybody interested in contemporary Chinese art.

The title of the exhibition is "Moving Image in China:  1988-2011."  The
warehouse-like museum is dark inside and each room and alcove is fixed
with a screen showing a different video artwork.

Upon entering the museum one is greeted with Zhang Peili's famous 180
minute film of a pair of gloved hands breaking and gluing together a
mirror.  This is considered one of the classic films in the video art
movement in China.  The son of a surgeon, Zhang Peili has always had a
fixation on gloved hands and on fixing broken things.

The wierdness continues as one traverses the main floor of the museum.  In
addition to strange repetitive images of bodies, crowds, and faces, each
in their own little box, one hears sounds.  There is a strong sucking
noise coming from one room.  One enters to find water being sucked into
the mouth of a face projected onto a pan.  Called "Baby Talk," this video
installation by Wang Gongxin is meant to reverse the viewpoint of a small
child being nourished by his parents. Already spooked by the bizarre
images and the dark museum, my seven-year old daughter was freaked out by
this exhibit and started looking for the exit.

It didn't help that next to this one is a film by Shanghai artist Xu Zhen
called "Shouting."  Made in 1998, this film examines how crowds in the
city react to a person screaming at the top of his lungs.  The shouting
was eerie and echoed through the cavernous hall.

We had to leave the museum after that, but on the way out we spotted a
video of girls primping themselves in a mirror.  Filmed clandestinely by
Cui Xiuwen in 2000 in the ladies room at a Beijing disco (or possibly a
KTV hostess club?) this is a fascinating piece of voyeuristic filmmaking
called "Lady's".  Sarah was spellbound and we stayed for the duration of
the film, as girls dressed and undressed, adjusted their breasts, counted
their money, and talked with their lovers on the cell phone.
I hope to return before the exhibition ends on November 27, this time
preferably with adults rather than children, and see more of these
fascinating and pathbreaking video artworks.