History of Chemistry I

2004 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Lu Chunsheng

location: Shanghai, China
year born: 1968
gender: male
nationality: Chinese
home town: Changchun, Jilin province, China

A mesmerizing experience of a vaguely familiar yet remote world, History of Chemistry I follows a group of men as they wander from somewhere beyond the edge of the sea through a vast landscape to an abandoned steel factory. Using long shots and atypical settings, Lu Chunsheng enigmatically refers to a distant history while conveying the sense of dislocation wrought by successive stages of modernization. The combination of elaborate landscape shots from the suburbs of Shanghai and Lu’s signature style of spare and minimally crafted acting offers a surreal view of human behavior in spaces marked by the hulking remnants of China’s extraordinary development.


A particularly generative aspect of Lu Chunsheng’s work is the way it breaches the boundary between documentary and fiction. Rather than merely illustrate it, his conceptual and methodological coherence broadens and extends his inquiry into everyday life. Unlike many of his fellow artists who emerged from the same generation, Lu does not focus on the alienation inherent to an accelerated urbanization and its stream of rapidly moving images and perplexed inhabitants.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Architecture in Art, » China, » Collective History, » Color Photography, » Chinese

Golden Bridge
© » KADIST

Lin Yilin

Golden Bridge is part of “Golden Journey”, a series of site-specific performances and installations created during Lin’s residency at Kadist San Francisco...

Vanishing Point
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2014

The central point of Vanishing Point is the most direct physiological reaction of the body to the environment...

603 Football Field
© » KADIST

Qing Zhang

2006

603 Football Field presents a soccer game played inside a small student apartment in Shanghai...

The Result of 1000 Pieces
© » KADIST

Lin Yilin

1994

All his artworks utilize the use of body – the artist’s own body and that of others...

Tremble
© » KADIST

Jiang Zhi

2009

In the video installation Tremble, Jiang projected the life-size images of seven naked men and women onto seven individual screens...

5
© » KADIST

Jiang Zhi

2012

5 is a three channel video about the dualities of death and resurrection, reminiscence and fantasy, chronological and retrospective narration...

Island
© » KADIST

Kan Xuan

2006

In Kan Xuan’s four-channel video Island , a series of objects like nail clippers, hairbrush, toothpaste, and house decorations are shot in close-ups...

Retired pilar
© » KADIST

Jin Shan

2010

Retired Pillar represents the death and deterioration of legacy of colonial Shanghai...

Phenomena
© » KADIST

Yang Xinguang

2009

Although seemingly unadorned at first glance, Yang Xinguang’s sculptural work Phenomena (2009) employs minimalist aesthetics as a means of gesturing towards the various commonalities and conflicts between civilization and the natural world...

The Tower of Babel: The Carnaval
© » KADIST

Du Zhenjun

2010

The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...

Collective Memories: Beijing Hotel
© » KADIST

Chen Shaoxiong

2007

After engaging primarily with video and photography for more than a decade, Chen turned to painting to explore the issue of urban change and memories—both personal and collective...

Ammo Bunker
© » KADIST

Mario Ybarra Jr.

2009

Ammo Bunker (2009) is a multipart installation that includes large-scale wall prints and an architectural model...

RMB City: A Second Life City Planning 04
© » KADIST

Cao Fei

2007

Since 2007, Cao Fei has radically focused her work on Second Life, an online space that virtually mimics “the real world” and includes everything from the expression of ideas to economic investment...

Unregistered City series #1 #2 #7
© » KADIST

Jiang Pengyi

2008

Unregistered City is a series of eight photographs depicting different scenes of a vacant, apparently post-apocalyptic city: Some are covered by dust and others are submerged by water...

21 Ke (21 Grams)
© » KADIST

Sun Xun

2010

Sun’s animated film 21 Ke (21 Grams) is based on the 1907 research by the American physician Dr...

Destilaciones
© » KADIST

Ximena Garrido Lecca

2014

Destilaciones ( Distillations , 2014) is an installation composed of a group of ceramic pots, presented on the floor and within a steel structure...

Exquisite Eco Living (executive Properties series)
© » KADIST

Vincent Leong

2012

The photograph Exquisite Eco Living is part of a larger series titled Executive Properties in which he digitally manipulated the images to insert iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur in the view of derelict spaces also found in the city...

Untitled (Schindler House, #01)
© » KADIST

Luisa Lambri

2007

Rudolph Schindler’s designs, part of a practice he called “Space Architecture,” marry interior with exterior and space with light...

Regard Eating Every Single Time as a Formal Declaration, My Stomach is Sexy out of Anger
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2006

The image of rusted nails, nuts and bolts as shrapnel sandwiched between a fried Chicken burger highlights the contrast between decadence and destruction...