Island

2006 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Kan Xuan

year born: 1972
gender: female
nationality: Chinese

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. These highly polished and aestheticized images create a poetic visual flow. However, in front of each object lies a coin of different value—two yuan, one pound, one euro, one dollar—that silently reveals the material value of the household supplies. Underneath the video’s elegant surface there is a deep sense of critical irony, elaborated in the contradictory nature of the cheap plastic items and their sophistic visual interpretation. Kan poignantly and metaphorically comments on the economy and production at the base of today’s global market and shows that extremely influential visual spectacles can be generated by the most everyday of items.


Experimenting with painting, photography, performance, and video installation, Kan Xuan explores the everyday from a very personal perspective. Though she graduated from the China Academy of Fine Art with rigorous training in oil painting, Kan quickly adopted video as her primary medium. From often ignored daily life experiences as points of departure, Kan creates a visual diary. Here, the camera amplifies mundane activities to reveal absurd and eerie details. For example, in Kan Xuan, Ai! , she calls and answers her own name among the crowd in subway station; in Eggs , she squeezes and breaks eggs with her hands, and in A Sunny Day two middle-aged men laugh and tickle each other in a public plaza. In other works Kan engages feminist discourse by situating herself in uncomfortable situations or exposing her body, such as standing naked on a public pedestal in A Happy Girl or allowing spiders to crawl over her in Looking Looking Looking For! .


Colors:



Related works of genres: » chinese contemporary artists  
» see more

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...

La Town
© » KADIST

Cao Fei

2014

Cao Fei’s video La Town, 2014 depicts a mythical metropolis that has been destroyed by unknown forces...

Two videos, three photographs, several related masterpieces, and American Art
© » KADIST

Yan Xing

2013

The title of this series – Two videos, three photographs, several related masterpieces and American art – is paradoxical, suggesting the work is conceived in relation to its medium and a situation in art history and the region of the world in which it was made...

Love Story
© » KADIST

Liu Chuang

2014

Categorized as low-level literature, a “Love Stories” book is a romantic popular fiction of proletariat China, read mainly by teenagers, students, and young workers...

Related works featuring themes of: » China, » Collective History, » Figurative Art, » Film/Video, » Chinese  
» see more

Lift with care
© » KADIST

Hu Yun

2013

This research-based artwork acts as a memorial to early twentieth century European exploration of China...

Drag
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2006

In the video work Drag, a man in a dark room pulls on the end of a rope...

Safely Maneuvering Across Lin He Road
© » KADIST

Lin Yilin

1995

For his action, Safely Maneuvering across Lin He Road , Lin built a brick wall on one side of a busy main street in the city of Guangzhou...

Cinema
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2013

In the work Cinema , Fang Lu explores in a meticulous yet un-dramatic — almost casual — way of how “the self” in our today’s life is a controlled and staged construction of oneself...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Lift with care
© » KADIST

Hu Yun

2013

This research-based artwork acts as a memorial to early twentieth century European exploration of China...

Drag
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2006

In the video work Drag, a man in a dark room pulls on the end of a rope...

A Gust of Wind
© » KADIST

Zhang Peili

2008

In the video installation A Gust of Wind , Zhang continues to explore notions of perspective and melds them seamlessly with a veiled but incisive social critique...

Retired pilar
© » KADIST

Jin Shan

2010

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

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

[Online Course] ArtsEquator Introduction to Reviewing Books
© » ARTS EQUATOR

[Online Course] ArtsEquator Introduction to Reviewing Books | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints July 13, 2020 INTRODUCTION TO REVIEWING BOOKS by Kathy Rowland Course Synopsis: This introductory course will teach you how to think critically and review a book, by drawing on both techniques of literary analysis and criticism writing...

We’re Distracted. So Now Watching A Movie Seems Like An Accomplishment Equal To Reading A Book?
© » ARTSJOURNAL

Is Watching a Movie the New Reading a Book? - WSJ Skip to Main Content Subscribe Sign In This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only...

Opening: Sickboy – ‘Optical Delusions’ @ Harvey Nichols (Bristol)
© » ARRESTED MOTION

Opening: Sickboy – ‘Optical Delusions’ @ Harvey Nichols (Bristol) « Arrested Motion Mixing art and fine dining, Sickboy ( interviewed ) is kicking off his latest show at the high-end department store Harvey Nichols tonight with a launch dinner and artist’s talk...

‘Love at First Sight’ Inspired This African Art Collection - via The New York Times
© » LARRY'S LIST

Olusanya Ojikutu, who has origins in Nigeria and education and experience in art, shares treasures of African culture and history....

Related artist(s) to: Kan Xuan » Liu Wei, » Cao Fei, » Gwangju Biennale, » Huang Yong Ping, » Chen Chieh-Jen, » Chu Yun, » Duan Jianyu, » Franz Gertsch, » Haegue Yang, » Hans Ulrich Obrist  
» see more

Office Voodoo
© » KADIST

Haegue Yang

2010

In addition to Yang’s signature drying rack and light bulbs, Office Voodoo includes various office supplies like CDs, paper clips, headphones, a computer mouse, a stamp, a hole puncher, a mobile phone charger...

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...

Diversionist
© » KADIST

Cao Fei

2004

Diversionist is part of the Cosplayers Series from 2004...

Knotty Spell in Windy Drapes
© » KADIST

Haegue Yang

2016

A steel clothing rack adorned with turbine vents, Moroccan vintage jewelry, pinecones and knitting yarn, these heterogeneous elements are used here to create an exotic yet undefined identity within the work...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Weight & Velocity (Cat on Router)
© » KADIST

Gabriel Pericas

2014

“Weight & velocity (cat on router)” is a duo of two humorous photographs of a cat lying on a computer router...

Stilleben mid Zierlauch (Still Life with Aluminum)
© » KADIST

Annette Kelm

2014

In Stilleben mid Zierlauch ( Still Life with Aluminum) Annette Kelm utilizes visual juxtaposition to bring together a gridded aluminum backdrop, a pot with a vaguely indigenous pattern on it, and two purple dandelions...

Gypsy
© » KADIST

Pascal Shirley

2006

Gypsy shows an ambivalent scene, in which broken blinds and its unsmiling subject are balanced with the stilllife plentitude of watermelon slices and the beautifully lit nudity of the sitter...

Prove how much you have grown
© » KADIST

Toyin Ojih Odutola

2013

Ojih Odutola uses a distinctive visual style to capture members of her family, rendering them one pen stroke at a time, until their skin resembles ribbons woven into the contours of a face, neck, or hand...