This research-based artwork acts as a memorial to early twentieth century European exploration of China. An antique open suitcase reveals a pile of rubbings and an air-dried peony, while projected photographs of the Chinese landscape appear as a slideshow on the gallery wall. The artifacts refer to a 1908-1909 expedition of naturalists, missionaries, and colonists to the west of China, which ended abruptly with the death of one of the travelers by unusual circumstances. The installation complicates notions of time, history, fact, and subjectivity by including readymade European artifacts with photographs made by Hu Yun’s own grandfather and a bell in the corner of the gallery that summons an attendant to recite a fairytale for the viewer. Individual experience cannot be separated from historical account, while past events cannot be separated from their context within the present moment.
Shanghai-based artist Hu Yun works in various media, including graphite, watercolor, installation, video, and performance. He brings together personal and historical events from different times and locations to create complex narratives that demonstrate the coexistence of the past and present. He invites viewers to discover connections between the elements of each piece and their own experiences.
The central point of Vanishing Point is the most direct physiological reaction of the body to the environment...
Mario Garcia Torres discovered the work of artist Oscar Neuestern in an article published in ARTnews in 1969...
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...
Kwan Sheung Chi’s work One Million is a video work depicting the counting of bills...
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...
The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...
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...
Empire’s Borders II – Passage and Empire’s Borders II – Workers are from the three-channel film installation Empire’s Borders II – Western Enterprise, Inc...
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...
The Tower of Babel is an installation of large-format photographs that forces the audience to occupy a central position through its monumental scale...
A Portrait: Covering and Cleaning is an installation of six black-and-white video projections...
State Terrorism in the ultimate form of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood features a portrait of the artist wearing a zipped utilitarian jacket reminiscent of a worker’s uniform, with one arm behind his back as if forced to ingest a bundle of stick—a literal portrayal to the definition of fascism...