ONE MILLION (Japanese Yen)

2012 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

Kwan Sheung Chi


Kwan Sheung Chi’s work One Million is a video work depicting the counting of bills. Divided into three versions, the video first shows a number of Japanese ten-thousand-yen bills being counted without in an orderly, efficient manner. In Two Million , a similar counting of one-thousand-dollar bills from Hong Kong follows. However, a closer viewing of the videos reveal that they were created by looping the same scene of moving fingers, giving the illusion that many bills are being counted when, in fact, only a few are in the scene. Beyond commenting on the illusions of transactions and interdependencies in a regional economy, the video calls attention to the way media distort quantity as well as manipulations of values occurring with the transcoding of economic units into visual data. The false appearance of accountability presented in One Million and Two Million highlight the instability underlying the desire for convenience and efficiency in a globalized, media-dependent economy.


Kwan Sheung Chi obtained a third honor B.A. degree in Fine Art from The Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2003, Kwan manufactured an exhibition history and CV for himself, hosting a retrospective as his first solo show towards the end of art school in order to critique the unspoken conventions of the contemporary art system. In general, Kwan’s works explore the nexus between art and text and use repetition as a constant measure of time and a metaphor for life, as he states: “Repetition gives the work power.” He is especially interested in how meaning is constructed, who makes art, and its interactions with other people, places, and things as part of the work’s cultural context.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Assemblage, » China, » Collective History, » Contemporary Conceptualism

Lift with care
© » KADIST

Hu Yun

2013

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

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...

Useless Wonder
© » KADIST

Carlos Amorales

2006

This work, a large oil painting on canvas, shows a moment from Amorales’s eight-minute two-channel video projection Useless Wonder (2006)...

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...

Untitled (San Francisco)
© » KADIST

Edward Kienholz

1984

Untitled (San Francisco) was made in Idaho in 1984 and was facetiously dedicated to Henry Hopkins, the then director of the San Francisco Museum of Art who added “modern” to its name...

Mao, who curves himself along the edge of the paper
© » KADIST

Liu Yin

2010

Liu Yin’s cartoon-like paintings and drawings explore the ambivalences of love, nature, and consumerism...

History of Chemistry I
© » KADIST

Lu Chunsheng

2004

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 Possibility of the Half
© » KADIST

Minouk Lim

2012

The Possibility of the Half by Minouk Lim is a two-channel video projection that begins with a mirror image of a weeping woman kneeling on the ground...

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...

Ballerina
© » KADIST

Liu Yin

2010

Liu Yin brings the tension of a small but imminent catastrophe into the gallery with a raw egg balanced on the edge of a folding table....

The Tower of Babel: Independence of the country
© » 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...

Masks (Merkel F6.1)
© » KADIST

Simon Fujiwara

2016

Masks is a series of abstract paintings by Simon Fujiwara that together form a giant, fragmented portrait of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s face...

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...

I can’t believe we are still protesting
© » KADIST

Wong Wai Yin

2021

Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...

No World
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2014

No World is an action-filled video work filmed inside an abandoned museum in the Songzhuang area outside Beijing...

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...

Pleasant Sensation Passing Through Flesh - 3
© » KADIST

Yang Zhenzhong

2012

Peasant Sensation Passing Through Flesh – 3 consists of a massage chair fixed to a wall...

I can’t believe we are still protesting
© » KADIST

Wong Wai Yin

2021

Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...

Snow White as a balance beam gymnast
© » KADIST

Liu Yin

2010

Liu Yin’s cartoon-like paintings and drawings explore the ambivalences of love, nature, and consumerism...