State Terrorism in Ultimate Form of PreRaphaelite Brotherhood

2006 - Photography (Photography)

47H x 31W inches

Xiaoyun Chen

location: Hangzhou, China
year born: 1971
gender: male
nationality: Chinese
home town: Hubei Province, China

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. The title alludes to the Pre-Raphaelite notion of a brotherhood based on “truth to nature.” Censorship of the mouth and indigestion of freshly cut stalks, central to Chen’s language of tree branches, feeds back provocatively to the title’s suggestion of “state terrorism.” However, one must resist seeking symbolic meaning in the image as Chen’s focus is on the direct visual impact of the absurd act portrayed.


Chen Xiaoyun studied ink painting at the Chinese Academy of Arts and lived as a writer in Suzhou before becoming part of the Hangzhou video art community. Chen’s works stages scenes of everyday life with elements of the strange and the absurd in order to explore existentialist themes through narratives of visual linearity. Chen is drawn to nighttime scenes of ambiguity, making use of shadows and silhouettes in concert with simple plots and fixed scenery to reconcile disjuncture in gazes and assert connections between the filmic eye and reality.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » China, » Conflict, » Contemporary Surrealistic, » Film/Video, » Chinese  
» see more

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...

Lift with care
© » KADIST

Hu Yun

2013

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

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...

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...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Drag
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2006

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

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...

Lift with care
© » KADIST

Hu Yun

2013

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

Los rastreadores
© » KADIST

Claudia Joskowicz

2014

Los rastreadores is a two-channel video by Claudia Joskowicz narrating the story of a fictitious drug lord, Ernesto Suarez, whose character is based on the well-known Bolivian drug dealer, Roberto Suárez...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Pia Camil
© » KADIST

Pia Camil, Espectacular Cortina and more...

A Soldiers’ Garden #f
© » KADIST

Nguyen 'Quoc' Thành

2012

A Soldiers’ Garden by Nhà Sàn Collective is a night portrait series located in an army camp outside Hanoi...

Matt Lipps Part 2
© » KADIST

Matt Lipps, Populist Camera at Silverman Gallery Sf...

Related works from the » 2000's created around » Hangzhou, China  
» see more

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...

Dilemma, three way of fork in the road
© » KADIST

Jianwei Wang

2007

In Dilemma: Three Way Fork in the Road , Wang references Peking opera in a re-interpretation of traditional text...

New York Public Library Projects (NYPLP)
© » KADIST

Pak Sheung Chuen

2008

Pak created New York Public Library Projects (NYPLP) (2008) during a residency in New York, using public libraries as exhibition spaces and the books they house as raw materials...

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...

Other works by: » Xiaoyun Chen  
» see more

Drag
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2006

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

Vanishing Point
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2014

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

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...

A Little Bit More Virtual Than Reality, A Little Bit Warmer than Craziness, A Little Bit Whiter Than Darkness, A Little Bit Longer than A heavy Sigh
© » KADIST

Xiaoyun Chen

2012

The lengthy titles in Chen Xiaoyun’s work often appear as colophons to his photographs that invite the viewer to a process of self realization through contemplating the distance between word and image...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Wynn Kramarsky, Venturesome Drawings Collector and Arts Patron, Is Dead at 93 - via ARTNEWS
© » LARRY'S LIST

A life trustee at the Museum of Modern Art, he acquired thousands of works on paper, and focused on making them accessible to the public....

London Galleries Ordered to Return a $1.2 Million Chagall to a U.S
© » LARRY'S LIST

A judge ordered three London galleries to return a Marc Chagall painting to one of the victims of disgraced Manhattan dealer Ezra Chowaiki....

After Microsoft by Goldin + Senneby with a reading by Rick Prelinger
© » KADIST

In 2007, the Swedish duo Goldin+Senneby travelled to California to find the source of one of the most widely distributed images of all time, the Microsoft Windows desktop...

Untitled 2
© » KADIST

Pratchaya Phinthong

Phinthong made four photographs depicting fragments of meteorites of which the faces have been polished to reflect the sky...