47H x 31W inches
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.
The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi ...
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...
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...
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...
Open Mind is a model created by Capote for a traversable public maze that, when seen from above, resembles the human brain...
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...
The series Nightmare Wallpapers represents a shift if Chuen’s practice, allowing the artist to immerse himself in an “artistic pilgrimage of self healing” following the failure of the 2014 Umbrella Movement...
Some Dead Don’t Make a Sound (Hay muertos que no hacen ruido) is a single-channel video by Claudia Joskowicz that features the Mexican legend of the Weeping Woman (La Llorona) as its main protagonist...
Peasant Sensation Passing Through Flesh – 3 consists of a massage chair fixed to a wall...
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...
603 Football Field presents a soccer game played inside a small student apartment in Shanghai...