Tremble
2009 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
6:00 minutes
Jiang Zhi
In the video installation Tremble, Jiang projected the life-size images of seven naked men and women onto seven individual screens. Each person displays a different facial expression and body position such as reading a book, arms open for a hug, holding a knife, raising a fist to take an oath. Each gesture reflects some essential social aspect of everyday life: hugging is about caring, taking oath has to do with politics, reading relates to acquiring knowledge, and raising a knife indicates violence. As a result of a hidden vibration machine, the images’ projection screens oscillate vigorously and the contradiction between the shaking screens and the static human figures creates an absurd effect. Through this imposed trembling, Jiang suggests the invisible power that controls modern human behavior. These seemly “out-of-control” actions are often ironically conceived as the most adaptable and mutually-agreed upon tenets of social activity.
Jiang Zhi represents a generation of artists whose practice developed against the backdrop of experimental art in China in the 1990s, during which a series of social and cultural transformation occurred in the country. His work actively deals with issues such as body, gender, identity, consumerism, conflict, fear, power, and temporality, and often involves recent social events. Jiang attended the China Academy of Art and has long been engaged with writing and video art. From 1995 to 2005, Jiang was also an active journalist, which had him on the frontlines of his country’s the social transformation, and all of his experiences have deeply influenced the language and context of his practice. Constantly positioning himself at the intersection between brutal reality and poetic imagination, Jiang’s works presents a complex trajectory of the artist’s everyday life and society at large.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KADIST
Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis
2022Five Hundred Twenty-Four, a single-channel video installation by Lenka Clayton and Phillip Andrew Lewis, features singers from over twenty Cleveland-area choirs counting numbers in an iterative process: one person sings “one”, then two people sing “two”, and so forth, to 524...
© » THEARTNEWSPER
The Big Review: Caspar David Friedrich at the Hamburger Kunsthalle ★★★★★ Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Exhibitions review The Big Review: Caspar David Friedrich at the Hamburger Kunsthalle ★★★★★ This curatorial triumph highlights the measured artificiality of the German Romantic artist who made work that still mesmerises J...
© » KADIST
Friday, January 31st, 2014, at 7 p.m Discussion between Arseniy Zhilyaev and Keti Chukhrov and projection Philosopher and poet, Keti Chukhrov will present her film Love Machines that questions today’s shift to a post-humanist philosophy, with its dismissal of the notions of love, mercy, pity, and collective sensitivity as components of an outdated human culture...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Caring for the Carers: How Malaysian artists working with communities hold space | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Courtesy of Syarifah Nadhirah August 12, 2021 By Rahmah Pauzi (1,300 words, 5-minute read) I had forgotten how loaded the words “how are you,” or “apa khabar,” can be...
© » ARTNEWS
Michael Stipe on His Collection Exhibition at the Outsider Art Fair – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Andy Battaglia Plus Icon Andy Battaglia Deputy Editor, ARTnews View All March 2, 2022 11:49am View Gallery 10 Images When Michael Stipe first started engaging with outsider art, he was a young buck learning the curious folkways of Athens, Georgia, while on the cusp of fronting the storied rock band R...
© » THEARTNEWSPER
How Gagosian's east London Christo show proved the power of the pop-up exhibition Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Art market comment How Gagosian's east London Christo show proved the power of the pop-up exhibition Who says something eye-catching and short-term can’t also be serious? Melanie Gerlis 7 December 2023 Share Installation view of Christo's Dolly (1964) at Gagosian Open, 4 Princelet Street, October 2023 © Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation Even as new galleries seem to open faster than ever, there is plenty of movement away from the white cube...
© » LENS CULTURE
Gilded Lilies - Photographs by Tine Poppe | Interview by Sophie Wright | LensCulture Feature Gilded Lilies Norwegian photographer Tine Poppe’s portraits of cut flowers, shot against landscapes ravaged by climate change, propose a new take on the still life—one fit for the uncertain times we are living in...
© » KADIST
Yael Bartana
2007Yael Bartana received great international attention for the trilogy series And Europe Will be Stunned (2007 – 2011)...