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. Yet, ambiguous lights blink from buildings and yachts still sail on the water, and further observation reveals these structures to be miniatures manipulated by the artist through Photoshop and other postproduction image tools. The model city’s surroundings are themselves real abandoned spaces, perhaps an empty room, a wait-to-be demolished building, or a discarded bathtub. In this way, Unregistered City is a double play on a dystopia vision of urbanization: It is an imagined city built upon the actual ruins of cities and human life. Through a dark and entropic undertone and estranged urban arrangements, the artist does not just critique, but poses fundamental questions.
Jiang Pengyi is a photographer who observes cities through the lens of his camera. His photographs have a dispassionate attitude towards the unprecedentedly fast urbanization of China. Through long-term exposure—sometimes over fifty minutes—and image manipulation, Jiang creates surreal and apocalyptic scenarios that suggest a disastrous future. For Jiang, skyscrapers are spectacles that evidence the mythologization of modern urban life. And by virtue of his technical strategies, the illuminated skyscrapers in Illuminant—a hotel, a government building, a news agency—appear bizarrely alive as if creatures from outer space. Though highly aesthetic and polished, Jiang’s images trigger an unidentified sense of fear and discomfort.
Golden Bridge is part of “Golden Journey”, a series of site-specific performances and installations created during Lin’s residency at Kadist San Francisco...
The central point of Vanishing Point is the most direct physiological reaction of the body to the environment...
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...
Golden Bridge is part of “Golden Journey”, a series of site-specific performances and installations created during Lin’s residency at Kadist San Francisco...
Easy to fold and carry, Jorge González’s Banquetas Chéveres (Chéveres Stools) embody the nomadic and flexible nature of the Escuela de Oficios...
Cities are the heroes in an 'easy-going and unpreachy' publication that takes us on whirlwind tour of art history Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Books review Cities are the heroes in an 'easy-going and unpreachy' publication that takes us on whirlwind tour of art history Fifteen art capitals are captured at their brilliant apogee in Caroline Campbell's book Keith Miller 6 February 2024 Share Detail of Hungry Ghosts Scroll (late 12th century) by an unknown artist Kyoto National Museum The last book I reviewed with this title was by the historian Simon Schama...
In Dilemma: Three Way Fork in the Road , Wang references Peking opera in a re-interpretation of traditional text...
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...
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 image of rusted nails, nuts and bolts as shrapnel sandwiched between a fried Chicken burger highlights the contrast between decadence and destruction...
Categorized as low-level literature, a “Love Stories” book is a romantic popular fiction of proletariat China, read mainly by teenagers, students, and young workers...
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...
At first glance, Cityscapes (2010) seems to be a collection of panoramic photographs of the city of Istanbul—the kind that are found on postcards in souvenir shops...
Mapa-Mundi BR (postal) is a set of wooden shelves holding postcards that depict locations in Brazil named for foreign countries and cities...
Pablo Rasgado’s paintings and installations serve as a visual record of contemporary urban human behavior...