Collection

A circular curtain of mist inside a darkened space is illuminated from within by a ring of spotlights that cause shimmering rainbows to appear on the circle’s inward-facing side. The shimmering colours visible in the curtain of softly falling water are not present in the mist itself, but are seen there when rays of light are refracted and reflected by the droplets of water and meet a viewer’s eye at a particular angle. The work is thus incomplete until someone comes along to close the circuit by moving into a position from which the colours can be seen. Eliasson’s works depend on the viewer’s engagement; the artist makes frequently use of phenomena like reflections and afterimages that are absent in the artworks themselves but produced when the artwork is viewed. This work is an evolution of one of Eliasson’s most important early works: Beauty, from 1993.

Two concentric steel framework structures, glazed with angular panes of clear glass and black glass, form The blind pavilion. When visitors stand at the centre of the work, the black glass panels line up so that the view out of the pavilion into the world beyond is obstructed, and one could say that the pavilion ‘goes blind’. The structure was originally exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2003, when Eliasson represented Denmark. It was installed on the roof of the Danish pavilion as part of a sequence of works that mixed the views of the exterior environment with the interior exhibition space to test the boundaries between inside and outside. Before finding its permanent home at the Red Brick Art Museum, The blind pavilion was also exhibited on Videy Island, Iceland, and on Peacock Island, Berlin.

A large ring seems to cross the boundary between physical space of the room and the room’s reflection in a vast mirror that covers the ceiling. The light emitted by the ring, produced by monofrequency lamps, reduces all colours to a range of yellowish grey tones that sharpens viewers’ visual perception. These lights, often used to illuminate tunnels for enhanced safety, appear in many of Eliasson’s works, including The weather project at Tate Modern, London, in 2003.

The central component of this simple optical instrument is a ring of bevelled glass. Originally part of a Fresnel lens, the glass was designed for use in a lighthouse to gather stray beams of light and send them out at a consistent angle, thereby enhancing the light produced. Here this ability to treat light as a malleable material is used to paint bands of pale colour on the wall. From the beginning of his career, Eliasson has been interested in producing artworks that function as experimental set-ups; this work is an example of this approach.

Water pendulum makes use of dancing water illuminated by strobe lights to transform the flow of time into a sequence of seemingly frozen moments. In a darkened room, a narrow stream of water is emitted from a hose that swings above the space. The water’s movements are unpredictable, sometimes slow and gentle, sometimes sudden and abrupt. Eliasson’s experiments with strobe lights and water began in the 1990s with works that appeared to suspend streams of water droplets in mid-air. Inspired by the British photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s studies of animals in motion from the nineteenth century, these works emerged from the artist’s investigations into the nature of time – into whether time is something we observe passing outside us or something intrinsic to what and where we are.

Cloth Ferrari was created by Erik. A. Frandsen in 2012 for Red Brick Art Museum’s opening exhibition. This work was completed onsite at Red Brick, a group of Chinese women stitched the visible quilted outer layer of colourful patchwork fabric completely submerging the Ferrari beneath. In both the process of its creation and in its current state Frandsen’s colourfully covered car mixes levels of reality and artistic expression, where one stops and the other begins is a key concern of the piece.

Dan Graham’s work primarily focuses on the notion of time, spectatorship and the phenomenology of viewing, questioning the psychological effects of architecture on the spectator. Graham has deployed a variety of media in order to pursue his investigations, ultimately questioning Guy Debord’s ‘society of the spectacle’: a society obsessed with the media, often mimicking the same interpersonal dynamics that can be found in a TV reality show.

Graham’s 2-Way Mirror Cylinder Bisected By Perforated Stainless Steel (2011-2012) is an outdoor pavilion designed by the artist with the intention of playing with the viewers’ perception and understanding of both inner and outer space. The design of the pavilions, and the two-way mirrors within them, create unexpected reflections and explore the voyeuristic act of simultaneously watching oneself and being able to watch others. They also question how we move and operate in the public sphere: a dimension that both alienates and seduces us.

The Nameless is about a person known as Lai Teck, which was one of the 50 known aliases of the Secretary- General of the Malayan Communist Party from 1939 to 1947, when he was killed in Thai-land, after being exposed as a triple agent – working first for the French then British secret forces, then with the Japanese Kempeitai during the years of the Malayan Occupation.
But The Nameless is also about cinema, and acting. Of all the great cinematic cultures of the world, it is perhaps Hong Kong cinema that has shown a most intense fascination with ‘compromised’ indi-viduals, as evident from the constant stream of Hong Kong films about ‘stool pigeons’, ‘double-agents’, ‘informers’ and ‘traitors’.

A film about a shapeshifter, told through a series detoured images, featuring an actor from a land of manifold allegiance, told through multiple languages.

The Nameless is about a person known as Lai Teck, which was one of the 50 known aliases of the Secretary- General of the Malayan Communist Party from 1939 to 1947, when he was killed in Thai-land, after being exposed as a triple agent – working first for the French then British secret forces, then with the Japanese Kempeitai during the years of the Malayan Occupation.
But The Nameless is also about cinema, and acting. Of all the great cinematic cultures of the world, it is perhaps Hong Kong cinema that has shown a most intense fascination with ‘compromised’ indi-viduals, as evident from the constant stream of Hong Kong films about ‘stool pigeons’, ‘double-agents’, ‘informers’ and ‘traitors’.

A film about a shapeshifter, told through a series detoured images, featuring an actor from a land of manifold allegiance, told through multiple languages.

The Nameless is about a person known as Lai Teck, which was one of the 50 known aliases of the Secretary- General of the Malayan Communist Party from 1939 to 1947, when he was killed in Thai-land, after being exposed as a triple agent – working first for the French then British secret forces, then with the Japanese Kempeitai during the years of the Malayan Occupation.
But The Nameless is also about cinema, and acting. Of all the great cinematic cultures of the world, it is perhaps Hong Kong cinema that has shown a most intense fascination with ‘compromised’ indi-viduals, as evident from the constant stream of Hong Kong films about ‘stool pigeons’, ‘double-agents’, ‘informers’ and ‘traitors’.

A film about a shapeshifter, told through a series detoured images, featuring an actor from a land of manifold allegiance, told through multiple languages.

The Nameless is about a person known as Lai Teck, which was one of the 50 known aliases of the Secretary- General of the Malayan Communist Party from 1939 to 1947, when he was killed in Thai-land, after being exposed as a triple agent – working first for the French then British secret forces, then with the Japanese Kempeitai during the years of the Malayan Occupation.
But The Nameless is also about cinema, and acting. Of all the great cinematic cultures of the world, it is perhaps Hong Kong cinema that has shown a most intense fascination with ‘compromised’ indi-viduals, as evident from the constant stream of Hong Kong films about ‘stool pigeons’, ‘double-agents’, ‘informers’ and ‘traitors’.

A film about a shapeshifter, told through a series detoured images, featuring an actor from a land of manifold allegiance, told through multiple languages.

The Nameless is about a person known as Lai Teck, which was one of the 50 known aliases of the Secretary- General of the Malayan Communist Party from 1939 to 1947, when he was killed in Thai-land, after being exposed as a triple agent – working first for the French then British secret forces, then with the Japanese Kempeitai during the years of the Malayan Occupation.
But The Nameless is also about cinema, and acting. Of all the great cinematic cultures of the world, it is perhaps Hong Kong cinema that has shown a most intense fascination with ‘compromised’ indi-viduals, as evident from the constant stream of Hong Kong films about ‘stool pigeons’, ‘double-agents’, ‘informers’ and ‘traitors’.

A film about a shapeshifter, told through a series detoured images, featuring an actor from a land of manifold allegiance, told through multiple languages.

Architecture and utopia are twins of history. A utopian’s architecture is naïve; it conceives a perfect structure of politics and society modelled as a circular or rectangular concentration camp. An architect’s utopia is innocent; it seeks for euphoria and equality, attempts to eliminate social evilness by means of forms, and therefore descends to formalism. However, utopia is indeed the ‘unsatisfied yet desired history’ of human beings, which catalyses socialism, the Disney, the naissance of future technologies or the extermination of humanity. It is the Pandora’s box of human struggle for existence; once uncovering it, optimistic revolutionists see today’s utopia i.e. tomorrow’s reality while pessimistic critics move towards the dystopia that has a deepened class-consciousness to avoid the totalitarianism of equality. Come out! Utopia extracts the utopian ideality of cities and the embers of formalist tragedy. The vertical cutting design of the colossal mirror tower is inspired by the famous utopian architectural plans in history, and those unimplemented blueprints are realised into a life-size 3D model built in the tower. It pays a tribute to the previous masters and sparks contemplation, and the concave-convex mirrors reflect the gap between their wisdom and the reality. Outside the colossal mirror tower, the artist employs the typological archiving method that architects are skilful at to display the revolutions in history and files the historical criticism on architecture and utopia. On one hand, the mirror tower absorbs the utopian practice in history and the reverberations at present on the site; on the other hand, it collects the figures of the ‘common people’ and thus strikes a contrast between ideologies and the world. The purpose of mirroring history is not to resurrect it but to let people learn history lest there should be complacent farces or formalist ignorance.

The film documents ‘Protest against the bulldozers of the City Government’ in 1997, the first urban social movement in Taiwan. That year, the mayor of Taipei had an illegal community that had existed for over six decades demolished, which resulted in a political crisis of the city-state as well as a sting of actions regarding the discourses on city space. The film director is not only an organiser but also the recorder of it. The film is the first document of all Chinese communities that focuses on urban renewal and social movement.

The film documents ‘Protest against the bulldozers of the City Government’ in 1997, the first urban social movement in Taiwan. That year, the mayor of Taipei had an illegal community that had existed for over six decades demolished, which resulted in a political crisis of the city-state as well as a sting of actions regarding the discourses on city space. The film director is not only an organiser but also the recorder of it. The film is the first document of all Chinese communities that focuses on urban renewal and social movement.

The film documents ‘Protest against the bulldozers of the City Government’ in 1997, the first urban social movement in Taiwan. That year, the mayor of Taipei had an illegal community that had existed for over six decades demolished, which resulted in a political crisis of the city-state as well as a sting of actions regarding the discourses on city space. The film director is not only an organiser but also the recorder of it. The film is the first document of all Chinese communities that focuses on urban renewal and social movement.

The film documents ‘Protest against the bulldozers of the City Government’ in 1997, the first urban social movement in Taiwan. That year, the mayor of Taipei had an illegal community that had existed for over six decades demolished, which resulted in a political crisis of the city-state as well as a sting of actions regarding the discourses on city space. The film director is not only an organiser but also the recorder of it. The film is the first document of all Chinese communities that focuses on urban renewal and social movement.

Huang Yong Ping has shown the aluminum snake in various sizes and places, including the Mühlenbrücke bridge in Hann Mündenin, Germany (2000); the Watermall at Queensland Art Gallery (2012); the estuary of the Loire in Nantes Saint-Nazaire (2012); and in Paderborn, Germany (2013). With its long vertebrae and silvery ribs, this Jurassic animal stretches out for about forty meters, undulating from ceiling to floor and metaphorically linking the sky to the earth. The coiled snake or dragon has been a key figure in Chinese mythology since ancient times. Traditionally associated with water, knowledge and wisdom, it is sometimes also a symbol of fear, creation, desire, deception or good luck. A key symbol in many cultures, the serpent appears in the Garden of Eden, as Naga in Southeast Asia, as the enemy of Beowulf and Saint George in Anglo-Saxon mythology, and also as the Rainbow Serpent in Aboriginal Australian culture. Bâton, the French word for “staff”, is a double allusion: it refers both to the snake’s tail and to a passage in the Old Testament book of Exodus, in which God performs a miracle by turning a rod into a serpent and then, when Moses puts out his hand and takes it, turning it back into a rod.

Chefs comprises a dozen stuffed head, including those of a boar, a horse, a stag, a mouse, a lion, a fox, and so on, arranged from largest to smallest on a metal rod that sticks out from the corner of a wall. The tip of the rod strikes a red curtain, which acts as a scenic backdrop to the violence that is implicit in this work. Chefs illustrates the role of the leader of the pack in the animal kingdom; it is a reflection on living together in accordance with rules based on a hierarchy and division of labour, focusing on who and what dominance really is. It encourages us to reassess our understanding of our relationships both with others and with the world around us.

Chefs comprises a dozen stuffed head, including those of a boar, a horse, a stag, a mouse, a lion, a fox, and so on, arranged from largest to smallest on a metal rod that sticks out from the corner of a wall. The tip of the rod strikes a red curtain, which acts as a scenic backdrop to the violence that is implicit in this work. Chefs illustrates the role of the leader of the pack in the animal kingdom; it is a reflection on living together in accordance with rules based on a hierarchy and division of labour, focusing on who and what dominance really is. It encourages us to reassess our understanding of our relationships both with others and with the world around us.

The Circus presents a carefully planned scene full of dramatic tensions: two giant wooden hands, one hanging from the ceiling, the other broken, scattered on the floor. Fifteen headless animals standing in uncanny calm around the bamboo cage, ranging from a bear, lion, and bull to a goat and rabbit, with even a bat suspended in mid-flight. The holes gaping from the animals’ necks are neatly draped with red-colored fabric, as if the blood had congealed the moment their heads were cut off. The hanging hand is connected by strings to the skeleton of a monkey, which is operating as a puppeteer the skeleton of an even smaller monkey.

The robbed and hatted monkey skeleton and the massive hand above it seem to refer to the story of the Monkey King and Buddha from the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West”. However, the giant hand has the same movable joints as a marionette, indicating that it is also controlled by some invisible power.

Animals, either stuffed or living, have repeatedly taken on the metaphorical role of human behavior in Huang Yong Ping’s works since the 1990s. The headless animals in Circus clearly have the same role as the insects and reptiles in World Theater of 1993. Here human beings are simultaneously the subject and the audience. “The Circus is not only an extension of P.T.BARUM‘s circus, but is a circus of headless animals, or headless animals visiting a marionette theater, or headless animals taking place of human beings, or headless animals as embodiment of human beings.”（Huang Yong Ping)

In the symbolic structure of the Circus, the headless animals, monkey skeletons, and giant hands are not in a one-way chain of controlling and being controlled. Faith itself is indeed the product of human ideology.

The Circus presents a carefully planned scene full of dramatic tensions: two giant wooden hands, one hanging from the ceiling, the other broken, scattered on the floor. Fifteen headless animals standing in uncanny calm around the bamboo cage, ranging from a bear, lion, and bull to a goat and rabbit, with even a bat suspended in mid-flight. The holes gaping from the animals’ necks are neatly draped with red-colored fabric, as if the blood had congealed the moment their heads were cut off. The hanging hand is connected by strings to the skeleton of a monkey, which is operating as a puppeteer the skeleton of an even smaller monkey.

The robbed and hatted monkey skeleton and the massive hand above it seem to refer to the story of the Monkey King and Buddha from the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West”. However, the giant hand has the same movable joints as a marionette, indicating that it is also controlled by some invisible power.

Animals, either stuffed or living, have repeatedly taken on the metaphorical role of human behavior in Huang Yong Ping’s works since the 1990s. The headless animals in Circus clearly have the same role as the insects and reptiles in World Theater of 1993. Here human beings are simultaneously the subject and the audience. “The Circus is not only an extension of P.T.BARUM‘s circus, but is a circus of headless animals, or headless animals visiting a marionette theater, or headless animals taking place of human beings, or headless animals as embodiment of human beings.”（Huang Yong Ping)

In the symbolic structure of the Circus, the headless animals, monkey skeletons, and giant hands are not in a one-way chain of controlling and being controlled. Faith itself is indeed the product of human ideology.

The Circus presents a carefully planned scene full of dramatic tensions: two giant wooden hands, one hanging from the ceiling, the other broken, scattered on the floor. Fifteen headless animals standing in uncanny calm around the bamboo cage, ranging from a bear, lion, and bull to a goat and rabbit, with even a bat suspended in mid-flight. The holes gaping from the animals’ necks are neatly draped with red-colored fabric, as if the blood had congealed the moment their heads were cut off. The hanging hand is connected by strings to the skeleton of a monkey, which is operating as a puppeteer the skeleton of an even smaller monkey.

The robbed and hatted monkey skeleton and the massive hand above it seem to refer to the story of the Monkey King and Buddha from the classic Chinese novel “Journey to the West”. However, the giant hand has the same movable joints as a marionette, indicating that it is also controlled by some invisible power.

Animals, either stuffed or living, have repeatedly taken on the metaphorical role of human behavior in Huang Yong Ping’s works since the 1990s. The headless animals in Circus clearly have the same role as the insects and reptiles in World Theater of 1993. Here human beings are simultaneously the subject and the audience. “The Circus is not only an extension of P.T.BARUM‘s circus, but is a circus of headless animals, or headless animals visiting a marionette theater, or headless animals taking place of human beings, or headless animals as embodiment of human beings.”（Huang Yong Ping)

In the symbolic structure of the Circus, the headless animals, monkey skeletons, and giant hands are not in a one-way chain of controlling and being controlled. Faith itself is indeed the product of human ideology.

As a contemporary artist, Huang Yong Ping re-reads the classic Preface to the Poem on Peach Blossom Spring written by Tao Yuanming in 421 and interprets the text in an entirely new way.
Huang takes Peach Blossom Spring to be a post-historical world in Francis Fukuyama’s sense, a world where economy and democracy are fully developed, a world that is universal and homogeneous, and has transcended the cycle of rise and decline. The world outside Peach Blossom Spring is, in contrast, the historical world, filled with contradictions and struggles, the rulers and the ruled – it is a society within the historical process. From the historical world, the fisherman entered the post-historical world by accident, in a sense ahead of time. He chose to leave in the end, but he and his followers could never again find the entrance. The text Preface to the Poem on Peach Blossom Spring is here interpreted as a political metaphor in the modern sense, from which we can see profound reflection and insight on the post-cold war global reality, the tension between the west and the non-west, and the dilemma of non-western intellectuals in a western world.

In 1997 Huang Yong Ping was invited to participate in ‘Skulptur Projekte’ in Münster, Germany. While doing research in the city, Huang came across an astonishing statue of Christ in Münster Cathedral. The statue lost both arms during WWII and has remained so until today. A line scribed next to the statue read: ‘Your hands are my hands’ (ICH HABE KEINE ANDEREN HÄNDE ALS DIE EUEREN). Responding to the armless Christ, Huang decided to create Thousand-Armed Guanyin, A Buddhist deity.

The work also bears a strong connection to Marcel Duchamp’s 1914 ready-made Bottle Rack. In the work, Guan-yin’s arms are placed on a steel structure which is itself an enlarged version of the Bottle Rack – two figures are in conflict yet complement one another: ‘I have “re-produced” the famous work in Western art history into an Oriental Buddhist Guan-yin. The sense of detachment and indifference associated with the ready-made Bottle Rack is complicated and shrouded by various figures and symbols’. (Huang Yong Ping)

For the early version of Thousand-Armed Guanyin in Münster, Huang Yong Ping only succeeded in completing fifty hands due to limited conditions at that time. In the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, an idea conceived fifteen years ago was finally got fully realised, Thousand-Armed Guanyin with one thousand hands holding various objects, making references to religion, art history, and reality.

In 1997 Huang Yong Ping was invited to participate in ‘Skulptur Projekte’ in Münster, Germany. While doing research in the city, Huang came across an astonishing statue of Christ in Münster Cathedral. The statue lost both arms during WWII and has remained so until today. A line scribed next to the statue read: ‘Your hands are my hands’ (ICH HABE KEINE ANDEREN HÄNDE ALS DIE EUEREN). Responding to the armless Christ, Huang decided to create Thousand-Armed Guanyin, A Buddhist deity.

The work also bears a strong connection to Marcel Duchamp’s 1914 ready-made Bottle Rack. In the work, Guan-yin’s arms are placed on a steel structure which is itself an enlarged version of the Bottle Rack – two figures are in conflict yet complement one another: ‘I have “re-produced” the famous work in Western art history into an Oriental Buddhist Guan-yin. The sense of detachment and indifference associated with the ready-made Bottle Rack is complicated and shrouded by various figures and symbols’. (Huang Yong Ping)

For the early version of Thousand-Armed Guanyin in Münster, Huang Yong Ping only succeeded in completing fifty hands due to limited conditions at that time. In the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, an idea conceived fifteen years ago was finally got fully realised, Thousand-Armed Guanyin with one thousand hands holding various objects, making references to religion, art history, and reality.

In 1997 Huang Yong Ping was invited to participate in ‘Skulptur Projekte’ in Münster, Germany. While doing research in the city, Huang came across an astonishing statue of Christ in Münster Cathedral. The statue lost both arms during WWII and has remained so until today. A line scribed next to the statue read: ‘Your hands are my hands’ (ICH HABE KEINE ANDEREN HÄNDE ALS DIE EUEREN). Responding to the armless Christ, Huang decided to create Thousand-Armed Guanyin, A Buddhist deity.

The work also bears a strong connection to Marcel Duchamp’s 1914 ready-made Bottle Rack. In the work, Guan-yin’s arms are placed on a steel structure which is itself an enlarged version of the Bottle Rack – two figures are in conflict yet complement one another: ‘I have “re-produced” the famous work in Western art history into an Oriental Buddhist Guan-yin. The sense of detachment and indifference associated with the ready-made Bottle Rack is complicated and shrouded by various figures and symbols’. (Huang Yong Ping)

For the early version of Thousand-Armed Guanyin in Münster, Huang Yong Ping only succeeded in completing fifty hands due to limited conditions at that time. In the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, an idea conceived fifteen years ago was finally got fully realised, Thousand-Armed Guanyin with one thousand hands holding various objects, making references to religion, art history, and reality.

In 1997 Huang Yong Ping was invited to participate in ‘Skulptur Projekte’ in Münster, Germany. While doing research in the city, Huang came across an astonishing statue of Christ in Münster Cathedral. The statue lost both arms during WWII and has remained so until today. A line scribed next to the statue read: ‘Your hands are my hands’ (ICH HABE KEINE ANDEREN HÄNDE ALS DIE EUEREN). Responding to the armless Christ, Huang decided to create Thousand-Armed Guanyin, A Buddhist deity.

The work also bears a strong connection to Marcel Duchamp’s 1914 ready-made Bottle Rack. In the work, Guan-yin’s arms are placed on a steel structure which is itself an enlarged version of the Bottle Rack – two figures are in conflict yet complement one another: ‘I have “re-produced” the famous work in Western art history into an Oriental Buddhist Guan-yin. The sense of detachment and indifference associated with the ready-made Bottle Rack is complicated and shrouded by various figures and symbols’. (Huang Yong Ping)

For the early version of Thousand-Armed Guanyin in Münster, Huang Yong Ping only succeeded in completing fifty hands due to limited conditions at that time. In the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, an idea conceived fifteen years ago was finally got fully realised, Thousand-Armed Guanyin with one thousand hands holding various objects, making references to religion, art history, and reality.

In 1997 Huang Yong Ping was invited to participate in ‘Skulptur Projekte’ in Münster, Germany. While doing research in the city, Huang came across an astonishing statue of Christ in Münster Cathedral. The statue lost both arms during WWII and has remained so until today. A line scribed next to the statue read: ‘Your hands are my hands’ (ICH HABE KEINE ANDEREN HÄNDE ALS DIE EUEREN). Responding to the armless Christ, Huang decided to create Thousand-Armed Guanyin, A Buddhist deity.

The work also bears a strong connection to Marcel Duchamp’s 1914 ready-made Bottle Rack. In the work, Guan-yin’s arms are placed on a steel structure which is itself an enlarged version of the Bottle Rack – two figures are in conflict yet complement one another: ‘I have “re-produced” the famous work in Western art history into an Oriental Buddhist Guan-yin. The sense of detachment and indifference associated with the ready-made Bottle Rack is complicated and shrouded by various figures and symbols’. (Huang Yong Ping)

For the early version of Thousand-Armed Guanyin in Münster, Huang Yong Ping only succeeded in completing fifty hands due to limited conditions at that time. In the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, an idea conceived fifteen years ago was finally got fully realised, Thousand-Armed Guanyin with one thousand hands holding various objects, making references to religion, art history, and reality.

In 1997 Huang Yong Ping was invited to participate in ‘Skulptur Projekte’ in Münster, Germany. While doing research in the city, Huang came across an astonishing statue of Christ in Münster Cathedral. The statue lost both arms during WWII and has remained so until today. A line scribed next to the statue read: ‘Your hands are my hands’ (ICH HABE KEINE ANDEREN HÄNDE ALS DIE EUEREN). Responding to the armless Christ, Huang decided to create Thousand-Armed Guanyin, A Buddhist deity.

The work also bears a strong connection to Marcel Duchamp’s 1914 ready-made Bottle Rack. In the work, Guan-yin’s arms are placed on a steel structure which is itself an enlarged version of the Bottle Rack – two figures are in conflict yet complement one another: ‘I have “re-produced” the famous work in Western art history into an Oriental Buddhist Guan-yin. The sense of detachment and indifference associated with the ready-made Bottle Rack is complicated and shrouded by various figures and symbols’. (Huang Yong Ping)

For the early version of Thousand-Armed Guanyin in Münster, Huang Yong Ping only succeeded in completing fifty hands due to limited conditions at that time. In the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, an idea conceived fifteen years ago was finally got fully realised, Thousand-Armed Guanyin with one thousand hands holding various objects, making references to religion, art history, and reality.

In 1997 Huang Yong Ping was invited to participate in ‘Skulptur Projekte’ in Münster, Germany. While doing research in the city, Huang came across an astonishing statue of Christ in Münster Cathedral. The statue lost both arms during WWII and has remained so until today. A line scribed next to the statue read: ‘Your hands are my hands’ (ICH HABE KEINE ANDEREN HÄNDE ALS DIE EUEREN). Responding to the armless Christ, Huang decided to create Thousand-Armed Guanyin, A Buddhist deity.

The work also bears a strong connection to Marcel Duchamp’s 1914 ready-made Bottle Rack. In the work, Guan-yin’s arms are placed on a steel structure which is itself an enlarged version of the Bottle Rack – two figures are in conflict yet complement one another: ‘I have “re-produced” the famous work in Western art history into an Oriental Buddhist Guan-yin. The sense of detachment and indifference associated with the ready-made Bottle Rack is complicated and shrouded by various figures and symbols’. (Huang Yong Ping)

For the early version of Thousand-Armed Guanyin in Münster, Huang Yong Ping only succeeded in completing fifty hands due to limited conditions at that time. In the 2012 Shanghai Biennale, an idea conceived fifteen years ago was finally got fully realised, Thousand-Armed Guanyin with one thousand hands holding various objects, making references to religion, art history, and reality.

In honor of Kato’s stone sculpture series since 2016, an outdoor commission constructed of locally sourced stones is presented amidst the museum garden. Created following Kato’s residency during which he responded to the museum’s winding architecture, the commission integrates this pluralistic and thoughtful encounter within the echoes of Kato’s practice.

In honor of Kato’s stone sculpture series since 2016, an outdoor commission constructed of locally sourced stones is presented amidst the museum garden. Created following Kato’s residency during which he responded to the museum’s winding architecture, the commission integrates this pluralistic and thoughtful encounter within the echoes of Kato’s practice.

In honor of Kato’s stone sculpture series since 2016, an outdoor commission constructed of locally sourced stones is presented amidst the museum garden. Created following Kato’s residency during which he responded to the museum’s winding architecture, the commission integrates this pluralistic and thoughtful encounter within the echoes of Kato’s practice.

Andreas Mühe (born in 1979 in Karl-Marx-Stadt) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include Eine Deutsche Intervention at KÖNIG LONDON (2018); Zeichen der verrinnenden Zeit at Villa Grisebach, Berlin (2017); PATHOS ALS DISTANZ at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2017); A.M.- Eine Deutschlandreise in der Kunsthalle Rostock (2013). In 2018, Mühe will be presented in the Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing and the G2 Kunsthalle Leipzig with solo exhibitions. The artist has received numerous photographic awards, ie. the Hansel Mieth Prize (2010) and the LeadAward (2015 and 2010). Works by Mühe are represented in numerous collections, including the Musée National d’histoire et d’Art Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Deutsche Bank Collection, Germany; DZ Bank Collection, Germany; Foundation F.C. Gundlach, Germany; Cultural Foundation Montblanc, Germany; Wemhöner Collection, Germany; Schloss Kummerow, Germany.

Andreas Mühe (born in 1979 in Karl-Marx-Stadt) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include Eine Deutsche Intervention at KÖNIG LONDON (2018); Zeichen der verrinnenden Zeit at Villa Grisebach, Berlin (2017); PATHOS ALS DISTANZ at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2017); A.M.- Eine Deutschlandreise in der Kunsthalle Rostock (2013). In 2018, Mühe will be presented in the Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing and the G2 Kunsthalle Leipzig with solo exhibitions. The artist has received numerous photographic awards, ie. the Hansel Mieth Prize (2010) and the LeadAward (2015 and 2010). Works by Mühe are represented in numerous collections, including the Musée National d’histoire et d’Art Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Deutsche Bank Collection, Germany; DZ Bank Collection, Germany; Foundation F.C. Gundlach, Germany; Cultural Foundation Montblanc, Germany; Wemhöner Collection, Germany; Schloss Kummerow, Germany.

Andreas Mühe (born in 1979 in Karl-Marx-Stadt) lives and works in Berlin. Recent solo exhibitions include Eine Deutsche Intervention at KÖNIG LONDON (2018); Zeichen der verrinnenden Zeit at Villa Grisebach, Berlin (2017); PATHOS ALS DISTANZ at Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2017); A.M.- Eine Deutschlandreise in der Kunsthalle Rostock (2013). In 2018, Mühe will be presented in the Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing and the G2 Kunsthalle Leipzig with solo exhibitions. The artist has received numerous photographic awards, ie. the Hansel Mieth Prize (2010) and the LeadAward (2015 and 2010). Works by Mühe are represented in numerous collections, including the Musée National d’histoire et d’Art Luxembourg, Luxembourg; Deutsche Bank Collection, Germany; DZ Bank Collection, Germany; Foundation F.C. Gundlach, Germany; Cultural Foundation Montblanc, Germany; Wemhöner Collection, Germany; Schloss Kummerow, Germany.

In FX Exothermic, Tony Oursler has created the illusion of burning fire. The abbreviation FX stands for ‘special effects’, those visual tricks used in film and television that stimulate imagined events. Oursler’s ongoing interest in deconstructing Hollywood tropes takes the blockbuster as a point of departure. Look closely and you can also see the stylised and vaguely recognisable features of a human face – he has created a vision of this grotesque face lost in a blaze of flames. Oursler’s art often aims directly at exploring the relationship between the viewer and the artwork, and, as in this work, regularly uses new technologies that allow for the imitation of human and emotional features, thus creating a work that can easily engage us.

Into All That Is Here explores ways to define desire after darkness disappears. The charming and rich voice-over seems to mix the sounds of moaning of strange whistling, of slurping and kissing. It requires: if you were my lover, unborn fetus, or just friend, what will happen? The edited clips dynamically switch between scenes of blooming flower, flickering lights, fountains, GPS screens, remote controls and freeze frames. All of these images flash across the screen like memories, as if repeatedly emphasizing the transience and preciousness of physical perception.

Into All That Is Here explores ways to define desire after darkness disappears. The charming and rich voice-over seems to mix the sounds of moaning of strange whistling, of slurping and kissing. It requires: if you were my lover, unborn fetus, or just friend, what will happen? The edited clips dynamically switch between scenes of blooming flower, flickering lights, fountains, GPS screens, remote controls and freeze frames. All of these images flash across the screen like memories, as if repeatedly emphasizing the transience and preciousness of physical perception.

Into All That Is Here explores ways to define desire after darkness disappears. The charming and rich voice-over seems to mix the sounds of moaning of strange whistling, of slurping and kissing. It requires: if you were my lover, unborn fetus, or just friend, what will happen? The edited clips dynamically switch between scenes of blooming flower, flickering lights, fountains, GPS screens, remote controls and freeze frames. All of these images flash across the screen like memories, as if repeatedly emphasizing the transience and preciousness of physical perception.

Into All That Is Here explores ways to define desire after darkness disappears. The charming and rich voice-over seems to mix the sounds of moaning of strange whistling, of slurping and kissing. It requires: if you were my lover, unborn fetus, or just friend, what will happen? The edited clips dynamically switch between scenes of blooming flower, flickering lights, fountains, GPS screens, remote controls and freeze frames. All of these images flash across the screen like memories, as if repeatedly emphasizing the transience and preciousness of physical perception.

Into All That Is Here explores ways to define desire after darkness disappears. The charming and rich voice-over seems to mix the sounds of moaning of strange whistling, of slurping and kissing. It requires: if you were my lover, unborn fetus, or just friend, what will happen? The edited clips dynamically switch between scenes of blooming flower, flickering lights, fountains, GPS screens, remote controls and freeze frames. All of these images flash across the screen like memories, as if repeatedly emphasizing the transience and preciousness of physical perception.

Into All That Is Here explores ways to define desire after darkness disappears. The charming and rich voice-over seems to mix the sounds of moaning of strange whistling, of slurping and kissing. It requires: if you were my lover, unborn fetus, or just friend, what will happen? The edited clips dynamically switch between scenes of blooming flower, flickering lights, fountains, GPS screens, remote controls and freeze frames. All of these images flash across the screen like memories, as if repeatedly emphasizing the transience and preciousness of physical perception.

Qiu’s Notes on the Lantern Festival Scroll Project: Painting is part of Qiu Zhijie’s major mixed-media art project Qiu’s Notes on the Lantern Festival Scroll Project. Beginning with Lantern Festival Scroll, a city genre painting by an anonymous painter in the mid- to late Ming dynasty, Qiu’s project encompasses a series of writings, paintings, installations, and theatre performances. Lantern Festival Scroll depicts a street scene during the Lantern Festival in Nanjing. The colourful lanterns in the painting create a festive atmosphere appropriate for welcoming spring. The painting is crowded with gentlemen, merchants, and ordinary city dwellers, as well as a rich and varied array of buildings, vessels, and scenes. The painting has immense historical value, showing folk traditions and art and craft techniques; it is also valuable evidence of flourishing urban society in ancient China.

Qiu Zhijie began researching Lantern Festival Scroll in 2009, presenting the results of his research in Qiu’s Notes on the Lantern Festival Scroll Project. He took a contemporary perspective in re-interpreting this Ming- dynasty cityscape. From this painting, he attempted to extract the hidden DNA of Chinese culture and looked for a contemporary way to depict them. In Qiu’s Notes on the Lantern Festival Scroll Project: Painting, Qiu Zhijie transforms the characters, elements, phenomena, and models that repeatedly appear in Chinese history into exquisite drawings, which have in turn provided the larger framework for his research. The work reflects a historical narrative method and a typographic illustration of Chinese history.

In 1986, I received a studio visit from Bill Olander, the chief curator of the New Museum. That visit would radically change the direction of my work. Bill was doing a show called ‘Fake’ an exhibition dealing with inauthenticity, which gave me the idea to do photographs that would mimic painting. The first work, Milk, Blood, was a picture of two tanks, one filled with blood, the other with milk, butted together so all you see is the dividing line between them. It was a reference to Mondrian and started my series with bodily fluids. The first images such as Milk, Blood, Piss, were monochromes. Later I made images mixing the fluids creating colourful abstractions. Soon after I started putting objects in the tanks creating what would become known as the ‘Immersions’, the most famous of which are Piss Christ and Black Supper. *

* Referenced from Andres Serrano’s own narrative

In 1986, I received a studio visit from Bill Olander, the chief curator of the New Museum. That visit would radically change the direction of my work. Bill was doing a show called ‘Fake’ an exhibition dealing with inauthenticity, which gave me the idea to do photographs that would mimic painting. The first work, Milk, Blood, was a picture of two tanks, one filled with blood, the other with milk, butted together so all you see is the dividing line between them. It was a reference to Mondrian and started my series with bodily fluids. The first images such as Milk, Blood, Piss, were monochromes. Later I made images mixing the fluids creating colourful abstractions. Soon after I started putting objects in the tanks creating what would become known as the ‘Immersions’, the most famous of which are Piss Christ and Black Supper. *

* Referenced from Andres Serrano’s own narrative

This work takes the form of Fujian earthen buildings (tulou). These buildings only have one door, and several stories layered on a round foundation, like rings on a tree. This is a mode of tribal living; the larger ones can house a village, while the smaller ones can house a family. The well is often located in the centre of the structure’s courtyard.

The front part of the work is a model of an earthen building, while the back part is a tree branch extending from the well at the centre of the courtyard. Water flows along the branch and drips into the black wooden bucket at the other end, which people would often use to draw water from the well.

This work takes the form of Fujian earthen buildings (tulou). These buildings only have one door, and several stories layered on a round foundation, like rings on a tree. This is a mode of tribal living; the larger ones can house a village, while the smaller ones can house a family. The well is often located in the centre of the structure’s courtyard.

The front part of the work is a model of an earthen building, while the back part is a tree branch extending from the well at the centre of the courtyard. Water flows along the branch and drips into the black wooden bucket at the other end, which people would often use to draw water from the well.

This work takes the form of Fujian earthen buildings (tulou). These buildings only have one door, and several stories layered on a round foundation, like rings on a tree. This is a mode of tribal living; the larger ones can house a village, while the smaller ones can house a family. The well is often located in the centre of the structure’s courtyard.

The front part of the work is a model of an earthen building, while the back part is a tree branch extending from the well at the centre of the courtyard. Water flows along the branch and drips into the black wooden bucket at the other end, which people would often use to draw water from the well.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Inga Svala Thórsdóttir & Wu Shanzhuan

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Inga Svala Thórsdóttir & Wu Shanzhuan

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Inga Svala Thórsdóttir & Wu Shanzhuan

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Rirkrit Tiravanija

Intro

Since 2001, Rirkrit Tiravanija’s works have shown interests in situationalist topics such as urbanisation and ‘the Society of Spectacle’. Untitled (2010) is one of a series of works that Rirkrit created after placing his concerns in China, an increasingly significant role in world economic structure. Made of bamboo, the installation builds models of and reconstructs the tallest building in Beijing and Shanghai–No.1, jianguomenwaidajie, chaoyang district, Beijing and No.100, Century Boulevard, putuo district, Shanghai. Meanwhile, the work also provides an approach of ‘Esthetique Relationnel’, emphasising the exchange of different notions, including artists, works, viewers, the world, etc. By placing birds in the bamboo buildings, Rirkrit constructs a space with objective relationships. The sound of the birds guides visitors to start a discussion on the relation between people, to reflect on the current circumstances of capitalist production and to examine the living conditions of labour force in China.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Rirkrit Tiravanija

Intro

Since 2001, Rirkrit Tiravanija’s works have shown interests in situationalist topics such as urbanisation and ‘the Society of Spectacle’. Untitled (2010) is one of a series of works that Rirkrit created after placing his concerns in China, an increasingly significant role in world economic structure. Made of bamboo, the installation builds models of and reconstructs the tallest building in Beijing and Shanghai–No.1, jianguomenwaidajie, chaoyang district, Beijing and No.100, Century Boulevard, putuo district, Shanghai. Meanwhile, the work also provides an approach of ‘Esthetique Relationnel’, emphasising the exchange of different notions, including artists, works, viewers, the world, etc. By placing birds in the bamboo buildings, Rirkrit constructs a space with objective relationships. The sound of the birds guides visitors to start a discussion on the relation between people, to reflect on the current circumstances of capitalist production and to examine the living conditions of labour force in China.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Tatiana Trouvé

Intro

750 Points towards infinity consists of 750 weighted plumb lines, all pointing in different directions, as if gripped by the density of multiple magnetic fields. At first sight, these hundreds of plumb lines seem to point in just one direction – at the ground beneath us. Their oblique trajectories then seem to imply a substantial disruption of the laws of attraction, a disturbance with no specific explanation, which some could always read as a sign, indeed a metaphor on the scale of the earth or the world, now disrupted. It would make more sense to detect, in the density of its attractions and their multiple distortions, the possibilities of a plurality of worlds condensed into a small area. But would this account for the infinity assigned to the 750 points in the title? Surely not.

To grasp the ‘infinite’ range of these ‘750 points’, we need, as it were, to invert our gaze, as if the sky were inscribed on the ground. In that case the infinity of these plumb lines points upwards rather than downwards, and the ground becomes a kind of map of the sky. This upside-down world in which the sky and the ground are equivalent can only be perceived by means of an optical trick: inverting our viewpoint. In this connection we may mention a work that proposes the same kind of optical exercise: Piero Manzoni’s Base of the world (1961), a rectangular bronze parallelepiped on which we can read the upside-down words ‘Base of the world, homage to Galileo’.

This need to shift our gaze is induced by many of Tatiana Trouvé’s works and put to the test in some of her drawings and her Polders, with objects floating in the void or, conversely, frozen in mid-fall. We find it again in her interplay of mirrors, duplication and false perspectives. But it is here that it is at its most radical, with 180-degree reversal, a total disorientation that comes close to vertigo. One this rotation has taken place, we can find our footing once more and realise that these plumb lines do not require us to seek infinity in the depths of the cosmos, but here, and allow us to grasp the implications of this shift in viewpoint. In other words, infinity is here below – perhaps even captured in the few millimetres that separate the plumb-line weights from the ground, the infinitesimal that Marcel Duchamp called ‘infra-thin’.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Tatiana Trouvé

Intro

750 Points towards infinity consists of 750 weighted plumb lines, all pointing in different directions, as if gripped by the density of multiple magnetic fields. At first sight, these hundreds of plumb lines seem to point in just one direction – at the ground beneath us. Their oblique trajectories then seem to imply a substantial disruption of the laws of attraction, a disturbance with no specific explanation, which some could always read as a sign, indeed a metaphor on the scale of the earth or the world, now disrupted. It would make more sense to detect, in the density of its attractions and their multiple distortions, the possibilities of a plurality of worlds condensed into a small area. But would this account for the infinity assigned to the 750 points in the title? Surely not.

To grasp the ‘infinite’ range of these ‘750 points’, we need, as it were, to invert our gaze, as if the sky were inscribed on the ground. In that case the infinity of these plumb lines points upwards rather than downwards, and the ground becomes a kind of map of the sky. This upside-down world in which the sky and the ground are equivalent can only be perceived by means of an optical trick: inverting our viewpoint. In this connection we may mention a work that proposes the same kind of optical exercise: Piero Manzoni’s Base of the world (1961), a rectangular bronze parallelepiped on which we can read the upside-down words ‘Base of the world, homage to Galileo’.

This need to shift our gaze is induced by many of Tatiana Trouvé’s works and put to the test in some of her drawings and her Polders, with objects floating in the void or, conversely, frozen in mid-fall. We find it again in her interplay of mirrors, duplication and false perspectives. But it is here that it is at its most radical, with 180-degree reversal, a total disorientation that comes close to vertigo. One this rotation has taken place, we can find our footing once more and realise that these plumb lines do not require us to seek infinity in the depths of the cosmos, but here, and allow us to grasp the implications of this shift in viewpoint. In other words, infinity is here below – perhaps even captured in the few millimetres that separate the plumb-line weights from the ground, the infinitesimal that Marcel Duchamp called ‘infra-thin’.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Tatiana Trouvé

Intro

750 Points towards infinity consists of 750 weighted plumb lines, all pointing in different directions, as if gripped by the density of multiple magnetic fields. At first sight, these hundreds of plumb lines seem to point in just one direction – at the ground beneath us. Their oblique trajectories then seem to imply a substantial disruption of the laws of attraction, a disturbance with no specific explanation, which some could always read as a sign, indeed a metaphor on the scale of the earth or the world, now disrupted. It would make more sense to detect, in the density of its attractions and their multiple distortions, the possibilities of a plurality of worlds condensed into a small area. But would this account for the infinity assigned to the 750 points in the title? Surely not.

To grasp the ‘infinite’ range of these ‘750 points’, we need, as it were, to invert our gaze, as if the sky were inscribed on the ground. In that case the infinity of these plumb lines points upwards rather than downwards, and the ground becomes a kind of map of the sky. This upside-down world in which the sky and the ground are equivalent can only be perceived by means of an optical trick: inverting our viewpoint. In this connection we may mention a work that proposes the same kind of optical exercise: Piero Manzoni’s Base of the world (1961), a rectangular bronze parallelepiped on which we can read the upside-down words ‘Base of the world, homage to Galileo’.

This need to shift our gaze is induced by many of Tatiana Trouvé’s works and put to the test in some of her drawings and her Polders, with objects floating in the void or, conversely, frozen in mid-fall. We find it again in her interplay of mirrors, duplication and false perspectives. But it is here that it is at its most radical, with 180-degree reversal, a total disorientation that comes close to vertigo. One this rotation has taken place, we can find our footing once more and realise that these plumb lines do not require us to seek infinity in the depths of the cosmos, but here, and allow us to grasp the implications of this shift in viewpoint. In other words, infinity is here below – perhaps even captured in the few millimetres that separate the plumb-line weights from the ground, the infinitesimal that Marcel Duchamp called ‘infra-thin’.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Apichatpong Weerasethakul & Chai Siri

Intro

His name means ‘full of hearts’. He is a Bengali construction worker at the newly-built Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces. The city’s warm winter drives Dilbar into a slumber. His ‘sleeping’ existence shifts between the museum and the labour camp. This comatose journey slowly turns into a symphony of dreams and hallucinations. His senses are possessed by the unseen water in the desert. He becomes part of a bloodline that feeds the trees, the birds, the machines, and the buildings.

DILBAR is a portrait of a city builder, one of a million Bangladeshi workers currently living in the UAE. The film represents a physical and spiritual transmigration of a voiceless soul. The only sensible communications are the dialogues of nature and the daily noises. They are the lullabies for this hibernating character who epitomises the act of escaping, waiting, and ignoring. The film transports this ‘sleeper’ across the boundaries of economic and social status, of meaning, and of living and death.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Apichatpong Weerasethakul & Chai Siri

Intro

His name means ‘full of hearts’. He is a Bengali construction worker at the newly-built Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces. The city’s warm winter drives Dilbar into a slumber. His ‘sleeping’ existence shifts between the museum and the labour camp. This comatose journey slowly turns into a symphony of dreams and hallucinations. His senses are possessed by the unseen water in the desert. He becomes part of a bloodline that feeds the trees, the birds, the machines, and the buildings.

DILBAR is a portrait of a city builder, one of a million Bangladeshi workers currently living in the UAE. The film represents a physical and spiritual transmigration of a voiceless soul. The only sensible communications are the dialogues of nature and the daily noises. They are the lullabies for this hibernating character who epitomises the act of escaping, waiting, and ignoring. The film transports this ‘sleeper’ across the boundaries of economic and social status, of meaning, and of living and death.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Apichatpong Weerasethakul & Chai Siri

Intro

His name means ‘full of hearts’. He is a Bengali construction worker at the newly-built Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces. The city’s warm winter drives Dilbar into a slumber. His ‘sleeping’ existence shifts between the museum and the labour camp. This comatose journey slowly turns into a symphony of dreams and hallucinations. His senses are possessed by the unseen water in the desert. He becomes part of a bloodline that feeds the trees, the birds, the machines, and the buildings.

DILBAR is a portrait of a city builder, one of a million Bangladeshi workers currently living in the UAE. The film represents a physical and spiritual transmigration of a voiceless soul. The only sensible communications are the dialogues of nature and the daily noises. They are the lullabies for this hibernating character who epitomises the act of escaping, waiting, and ignoring. The film transports this ‘sleeper’ across the boundaries of economic and social status, of meaning, and of living and death.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Apichatpong Weerasethakul & Chai Siri

Intro

His name means ‘full of hearts’. He is a Bengali construction worker at the newly-built Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces. The city’s warm winter drives Dilbar into a slumber. His ‘sleeping’ existence shifts between the museum and the labour camp. This comatose journey slowly turns into a symphony of dreams and hallucinations. His senses are possessed by the unseen water in the desert. He becomes part of a bloodline that feeds the trees, the birds, the machines, and the buildings.

DILBAR is a portrait of a city builder, one of a million Bangladeshi workers currently living in the UAE. The film represents a physical and spiritual transmigration of a voiceless soul. The only sensible communications are the dialogues of nature and the daily noises. They are the lullabies for this hibernating character who epitomises the act of escaping, waiting, and ignoring. The film transports this ‘sleeper’ across the boundaries of economic and social status, of meaning, and of living and death.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Apichatpong Weerasethakul & Chai Siri

Intro

His name means ‘full of hearts’. He is a Bengali construction worker at the newly-built Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces. The city’s warm winter drives Dilbar into a slumber. His ‘sleeping’ existence shifts between the museum and the labour camp. This comatose journey slowly turns into a symphony of dreams and hallucinations. His senses are possessed by the unseen water in the desert. He becomes part of a bloodline that feeds the trees, the birds, the machines, and the buildings.

DILBAR is a portrait of a city builder, one of a million Bangladeshi workers currently living in the UAE. The film represents a physical and spiritual transmigration of a voiceless soul. The only sensible communications are the dialogues of nature and the daily noises. They are the lullabies for this hibernating character who epitomises the act of escaping, waiting, and ignoring. The film transports this ‘sleeper’ across the boundaries of economic and social status, of meaning, and of living and death.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Apichatpong Weerasethakul & Chai Siri

Intro

His name means ‘full of hearts’. He is a Bengali construction worker at the newly-built Sharjah Art Foundation Art Spaces. The city’s warm winter drives Dilbar into a slumber. His ‘sleeping’ existence shifts between the museum and the labour camp. This comatose journey slowly turns into a symphony of dreams and hallucinations. His senses are possessed by the unseen water in the desert. He becomes part of a bloodline that feeds the trees, the birds, the machines, and the buildings.

DILBAR is a portrait of a city builder, one of a million Bangladeshi workers currently living in the UAE. The film represents a physical and spiritual transmigration of a voiceless soul. The only sensible communications are the dialogues of nature and the daily noises. They are the lullabies for this hibernating character who epitomises the act of escaping, waiting, and ignoring. The film transports this ‘sleeper’ across the boundaries of economic and social status, of meaning, and of living and death.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

The China/Avant-Garde Exhibition, gathering major artists and artworks since ‘85 New Wave Movement’, opened on the 5th February 1989. Due to the intervention of accidental performances at the exhibition, it attracted international attention and astonished the public.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

The China/Avant-Garde Exhibition, gathering major artists and artworks since ‘85 New Wave Movement’, opened on the 5th February, 1989. Due to the intervention of accidental performances at the exhibition, it attracted international attention and astonished the public.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

On February 5, 1989, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition of contemporary art; the emblem for the exhibition was their ‘No U-term’ design. The exhibition focused on the aims and achievements of the ’85 New Wave movement. Including in the exhibition were seven performance pieces, while some of these went by relatively quietly, two shots shocked the world. Almost thirty years later, the pride felt by today’s critics and artists in this exhibition, qualifies the importance and significance of the China/Avant-Grade exhibition and their ‘No U-turn’ motto. This film is a recording of the seven performances – known as the Seven Sins.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

On February 5, 1989, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition of contemporary art; the emblem for the exhibition was their ‘No U-term’ design. The exhibition focused on the aims and achievements of the ’85 New Wave movement. Including in the exhibition were seven performance pieces, while some of these went by relatively quietly, two shots shocked the world. Almost thirty years later, the pride felt by today’s critics and artists in this exhibition, qualifies the importance and significance of the China/Avant-Grade exhibition and their ‘No U-turn’ motto. This film is a recording of the seven performances – known as the Seven Sins.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

On February 5, 1989, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition of contemporary art; the emblem for the exhibition was their ‘No U-term’ design. The exhibition focused on the aims and achievements of the ’85 New Wave movement. Including in the exhibition were seven performance pieces, while some of these went by relatively quietly, two shots shocked the world. Almost thirty years later, the pride felt by today’s critics and artists in this exhibition, qualifies the importance and significance of the China/Avant-Grade exhibition and their ‘No U-turn’ motto. This film is a recording of the seven performances – known as the Seven Sins.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

On February 5, 1989, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition of contemporary art; the emblem for the exhibition was their ‘No U-term’ design. The exhibition focused on the aims and achievements of the ’85 New Wave movement. Including in the exhibition were seven performance pieces, while some of these went by relatively quietly, two shots shocked the world. Almost thirty years later, the pride felt by today’s critics and artists in this exhibition, qualifies the importance and significance of the China/Avant-Grade exhibition and their ‘No U-turn’ motto. This film is a recording of the seven performances – known as the Seven Sins.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

On February 5, 1989, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition of contemporary art; the emblem for the exhibition was their ‘No U-term’ design. The exhibition focused on the aims and achievements of the ’85 New Wave movement. Including in the exhibition were seven performance pieces, while some of these went by relatively quietly, two shots shocked the world. Almost thirty years later, the pride felt by today’s critics and artists in this exhibition, qualifies the importance and significance of the China/Avant-Grade exhibition and their ‘No U-turn’ motto. This film is a recording of the seven performances – known as the Seven Sins.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

On February 5, 1989, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition of contemporary art; the emblem for the exhibition was their ‘No U-term’ design. The exhibition focused on the aims and achievements of the ’85 New Wave movement. Including in the exhibition were seven performance pieces, while some of these went by relatively quietly, two shots shocked the world. Almost thirty years later, the pride felt by today’s critics and artists in this exhibition, qualifies the importance and significance of the China/Avant-Grade exhibition and their ‘No U-turn’ motto. This film is a recording of the seven performances – known as the Seven Sins.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

On February 5, 1989, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition of contemporary art; the emblem for the exhibition was their ‘No U-term’ design. The exhibition focused on the aims and achievements of the ’85 New Wave movement. Including in the exhibition were seven performance pieces, while some of these went by relatively quietly, two shots shocked the world. Almost thirty years later, the pride felt by today’s critics and artists in this exhibition, qualifies the importance and significance of the China/Avant-Grade exhibition and their ‘No U-turn’ motto. This film is a recording of the seven performances – known as the Seven Sins.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art

Intro

On February 5, 1989, the National Art Museum of China held an exhibition of contemporary art; the emblem for the exhibition was their ‘No U-term’ design. The exhibition focused on the aims and achievements of the ’85 New Wave movement. Including in the exhibition were seven performance pieces, while some of these went by relatively quietly, two shots shocked the world. Almost thirty years later, the pride felt by today’s critics and artists in this exhibition, qualifies the importance and significance of the China/Avant-Grade exhibition and their ‘No U-turn’ motto. This film is a recording of the seven performances – known as the Seven Sins.

Documentation of installation, and performance: 11.10 am, 5th February, 1989, China/Avant-Garde Exhibition, National Art Gallery, Beijing.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Xiao Lu

Intro

The original idea of Dialogue is from Xiao Lu’s confusion of personal feelings and the loss of emotional life made her fall into a self-contradictory state. Just as the work shows, a man and a woman are making a phone call, however, the telephone hanging in the middle obviously tells people that their conversation is not smooth. This complex and contradictory psychological state is the original conception of the installation and shooting work of Dialogue. At 11:10 am on 5th February, 1989, during the opening ceremony of the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, Xiao Lu raised a gun and fired two shots at her installation work Dialogue, which directly led to the closure of the exhibition.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Xing Danwen

Intro

In A Personal Diary, Xing presents a highly poetic work that reflects her keen ability to inscribe China’s alternative art scene in the 1990s into her own personal narrative. We see the city through her eyes, disturbed by rapid urban development. The series calls artists and their artworks from their studios to the streets. It witnesses the emergence of installation art in public spaces, and it accompanies and connects with performers in private apartments, presenting a strong, sensual closeness to them. The camera is frequently visible in the photographs, and so is Xing herself, as she captures people and events with an unmistakable passion for what is portrayed.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Xing Danwen

Intro

In A Personal Diary, Xing presents a highly poetic work that reflects her keen ability to inscribe China’s alternative art scene in the 1990s into her own personal narrative. We see the city through her eyes, disturbed by rapid urban development. The series calls artists and their artworks from their studios to the streets. It witnesses the emergence of installation art in public spaces, and it accompanies and connects with performers in private apartments, presenting a strong, sensual closeness to them. The camera is frequently visible in the photographs, and so is Xing herself, as she captures people and events with an unmistakable passion for what is portrayed.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Xing Danwen

Intro

In A Personal Diary, Xing presents a highly poetic work that reflects her keen ability to inscribe China’s alternative art scene in the 1990s into her own personal narrative. We see the city through her eyes, disturbed by rapid urban development. The series calls artists and their artworks from their studios to the streets. It witnesses the emergence of installation art in public spaces, and it accompanies and connects with performers in private apartments, presenting a strong, sensual closeness to them. The camera is frequently visible in the photographs, and so is Xing herself, as she captures people and events with an unmistakable passion for what is portrayed.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Xing Danwen

Intro

In A Personal Diary, Xing presents a highly poetic work that reflects her keen ability to inscribe China’s alternative art scene in the 1990s into her own personal narrative. We see the city through her eyes, disturbed by rapid urban development. The series calls artists and their artworks from their studios to the streets. It witnesses the emergence of installation art in public spaces, and it accompanies and connects with performers in private apartments, presenting a strong, sensual closeness to them. The camera is frequently visible in the photographs, and so is Xing herself, as she captures people and events with an unmistakable passion for what is portrayed.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Xing Danwen

Intro

In A Personal Diary, Xing presents a highly poetic work that reflects her keen ability to inscribe China’s alternative art scene in the 1990s into her own personal narrative. We see the city through her eyes, disturbed by rapid urban development. The series calls artists and their artworks from their studios to the streets. It witnesses the emergence of installation art in public spaces, and it accompanies and connects with performers in private apartments, presenting a strong, sensual closeness to them. The camera is frequently visible in the photographs, and so is Xing herself, as she captures people and events with an unmistakable passion for what is portrayed.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Xing Danwen

Intro

In A Personal Diary, Xing presents a highly poetic work that reflects her keen ability to inscribe China’s alternative art scene in the 1990s into her own personal narrative. We see the city through her eyes, disturbed by rapid urban development. The series calls artists and their artworks from their studios to the streets. It witnesses the emergence of installation art in public spaces, and it accompanies and connects with performers in private apartments, presenting a strong, sensual closeness to them. The camera is frequently visible in the photographs, and so is Xing herself, as she captures people and events with an unmistakable passion for what is portrayed.

Red Brick Art Museum Collection

© Xing Danwen

Intro

In A Personal Diary, Xing presents a highly poetic work that reflects her keen ability to inscribe China’s alternative art scene in the 1990s into her own personal narrative. We see the city through her eyes, disturbed by rapid urban development. The series calls artists and their artworks from their studios to the streets. It witnesses the emergence of installation art in public spaces, and it accompanies and connects with performers in private apartments, presenting a strong, sensual closeness to them. The camera is frequently visible in the photographs, and so is Xing herself, as she captures people and events with an unmistakable passion for what is portrayed.