Exhibition Preview: Art of Change: New Directions from China, Hayward Gallery, London, until December 9 2012
There’s performance art by “curious observer” Yingmei Duan, photos of Gu Dexin’s meat-kneading trickery, choreography based on silkworms studied by Liang Shaoji and, in Purification Room, a bed, chair, refrigerator and telly covered in a dry, cracked, chameleonic mud, considered the “archaeology of the future” by Chen Zhen.
This survey of enterprising Chinese talent, then, is one which would challenge the most easily bored not to find a surprise or two, not least outside the Hayward itself, where Peng Yu and Sun Yuan – last seen depicting decrepit world leaders in Old Person’s Home, at the Saatchi in 2009 – are gushing water at high pressure from a hose onto a specially constructed space within the terrace.
Just for good measure, the couple have made a new sculptural work which belies its minimal-sounding title, I Didn’t Notice What I am Doing, by involving a triceratops and a rhinoceros.
Elsewhere, Wang Jianwei merges a multi-screen video installation with a misshapen ping-pong table where visitors are allowed to hit just one ball, and Xu Zhen uses Blink of an Eye to mysteriously float a figure in the space, showing a magician’s touch backed up by 48 different sculptures flying fleetingly upwards from a large white cube.
In line with the spikey sense of defiance fuelling installation and performance art in their country before the millennium, transience and transformation are key themes for the first major British exhibition of contemporary Chinese work across those genres. Just watch out for the mud and showers.
There’s performance art by “curious observer” Yingmei Duan, photos of Gu Dexin’s meat-kneading trickery, choreography based on silkworms studied by Liang Shaoji and, in Purification Room, a bed, chair, refrigerator and telly covered in a dry, cracked, chameleonic mud, considered the “archaeology of the future” by Chen Zhen.
Gu Dexin, 1997-6-16-1998-6-13 (1997-8)© Gu Dexin, courtesy the artist and GALLERIA CONTINUA, San Gimignano / Beijing / Le Moulin. Collection Timothy Van Housen and Ellen Kim-Van Housen
Just for good measure, the couple have made a new sculptural work which belies its minimal-sounding title, I Didn’t Notice What I am Doing, by involving a triceratops and a rhinoceros.
Elsewhere, Wang Jianwei merges a multi-screen video installation with a misshapen ping-pong table where visitors are allowed to hit just one ball, and Xu Zhen uses Blink of an Eye to mysteriously float a figure in the space, showing a magician’s touch backed up by 48 different sculptures flying fleetingly upwards from a large white cube.
In line with the spikey sense of defiance fuelling installation and performance art in their country before the millennium, transience and transformation are key themes for the first major British exhibition of contemporary Chinese work across those genres. Just watch out for the mud and showers.
- Open 10am-6pm (8pm Thursday and Friday, 12pm-6pm Monday). Admission £7.50-£10 (free for under-12s outside school hours). Visit the exhibition online and follow the gallery on Twitter @haywardgallery.
