Left: Bi-Directional Sniper Rifle "The logic of war is not that of killing and being killed, but between killing and killing. Shooting your opponent is also pulling the trigger against yourself." Right: Caged Freedom "The wings of freedom push open windows of freedom; windows of freedom fetter the wings of freedom---it is freedom itself which hinders freedom." (Translation of artist Wang Luyan's statement.)
Wang Luyan’s Paradox: Political Fable
One of the most important Chinese Conceptual artists working today, Wang Luyan (b. 1956) has been actively engaged in the Chinese avant-garde art movement from its very beginning. He was a member of the Stars Painting Society and participated in the group’s ground-breaking exhibitions in 1979 and 1980. During the ’85 Art New Wave movement, he helped found the New Measurement Group, a radical initiative of three conceptual artists that existed from 1988 to 1995. Guided by analytic geometry, the group explored the possibilities of communicating experience and perception through quantitative measurement as opposed to random individual effort.
The spirit of rationality continues to enliven his recent works, which often take the form of giant two-dimensional designs for machinery, guns, tanks, screws, scissors, bicycles, and wrist watches. Take a closer look at these paintings, however, one finds that these “designs” are actually “re-designs” or “anti-designs” which render the depicted objects dysfunctional, and in this process challenge the conventional rules and assumptions. One such work is seen in this exhibition: a sniper rifle whose bullets fly in both directions to harm the target as well as the shooter. Together with the other two paintings, it reflects on some fundamental dilemmas in international relations and political ideology. Wu Hung, Curator October, 2011
悖论：政治寓言
作为目前中国最重要的观念艺术家之一，王鲁炎（1956年生）从中国前卫艺术的一开始就积极地投入了这个运动。作为“星星画会”的成员，他参加了该画会在19798 和1980 年组织的具有历史意义的两次展览。随后在席卷全国的‘85美术新潮中，他与另外两位观念艺术家一起创办了具有前沿性的“新刻度”小组。从1988至1995年，该小组依据解析几何原理，探索以量化刻度的方式交流批次的经验和知觉，以排除个人的盲目主观卷入。
这种理性精神继续激活着他最近的作品。这些作品常以巨大的二维设计的形式出现，描绘了机械、枪支、坦克、螺钉、剪刀、自行车及手表。但如果仔细观察，我们发现这些所谓的“设计”实际上应该被称为“再设计”或“反设计”，因为这些图像不是肯定而是取消了物件的实际功能，在这个过程中向约定俗成的规则和设论提出挑战。这个展览中的一幅画就是这样的一个例子：画中D10-07型阻击步枪中的子弹将向着两个方向发射，既朝着敌人也朝着射手自己。与其他两张画一起，这幅画反思着国际关系和政治理论中的一些本质性的两难。 巫鸿 （策展人） 2011年10月
Symmetry of Violence "When aggressors use violence against victims, victims are transformed into aggressors and aggressors into victims. The image of violence is symmetrical." (translation of Wan Luyan's statement)
Artist’s Statement
Art is not just for sensual pleasure. To me, art is a way of thinking through visuality; visual analysis and demonstration separate an artist from a philosopher or thinker.
All things exist in relation to other things, and paradox is a universal phenomenon.
Wang Luyan August 20, 2011
艺术家自叙
艺术并不仅仅是愉悦感官的，对我来说艺术是一种通过视觉达到的思维方式，是区别于哲学家、思想家表达方式的视觉分析与论证。
事物存在于关系之中，悖论则是普遍的存在。 王鲁炎 2011年8月20日
Dan Dry, Pictures from an institution: University of Chicago campus scenes
Eighteen framed photographs by Dan Dry decorate the Center in Beijing, most along the west corridor, shown here. Dry is one of America’s most widely recognized photographers. His 400 national and international photography, advertising, and design awards include being named the National Press Photographers Association’s 1981 Photographer of the Year. A member of the Louisville Courier-Journal’s Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph staff, Dry also spent eight years as a contract photographer for the National Geographic Society. The photographer fir 14 coffee-table books on colleges and universities, he has contributed images to scores of books, including America 24/7 and A Day in the life of America, the only book of photography to top the New York Times best-seller list. Dry is a contributing editor at the University of Chicago Magazine, where his work has appeared since 1991.
冰逸 Bingyi, Dragon River
Dragon River was created at Xiuli in Anhui Province. Part of a larger print, this portion is five meters in length and 260 centimeters tall and adorns the south wall of the Center in Beijing’s Events Space.
Past Exhibits
August, 2010- September, 2011
Zhan Wang, Jia Shan Shi No. 86
(text by Wu Hung)
Zhan Wang’s contemporary interpretations of traditional Chinese ornamental rocks are now featured in many world-famous museums, from the British Museum to Metropolitan Museum in New York. By applying a pliable sheet of steel over an actual rock and hammering it thoroughly, he has been able to achieve a form that reproduces every minute undulation on the surface of the stone. He once explained these works:
Placed in a traditional courtyard, rockery satisfied people’s desire to return to Nature by offering them stone fragments from nature. But huge changes in the world have made this traditional ideal increasingly our of date. I have thus used stainless steel to duplicate and transform natural rockery into manufactured forms. The material’s glittering surface, ostentatious glamour, and illusory appearance make it an ideal medium to convey new dreams [in Contemporary China.]
To Zhan Wang, “glittering surface, ostentatious glamour, and illusory appearance” are not necessarily negative qualities, and his stainless-steel rocks are not designed as satire or mockery of contemporary material culture. Rather, both the original rockeries and his copies are material forms selected or created for people’s spiritual needs; their different materiality suits different needs at different times. The problem he addresses is thus one of authenticity: Which rock– the original or his copy– more genuinely reflects contemporary Chinese culture? Interestingly, the Chinese call natural rockeries jia shan shi, or “fake mountain rocks.” According to Zhan Wang, such rocks, even if made of real stones, have truly become “fakes” when used to decorate a contemporary environment. But his stainless-steel rocks, though artificial, signify the “genuine” of our own time.