‘I would rather be crying in the back of a limousine than
laughing on the back of a bicycle’
Bai Yilou, Recycling, 2008, mixed media
An attendant at the White Rabbit Gallery gave this analogy
when introducing a work by the artist Bai Yilou. Recycling, 2008, is essentially an old bicycle carrying an oversized
heart (not the pretty-pink emoticon kind). Scraps of recyclable everyday
objects like used water bottles, magazines and newspaper, litter the bicycle
trailer and surrounds. The limousine/bicycle analogy provides a kind of foundation
or framework for approaching both Bai Yilou’s piece, and other works in the exhibition
Smash Palace; ‘an artists’-eye view
of a fracturing China’.
What becomes most apparent in Smash Palace is the tension between mechanics or technology and
human or animal matter (flesh, organs and blood). These two components figure
as a repeated motif throughout the exhibition where in some cases they are
pushed to an extreme state. Cheng Dapeng’s Wonderful
City, 2011-2012 retains to its title but has an element of black humour.
The florescent-white table-top with various miniature toy-like figures is both
captivating and repulsive. It is like an ocean of mutated human/animal matter,
blending into what appears like man-made structures that form a city. The
medium (resin 3D prints) and presentation of the work (the fluorescent-white
lights) masks what is quite violent and macabre imagery, giving it an alluring
softness. The work engages with the subtle but rapid urban development seen in
contemporary China. It points to the danger of unrelenting urban progress with
commerce at its heart. The artist, Cheng Dapeng, is an architect himself and
‘hopes his artworks will remind planners that cities are for people, not just
profiteers.’[1]
These same kinds of ideas are apparent in Tu Pei-Shih’s digital
media works. However intimate knowledge of Taiwan’s turbulent history would
garner a more profound connection with the action played out in Adventures in Mount Yu 1, 2010, and Adventures
in Mount Yu 5, 2011. The glossy
cartoon-like, colourful aesthetics and contemporary fascination with moving
pictures conceals the political connotations in the works. The animated video
projections are busy with action, and like television, the stylistic conventions
and scattered narrative distract from the real-life themes behind the works. This
is, in effect, the central idea of Tu Pei-Shih’s video projections, where glitz
and glamour mask truth. The cartoon videos are a grotesque parody that allows
audiences a glimpse of historical fact. In the case of artwork like this, the
service gallery attendants can provide is invaluable where the historical and
social context of an artwork might otherwise be missed or overlooked as a result
of immediate, highly-stimulating visuals. White Rabbit Gallery deliver this
opportunity for visitors to have a more intimate engagement with the artworks.
For Tu Pei-Shih’s work, it was interesting to hear a wild verbal account of the
action as it played out on the two screens. The attendant said Tu Pei-Shih’s
works depict ‘…a genocide which has been kept secret for so long… an island not
of paradise, but paradox… it must be the artists who tell the stories… and just
look what’s happening, it’s got a pretty frightful history.’[2]
Zhou Jie, CBD, 2010, porcelain and rice
This exhibition brings together some large impressive
installation works, like Zhou Jie’s CBD,
2011, a porcelain city standing in a bed of rice, and Shyu Ruey-Shiann’s Traveller’s Wings, 2011. A sizable oil
painting on canvas by Madeln is another marvellous work, with the 3D paint
standing erect from the canvas like coral or cake decorations. Smash Palace presents visually playful,
awe-inspiring works that have an unsettling undercurrent of political and
social restlessness.
Smash Palace
White Rabbit
GalleryMarch 1 – August 4 2013
http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org
No comments:
Post a Comment