Hu Jieming, Raft of the Medusa, 2002, Photograph, 124x177 cm. |
| The Coexistance of Old and New, Past and Present of a Consuming China |
Hu Jieming, Dozens of Days and Dozens of Years, installation view.
Hu Jieming, Dozens of Days and Dozens of Years, installation view.
Hu Jieming, Dozens of Days and Dozens of Years, installation view.
Hu Jieming, Dozens of Days and Dozens of Years, installation view. |
Shanghart Hu Jieming is one of the pioneering artists of digital media and video installation art in today’s China. One of his main focuses is the co-existence of the old and the new, a theme he constantly comments upon and questions with a variety of media including photography, video, digital interactive technology and architectural juxtapositions with musical comments. The works always signify the artist’s strong engagement with both history and the present reality. The new installation pieces Dozens of Days and Dozens of Years (2007) directly comment on how the recent philosophy of economic growth and advanced consumption dramatically change and erase old things. The installation consists of six glass cabinets displaying a set of furniture pieces that have been washed with a special chemical liquid. Each day the chemicals aggressively and increasingly change the structure and form of the furniture. Placed next to each cabinet there will be photographic documentation showing the dissolution and destruction accumulating day by day. During the course of the exhibition, an electric screen will account the number of days already past. As in Hu Jieming’s other installations, these real concrete objects are never as simple as they appear. Dozens of Days and Dozens of Years subtly comments on the fundamental changes of China’s political and economic system. Changes that have generated unprecedented economic growth and advanced consumption. Rendered irrelevant by the culture that outmodes products as quickly as they come into being, these furniture pieces display their own dissolution and mortification. Or, with the famous quote by Karl Marx: "Everything solid melts into air." In his highly acclaimed photo-manipulated images Raft of the Medusa (2002) he references to Theodore's Gericault's seminal and allegorical image, the Raft of the Medusa (1819). The ]historical painting serves as a mytho-poetic memorial of the 150 lost souls onboard the raft after a fatal shipwreck, from which only 15 survived. The painting very elegantly undermines the traditional heroic 19th century historical painting, and, instead, conveys a society in sinking collapse. Hu Jieming parallels this historic occurrence to the regime of the Cultural Revolution with all its sinister cruelty. His Raft of the Medusa, thus, is more than just a reference to the past: The photos are composed of today’s excessive amount of consumer goods and advertisement imagery. Additionally, Hu Jieming juxtaposes pictures of today's youth in gestures of self-indulgent hedonism with monochrome grey pictures of the suppressed people in traditional Mao uniforms. These compositions made of images appropriated from different sociopolitical realities signify a strong critical engagement with both history and the present — it is a concern ranging beyond pure private considerations. Hu Jieming was born in 1957 in Shanghai. He graduated from the Fine Art Department of the Shanghai Light Industry College in 1984. Today he lives and works in Shanghai. Hu Jieming has exhibited widely. Recent shows include The Thirteen: Chinese Video Art Now, P.S.1, Center for Contemporary Art, Long Island City, NY, USA (2006), Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China at Museum for Contemporary Art and the Smart Museum of Art, Chicago: Seattle Art Museum; the Santa Barbara Museum; V&A, London, and Haus der kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2006/2005), Zooming into Focus, National Art Museum Beijing, Beijing (2005), In their 40s, ShanghART Gallery H-Space, Shanghai (2005), and Techniques of the Visible, 5th Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai (2004). |
Hu Jieming, Some Place, 2006, c-print, 70 x 50 cm, ed. of 10. |
