Yuan Gong
Secret Crossing
April 26 – May 20, 2015
Opening: Sunday, April 26, 3:00pm
Opening Performance: “Scherzo,” the third scene from Hamletmachine, zag group, 3:30pm
Opening Lecture: “The Practice of Pop Art in Contemporary China,” Professor Lu Xinghua, 5:00pm
Tianjin Art Museum
60 Pingjiang Dao, Hexi District 300201 Tianjin, China Tel: 022—83883300
Coming on the heels of the successful opening of his solo show Bitterness at the Hubei Museum of Art, Yuan Gong will open his second solo exhibition this year, Secret Crossing, at the Tianjin Art Museum.
Yuan Gong, Hamletmachine’s “Scherzo”: “I want to become a woman,” performance/installation, 2015 (© Yuan Gong Studio/ Feng Peijie)
原弓，《哈姆雷特机器》的“谐谑曲”－我想成为一个女人, 表演／装置, 2015
Critically acclaimed in China, Yuan Gong (b.1961) has gained international recognition with The Scented Air—More than 6000 m3, presented at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011. Using a large variety of media, his artworks subtly address many questions reflecting his concerns about Chinese society and the formation of identity.
Secret Crossing is the second of a series of four Yuan Gong solo exhibitions that will take place in Chinese museums this year, respectively in Wuhan, Tianjin, Xi’an, and Shijiazhuang. These four successive exhibitions will have the character of an introduction to the artist’s universe and practice, where the focus is not on an exhaustive thematic display but on the way the various works relate to the artist’s personal story.
Hosted by the Tianjin Art Museum and curated by Man Yu and Ma Chi, Secret Crossing will feature installation video from Yuan Gong’s Losing Control series, as well as a new museum theatre performance and installation by the artist. In the main hall, Yuan Gong brings Joseph Beuys’ ‘blackboard drawings’ onto his performance stage, and not for the first time. During “Family Portrait,” the first scene of Hamletmachine, which was presented at the Hubei Museum of Art on March 21, elements of Beuys’ piece, Coyote, I Like America and America Likes Me, were introduced. At the beginning of that first scene, the howling of coyotes was transformed into lines of the play.
This time, the blackboard drawings stage a platform for communication with blind performers, to put on “Scherzo,” the third scene of Hamletmachine, a renowned drama by playwright Heiner Müller. Yuan Gong’s stage is a scene of ruins, with dismantled pianos, where the melodies of scherzos are converted into out-of-place sounds. Hamlet, meanwhile, is performed by blind performers. Background sounds are punctuated by people’s mutterings and chantings, incomprehensible, and bewildering.
Yuan Gong, Hamletmachine’’s “Scherzo”: State Apparatus, performance/installation, 2015 (© Yuan Gong Studio/ Feng Peijie)
原弓，《哈姆雷特机器》的“谐谑曲”－国家机器, 表演／装置, 2015
Yuan Gong, Hamletmachine’s “Scherzo”, performance/installation, 2015 (© Yuan Gong Studio/ Feng Peijie)
原弓，《哈姆雷特机器》的”谐谑曲”, 表演／装置, 2015
The title of Yuan Gong’s exhibition, Secret Crossing, relates to that of Partisanen der Utopie, an exhibition and ensuing book which explored the relation between the thoughts and artworks of Bueys and Müller, two great artists who, though from the same historical period, never met. Beuys sought art as a third alternative pathway aside from capitalism and communism, and this resonates with Müller’s radical critiques on both Eastern and Western societies. Partisanen der Utopie constructed an intersecting and evolving storyline, eventually forming a mutual vanishing point, pointing to the future of art thinking and art forms, to the utopia of another world, to the ultimate “art partisans.”
The performance of “Scherzo” in the main exhibition hall can be viewed as Yuan Gong borrowing from and positioning his viewpoints on Beuys’ and Müller’s visions on the world. Moreover, it can be seen as representing a type of anxiety and disappointment of a reality of losing control. This is manifested via dismantled pianos, displaced tones and the pitch of the scherzos, as well as the blind version of Hamlet.
Two pieces exhibited in the small exhibition hall, Losing Control—Night Strike (installation video) and Secret Crossing—Chanted Ode (installation video), are counterparts of the drama Hamletmachine. Significantly, these pieces document ubiquitous issues that China has endured in its social developments, conveying the notion of anti-violence via the voice of art. They also express deep concern and warnings about the possibilities of social upheaval, or even “losing control.”
Violence, in the eye of Beuys, is the origin of every sin. He protested against treating peace as the silent result of violent repression. He believed that art was the revolutionary force that would revitalize society, that would bring about utopia without any trace of violence. He attempted to use art to reconstruct compatible relationships among human beings, between humans and objects, as well as between humans and nature. This belief, meanwhile, can also be discovered in Yuan Gong’s concerns and thoughts.
Currently living and working in Shanghai, Yuan Gong has had solo exhibitions at the Guangdong Art Museum, Guangzhou; the Zendai Contemporary Art Space, Shanghai; Bund18 Gallery, Shanghai; among other venues. Major international exhibitions in which he has partici-ated in recent years include Belle Haleine—The Scent of Art, Museum Tinguely, Basel; Secret Signs, Deichtorhallen Museum, Hamburg; Asia Triennial Manchester 2014; the 12th National Art Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing; ChinaArteBrazil, Oca Pavilhão, São Paulo; the 54th and 55th Venice Biennale. His works have been acquired by the White Rabbit Collection and by the Sigg’s Collection of Chinese contemporary art.
The exhibition is made possible by the support of the Tianjin Art Museum. Additional generous support has been provided by side effect, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of film and the performing arts in China.
Curators: Man Yu, Ma Chi
Academic Director: Lu Yongxiu
Art Advisors: Li Zhenhua, Pi Daojian
Sponsor and Organizer: side effect Arts Organization
Exhibition Coordinators: Ji Fan, Li Wei
About zag group
Constituted of young talents, zag group is a newly formed group of young performing arts professionals based in Shanghai, China. In addition to the current Hamletmachine series, they presented the Turmoil performance for the first time at opening ceremony of Asia Triennial Manchester 2014 in Manchester Cathedral and at the opening ceremony of the Deichtorhallen Museum Secret Signs exhibition in November 2014.
Lecture by Professor Lu Xinghua, Tongji University
The Practice of Pop Art in Contemporary China
Professor Lu brings his considerable knowledge of the Chinese and international contemporary art worlds to bear on the evolution of pop art into its current state in China. This introduction to one of the most prevalent art forms practiced in China today will also elucidate the place of Yuan Gong’s interpretation of Hamletmachine in the context of global and domestic contemporary art.
Yuan Gong, Chanted Ode: “Lose control”, installation video, 2015 (© Yuan Gong Studio/ Feng Peijie)
原弓，《诵咏》－“失控”, 装置影像, 2015
Yuan Gong, Chanted Ode: “us”, installation video, 2015 (© Yuan Gong Studio/ Feng Peijie)
原弓，《诵咏》－“我们”, 装置影像, 2015
Yuan Gong, Chanted Ode: “defend”, installation video, 2015 (© Yuan Gong Studio/ Feng Peijie)
原弓，《诵咏》－“捍卫”, 装置影像, 2015
Yuan Gong, “Losing Control—Night Strike”, video, 2013 (© Yuan Gong Studio)
原弓， 《失控•夜袭》, 影像， 2013
