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Tuesday, 21 February 2006 | Elif Sungur
China Contemporary
A modern China seems to be on the ascendant. Advertising and propaganda promise every citizen a rich life, a private apartment, a car and one child in a modern metropolis. After decades of living under stringently imposed rules, people are now sensing the chance to work together to build a modern, economically vibrant China, one that offers scope for individualistic lifestyles and personal ambition. This transformation is being shaped entirely to a Western model. Now a number of Chinese artists and designers are raising critical questions about the course of change. The Netherlands Architecture Institute, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Nederlands fotomuseum have joined forces to stage a penetrating interdisciplinary overview of contemporary Chinese art, architecture, urban design and visual culture, which will offer space for this critical dissent.
China Architecture - Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI)
What is Chinese architecture now? Can we learn something from the huge, breakneck changes taking place in what is almost the world's largest country? It is questions like these that are guiding the content of the exhibition. New cities with populations in the millions are rising as from nothing, and existing towns seem transformed overnight into jungles of anonymous office and apartment towers. The euphoria about China's building boom masks a number of fundamental conflicts, however: extremely short-term planning, all-powerful and single-mindedly commercial real estate developers, the wholesale embracing of Western culture, the dismal quality of execution of building projects, and disrupted urban structures. The propaganda picture of the future is all too clearly at odds with the real world. A number of talented young Chinese architects and urbanists are playing a central part in a quest for critical and pragmatic solutions to those conflicts. The designers selected for this exhibition are not interested in building architectural icons, but nurture a sense of responsibility towards their culture, their society and their built environment. Both their designs and their pragmatic design philosophy, with its inherent social critique, have an implicit exemplary function. The idealized version of the future is represented in the exhibition by an awesome quantity of polished renderings, slogans and animations. These are confronted by the work of the selected designers, who react to this context with their installations, models, documentaries, photography, and films, conveying an alternative outlook on the future.
China Photography and Visual Culture - Nederlands fotomuseum
The visual culture of China develops within the triangle of forces of citizenry, government and the market. It is nurtured by economic expansion and new technology but constrained by the political system. There has been an explosive growth in the mass media and in digital communication technology in recent decades. The exhibition in the Nederlands Fotomuseum investigates this visual culture as expressed in television, newspapers, magazines, advertising, video, photography, fashion, games, weblogs etc. It goes in search of the preoccupations of the current generation. What are their ideals and cherished examples, how do they respond to the constraints placed on their freedom, and how individualistic, critical or conformist are they? Some of them stand out because their work transgresses the boundaries, or because their enjoy prominent positions that give them access to new freedoms. The research underlying the exhibition has focused on these key players in the visual culture, including both content-makers (journalists, filmmakers, photographers, designers and bloggers) and icons (super-models, TV stars). The exhibition's aim is to present them as they are portrayed by Chinese writers and artists. The exhibition will also include an undertone of imagery from the generic visual culture as spread by the printed and electronic media. Some of the material (photographs, films, web games and blogs) will be continually refreshed from Chinese sources.
China Visual Arts - Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
New Urban Realities
China's rapidly changing urban reality is the central theme of this exhibition. New Urban Realities presents the work of fifteen Chinese artists for whom the actuality of China's cities plays a prominent part in their oeuvre. The artists analyze, reconstruct, record and seek answers in their immediate surroundings. It is work in which the relationship between the individual and society always plays a prominent part. The combination of photography, film, performance, video and installations will form a picture of a society in motion; indeed, a society tearing itself from its roots, and one that commentators believe will set the pattern for many worldwide developments during the 21st century.
Xu Zhen (Solo Exhibition)
Xu Zhen (Shanghai, 1977) is one of the most interesting artists of his generation. Not only is he distinctive and controversial in his own right, but he is the artistic linchpin of Shanghai's Bizart center. His work in this arts center has made him a stimulating force for many younger artists. An overarching theme of Xu Zhen's work is the human body, and in particular the place it occupies within the social structures of contemporary China.
The exhibition will take place during Summer 2006 in the Netherlands Architecture Institute, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and Nederlands fotomuseum.
For more information, please visit http://www.nai.nl
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