Fancy Dream
Eleonora Battiston and Zhu Tong
"Dream and Fantasy" or maybe fantastic dream, these are the concepts around which unfolds the new group show of young Chinese artists born between the 70s and the beginning of the 80s. Here the border between dream and reality, between asleep and awaken is very subtle as through the eyes of those who observe everything could become surreal and imaginary at the same time. In this capitalistic era we become spectators of a materialization of dreams, of a practical realization of every kind of reveries. "These are our times; this is what we are used to and what differentiates us from the previous generations."
Through this group show we explore how young Chinese artists imagine and research their own country and life and in particular, we aim at discovering what their fantasies are. What emerges from their works is not just their ideas about contemporary China; indeed social themes and political critic slowly disappear replaced by a fantastic world, an imaginary and ideal country.
It’s exactly in this way that the point of view of every single individual changes into a personal dream fed by wonder and experience. They belong to a privileged elite of people that could actually give life to its own desires. They are those that didn’t experience the years of the censure and economical difficulties, but had the chance to grow up in a period of wealth and freedom. It’s an economic wealth that moved their attention on different themes and contents, no more politics or the parallel with the west, but globalization and new technologies. This is a generation that experienced constant and radical changes. Television, computer and technology are their masters and companions in life. It is impossible nowadays to avoid using the internet and the media which connect us with the rest of the world in real time: distances are shortened up and exchanges transfer every experience on a global scale. If they can get whatever they want then this becomes the reality they can play with, revolving their imagination in further fantastic dimensions. Cartoons and video games inhabit their brains as they were a diversion, although also persistent nightmares.
They create a sort of parallel reality in which it’s possible to walk on clouds, admire rainbows made of advertisement tags, materialize dolls and comics, paint huge insects. Everything can be in their wonderland. And in the arts there is no fear of too much freedom turning into slavery because at the end, there are no limits, no restrains, rules or morals. It is possible to reach what they want and go even further. They seem to be without worries, submerged in a fast changing life, which seems to get better day-by-day.
Those who observe them have to let themselves be transported by the artists’ fantasies, enchanted like children while accepting that art could be a game. In these terms, the installation for this project is itself an inclusive work, which consists of different artworks linked to each other by a leitmotiv that makes them appear as a unique creation. Every work is materially linked to the other one, installations, videos, photos and other artworks entwine while we lose the perception of the barriers and the borders among them. The spectator finds himself in a colorful amusement park. These artists don’t accept any rules and they work together for a group project in which they are those who state the canon.
In this way, art becomes a relief, an aesthetic pleasure but also a box full of intriguing contents. The harmonic body doesn’t puzzle the perception of every single work but enriches the nature and enhances the value. The secret lies in enjoying life, in living this moment, which goes by really fast and that make us feel still like a child while freeing from heavy responsibilities. These works seem a joyful explosion and this is the feeling we wanted to recreate in this exhibition. A big amusement park, a unique path realized by different hands and minds in this moment, here, to catch the instant, to think positive, to enjoy life, which is "nothing more than 30,000 days."
In Beijing, the exhibition is shown in two spaces, the gallery on the ground floor and the gallery warehouse on the second floor, running up the stairs and crossing the area between the two buildings. Featured artists include Chen Ke, Gao Yu, Feng Zhengquan, Han Yajuan, Jiang Zhi, Wang Wei, Liu Ding, Feng Shu, Liu Wei and Wang Qiang. Feng Zhenquan reinterprets the contest of his paintings in a new dimension by applying its patterns onto the wallpaper covering part of the gallery space where the installation of Wang Wei centers the stage, featuring an opaque glass box, wherein a solitary silhouette of an unknown figure, an actual performer that dwells inside, leans onto the wall and never moves. In the same space a ten meter long microchip city floats in the air–Wang Qiang–and is contoured by the disposable weapons of Liu Wei. An artillery made of plates and dining accessories placed inside lit boxes, installed all along the wall leading out into the narrow street and hanging from the overarching metal structure. Connecting the two sides of the road it illuminates the area in the evening time.
Others works are all derived of so-called cartoon art, as labeled by different Chinese curators and critics. A phrase describing colorful characters like Cheng Ke’s army of baby dolls, Gao Yu’s video of the pink martial panda and Feng Shu’s ceramic magnified insects. In the staircase leading up to the second space, Han Yajun installed a triple video projection with clouds sliding along the walls, while human bodies are moving away or drawing nigh. Once entered, the hall a neon light installation created by Liu Ding effuses the white screened off walls with caramel red, featuring the trunk of a muscle tree growing out of a light plinth covered with precious and jewels.
