| Diffused Fingerprints was made specifically for a solo exhibition held this past summer at the National Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. In fact, this “spatial” piece was tailored according to the space of the exhibition hall. The rectangular-shaped room is nearly 33 meters in length, 12 meters in breadth, and 3 meters in height. My concept for the work was to create a mixed-media piece incorporating the fingerprinting technique I have used for many years on a large, visual scale. I wanted to fill the entire exhibition space with symbolic red fingerprints to produce the impression of a shifting mass of red fingerprints filling the sky. Met with this overwhelming and intense experience, visitors would feel their spirit gradually succumb to this atmosphere. |  |
Zhang Yu
Diffused Fingerprints was made specifically for a solo exhibition held this past summer at the National Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall in Taipei, Taiwan. In fact, this “spatial” piece was tailored according to the space of the exhibition hall. The rectangular-shaped room is nearly 33 meters in length, 12 meters in breadth, and 3 meters in height. My concept for the work was to create a mixed-media piece incorporating the fingerprinting technique I have used for many years on a large, visual scale. I wanted to fill the entire exhibition space with symbolic red fingerprints to produce the impression of a shifting mass of red fingerprints filling the sky. Met with this overwhelming and intense experience, visitors would feel their spirit gradually succumb to this atmosphere.
For Diffused Fingerprints, pieces of semi-transparent silk material covered with red fingerprints were hung from the ceiling around the hall, a certain distance from each wall. The silk reached to the floor, effectively enclosing the space with red fingerprints. From the center of the room a giant scroll of Chinese Xuan paper, 2.3 meters wide by 5.6 meters long, printed with red fingerprints, was hung. It took me six months to complete the scroll, pressing each fingerprint onto the paper individually. Red spotlights were positioned at the top of the hall to frame the effect. At floor level, six 40-inch screens, showing video of my fingerprinting process, were placed.
This is a space permeated by the color red! It is an elegant and rather romantic space. Even more than that, it is a story-telling space filled with red fingerprints.This work of art is a new experiment with fingerprinting for me. My intention was to use this “narrative” space to create a different kind of experience and a different kind of quality from fingerprinting. Diffused Fingerprints is not just a new, aesthetic point of departure for me. For exhibition-goers it is unlike anything they have previously experienced walking into an exhibition space, or anything they have known about art appreciation. Entering the exhibition hall, they walk into the work of art at the same moment, and are enveloped in and dominated by the mood of the piece. So, what is a fingerprint? Does it symbolize signing a contract? The red fingerprints that fill the room indeed look very beautiful. But what lies beneath the beauty?
Diffused Fingerprints is a metaphor for being in the midst of contemporary society’s rapid development. Every day there are countless projects and collaborations in all kinds of areas that are cordially contracted by making one sign under solemn circumstances. But how many of these contracts are promised and delivered? In today’s practical society, what is a promise to people? All the crooked schemes, of which we hear, make it hard for people to believe in anything. Sometimes the world can be confusing, obscure, and difficult to comprehend.
Diffused Fingerprints is my understanding of the world. Fingerprinting represents my attitude toward life. I have always believed that we must be sincere in life, and we must be sincere in art. In my work, I pursue originality, individuality, and irreplaceablility. I like Diffused Fingerprints. If I have the opportunity I will show the piece around the world.
At the end of the article, I would like to mention a matter that is currently facing several hundred resident artists at Western, Dongying, Chuangyi Zhengyang, 008, Heiqiao, and Shengbang art villages in Xiedao, between Beigao and Nangao in Beijing’s Chaoyang District.
From November 2009 one by one we have been ordered to move out. The artists have received no apology or compensation from the developers. Instead, the developers have cut off the electricity and water, and used even more underhand tactics such as breaking windows of the artists’ studios and cars. The developers have used the thuggish approach against the artists who, at one time, had signed contracts with them in a more peaceful atmosphere. In response, facing blackouts and having their water cut off, the artists united in the cold month of December, in a movement to protect their rights and dignity called “Warming the Winter.” In today’s society, a signed contract should be bound if not by the law, then by public morality.
I too have been affected by this incident. On August 5, 2008, I signed a 15-year lease on a studio in Xiedao’s Western Art Village, where I am writing this. In one month from now (January 29, 2010), the studio will be torn down. My 15-year lease will have lasted a mere one year and four months. To an artist, his studio is his home. I’ve poured my heart and soul into this home, spending two months doing renovation. I wanted to create a place where I could settle down and make art. But now this text on Diffused Fingerprints is the last piece of writing that has ever been completed in my Xiedao studio.
