Dimensions of Space and Time — Contemporary Yunnan First Exhibition

Photography and Video Art Exhibition

Curator: Shi Ming, Li Ji

Artists: Guo Peng, Li Zhixiong, Yan Junjie, Zhaxi Luodan, Zi Bai&Po Bo

Opening: 20:00, June 16, 2012

Duration: June 16 – July 15, 2012

Venue: Contemporary Yunnan, A Zone, Loft Jinding 1919, North Jinding Shan Road No.15, Kunming, China

Dimensions of Space Time

By Shi Ming, Li Ji

Photography has been developing for about 180 years since it was invented. And it keeps developing and being improved all the time with the development of science and technology. When we check back the milestone stages of photography technique such as wet-plate photograph, film, digital photography, we find that photography tends to be more and more in a popular style. It brings a very big challenge never seen before to those photographers who dedicate themselves to the photography art.

As a true photography artist, it is well known, in addition to an independent artist personality, the attitude and thinking style about art creation should also be independent. That is, how to incorporate artists’ own idea about art creation into abundant resource background when they ponder the essential attribute of photography, and how to transform their interior thinking to a motivation through the means of photography, and then to create the photography art work with unique personality and reflection of the time. In this way, although the five participant artists of this exhibition have different background and different themes of their artwork, they have at least one aspect in common: rigorously serious attitude and distinctive personal thought. They all achieved the success of transforming their own thought to a motivation and conveying their concern and understanding to the audients.

The photograph work “Still Shuodugang River” by Zhaxi Luodan (Yang Xueguang), in which the technique of documentary photography is applied and his native visual language is presented, “not only commendably demonstrate the artistic inspiration of contemporary photography art, but also practice this art creation with sophisticated photograph works. Responding to the popular so-called post-modernism photography theories, he reveals a number of conceptual issues subjected to discuss with detailed examples.”

Li Zhixiong’s work “The Landscape without Scenery” applies high-tech and takes full advantage of it in photography. Based on the fundamental attribute of photography, he thoroughly presents his attitude about landscape. The work looks simple, though; the artist’s calmness and interior peace can easily be felt. He seems like to be cruising in the dimensionality of space time. There is no scenery seen, but it is indeed scenery.

Guo Peng “keeps pursuing the manual skills, like photo developing and coloring, in early photography technique in his artworks. The artist’s emotion can be exaggerated and reappeared during this complicated and long manual process….” As he said, he was trying to interpret the poetic world he understood through this approach.

Zi Bai & Po Bo’s works “Vanished Landscape” focus on those vanished creatures, which are easily neglected in real life to arouse our interior memory and inspire a sensation of life, and reflection of life. Violence, death, piteous beauty, bitterness and ridiculousness all became timeless in a camera shutter’s pressing and were sealed up and kept as histories, like some esthetical landscape painting. Hiding the violence under piteous beauty by the means of traditional Chinese landscape painting results in that piteousness and beauty are being accentuated from each other. This historical illusion emphasizes a cold, brutal and indefinite reality of our life.

Yan Junjie’s video work “Subhuti’s Psychedelic” attempts to connect the representation of sound effect together with audient’s consciousness of breath. He edited different video images to mix the relation among natural landscape, man-made scenery and the vivid tactility caused by health-care massage, and eventually returned to a sort of illusion for landscape, providing audients a vague and insubstantial experience.

Apparently, these exhibiting art works all achieved a perfect combination between reality and nihility. It seems like they are bringing audients into a time tunnel so that the audients can freely cruise or daydream in the dimensionality of space time. A well known citation “rupam sunyata sunyataiva rupam rupan na” from a Buddhism scripture has been perfectly interpreted and verified. Therefore, regardless the different art creation forms the participant artists used, and different means they used to present their unique personality, and different attitudes for each of them, they have at least one in common: to present their unique artistic thought to all they want in the dimensionality of space time when they pondered the essential attribute of photography and released their sentiment.

Finally, let’s enjoy this dimensions of space time presented by these excellent artists and be stirred and purified while we are watching their works, or being watched.

June 4, 2012

Guo Peng’s Work