Ma Qiusha’s From No.4 Pingyuanli to No.4 Tianqiaobeili and Tao Hui’s The Dusk of Teheran are both performances captured by a single camera lens, and both of which have strung together the stories of a lifetime through a single-channel video. Among the younger generation of contemporary Chinese artists, video art has become the mainstream, but those who have adopted this medium to manifest their personal perspectives are still few. “Art for the sake of life” is another classic expression for this kind of personal expression, not only is it part of the modern Chinese art, but also a core component in ancient art and literature, that the concerns of life of an individual as an “analogy” for society and history, this is how new artistic medium or genre grow their roots in existing Chinese experiences.
Ma Qiusha, From No.4 Pingyuanli to No.4 Tianqiaobeili, single channel video, 7’54”, 2007
random Tags
RELATED
Zhao Zhao, Rain, Video, Color, Sound, 15’35”, 2012
Rain was filmed during the flooding that occurred in Beijing on July 21, 2012, one of the worst in living memory and one of many that occurred throughout China during that year. There is a chronic shortage of water in Beijing but in just a few hours, the city received six to seven inches of rain, and nearby mountain regions experienced flash flooding and landslides, leading to mass evacuations and numerous deaths. Wanting to be more than a bystander, Zhao Zhao found an inflatable mattress, which he used as an improvised vessel to float around under the Guangqumen Overpass, which saw some of the most drastic flooding. He also documented the flooded city with a video camera.
