错觉时态

Disorientation: an exhibition of the work of seven Chinese photographers and video artists, most of whom are currently active in Beijing. Widely divergent in style, the work on display shows an acute awareness of the most recent developments in photography and photo-based work in Europe and America at the same time as it reflects galvanic changes in the daily life of contemporary China.

Ten years ago, at the height of the Political Pop and Cynical Realism movements, most young artists still worked in the traditional medium of oil on canvas but for the next generation other means of expression - notably photography, assemblage, installation and performance art - became more relevant to the contemporary situation.

Among the artists in this exhibition, Hong Lei is the most attached to traditional Chinese themes - in his case the paintings of flowers, birds and landscapes from the Song Dynasty - but his still-life and landscape photographs show how far modern China has moved from the concerns of China's golden age. Zhao Liang and Han Lei reveal an unexpected poetry in their photographs of the cities and landscape of China today as it undergoes the most rapid transformation in its history while He An focuses on the poignant contrasts between the living conditions of the disadvantaged and the dream world of international ad-campaigns.

He Yunchang and Ma Han document their own very different performances, while Zhou Jing uses figures of dolls, greatly enlarged and dramatically lit, in her exploration of issues of gender and childhood innocence.

Referring to the coexistence of widely divergent world-views in contemporary China - from the traditional to the most advanced - the critic Zhan Li believes that it is difficult to avoid a feeling of disorientation. In their different ways, the seven artists in this exhibition respond to the changing world in which they live.

*Catalogue Available