Chambers Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Liu Li Tun by Rong Rong and inri on October 26, 2006. This new body of work is a meditation on the area in Beijing where the artists lived before it was demolished and replaced by expensive apartment buildings in 2002. Before Rong Rong and inri began working together in 2000, they had both achieved considerable success as creative photographers, Rong Rong for his remarkable photographic studies of the short-lived artist’s community known as the East Village and the Wedding Gown series and inri for the ferocious intensity of her portraits of models she had encountered in Tokyo, the city of her birth.
Once they started living and working together, the focus of their work changed as they began traveling to distant locations in the North of China, Austria and Finland. As described by Christophe W. Mao, “Rong Rong and inri became archetypal figures in scenarios of their own devising. Shedding their individual identities as husband and wife and residents of Beijing, they became primal figures at the birth of time, notable for their frailty and diminutive scale before the majesty of nature.”
In their most recent work they have returned to Beijing, but it is already a Beijing that no longer exists. In three overlapping groups of photographs, the artists document their short life together in the modest house that they shared for a short but crucial time in their lives. Photographs of details from their daily life complement evocative photographs of social gatherings and art world visitors posing in front of the front door of their house. Finally, dressed in dark clothes and offering bouquets of lilies, they record the process of demolition until all that is left is a pile of rubble.
Performers in their own work and photographers, Rong Rong and inri are uniquely gifted in their ability to create urban tableaux of haunting beauty while finding the hidden poetry in subjects as mundane as unwashed dishes on a dinner table.
*A Limited Edition Catalog designed by the artists is available.
前波画廊有幸在2006年10月26日，举办荣荣和映里的《六里屯》展。这一组新的作品是艺术家对北京某一特别地方的思想感情的流露。在六里屯被拆迁之前，艺术家荣荣和映里曾经生活在这里。但是2002年时，这里已经被昂贵的公寓大厦所取代了。荣荣和映里在2000年开始合作之前，两人分别都是极有创造性的摄影家，并各自都已经取得了相当大的成就。荣荣成功地用摄影记录了东村这个短暂的艺术家群落，并且拍摄了著名的《婚纱》系列；映里则因为拍摄了在东京这座她出生的城市遇到的一些模特的肖像而获得成功。
当他们开始共同生活和工作时，他们作品的焦点发生了变化。他们开始到中国北方、奥地利和芬兰旅行，并进行摄影创作。正如茅为清所描述的：“他们成为自己设计的情节中的典型人物。他们脱离了身为丈夫和妻子以及北京居民的个人身份，成为时间创始之初的人物，在大自然的伟岸面前，因为他们的渺小和脆弱反而显得令人瞩目。”
在他们最新的作品当中，他们又回到了北京，但这已经是一个不再存在的北京。艺术家用三组重叠的照片记录了他们在一座朴素院落中短暂的生活，他们在这里分享了各自生活中短暂但却至关重要的时光。拍摄他们日常生活细节的照片弥补了那些唤起人们记忆的照片，记录了聚会以及艺术界的来访者在他们的家门前摆出姿势。最后，他们身穿黑色外衣，置身在百合花丛中，拍摄了院落拆除的过程，以及最后所剩下的唯一的一堆瓦砾。
荣荣和映里既是他们作品中的表演者，又是照片的拍摄者；他们有着独一无二的天赋，创造了具有难以忘却的都市场景，同时也在餐桌边还没有清洗的杯盘这类世俗的主题中找到了隐秘的诗境。
*前波画廊为此展览出版了精装本展览图录。