The first part of the monumental cinematic cycle Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, which forms the core of the artist’s entire oeuvre, as well as of the present exhibition, was presented at the Venice Biennale in 2003. Although the other parts of the cycle have been exhibited at times individually, we had to wait until 2007 to see the complete epic pentalogy, with a total duration of about four hours, in his successful installation at the Arsenale, where one story succeeded the other in five different rooms.
By adopting an evident painterly approach in works that were filmed with a movie camera, and then transferred to DVD, so that they could be presented as audiovisual installations in museums and exhibition spaces, Yang Fudong, who has studied painting at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, expands further this translation process from one genre to the other. The narrative of the five stories rests on oral traditions, diverse variations and legends, about a group of seven Chinese scholars and poets of the 3rd century AD, who, reacting against political corruption, retired from the public and governmental life to seek, through poetry and music, pure meditation and discussion, an inner peace and hedonistic communion with nature. In the transposition of this open-ended narrative, the artist, apart from borrowing the title, preserves its primary structural elements, such as the number of characters, their spirituality and team spirit, but above all focuses on the condition of an intellectual self-exile that emerges in the margins of social life.
Curated by Anna Kafetsi
CATALOGUE
Editor: Anna Kafetsi
Text: Yang Fudong, Αnna Kafetsi, Stamatis Schizakis, Karen Smith, Zhang Yaxuan
ΙSBN: 978-960-8349-51-3
Number of pages: 128
Language: Greek / English
Dimensions: 22 x 16.5 cm
Publication year: 2010
Available for sale: 15 €
EXTRACT:
[…] During the past two decades, we have been living under the constellation of decentred artistic quests and policies, through which doubtlessly emerged new artistic scenes –the Chinese being one of the most important here–, artists and works, multiple networks of collaborations, connections and discussions between diverse geographical and cultural regions, between the centres and peripheries, radically transforming the international artistic map. Regardless of the different each time artistic or ideological investments, the explosion of interest in the artistic production of countries which, for historical, political or financial reasons, were isolated or marginalised, not only dramatically changed the agenda of museums and large-scale international exhibitions, but also offered new contents to cultural globalisation.
Without ignoring the actually existing inequalities and disproportionalities between different countries, on the level both of production and distribution, the contemporary discourse in the international artistic realm showcases a diverse open and decentred international art, produced by diverse artists who come from different geographical places. The migratory mobility of artists from the peripheries, which, during the 90s, had the metropolitan centres as its main destination, is more and more succeeded in our days by the determination of many young artists to remain in their native place, attracting at the same time the interest and recognition of a transnational audience. Artistic activity remains, to a great extent, local. It echoes, investigates, and critically examines particular cultural and socio-political realities, without excluding associations and correlations between other environments, in an effort to establish a convergence between the local and the global community.
The case of the international Chinese artist Yang Fudong, in contrast to the case of the diasporic artist of n“transexperiences” Chen Zhen, whose large-scale exhibition was organized by the National Museum of Contemporary Art in the Spring of 2002, is suggestive of the new atmosphere that prevails even beyond the contemporary Chinese scene. Many of us owe the discovery of this “talented visionary” and “unique” in his kind among the Chinese artists of the younger generation, as Karen Smith has phrased it, to the Documenta XI, held in 2002 in Kassel, in which he participated with his highly poetical film An Estranged Paradise. It should be noted that his participation in this important international exhibition helped him obtain not only the funds for completing his first cinematic work, which he had begun in 1997, but also a series of successive invitations to exhibitions in large museums and biennials of contemporary art, bringing along his early international establishment as an artist. […]
Anna Kafetsi
