Exploding Boulders, Nighttime Creatures and Feng Shui At the UCCA
Expired student IDs? Falsified senior citizen cards? Time to clean out the wallet, stop scrimping and forget about your Hello Kitty coin jar (still five kuai short of a decent night out). If you're looking for culture and entertainment on the cheap, the UCCA is offering free admission until December 26. Celebrating its fourth anniversary this year, the 798 staple is feeling festive and grateful for all the support it’s received from the Beijing community.
If you’re off to the gallery to buy some new threads, you might want to check out its four recently opened art exhibitions. Here’s the low-down (and our thoughts) on what the UCCA has to offer this month.
Kolkoz: “Parallax”
Call French duo Kolkoz (a.k.a. Samuel Boutruche and Benjamin Moreau) the Kanyes of the art world, masters of their medium who inject invention and wit into their work. Along with optical illusion, they’re using their trademark cheekiness once more in “Parallax,” which questions perspective and the position of the beholder. The show features pieces like the one above, as well as a display of photographs that depict American astronauts on the “moon;” in reality, it’s NASA scientists simulating a lunar landing in Arizona. In “Parallax,” it’s not only the piece that’s being presented, but the context and method of the presentation itself. As Kolkoz have warned, it’s not just the smog in the air – don’t trust your eyes.
Apichatpong Weerasethakul: “For Tomorrow For Tonight”
With “For Tomorrow For Tonight,” Thai director Weerasethakul blends video, photography and sound from previous films to recreate a night on the Mekong River. Plagued with a forgetful disposition, he's made a few short videos (instead of jotting down notes) to help him remember his time spent in the area.
Weerasethakul’s exhibition magnifies the magic in the mundane, when the wee hours before we sleep are subject to the whims of our imagination and fears. “For Tomorrow For Tonight” is a mood piece that conjures goose-bumps and tales of midnight monsters, following fanciful creatures named Mud Man and Power Boy. In Weerasethakul’s nighttime, you’re compelled to reevaluate the reality of what the dark reveals.
Curated by Zhan Wang
Tang Yuhan: “Interior Divination”
Nothing says “teacher’s pet” like being chosen by a professor to show your work at the UCCA. Curated by famed artist Zhan Wang, “Interior Divination” showcases the decorating efforts of Tang Yuhan, who was pulled back into an art world she rejected after helping fengshui her parents’ crib. With an aesthetic that recalls tea cozies and knitting circles, this is art at its most utilitarian and also its most metaphysical, where aspirational furniture can reflect the modern, everyday aspirations of the most traditional.
Zhan Wang: “My Personal Universe”
Aside from curating Tang Yuhan’s exhibition, sculptor Zhan Wang’s been occupied otherwise, blowing up big bad rocks on camera. It’s not the first time he’s gone the distance in the name of rock art – previously, he climbed Mount Everest to place a sculpture at the top. In “My Personal Universe,” Wang projects film of an detonating boulder on six surrounding screens, and recreates the image and experience with more than 7,000 bits of steel rock fragments he’s hung in midair. Moments after the boulder erupts, you’ll find yourself within the very blast, in a heady yet bodily experience that’s all too explosive and yet stays still.
All exhibitions will show until Feb 10, with the exception of Zhan Wang’s “My Personal Universe,” which ends on Feb 25. You can also catch Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s films on screen at the UCCA until Dec 11. Check out our December issue for an interview with the artist himself.
For more photos of the exhibits, check out our gallery here.
Photos: Liz Mak
