Humorous, confronting and conceptually pervasive - an exhibition
Photographic work by new generation Chinese photographer Zhang Xianyong
ZHANG XIANYONG EXHIBITION 4 - 18 November 2011
Preview Evening 3 November.
Webb's is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographic work by Shanghai artist Zhang Xianyong. Xianyong belongs to
a new generation of young Chinese photographers who engage with both traditional Chinese storytelling and contemporary
influences. His works form a carefully staged tableau that reflects on the rapid pace of China's economic development
and the radical cultural shift that it has brought about in Chinese society.
Xianyong's works represent a place inside modern China, that has one foot in the past and another in the inevitable
globalization of the present. Eastern and Western civilization, foreign and native culture, historical and modern
references are juxtaposed visually against one another to present a myriad of cultural references. While disorders of
time and space, and the reinterpretation of characters and events form a special characteristics of his work; they are
humorous, confronting and conceptually pervasive. A reoccurring figure and symbol in Xianyong's photographic works are
Red Army men, who adopt a myriad poses; they play games, hold meetings, act out absurd scenes and every one of them is
played by the artist himself.
While the Chinese art world has produced plenty of imagery dating from the revolutionary and post-revolutionary era
(1940s-50s), as well as the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), Xianyong, who was born in 1970, prefers to stage these
well-worn symbols in light-hearted, comical ways. He also appears in a boyish guise with a Young Pioneer's red
neckerchief, as dapper Old Shanghai elites, as conformist modern-day white-collar workers, and as scruffy migrant
construction workers, among other roles. Following a time-honored tradition, exemplified in the works of Cindy Sherman,
Morimura Yasumasa, Wang Qingsong and others, in which the photographer uses themselves as the subject and who occupies
numerous identities and roles, Xianyong attempts to bring this dynamic into the realm of the satirical, absurd and
whimsical with his diverse tableaus of staged photography.
"Most of my creative process is spent thinking about how to express the things in my life and the world around me. It's
absurdist and humorous and also contains implications that should make people think". Zhang Xianyong.
The exhibition will be held at Webb's from 4 - 18 November, with a Preview Evening on 3 November.
To view the works online visit http://www.webbs.co.nz/auction/zhang-xianyong
ENDS