"The Pond Strikes"

In 1986 a group of young artists called "The Pond" carried out a secret action. Late one night they painted Tai Chi dance figures on a wall near the National Academy. The next morning exercisers who gather daily to practice Tai Chi were astonished to see their moves depicted on the wall.

 

Of the five artists who comprise The Pond, three are still in Hangzhou making art: Zhang Peili, Geng Jianyi, and Wang Qiang.		In keeping with their initial impulse, their work is contemporary, not traditional.
ZHANG PEILI In the course of experimenting with a video camera in 1988, Zhang became the first artist in China to make videos. His early work documented performances that concentrate attention on a single activity. In 30 x 30 (1988), he broke a mirror and glued the fragments together. Then he shattered the glass once again, and painstakingly repaired it.
Hygiene (1991) records a peculiar private event - a chicken is placed in a washbasin and lathered with soap for two hours. The bird is remarkably obedient, rarely flapping its wings or otherwise evading the hands that turn the poor creature into a water-logged feather duster. The form of hygiene visited on the chicken makes about as much sense as washing a child's mouth with soap for saying something that the kid did not understand.

		"Eating" (1997)
		Shot with a camera taped to the eater's wrist - the disorienting perspective turns eating into a surreal event.

The installation Eating details three points of view. The top monitor focuses on ear movement during chewing, and the base monitor shows a knife and fork attacking a piece of cake. These composed, fairly static shots are in color. Separating them is a black and white action view of the cake traveling from plate to mouth. Shot with a camera taped to the eater's wrist - the disorienting perspective turns eating into a surreal event. The delivery of morsels to a gaping mouth seems appropriate for predators living at the bottom of the sea. You can catch Zhang's work at "Cities on the Move" in Vienna, November 1997, and at the Guggenheim's "Five Thousand Years of Chinese Art" opening in February 1998.

 

GENG JIANYI Geng began this work with a stated concept: the confirmation of the existence of a man. He chose an ordinary man and secured written documentation -- much the way the Chinese government does -- from the man's family, colleagues, and friends. The work has been shown only in Germany.
		Proof of Existence

The Negative Needs of Reality

In the summer of 1995, Geng joined 26 international artists in a three week workshop at Art/OMI in upstate New York. In Geng's installation, an ironic comment on art production, each artist's completed work is represented by a photo in a line of images along the rear wall of his installation. On the platform in the foreground are twenty-six large plastic bags filled with the artists' refuse. In keeping with his commitment to documentation and parody of due process, Geng secured signed releases for the garbage and photos. These too are an integral part of his installation.

In keeping with his commitment to documentation and parody of due process, Geng secured signed releases for the garbage and photos.

 

WANG QIANG
Trees
The English title "Trees" lacks the subtlety of Wang's Chinese version. The first character is "tree," but rather than using a character that typically pluralizes tree, he tacks on the character for "we." Wang's artist friends admire the clever wordplay of the title. It also effectively links the commonality of trees and people, in keeping with the conservationist intent of the installation.