‘Rem(a)inders’

April 10 to August 29, 2010
Galleria Continua, Beijing


Michelangelo Pistoletto – Rem(a)inders (2010), metal Buddha sculpture, used clothes, electrical components, wood, variable dimensions.

Since it opened in 2005, the Beijing branch of Italy’s Galleria Continua has been known as the city’s unofficial kunsthalle, consistently producing exhibitions that threaten to one-up the nearby Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in terms of both thoughtfulness and quality of execution. The group show “Rem(a)inders” is the latest in a series of exhibitions at Continua bringing together both international and local art stars. Obliquely addressing themes of materialism and excess, the exhibition title neatly encapsulates the tension between physical artifacts and the evocative potential of such objects.

Many of the works in exhibition tackle the idea of the remainder directly by incorporating waste materials into their realization, with these overlaps accentuated by the exhibition layout’s use of the gallery architecture. Framed by the recessed alcove just beyond the gallery entrance and serving as the exhibition lynchpin, Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Rem(a)inders (2010) deposits a rotund, metal sculpture of a seated Buddha figure on top of a chest-high pile of colorful used clothing and obsolete electronics such as old computer monitors, circuit panels, remote controls and speakers. Just visible beyond this work, and dominating Continua’s cavernous ground level space, Pascale Marthine Tayou’s Plastic Tree B (2010) adorns the branches of a live pear tree – surrounded by a low ring of potted plants – with a foliage of orange, blue, white, pink, red and green plastic bags.

Nearby, Ai Weiwei takes a related but distinct approach. For 《》 (2008), Ai cut up scores of classic Forever-brand bicycles – no longer in production – into five centimeter sections that he then scattered across one corner of the gallery in a dense triangular expanse that suggests a surreal organic growth when viewed from afar, and then turns into a miniature horizon of synthetic husks when viewed up close. Meanwhile, visitors climbing to the gallery’s lofted third story room encounter Nari Ward’s China Idle (2010), a snowman-like totem of monumental spheres made of used car tires and shoes that formally and compositionally recalls Pistoletto’s Buddha. Peering beyond this work, visitors are also treated to a bird’s eye view of the main gallery below, and another perspective on Tayou’s Tree and Ai’s bicycle pieces.


Installation view of “Rem(a)inders” with works by Zhang Hui and Dan’Er, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Ai Weiwei and Nari Ward visible in main gallery space.

Yet, there is a sense that such works follow the letter of the exhibition concept too precisely. In particular, Tayou’s Tree and Pistoletto’s Rem(a)inders come across as literal illustrations of recycling. The reminder of these remainders is not so much their associated memories or experiences, but rather the shell of their onetime usefulness. The plastic bags are still plastic bags, and the used clothes and electronics still retain an aspect of their original utility, even if they are being used in a way that was never imagined by their makers.

More affecting are the works that rewire the raison d’etre of their source materials. Working together, the artists Zhang Hui and Dan’Er used wood shavings and discards as models for a group of large-scale resin and acrylic sculptures, Leftover material from the Carpenters (2009). The enlargements, some standing on their bases and others placed flat on the ground, still have the grains and coloring of the original fragments, inviting viewers to explore what kind of wood chips these could possibly be, and question relationships between reality and representation.

And while other artists turn scraps into works of art, the provocative artist duo Sun Yuan & Peng Yu reverse that equation in I do not sleep tonight (2010), shown as video documentation in the gallery, for which they installed police lights and a siren on their car and then drove around the city until forced by the authorities to remove these appropriated symbols of authority. At that point, according to the artists, the car ceased being an artwork and became a scrap without value. While this logic is somewhat dubious (all the more so since the car with sirens and police colors is also on display), it still expresses a charming perversity that attempts to push past both social and artistic status quos.


Sun Yuan & Peng Yu – A Secret (2008), photograph, 134 x 95 cm.

In that light, a second work by Sun & Peng reflexively underscores the paradox of the exhibition itself. Entitled A Secret (2008), this mixed-media work cuts vertical bands out of the photo documentation of the performance piece To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, for which artists from the Beijing East Village community piled naked on top of each other on the summit of a mountain. The photo of this performance (several versions of which exist and are circulating in galleries and auctions) has become an icon for the origins of both Chinese contemporary art and China’s contemporary art market. In a show about waste and production, A Secret is a reminder that even artworks are not immune to the refuse pile, while simultaneously embodying the hope that art can always find new contexts for old things.

All images: Photo Oak Taylor-Smith, courtesy Galleria Continua San Gimignano/Beijing/Le Moulin

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