12.19 – 5.23
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art (Shinagawa)
Image from The General’s Smile 2009
Multiple-channel video installation
Installation view at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Photo Kioku Keizo
Chinese film and video artist Yang Fudong’s first solo exhibition in Japan. Comprising five film and video installations made between 2001 and 2009, while the works range in style from documentary to theatrical, and in form from black and white to color, the artist applies the keywords ‘life’, ‘existence’ and ‘living’ to all the works in the exhibition. The General’s Smile, a large-scale installation staging a banquet for an aging general around a long dining table set in the space that was once the dining room of the private-home-now-museum; part 3 of the five-part Seven Intellectuals in a Bamboo Forest, which was shown at the 2007 Venice Biennale – all are each works you’ll want to spend time to savor. Backyard – Hey, Sun is Rising! (2001), screened on Sundays in its original 35mm film format (and on DVD at other times), conveys the artist’s love for film. In an age when digital media have become the norm, the museum’s venture to help us rediscover the value of time marked by the sound of the projector and the qualities of film is also admirable.
Information
http://www.haramuseum.or.jp