LU CHUNSHENG
An Exhibition curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist
6th February- 20th April 2008
46 Portland Place
London W1B 1NF
Phone: +44 (0) 207 323 3700
Fax: +44 (0) 207 323 0788
The Red Mansion Foundation is pleased to present its third exhibition at 46 Portland Place. The Foundation invited Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, to curate the first solo retrospective exhibition of the work of the artist Lu Chunsheng. Lu Chunsheng graduated from the Department of Sculpture at the China National Academy of Fine Arts, and now focuses mostly on photography and video art. Since the late 1990’s his photographs, video and multimedia art works have been recognized on an international level, though he has been well respected and renowned for many years in China, where he is regarded as extremely influential within the new generation of Chinese artists. The Red Mansion Foundation is honoured to host his first solo retrospective exhibition, which will allow the viewer a more in-depth and profound understanding of his work than earlier group shows
have warranted.
Lu Chunsheng’s work consists of brooding films and photographs which appear preoccupied with the Industrial Era and Communist History. However, the stories told via his films are more mystic than nostalgic. There is a surrealist attitude to his videos; using fixed camera positions, endless drawn-out shots and seemingly amateurish shooting techniques, he documents human behavior in inexplicable and often bizarre situations. Unlike most of his fellow artists emerging from the same generation, he does not focus on the estrangement following an accelerated urbanization (including its stream of rapidly moving images and perplexed inhabitants). Instead, he has developed an oeuvre where the characters depicted (either photographically or on video) find themselves in undoubtedly weird situations. The absurdity takes its form in a series of photos entitled ‘Water’ (2000), where we witness a man standing motionless in a female nightgown while increasingly a sea of water accumulates at his feet. This occurrence is documented in progressive stages without any recognizable plot and without further explanation. A correspondingly fantastic situation is articulated in the large-scale photo ‘I Want to Be a Gentleman’ (2000), which depicts nine men standing on tall plinths in front of a dilapidated building as if they were statues atop a pedestal in a museum.
Lu Chunsheng has exhibited widely in China and abroad. Today he lives and works in Shanghai. His recent exhibitions include “China Contemporary, Art, Architecture and Visual Culture” at Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2006), “The Thirteen: Chinese Video Now”, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY, USA (2006), “Out of Sight”, De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2005), “Double Vision”, 1st Lianzhou International Foto Festival, Culture Square Lianzhou, China (2005), and “Zooming into Focus: Chinese Contemporary Photography and Video from Haudenschild Collection at the National Art Museum”, Beijing, China 2005, and subsequently in Shanghai and Mexico City. More recently, the series ‘The History of Chemistry I & II’ (2004 and 2006), is the latest and the most spectacular achievement of his exploration of a familiar but remote world. As the artist himself puts it: “Modern chemistry is derived from ancient Western alchemy. Pacific Asia today is like a big alchemist’s workshop; that’s why I selected this title for my video”.
The Red Mansion Foundation is a not-for-profit organisation, which promotes artistic exchange between China and the Great Britain through a programme of lectures, exhibitions, The Red Mansion Art Prize and Building Bridges, an exchange programme for established Artists. The Red Mansion Foundation is co-producer and co-sponsor of a series of exhibitions entitled China Power Station, held at Battersea Power Station, (a show in which Lu Chunsheng featured heavily), Oslo and Beijing, The Real Thing at Tate Liverpool, the Chinese Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale and the 10th Istanbul Biennale in 2007.
Dates and Opening Hours:
Opening by invitation: 6 February 2008, 6 – 8.30pm
From 7 February 9 – 5.30pm, By Appointment
The Red Mansion Foundation
46 Portland Place
London W1B 1NF
Phone: +44 (0) 207 323 3700
Fax: +44 (0) 207 323 0788
For further information and images please contact us by email at:
Miss Asha Burchett at ab@redmansion.co.uk
