《碎布的回归》是倪海峰2007年于荷兰莱顿市(Leiden)初展的一件作品。展览于莱顿市市立莱肯哈尔博物馆(the Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal)举行,作品以商品和材料的循环运转为主题,“中国为西方生产”所带来的,留在中国的那些西方所不愿意要的哪些元素在作品中象征性地回归西方。作为“中国制造”现象的副产品,纺织品生产中产生的废弃碎布条由浙江海运至莱顿,与一块巨大的由碎布编织而成的挂件和记录工厂环境以及著名品牌的影像构成作品的基础。
curator: Pauline J. Yao
Opening: 4pm, Saturday, September 27, 2008
Exhibition Dates: September 28 –November 2008
Venue: JoyArt, Zone D, 798 Art District, 4 Jiuxian Qiao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China
Opening Hours: 10am – 6pm, Tuesday – Sunday
Tel: +86 10 59789788
Email: info@joyart-beijing.com
Website: www.joyart –beijing.com
Sponsor: Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Ni Haifeng’s practice stems from an interest in cultural systems of return, exchange, language and production. Through photography, video and installations he explores the simultaneous creation and obliteration of meaning while drawing attention to the cyclical movements of people, products and goods that are often reflective of patterns of colonialism and globalization. Ni’s aims to subvert the status quo and counteract preconceived notions of art are, in the artist’s words, an effort towards reaching a ‘zero degree of meaning’. An underlying element of political critique permeates Ni’s practice, as defined through his engagement with the concept of uselessness and desire to offset ‘the production of the useful’ that accompanies consumerism and capitalism.
Aspects of manufacturing and production have formed recurring themes within Ni’s artistic practice. Previous projects have centered upon material production and consumption, from his Of the Departure and the Arrival (2005) project in Delft concerning the ceramic trade between China and the Netherlands; to Shrinkage10% (2007)which references the repeated processes of reproduction and tenuousness towards originality; to the installation HS 0902.20, 0904.11 & 6911.10 (2007)that denotes the standardized coding systems for globally traded commodities.
Return of the Shreds is a work that Ni first exhibited in Leiden, the Netherlands in 2007.
In its presentation at the Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, the work centered on the cyclical movement of goods and materials and the symbolic return of unwanted elements resulting from production in China to the West. Shreds of discarded fabric—byproducts of the “Made in China” phenomenon—were shipped from Zhejiang to Leiden and formed the basis of the installation, along with a woven hanging and video component that documented the factory environment and name brands.
In Beijing Ni presents Para-Production, a large scale installation that references a mode of production mired in the material, with an emphasis that is shifted towards production of the social through its foregrounding of labor and the active participation of workers and individuals in the production of art. Piles of shreds, a gigantic piece of sewn cloth, and an array of sewing machines are positioned to create a workshop environment that is both collective and participatory.
By shifting trajectories from trade and globalism to the social aesthetics of making, Para-Production enmeshes individuals and workers in a process that references production and consumption, creativity and futility. As discarded scraps from clothing factories are woven into a giant tapestry through the collective effort of workers, the exhibition site is transformed into a place of production with the question being not one of how this ‘representation’ is manifested but of what is being produced. Here, in the context of social relations, the concepts of weaving and woven become symbolically tied to visibility and the social component of artistic production. Accompanying the main installation work will additional elements in which Ni explores a complex web of narratives that relate to the aesthetic production taking place in the site. Through a combination of the material visibility and verbal language, Para-Production is a work intended to contain both a profound silence and its interruption, the trace of labor and its disappearance, the presence of an image and its history.
About the artist Ni Haifeng was born in Zhoushan, Zhejiang province in 1964. He currently lives in Amsterdam and works between Amsterdam and Beijing. A graduate of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now China Academy of Art) in Hangzhou in 1986, Ni belongs to the early generation of experimental artists active in the mid 1980s in China. His work has been exhibited globally in solo and group exhibitions.
About the curator Pauline J. Yao is an independent curator and writer based in Beijing and San Francisco. She worked previously as Assistant Curator of Chinese Art at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and as Senior Lecturer in the Graduate Program at California College of Arts, San Francisco. In 2006 she received a Fulbright Grant to research contemporary art in China and in 2007 was awarded inaugural CCAA (Contemporary Chinese Art Awards) Art Critic Award. Yao is also a co-founder of the alternative art space Arrow Factory in Beijing. She received her M.A. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from the University of Chicago.
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