NONO at The Long March Space, different than YEAYEAH but same as SAMESAME

NONO at the Long March- A curatorless, themeless show, that while not pretending to be anything ends up being a pretentious survey of curious new work by China's latest greatest: Yang Zhenzhong (Venice darling-only one of two Chinese artists in the Biennial's selection exhibition curated by MoMA retiree, senior art dude, Robert Storr) had this very simple video where he filmed phallic edifices that dot the skyline of Shanghai on a see-sawing tripod so it looks like them architectural marvels are poking the abyss of the sky- in the background we hear orgasmic sex sounds-pounding, grunting, whining, very funny … almost titillating.
Xu Zhen- Mr Art Forum, prized prankster of the Shanghai scene makes a very PHAT, expensive, large, tongue-in-cheek nod to the legacy of Damien Hirst with a dinosaur in a fancy formaldehyde filled fish tank. The muther must be 5 meters long, 3m high with a split in the middle so one can walk through the cross section of the dinosaur’s guts (convincingly made of insulation, plastic bags and a bunch of unidentifiable over the counter crap). In the end the piece is one big, expensive, wasteful one-liner, But that’s the intention anyway. Har har ho hum
Shi Qing made one of the more mature of pieces I’ve seen of him yet with a theatrical, red carpeted room containing a large video projection of a traffic cop on a stage waving a big red flag. Inside the room are articles of the production: traffic cones and the like. Somehow the whole piece is elegantly tied together and hard to leave. Shi Qing was always trying to say too much in his work – here less is definitely more. Wangwei makes a four room installation that resembles a zoo where large nocturnal reptiles from around the world appear to have escaped in this dark-room like labyrinth.
Liu Wei muses heavily on those funny, very po-mo, exercise machines that give endless amusement and physical benefit to old folks in parks around China. I love these brightly colored machines. Here he cages them and spreads cookies and banana peels on the floor. Yet another prime example of reality being much more interesting than art. How does one –in an art context -mystify that which is already mystified in reality? He An displays a bunch of Internet picture stuff, apparently a search for a lover like thing– If I see another female infatuated Internet piece I’ll poop.
Kan Xuan (also appearing at The Venice Biennial - in Hou Hanru's China Pavilion) makes some new video work- one that sucks so bad I’m not going to mention it - The other, both stylistically and thematically completely different, takes up a 4m high back wall of the gallery and shows a famous brand hot sauce icon graphically intercut with African nature films and a very funny soundtrack. Very fun but that’s about it. NONO still on view while the rest of you art lovers migrate around Europe.