Zhou Xiao Hu, Famous for his funny claymation series based on current affairs, has a new solo show at Bizart that furthers his play upon the media spectacle. "Renown" is a life-size installation that takes the press out of the press conference and pokes a pointer at the posturing of artists as modern celebrity.
Upon entering you see the artist surrounded by a diligent press core. Clad in the full gear of Sony Betacams, baseball caps, backpacks, these microphone toting western journalists all stand captivated by Zhou xiaohu's delivery. But Zhou Xiaohu is a video projection (my photos do no justice to the installation - sorry ZXH) Each one of these cameraman and journalists are also surprisingly also fake. The detail of the figures, from their clothes to their eyebrows are amazing - beating the pants off of Duane Hanson and Madame Toussaud hands down (apparently fabricated in Xian by some museum prop specialists) The simulacrum reinforces the modern condition of mediated reality.
Then your cell phone rings (or is supposed to- technical difficulties abound on the cell phone dept.) The cell phone is Zhou Xiao Hu reciting the same meandering self promo rhetoric about the exhibition, where it aims to go, what it aims to do... basic politician claptrap. The biz-art presser reads: "The artwork, presented in the form of a social diffusion, will lie idle. The artist will attempt to measure the uncertain relationship between society's reactions and art, seeking for the possibilities residing in the crevice between social and artistic events." I'm not I entirely grasp all of that but neither do ever entirely grasp anything... especially deconstructivist toned art banter.
There was some pizza and Fanta in the back of the room but it didn't supplement the post opening meal where Zhou and his mostly Changzhou artbuddies rubbed elbows with the Shanghai usuals: the haoren Liu jianhua, Wang Xingwei, Zhang Ding, and Xu Zhen (Changzhou a city 1.5 hours away from Shanghai has quite the burgeoning art scene. According to the boys at the table there's nothing else to do there except make contemporary art- Hong Lei is one of the more famous artists that still resides in Changzhou)
anyway
It's all part of the spectacle
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