Renown ZHOU XIAOHU and the spectacle of spectacle

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

Off again- P word Sensorship and Zhang Ding's MY PHOTOS

So I'm off again. Cut down from my own fruitless blog here in the hinterland. But now I see the pattern. I used the P word in my last entry and then woosh wiped clean off tthe main/motherland web. Them buggers took me off again.
It's a language game as is life in general.
Lot's of miscommunication and Sensorship.
Speaking of which-
I finally go to see my friend Zhang Ding at his faraway apartment somewhere near the airport (Q.why do all these artists live in faraway places by airports? A. because other artists do. It's a follow the leader thing here- apparently Xu Zhen and Yang Zhenzhong led the march to this middle of nowhere artist enclave, that might as well be somewhere in Ft Lauderdale- recently Megan Connolly inquired about the migratory patterns of these Chinese artists and should write a thesis about the whole thing soon) Zhnag Ding lives here with two sweet cats and his super sweet girlfriend Alexia Dehaene who works very hard at BizArt, one of China's only not for profit art spaces.
Late last year Zhang Ding spent 15 days in jail (the webmongers will love this for sure) for showing his "My Photos" series in which he collected a zillion very charming, sometimes very strange home made porno photos from the web. The he then pretended that the photos were taken by one fictional Araki-like photographer and presented a transcript of the interview along with the photos. Either way the authorities didn't find it amusing or morally healthy and put poor Zhang Ding in jail for 15 days. Artist, He An spent 10 days there for a piece that was apparently an illustrated instruction on how to rape a woman (sounds like he deserved it).
Zhang Ding says he was treated very well while incarcerated.
Very well then now put my blog up mofo!