-
Advertorial
-
FOCUS
-
Guide
-
Lifestyle
-
Tech and Vogue
-
TechandScience
-
CHTF Special
-
Nanshan
-
Futian Today
-
Hit Bravo
-
Special Report
-
Junior Journalist Program
-
World Economy
-
Opinion
-
Diversions
-
Hotels
-
Movies
-
People
-
Person of the week
-
Weekend
-
Photo Highlights
-
Currency Focus
-
Kaleidoscope
-
Tech and Science
-
News Picks
-
Yes Teens
-
Budding Writers
-
Fun
-
Campus
-
Glamour
-
News
-
Digital Paper
-
Food drink
-
Majors_Forum
-
Speak Shenzhen
-
Shopping
-
Business_Markets
-
Restaurants
-
Travel
-
Investment
-
Hotels
-
Yearend Review
-
World
-
Sports
-
Entertainment
-
QINGDAO TODAY
-
In depth
-
Leisure Highlights
-
Markets
-
Business
-
Culture
-
China
-
Shenzhen
-
Important news
在线翻译:
szdaily -> Culture -> 
Video exhibition tackles themes of life and fiction
    2017-04-27  08:53    Shenzhen Daily

    Cao Zhen

    caozhen0806@126.com

    THE “In Search of Global Poetry: Videos From the Han Nefkens Collection” exhibition at the He Xiangning Art Museum is showcasing a selection of 12 videos created by artists from different countries, mixing real life and fiction.

    The videos are on loan from Han Nefkens Foundation, a private nonprofit organization in Barcelona that supports contemporary creative projects. The foundation was launched on the initiative of Dutch writer and art collector Han Nefkens in 2009, stimulating the production of artworks and encouraging the exchange of artistic experiences.

    “Han Nefkens began building his collection in 2000, and has worked selectively with art museums and other institutions worldwide to exhibit his collection,” said Feng Boyi, one of the curators of the exhibition. “The artists’ works are rooted in their specific regional cultures, while also providing a global vision, allowing us to appreciate and understand the ways in which these artists employ the visual language methods of video art to express their attitudes, views and imaginations,” said Feng.

    At the opening of the exhibition, Nefkens said the desire to know about other people has shaped his life. “As a child, I fantasized about leaving my own head and settling for a while in that of a perfect stranger. I wanted to know how they saw the world. Later through art, I found the ultimate way to lose myself in the other,” said Nefkens who has collected 469 artworks including photos, videos and fashion design works.

    Nefkans stated that the artists at the exhibition have their own particular ways of telling a story. “They evoke their world not only by showing things but also leaving things out, just as poets do. That way, we, the viewers, have a chance to continue imagining that other world, to be a poet ourselves, even if only for a couple of minutes.”

    The shortest video at the exhibition is Algeria-born, Paris-based artist Adel Abdessemed’s two-second “Foot On,” in which a bare foot crushes a Coca-Cola can in a close-up shot. According to the artist, this simple and immediate act is a symbol of destroying capitalist power.

    Anri Sala’s breathtaking “1395 Days Without Red,” is a 43-minute video made in 2011, starring Spanish actress Maribel Verdu. The siege of Sarajevo lasted 1,395 days. From 1992 to 1996, thousands of locals crossed streets under the gazes of snipers every day. The people wore dark colors, for fear of alerting the snipers watching from the hills above. In Sala’s video, a woman makes her way through an empty city as she stops, looks and listens. The woman is reliving the experience of the trauma of the siege. It is her individual journey through the collective memory of the city. In the video, the Sarajevo Symphony Orchestra rehearses Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 6,” or “The Pathetique.” Hearing the music in her head, the woman finds the courage to carry on.

    “Fifty Shades of Grey” director Sam Taylor-Wood is showing her 2003 work “Strings” at the exhibition. It is a nine-minute video of a ballet dancer hanging by wires over a string quartet, making slow movements in time to Tchaikovsky’s melancholic melody. The title refers both to the stringed instruments that provide the soundtrack, and to the wires suspending the dancer.

    As curator Feng said, some videos at the exhibition, including “Strings,” offer imaginative scenarios. “This imagination in art creates a relationship between artists, viewers and scenes in the artworks and it seeks out a form of release within the relationship between ‘self’ and ‘other.’ Through the virtual world of videos, viewers stand a step back from the world of tough reality.”

    Dates: Until July 9, closed Mondays

    Hours: 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m. (To mark the 20th anniversary of He Xiangning Art Museum, it now extends its opening hours to 9:30 p.m. every Friday until July 7.)

    Venue: He Xiangning Art Museum, Shennan Boulevard, Nanshan District (南山区深南大道9013号何香凝美术馆)

    Metro: Line 1, OCT Station (华侨城站), Exit C

深圳报业集团版权所有, 未经授权禁止复制; Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved.
Shenzhen Daily E-mail:szdaily@szszd.com.cn