Chen Xiaochun

654789759@qq.com

THE “Frames of Image” theme exhibition, one of the most important events of this year’s International Urban Image Festival, kicked off Thursday at the Shenzhen University Art Museum, and will run until Nov. 5.

Led by Dong Bingfeng, curator and academic director of the exhibition, more than 20 artists and curators, both esteemed and up-and-coming, exhibited their own forms and visions of urban imagery, presenting a unique sense experience for the public.

“Our exhibition officially opens to the public today. There are some details that still need to be adjusted to make the exhibition better. The works exhibited this time are of high quality. We organized a symposium yesterday with experts and artists presenting reports for the whole day, while scholars and artists presented their views on creation, society and culture. Through the exhibition and the entire image festival, we hope an effective network will be formed to link researchers, artists, architects and writers,” said Dong.

The exhibition began with an opening ceremony of three groups of performances, including “Grain God Narrative + Voice of Urban Village,” where visitors could appreciate the works of “Grain God Narrative” while listening to the voices of the three areas captured by the artists, namely Baishizhou, Hubei and Huanggang in Shenzhen. The other two performances were “Tide,” which was created by three artists based on collective improvisation, and Kang He’s “Anthropology” Image Writing, a 1,345-page five-minute image writing exercise focused on “Anthropology.”

The theme exhibition includes seven cases, which starts with the modernity of Feng Mengbo’s “My Private Museum” and ends with Qiu Anxiong’s “The New Book of Mountains and Seas,” which is full of critical futurism.

The seven cases also include one of the artists of China Hall at La Biennale di Venezia 2017, Tang Nannan’s “Archaeological Project of Global Beach Memory,” Kao Jun-Honn’s “The Ruin Image Crystal Project,” the “Grain God Narrative II: The Grammar of Building” jointly created by Mao Chenyu, Zhou Jing, Zhang Xuebo, Fen Lei and Wu Chao, Xia Weilun’s “Project of Awakening Vegetative Patients Via Artistic Stimulations,” and Kang He’s “Anthropology” project which blends writing, theater and experimental image into one.

Initiated by DAKEN ART in 2014, the International Urban Image Festival is the first urban public art event in the name of the urban area and based on the basic concept of imagery. By imbedding top-notch images into public spaces in the city, the festival enables the public to come face-to-face with classic images from home and abroad.

Since its inception, the festival has obtained continuous support from the Special Funds to Promote Cultural and Sports Development in Futian District. It also fetched the art and literature award at the SZ/HK Lifestyle Awards this June.