Being and Nothingness
Step into Sichuan artist Qiu Anxiong's exhibition at the Bund 18 Creative Center and you will be struck by the minimalism of the show. Not just in the small number of works on display, but the room, the colors and the silence.

At first glance, it seems that the artist is presenting still images projected on the wall, but on closer inspection you realize that there is movement and that you are part of a new media installation. We gazed at images of smoke billowing from a fire being stoked by workers in a field, then from smoke stacks in a factory, on to animals grazing on a river bed and a lone motor cyclist flashing by a previously still riverside road. In the middle of the room, a tree branch hung inverted, Duchamp-style, from the ceiling, its branches casting vague shadows, and on the floor, a projection of water dropping and ripples forming.

Most of the works are titled "Nostalgia" and indeed, there is a sense of past. The palette of grays, whites and blacks almost creates the sensation of watching an old silent movie. At least until, suddenly, one of the images changes to a busy road and the room is filled with the sound of traffic.

Qiu is making a statement about the relationship between humans and nature, and this clearly comes across in the obvious contrasts between a trodden path through some scrubby bushes abruptly cutting to an image of a busy road, or in the juxtaposition of a mass of concrete in the form of a factory set against a dramatic mountain background.

What was a little confusing was an anteroom with two paintings by the same artist which, although presenting the same color themes, did not seem to tie in with the installation work. But perhaps you can decipher their meaning when you take the time to linger on the works as they change and move through a gray, bleak world.

Elyse Singleton

Details:

When: Through April 30 
Add: 4/Fl, 18 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu 中山东一路18号4楼 
Tel: 6323-7066