The high-profile and wide-ranging The First Today’s Documents is highly academic and culturally ambitious. Eminent curator Huang Du is appointed chief curator for this exhibition, who designated “energy” to be the overall theme to highlight the vibrancy and the transformative force of the contemporary art. The First Today’s Documents has amassed a collection of works that represents the most avant-garde, the most experimental, and the most innovative creative energies in China.
On-site description:
“I have never taken individual sculptures out of their original sets and combinations to form a new combination with new relationships and theme prior this group exhibition at the Today Art Museum Beijing. There is a woman and a bathtub from Adumbration – for Wu Shuang, a mother from After Yawn, and a bird from Are a Hundred Playing You? Or Only One?; all in front of a translucent film, on which a short video of the face of a girl is projected. The girl gazes directly at the camera, there is the sound of water dripping in the background. At the end of the video a scream is vaguely heard, and the girl smiles faintly and rather ambiguously; then the video plays again from the beginning. The idea for this set of exhibits is closely related to the experience of a film. I had wanted to experiment with a scene-like, story-like exhibition style that is capable of expressing more than standalone sculptures. An isolated space was assigned to me by chief curator Huang Du, which turned out to be surprisingly big – too big, even, for I had wanted to provide a sense of privacy. Therefore I improvised and asked one of the installation workers to build up a thin wall, separating the exhibits and the viewers, who can only peep through one of five holes. The message of this extremely psychological work is conveyed as viewers become peepers in the process.” – Xiang Jing
Participating artists: Zeng Hao, Cheng Ran, Chen Hui, Chen Jie, Chen Wenbo, Chen Wenling, Cui Youwen,