Simone Aaberg Kaern: Seize the Sky is a fourteen-year survey of the Danish artist’s video works that address the sky as airspace unbounded by political borders and examine flight as a metaphor for individual freedom. Seize the Sky is Aaberg Kaern’s premiere exhibition on the West Coast, and her first comprehensive solo exhibition in the United States. The exhibition and symposium are organized and curated by Tina Yapelli, director of the University Art Gallery at San Diego State University. The exhibition and symposium are sponsored by the San Diego State University Art Council; the School of Art, Design and Art History; the SDSU Center for the Visual and Performing Arts; the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts; and the fund for Instructionally Related Activities. The exhibition and symposium are organized in conjunction with the fortieth anniversary of the Department of Women’s Studies at San Diego State University. Simone Aaberg Kaern is represented by Galerie Asbaek, Copenhagen, Denmark.

An International Symposium on Women’s Rights March 10, 2010
Moderated by Jenni Prisk, president and founder of Voices of Women, La Jolla, California. Presentations by Simone Aaberg Kaern, artist and pilot, Copenhagen, Denmark; Jessica Cox, motivational speaker and pilot, Tucson, Arizona; Loeky Droesen, senior program officer, Aim for Human Rights, Utrecht, The Netherlands; Anh Hua, assistant professor, Department of Women’s Studies, San Diego State University; Lieutenant Chris Kieszek, pilot, United States Navy and assistant professor, Department of Naval Science, San Diego State University; Captain Latifa Nabizada, pilot, Afghan National Army Air Corps, Kabul, Afghanistan

On March 7, 2007, the haudenschildGarage collaborated with the University Art Gallery of San Diego State University to present Martha Rosler. The FUEL4TALK was held in conjunction with the exhibition John Q. Public & Citizen Jane: Private Americans in the Political Domain (curated by Tina Yapelli; January 29 – March 7, 2007) in which Rosler was included. Click here for more information on the exhibition.

About Martha Rosler

Martha Rosler was born in Brooklyn, New York. She took her B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1965 and her M.F.A. from University of California, San Diego in 1974. Rosler works in video, photo-text, installation, and performance, and writes criticism. She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally. Her work in the public sphere ranges from everyday life — often with an eye to women’s experience — and the media to architecture and the built environment. Rosler teaches at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She has published several books of photographs, texts, and commentary on public space, ranging from airports and roads to housing and homelessness. Her work has been seen in the “Documenta” exhibition in Kassel, Germany; several Whitney biennials; the Institute of Contemporary Art in London; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Dia Center for the Arts in New York; and many other international venues. A retrospective of her work has been shown in five European cities and in New York at the New Museum and the International Center of Photography (2000). An accompanying book has been published by MIT Press. Her writing has been published widely in catalogs and magazines, such as Artforum, Afterimage, and NU Magazine. Rosler has ten published books. She has produced numerous other “Word Works” and photo/text publications — now exploring cookery in a mock dialogue between Julia Child and Craig Claiborne, now analyzing imagery of women in Russia or exploring responses to repression, crisis, and war.

Click here to visit Rosler’s website.

The video installation Let’s Pray was commissioned by the haudenschildGarage and filmed during Yang Zhenzhong’s residency at the haudenschildGarage from October 22 – November 12, 2003. Yang Zhenzhong was invited as part of the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography & Video from the Haudenschild Collection.

Let’s Pray was produced in collaboration with Tina Yapelli of the University Art Gallery of San Diego State University and premiered at the Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego on January 31, 2004.

Prior to the video installation premiere at MOPA, Christopher Phillips introduced the video screening, Chinese Video and Film NOW!; Yang Fudong present in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The videos included Song Dong’s My Motherland Made the Scene for Me, 1999; Wang Gognxin’s Fly, 2000; Cao Fei’s Rabid Dogs, 2002; and Yang Fudong’s Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest (Part I), 2003.

Additionally, while in residence, the haudenschildGarage supported Yang Zhenzhong’s filming of the Spanish and English portions of his video I Will Die in San Diego and Tijuana. The ten channel video was later chosen for the 2007 Venice Biennale.

About Yang Zhenzhong

Born in Xiaoshan in 1968, Yang Zhengzhong now lives and works in Shanghai. He graduated from the oil painting department of the China Fine Arts Academy in Hangzhou in 1993 and began working with video and photography in 1995. Yang Zhengshong’s work has showed at major biennales and triennials including Venice (2003), Shanghai (2002), Guangzhou (2002) and Gwangju (2002). Yang Zhengzhong became famous in 2000 with his half-hour video “(I Know) I Will Die” that features short sequences in which a series of people speak the phrase “I will die” to the camera. It is a disconcerting, soberly presented film that confronts the viewer with existential questions.

Yang Zhengzhong recognizes that individual participation is the starting point for the transformation of perception. The video “922 Grains of Rice” plays with the interaction of the image of a cock and a chicken pecking grains of rice and the sound of a male and a female voice counting the number of pecked grains. It is a humorous representation of the battle of sexes as well a comment on today’s competitive behavior.

The desire to challenge normative notions of social behavior informs the practices of Yang Zhenzhong’s work. He is pre-occupied with China’s intrinsic disharmony and extreme discrepancies and often touches upon taboos such as death and out-dated social norms. His approach is metaphorical rather than narrative. His videos often start from witty ideas, employing image repetition and rhythmic coordination of sound, language and image. “Let’s Puff” (4th Shanghai Biennale, Zone of Urgency, 50th Venice Biennial) similarly starts from the interplay of two images: a young woman puffing and a busy street. Every time the woman breathes, the image of the street moves away from the viewer. The rhythm of the traffic and the angle of perception are altered with the rhythm of the woman’s breath.

Yang Zhengzhong’s playful videos are more than visual reflections; they are intelligent comments on the design of contemporary society. In a series of photos entitled “Light and Easy,” he perceives the weight of urban changes as an exterior phenomenon, and literally depicts the process as a weightless factor, turning urban landmarks upside down. “Light and Easy” is based upon a conviction that the lightness of the isolated exterior or interior is a source of interesting material. The successful experiments the artists have executed to formulate connections are exciting, sincere and disturbing. (ShangART; Shanghai, China)

The premiere performance of Super Angel was commissioned by the haudenschildGarage and completed during Shi Yong’s residency at the haudenschildGarage from October 22 – November 12, 2003.  This piece was produced in collaboration with Tina Yapelli of the University Art Gallery and the students of San Diego State University.

He encouraged the public to be part of the development of his website and performance by participating in a conversation with him through his interactive website. Click here to visit his Super Angel website

Shi Yong was invited as part of the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography & Video from the Haudenschild Collection. He was responsible for designing the Zooming into Focus catalog and the installation design of Zooming into Focus at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing.

About Shi Yong

Shi Yong’s work embraces modernization and the ideology of consumerism as the basis for self-imagination and creation. He has produced a series of photo-based works around the concept of the ideal Shanghai citizen. It is an ongoing multifaceted project that explores images of consumption, commodity and the development of the culture industry. One series, entitled “Made in China – Welcome to China” (1999), consists of hand-painted plaster models of a young businessman in a Mao suit, sunglasses, briefcase and waving. The image of the ideal citizen used for the statue was the outcome of an Internet project through which Shi Yong asked volunteers to vote for the ideal way of looking. The individual now transforms the identity of his or her self by following the logic of commodity market surveys. It is a composite image that Shi Yong has repeatedly used in other pieces such as “Longing For” (2000) and “You Cannot Clone It, But You Can Buy It” (2001). The iconic figure is morphed through the agency of the marketplace.

Recently, Shi Yong has focused his attention on large-scale installations and architectural models imbued with an absurd twist of humor. Most notably, his mixed media installation “Flying Q” is of a UFO built with the purpose of opening up the sky. The flying object comes with no additional explanation, but might be recognized as just another signature vision of and interventions into the imaginary world of Shi Yong. His subversive approach pokes fun at architecture based on rules and pre-established schemas. Shi Yong fabricates a colorful and ironic architectural structure that is at once a parody of serious design and its synthesis. In short, his work is an amalgam of Shanghai’s eclectic ‘anything goes’ attitude towards the built environment.

Shi Yong was born in Shanghai in 1963. He graduated from Light Industrial School, Fine Art Department. He resides and works in Shanghai. Shi Yong has exhibited widely since the early 1990’s. Recent shows include Follow Me!, Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2005), Second Guangzhou Triennale, Guangsong Museum of Art (2005), Zooming into Focus, China National Art Museum (Beijing, 2005), Felicidad Indecible, Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art (Mexico, 2005), The Heaven, The World, ShanghART & H-Space (Shanghai, 2004), Shanghai Biennale (2002), Bienal de Sao Paulo (2002) and Bienal de Maia (1999). (ShanghART; Shanghai, China)

“Recently, nearly in one year, the idea of my work has been mainly concerned with the “public image” which exists in the medium of space. Exactly, opposite to the western medium, the “Public Image” is ironical. It reflects another cultural reality in the dialogue and interchange between the western and the non-western: the so-called multiculturalism defined by the western culture seemingly tells you that the line between the ethnocentric culture and the marginal culture is being eliminated. At the same time, the name of “discrepancy” a new taxonomy of cultures is placing you cleverly in a special symbolic window display for the purpose of distinguishing. Then, you are forced to come back to the marginal position one more time. The difference is only that the previous line with the air of the colonialism is now replaced by that of the post colonialism. Therefore, in the cultural reality controlled factually by the western power, the so-called non-western character who is redifferentiated and redifined has to take the “Public Image” in line with the defined standard as an effective and safe extrance. In that case, you can keep a “legitimate” position in the stage of so-called ethnocentric culture. This is the reason why I take the “Public Image” as the subject of my works.” – Shi Yong

On November 8, 2003 Chinese artist Shi Yong held the premiere performance of Super Angel at San Diego State University. He invited people to be part of the development of his website and performance by participating in a conversation with him through his interactive website. Click here to visit his Super Angel website. Super Angel was produced in collaboration with Tina Yapelli of the University Art Gallery and the students of San Diego State University.

Hou Hanru gave his keynote lecture, Chinese Artists (Digitally) Facing the Globalizing World, prior to the performance.

Shi Yong was an Artist-In-Residence from October 22 – November 12, 2003  at the haudenschildGarage and was invited as part of the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography & Video from the Haudenschild Collection. He was responsible for designing the Zooming into Focus catalog and the installation design of Zooming into Focus at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing.

About Shi Yong

Shi Yong’s work embraces modernization and the ideology of consumerism as the basis for self-imagination and creation. He has produced a series of photo-based works around the concept of the ideal Shanghai citizen. It is an ongoing multifaceted project that explores images of consumption, commodity and the development of the culture industry. One series, entitled “Made in China – Welcome to China” (1999), consists of hand-painted plaster models of a young businessman in a Mao suit, sunglasses, briefcase and waving. The image of the ideal citizen used for the statue was the outcome of an Internet project through which Shi Yong asked volunteers to vote for the ideal way of looking. The individual now transforms the identity of his or her self by following the logic of commodity market surveys. It is a composite image that Shi Yong has repeatedly used in other pieces such as “Longing For” (2000) and “You Cannot Clone It, But You Can Buy It” (2001). The iconic figure is morphed through the agency of the marketplace.

Recently, Shi Yong has focused his attention on large-scale installations and architectural models imbued with an absurd twist of humor. Most notably, his mixed media installation “Flying Q” is of a UFO built with the purpose of opening up the sky. The flying object comes with no additional explanation, but might be recognized as just another signature vision of and interventions into the imaginary world of Shi Yong. His subversive approach pokes fun at architecture based on rules and pre-established schemas. Shi Yong fabricates a colorful and ironic architectural structure that is at once a parody of serious design and its synthesis. In short, his work is an amalgam of Shanghai’s eclectic ‘anything goes’ attitude towards the built environment.

Shi Yong was born in Shanghai in 1963. He graduated from Light Industrial School, Fine Art Department. He resides and works in Shanghai. Shi Yong has exhibited widely since the early 1990’s. Recent shows include Follow Me!, Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2005), Second Guangzhou Triennale, Guangsong Museum of Art (2005), Zooming into Focus, China National Art Museum (Beijing, 2005), Felicidad Indecible, Tamayo Museum of Contemporary Art (Mexico, 2005), The Heaven, The World, ShanghART & H-Space (Shanghai, 2004), Shanghai Biennale (2002), Bienal de Sao Paulo (2002) and Bienal de Maia (1999). (ShanghART; Shanghai, China)

“Recently, nearly in one year, the idea of my work has been mainly concerned with the “public image” which exists in the medium of space. Exactly, opposite to the western medium, the “Public Image” is ironical. It reflects another cultural reality in the dialogue and interchange between the western and the non-western: the so-called multiculturalism defined by the western culture seemingly tells you that the line between the ethnocentric culture and the marginal culture is being eliminated. At the same time, the name of “discrepancy” a new taxonomy of cultures is placing you cleverly in a special symbolic window display for the purpose of distinguishing. Then, you are forced to come back to the marginal position one more time. The difference is only that the previous line with the air of the colonialism is now replaced by that of the post colonialism. Therefore, in the cultural reality controlled factually by the western power, the so-called non-western character who is redifferentiated and redifined has to take the “Public Image” in line with the defined standard as an effective and safe extrance. In that case, you can keep a “legitimate” position in the stage of so-called ethnocentric culture. This is the reason why I take the “Public Image” as the subject of my works.” – Shi Yong

Hou Hanru

Hou Hanru is Director of Exhibitions and Public Programs and Chair of the Exhibitions and Museum Studies program at SFAI. He was also the moderator for the 2004 symposium in Hangzhou, China Envisioning the Future of Contemporary Art From Different Glocal Positions organized in collaboration with the exhibition Zooming into Focus: Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection. A prolific writer and curator, Hou received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Central Institute of Fine Arts in Beijing, where he was trained in art history, with additional work in painting, performance, installation, and architectural research. He is a consultant for several cultural institutions internationally including the Global Advisory Committee of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Contemporary Art Museum in Kumamoto, Japan. Described as a significant international voice on cultural difference, Hou is the French correspondent for Flash Art International and a regular contributor to several other journals on contemporary art including Frieze, Art Monthly, Third Text, Art and Asia Pacific, Domus, Atlantica, Texte Zur Kunst, and Tema Celeste. Most recently, Hou was appointed Curator of the 10th International Istanbul Biennial, which will take place from September to November 2007. Other recent curatorial projects include the second Guangzhou Triennale where he co-curated Beyond: An Extraordinary Space of Experimentation for Modernization; Go Inside, the 3rd Tirana Biennale (Tirana, Albania, 2005); Out of Sight, organized by the De Appel Foundation (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2005); Nuit Blanche 2004 (Paris, 2004); and A L’Ouest Du Sud De L’Est / A L’Est Du Sud De L’Ouest (Villa Arson, Nice, 2004). Hou is one of the first curators and thinkers to examine postmodern issues of nomadic identity, hybridity, globalized mobility, what he calls “in-betweeness,” and artists living in the diaspora.

“The exhibition presented an invaluable opportunity to bring to southern California work that would not otherwise be shown in the region. The project was groundbreaking, as it was the first exhibition to feature the current generation of Chinese photographers and videographers.

The artists’ residencies were extremely significant for the University, as they provided students the incredible experience of working with two of the artists, Yang Zhenzhong and Shi Yong. In the case of Yang, students were involved in the creation of a new work commissioned by the haudenschildGarage, which premiered at the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego.

The project was also important because it created a network of collaborations with institutions in San Diego, Tijuana, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore.” – Tina Yapelli Director of the University Art Gallery

Exhibition
October 25, 2003 – April 21, 2004, University Art Gallery, San Diego State University

Organized by Tina Yapelli and Eloisa Haudenschild.

Symposium
An International Discourse on New Chinese Video and Photography

January 31, 2004 – San Diego Museum of Art
Organized by Eloisa Haudenschild and Tina Yapelli (Director, UAG, SDSU)

Moderated by Britta Erickson (Independent Scholar and Curator, Palo Alto)

Presenters included:
-Betti-Sue Hertz (Director, YBCA) Performance, Masculinity and Photographic Approaches in East Asian Contemporary Art
-Barbara London (Curator, MOMA) China Now
-Christopher Phillips (Curator, ICP, New York) New Photography in China: Between Past and Culture
-Xu Bing (Artist) Space Between: The Art of Xu Bing

Video Screening
Chinese Video and Film NOW!
January 31, 2004, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego

Introduction by Christopher Phillips; Yang Fudong present in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The works screened included Song Dong’s My Motherland Made the Scene for Me, 1999; Wang Gognxin’s Fly, 2000; Yang Zhenzhong’s I Will Die, 2003; Cao Fei’s Rabid Dogs, 2002; and Yang Fudong’s Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest (Part I), 2003.

Video Installation Premiere
“Let’s Pray” by Yang Zhenzhong
January 31, 2004, Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego

Let’s Pray was commissioned by the haudenschildGarage and filmed during his residency with the support of Tina Yapelli.

Artists-In-Residence
October and November 2003

Shanghai artists Shi Yong (November 3 – 10, 2003) and Yang Zhenzhong (October 22 – November 12, 2003) were in-residence at the haudenschildGarage; they were commissioned to produce new work.

Yong’s residency concluded with his performance of the interactive piece Super Angel at San Diego State University. Zhenzhong’s residency culminated in the premiere of the commissioned work Let’s Pray at the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego.  The haudenschildGarage supported Zhenzhong in filming the English and Spanish segments of his piece I Will Die (English, Spanish, and Chinese) while in San Diego and Tijuana.  I Will Die was later selected for the 2007 Venice Biennale.

Premiere Performance
“Super Angel” by Shi Yong
November 8, 2003, San Diego State University

Super Angel was commissioned by the haudenschildGarage; he worked with San Diego State University students.

Keynote Lectures
November 8 – 9, 2003 San Diego State University & the Chinese Historical Museum

Hou Hanru, Paris-based writer and curator of Zone of Urgency at the 2003 Venice Biennale, was the keynote lecturer at San Diego State University where he presented Chinese Artists (Digitally) Facing the Globalizing World as well as at the San Diego Chinese Historical Museum.

Video Dialogue: Shanghai/Tijuana
November 1, 2003, Centro Cultural, Tijuana, Mexico

This event was moderated by Norma Iglesias and included presentations by Yang Zhenzhong and Tijuana artists Itzel Martinez (Yonkart), Giancarlo Ruiz, and Salvador Vazquez Ricalde.

On one wall in SDSU’s University Art Gallery is a video of a crowd moving at a typical pace down the street. On another, a facing wall, we see the image of a woman. She takes in a lot of air and blows hard. Then, life on the streets of Shanghai changes. Everyone and everything accelerated. Life becomes twice as fast. She rests and the city returns to normal. She blows and the pace of the city quickens. The action is in Yang Zhenzhong’s comic Let’s Puff (2002). It’s not laughing-out-loud funny but charmingly so – a little like a moment from a Buster Keaton film. The woman keeps puffing and his video keeps the people in step.

It is also a metaphor, whether intentional or not, for the pace of life in China and the accelerated pace of change in its expanded economy. Americans have ample anecdotal evidence of this expansion; Most things we consume seem to be made in China nowadays.

The pace of interest in Chinese photography and video in the United States resembles that of the people in Let’s Puff. In October, SDSU presented an exhibition of new Chinese photography, Zooming into Focus, and brought some of the artists to town, courtesy of Chris and Eloisa Haudenschild of La Jolla; for the past couple of years, they have been collecting these works and championing them.

The International Center for Photography in New York and the Asia Society are presenting New Chinese Photography in June and the Museum of Modern Art is opening an exhibition of video works by Chinese artists shortly. The Denver Art Museum has a show in the subject and this month’s issue of Artnews magazine has devoted its lead story to some of the established and emerging photographers.

The new exhibition at SDSU has the same title as the previous one, Zooming into Focus. Only the subtitle – this time, Contemporary Chiense Video from the Haudenschild Collection – is different. Two of the three video artists exhibited in the first show too. Zhenzhong was one; his photography exudes a similarly droll, witty sensibility. A host of chickens, who have seemingly arranged themselves for a family photograph in Lucky Family 4 (1995), makes for oe of the most strangely funny photographs in recent memory. Only digital effects made the mom e possible, but what a Kodak-style moment.

The chickens are back in 922 Rice Corns (2000) – one chicken and one rooster, to be precise. The pleasing absurdity of the video takes a little longer to surface, but it’s abundantly evident as the pair of fowl busy themselves eating the grains as a voiceover narrator counts each one of the grains. At the same time, he slips in a sly bit of commentary about gender. The rooster struts and plants himself right in the middle of the food. The chicken works more gingerly, feeding around the edges. And as with the family portrait, parallels between fowl behavior and human conduct are hard to miss.

Zhenzhong composes videos in a style suited to a photographer and conceptual artist. While Yang Fudong was also a featured photographer in Zooming into Focus part one his short works in videos have a cinematic style that sets them apart from Zhenzhong’s.

Still, they share a fair for humor. City Light (2000) – which reveals no overt references to the Chaplin classic – doesn’t convey a story so much as a middle-class man caught up in his own dream state. He’s doing his best to relate to others, as the rest of the people that surface in the six-minute piece. Two guys dresses in the same business clothes rise from a bed, drift away from each other and reunite. One joins briefly in a dance with a woman and then she’s gone.

At another moment, he stands in a high-rise with people who are presumable his co-workers. But no one seems to know what he’s supposed to be doing other then gazing out the window or staring at each other. Occasionally they spring into action. The main figure hands off an umbrella to his double at one point, which seems to make him happy.

It’s all done with an unpretentious light touch. The universe these people occupy is absurd but the anxiety is at a low hum rather then at the high pitch about Kafkaesque events.

Fudong’s other short film, Honey (2003), is darker. It focuses on a woman who might or might not have an erotic bond with one of themen who gather in an apartment. The film is elegantly composed. It is akin to a story that begins several times, with each moment offering a touch of intrigue. The dreamlike quailty of the non-narrative action is quietly dramatic.

Chen Shaoxiong, who lives in Guangzhou, makes his local debut in this exhibtion. His two-channel video in stallation Anti-Terrorim Variety (2002) is more pointed that Zhenzhong’s or Fudong’s work. There’s humor too but with an acidic edge.

He pictures two views of a city. Then silhouettes of planes fly into view, heading for the tallest buildings. There is no mistaking the reference to the events of Sept. 11 but nothing harrowing happens here. With a bit of slapstick flair, the jets bounce off skyscrapers, simply fall to the ground after the moment of contact and in some cases evaporate.

If only that were the case in life. The actions of Shaoxiong’s video looks slapstick but the underlying mood is eerie and poignant.

It’s a salutary sign of the times: You know artistic freedom is palpable in China when its artists can toy with culture’s icons. That’s surely the case with Zhao Bandi’s photograph of himself in a tux, his face tense and his hand on the paw of a panda (of the stuffed animal variety), sporting a bridal veil. Bubble caption-style text floats above the bear’s head, in Chinese and English, and the words declare: “I don’t think we really love each other.”

The picture itself is a visual one-liner, but a revealing one. The humor clicks but it’s also brittle. The panda functions as an emblem of mainstream China and suggests unease with the freedom of the culture has given its artists. But such distrust of the artist is at least as old as Plato’s Republic.

As for the artists themselves – the dushi yidai or, translated, new urban generation – they have embraced this latitude for self-expression with exuberance. The evidence is wide in Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography from the Haudenchild Collection on view at the SDSU’s University Art Gallery.

The show includes 13 photographers from Beijing, Ghuangzhou and Shanghai, and is the first of a two-part showcase; Chinese video will follow from January 31 through April 21.

All of the work has been acquired by local patrons and collectors Chris and Eloisa Haudenschild, whose collection in this area continues to grow SDSU. Gallery director Tina Yapelli accompanied Eloisa Haudenschild on some of those trips to studios and showcases of the artists and co-curated the exhibition. The Haudenschild family believe in the importance of this emergent Chinese art scene, funding the exhibition and an exhibition catalog as well as residencies by two artists. One of these, Yang Zhenzhong from Shanghai, will premiere a new work taped in San Diego at the Museum of Photographic Arts on January 31.

Zhao Bandi isn’t the only artist among this group to put his tongue in his cheek. Another is Hong Hao who envisions himself in the role of capitalist mogul. The big color image from 2001 looks much like an ad, with the artist seated poolside and a waiter (butler?) about to serve him a tall cocktail. There’s text filling the space above the pool in English and Chinese “Mr. Hong Usually Wait Under the Arch Roof for the Sunshine.”

In Beautiful Dog Brows (2001), Cao Fei puts herself on a fictional cover of Elle in triplicate with face painted canine-style. The biggest type trumpeted “Sex Dog.”

There is no missing the cynicism in these pictures. Hong Hao casts a jaundiced eye at the privileged, of whatever ideological persuasion. Cao Fei thumbs her nose at the glorification of glamour.

The exhibited selections also display an awareness of the rise of the conceptual, staged and digitally manipulated image in Europe and the United Stated during the past 30 years. Wu Hung’s short essay in the handsome catalog confirms this impression, explaining that photography among young artists is intimately linked to video, performance and other experimental work.

Shi Yong, who created a performance during his residency, offers a panoramic picture Forever (2002) containing dozens of figures standing in an exhibition space that could be either a gallery or a museum. But there’s one proviso: Everyone is him. Is he musing on the collectivism of the old guard China? Is he poking fun at the necessary narcissism of the artistic process? Or is the picture about something else although? You decide. The image itself has a finely tuned ambiguity to it.

With the rise of a free market and the accompanying frenzy of urban development in the big cities, there is another shared theme: artists feel uneasy about the implications of rapid change. And surely, they muse embody the sentiments of non-artists in China too.

Yang Fudong expresses this anxiety in a comic sequence of pictures called The First Intellectual (2000). The guy in his pictures acts the distraught, perhaps deranged, businessman walking down the middle of the street carrying a brick he threatens to toss the viewer’s way. It’s a still-image performance.

Weng Fen raise the image of change in a more meditative way in On the Wall: Shen Zhen I (2002) part of a larger series, a young girl sits on an aged wall. The urban skyline stands in the distance but the buildings look as if they are marching forward, ready to invade her space – and in the larger scene, they will. In an increasingly urbanizing society, few remain apart from it. Fen’s pictures are programmatic, probably to a fault, but they are poignant too. And we in post-industrial America can surely relate to the issues he suggests.

The upcoming video exhibition will surely amplify our understanding of the photographs. Yang Fudong’s short films, like his images, are about the white collar worker in contemporary China. The rooster, hen and chick which eerily expressive faces that fill Yang Zhenzhong’s Lucky Family photographs relate to his video work 922 Rice Corns. which as describe wounds as if it contain the same droll wit as his images.

In a world of increasingly global markets art too is increasingly international. There are many distinctly Chinese elements to these photographs but in equal measure they are cosmopolitan – both in style and chose of subject. No interpretation is needed to comprehend Feng Mengbo’s Shot 0075 photographs for example in which he’s firing fantastical weapons in quasi-medieval rooms. Its as if he’s landed in the middle of a video game. Virtual reality knows no national boundaries.

Contemporary art in China reflects the country’s rising influence as an economic, political and cultural force in the global arena. Chinese artists are gaining international recognition for their potent artworks that address a rapidly changing society; influenced by Western ideals and art practice, their creative production nevertheless remains distinctly Chinese in its content and aesthetic. Several of these artists have exhibited their work in major exhibitions such as documenta in Germany, the Venice Biennale in Italy, and the Shanghai Biennial and Guangzhou Triennial in China, but have had little exposure in the United States.

The first project of its kind in this country, Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection features the work of many of the most noteworthy Chinese artists working today, including Cao Fei, Chen Shaoxiong, Feng Mengbo, Hong Hao, Shi Yong, Weng Fen, Xiang Liqing, Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, Yang Yong, Yang Zhenzhong, Zhao Bandi and Zheng Guogu. In two exhibitions, the project highlights the extraordinary photography and video being created by these artists in a country that is undergoing tremendous growth and development. This swift transformation of Chinese culture is reflected in the work of each of the artists, who comment on contemporary Chinese life with intelligence, wit, anxiety and nostalgia.

All of the works in both exhibitions are presented at the University Art Gallery through a generous loan from the Haudenschild Collection. Noted art collectors and alumni Eloisa and Chris Haudenschild have created one of the largest and most significant groupings of contemporary Chinese photography and video in the world. Focusing on the work of experimental artists from China’s lively urban centers, such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, the collection has become a landmark contribution to the field of international contemporary art. In addition to lending their collection of new Chinese works, the Haudenschilds have commissioned a performance by Shi Yong and a video installation by Yang Zhenzhong that will premiere in San Diego.

In conjunction with Zooming into Focus, an extensive educational program that consists of a keynote lecture, a symposium, a screening and three artists’ residencies will be presented at San Diego State University and partnering institutions in San Diego. A complete listing of the program, as well as related events in San Diego, Tijuana and Hangzhou. Together, the exhibitions and educational program comprise a comprehensive project intended to showcase contemporary Chinese art, and to encourage viewers to appreciate today’s China with new insight and perspective.

In November of 2002, at the invitation of Eloisa Haudenschild, I had the opportunity to view the first works of contemporary Chinese photography that she and Chris had collected during a visit to Shanghai. Overwhelmed by the power and vitality of the images, I immediately declared my desire to exhibit the photographs at the University Art Gallery. Eloisa responded with equally-instant enthusiasm, and our adventure began. With Chris’s and the University’s blessing, we traveled together to China in January of 2003. We met with artists, curators and gallerists in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou, and viewed two major exhibitions, The First Guangzhou Triennial and the 2002 Shanghai Biennial. Following this trip, during which the collection grew, we began to discuss the exhibition, possible educational events, and a modest brochure that would document the project.

As the Haudenshilds continued to collect photographs and video works during the first several months of 2003, it became clear that their impressive collection warranted two exhibitions at the University Art Gallery and a substantial catalogue with scholarly essays. And as Eloisa met with relevant artists, curators and collectors in Paris, New York, Venice and San Francisco, she planted the seeds of a broad-based series of educational programs featuring international participants. Finally, through recent meetings in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and with colleagues from Tijuana, Eloisa successfully paved the way for the photography exhibition to travel to museums in China and Mexico.

On behalf of those who view the exhibitions, partake of the educational programs, or read this book—both here and abroad—I am grateful for the generosity of Eloisa and Chris Haudenschild. Their joyful willingness to share their collection is a special gift to us all. I also would like to express appreciation for Eloisa’s collaborative commitment to the project and her passionate devotion to art. Her dedication to the work of young artists has made a difference in their lives, and has benefited the world of contemporary art.

My personal thanks are expressed to Eloisa Haudenschild for her inspirational spirit and her absolute trust.

Tina Yapelli, Director, University Art Gallery, 2003

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This text appeared in the exhibition catalogue “Zooming into Focus: Contemporary Chinese Photography and Video from the Haudenschild Collection”, copyright 2003 by the University Art Gallery, San Diego State University, and is re-printed with permission.