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ZHANG Peili, <Boating>, Oil on canvas, 83x130cm, 1986
ZHANG Peili, <30 x 30>, Single channel video, 32'09",1988 © artist ZHANG Peili, <Water_Standard Version from the Dictionary>, Single channel video, 09'35",1991 © artist
[China] ZHANG Peili Boating 30 x 30 Water_Standard Version from the Dictionary
Zhang Peili is a core member of the ’85 Art New Wave Movement, a founding member of the ’85 New Space and Pond Society, whose painting conjured the fleeting yet condensing of sense of life. Imageries pursued an effect of indifference that revealed the artist’s understanding of reality as they projected the artist’s loneliness from within. Once Zhang abandoned the quest of reaching for the “metaphysical”, the first conceptual video work 30 x 30 was created in 1988, drawing a conclusion to the self-referential attitude of the artists in the ’85 Art New Wave Movement. The dreary imagery rejected any technical demand of the medium, but was aimed at mimicking the actual experience depicted, in order to avoid generating meaning beyond. A broadcaster of the national media reading the entry of “water” from the dictionary Cihai in standard mandarin, constituted the content of the video work, Water. The one button access to the state media’s standardized filming and production, symbolic of the power of the state, suggests an absurd reality devoid of any content in centralized state media. |
