'A Journey in Love' art exhibit kicks off in Beijing
The art exhibit, "LOVELOVELOVE: A Journey in Love" opened on March 30 at Beijing Today Art Museum, Building No.2, lasting until June 30, 2019. After "LOVELOVELOVE: Intimate," which attracted over one hundred thousand visitors and billions of social media posts, the second season of the series exhibition is here.
Focused on travel, this exhibition reviews the past 40 years of China through ten artists' travel stories. It is the first time to have Andy Warhol, pioneer of Pop Art Movement, and Jean-Michel Jarre, the father of French electronic music, to be shown together, reconstructing their legendary journeys in the early 1980s in China. Also, eight artists including Quentin Shih, Colin Chinnery, Qiu Anxiong and Lei Lei will capture social changes in China with photography, animation and sound installations.
A part of "A Journey in Love" installation view, 2019, photographer: Zhang Chi. /Courtesy of YT Pictures
Zou Xinyi, curator of the exhibition, told CGTN that in the second season, they look at the broader context, and want to tell a story about the country and the memory of the times. So the theme of this season is "A Journey in Love."
"We hope to create a good exhibition experience for the audience. When the audience understands the artist, they can also understand our whole idea of exhibition design," she added.
The exhibition started with the famous Beijing landmark “Panda Roundabout.” Pandas have long been a cultural symbol of China, a significant visual clue to track the social changes in China. The most representative one is Panda Roundabout specially created for the Asian Games held in Beijing in 1990. The panda sculpture in the roundabout center is a masterpiece by sculptor, artist, and educator Ye Yushan, showing how art could be connected to the public as part of the city.
"Journey to the East" began with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Jarre's trips to China. In 1981, Jean-Michel Jarre arrived in China for the first time with 15 tons of equipment. Jarre was the first Western musician invited to China after the reform and opening up. To ensure the success of the concert, the neighborhood near Beijing Workers' Stadium was blacked out for several hours.
"A Journey in Love" installation view, 2019, photographer: Zhang Chi. /Courtesy of YT Pictures
According to statistics, around 500 million people in the world listened to this concert through radio and television. Meanwhile, Andy Warhol's precious photographic works created during his trip in 1982 will be exhibited for the first time in the Chinese mainland, with the documentary "Andy Warhol: Made in China" and photographs by Christopher Makos to represent a rarely known Warhol as a traveler.
The second part "Memoir" started with daily records of the past, featuring French artist Thomas Sauvin's World Park and Lei Lei's A One-man's Animation Film Studio. In 2009, Sauvin salvage discarded folk color negatives from a recycling plant on the edge of Beijing that were destined to destruction.
"Andy Warhol China 1982," archival inject print ©Christopher Makos. /Courtesy of Christopher Makos
These negatives record the lives of ordinary people in China's gelatin silver popularization era, which has significantly enriched the image clues for more than half a century. He selected a series of tourist photos taken in Beijing World Park and explored the cultural memory of a generation through interesting visual clues.
"Elapsed Dreams," the third part of the exhibit, explored the undercurrent of emotions beneath the surface of memories.
The final part led the audience to explore the future through various reflections on current technological advancement and economic conditions. Amalia Ulman investigates the close relationship between travel, consumption and the global economy, starting with imported goods that can be found everywhere. She also introduced China's economic context through shopping online, which further expanded her reflection on international trade today.
The opening ceremony also invited the singer Zhang Qiang to give a special performance for the opening of the exhibition. As one of the important representatives of popular culture, Zhang Qiang let the '80s young people in China enjoy the "disco craze." Before the opening ceremony, she also shared her '80s memories with CGTN.
"The things in the exhibition will remind me of my school days in the early 1980s," said Zhang. "I miss the sincerity of people in the 1980s, but life now it is still better than before. The kitchen and bathroom in my home, including the space between people, are not as crowded as before, and various facilities are much more convenient than before."
(CGTN)
