JHANG ZHI 'Things would turn great once they happened 1', Edition of 6, c-print, 150 x 200 cm / courtesy DF2 Gallery
Andrea Offermann for ceative face Magazine
Founded by David DeSanctis and Fabien Fryns, DF2 Gallery specializes in exhibiting the most important established and emerging Chinese contemporary artists. This summer DF2 Gallery is showing Shine upon me, a selection of Jhang Zhi´s work focusing on the complex nature of light. Showing only 11 pieces from Jhang Zhi's portfolio, DF2 Gallery chose to display small groups of images from different series to bind them together into one impact-full statement about modern day China. Shine upon me will be on exhibit until August 23, 2008.
Large landscapes spanned with light rainbows and photographs of important Chinese buildings with halos of light around them convey an almost religious impression and showcase the ambiguous relationship with capitalism and nationalism: "Jiang Zhi's rainbows, constructed with fragments of neon signs, swoop over the skies that are metaphoric of both capitalist materialistic desire and emotional longings. They are light as an illusion of the consumption era overlapping on the blue print of China's heyday. Neon signs were once marks of capitalist desires that have now become a metaphor for new nationalism. They exemplify various intricate political transformations; moreover, they underscore the duality of Chinese society: on the one hand it is trying to sustain its effective post-totalitarianism and, on the other hand, to closely collaborate with the global capital," says DF2 Gallery.
Separate from the other pieces in a smaller side-room of the gallery, the small group of images centered around 'blinding light' reads even more disturbing in this intimate space. Three large prints of images showing an unidentifiable person caught and hit by a blinding beam of light connect in this room to weave a dense atmosphere of unease and vulnerability. DF2 Gallery: "The erosiveness of the blinding light on the individual and individuality is the optical metaphor for every totalitarian system; it accurately portrays the vulnerability of people under the violence of a blinding force. According to Jiang Zhi's narrative images, light first melts away the surface and appearances, and then the mind. The former is used for our distinction of different individuals, whereas the latter is the actual evidence that determines their existence. This blinding light is so bright that it would crumble people's individual awareness and their souls."
Things would turn nails once they happened, on the far side of the gallery space completes Jhang Zhi's observations on the contradictory nature of light. An overpowering light beam beats down upon an isolated house standing in the midst of a huge building site. The couple living in this house resisted the government and refused to leave their house. DF2 Gallery says: "As a unique operation of the blinding light, [this image] is not a repetition of violence, but an opal praise of resisting violence. Of course, it is also a momentary illumination on darkness by choosing to become blind."
Jiang Zhi's work seems to offer commentary not only on development in China of recent years, but also on western civilization as a whole. Especially the images that centre on the destruction of individuality and the power of the thinking mind hit close to home in an age where surveillance of individuals has become an everyday business in many western countries.
