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Shanghai based gallery m97 presents 3 photographers dealing with the recent social and geopolitical developments in China  in their particular point of view, while Berlin gallery Alexander Ochs + White Space Beijing show the latest work “Index” by Miao Xiachun in their new rooms in Beijing. Xiaochun is famous for his large scale photographs, realized with the help of digital technology.

Installation view m97 Gallery © m97 Gallery

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3 Solo Exhibitions ｜ 三个个展

Li Jun: “Impermanent Instant”
Yang Yi: “Uprooted”
Meng Jin & Fang Er: “Love Hotel”

m97 Gallery, Shanghai

September 5 – October 31, 2009

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Li Jun: “Impermanent Instant”

Quoted from PR-Text: In Buddhism, the fundamental concept of  “impermanence” teaches that all living and non-living objects are in an unrelenting constant state of change. Time, existence, and consciousness itself are nothing more than a series of eternally changing impermanent instants.

For the unprecedented frenzy of development that is modern China there is perhaps no more fitting a metaphor than dust. It’s a sign of the old world and a sign of the new world. A sign of the ubiquitous concrete high-rise block and cavernous construction site. A sign of the demolished lanes and dwellings of ancient architecture, as well as a sign of pollution and an insatiable industrial appetite. In China, dust is the ever-looming particulate by-product of the physical metamorphosis that envelops the entire country and its people.

For photography artist Li Jun, the phenomenon of dust that envelops the simple objects and possessions of his Chengdu apartment and the haunting traces the objects leave offers poetic empirical proof of his and their temporary impermanent existence, however ephemeral, amidst tumultuous

YANG YI: "Uprooted #12: Old Town of Kaixian, The Ring Road" (2007) C-Print. 100cm x 70cm, Edition of 12; 150cm x 105cm - Edition of 6. © YANG Yi. Courtesy of m97 Gallery.

Yang Yi: “Uprooted”

Yang Yi photographed his childhood hometown which has been flooded by the Three Gorges Dam, damming the  Yangtze River in the Hubei province of China. The controversial project is the world’s largest engineering and construction site, which has displaced over 1.24 million people and destroyed several cities as well as archeological and cultural sites.

In the sepia-colored works, Yang Yi documented his hometown before being flodded and conceptually immerses the residents under water. A reverie of human life still persisting in this submerged, quiet town that inevitably has now been washed away.

MENG JIN + FANG ER: "Hotel 69" (2008-09) C-Print. 90cm x 90cm, Edition of 8; 150cm x 150cm, Edition of 10. © MENG Jin + FANG Er. Courtesy of m97 Gallery.

Meng Jin & Fang Er: “Love Hotel”

Quoted from PR-Text: Partners Meng Jin and Fang Er’s first collaborative photography project, “Love Hotel” explores the two artists’ ongoing interest in urban life, architecture, memory and found objects, and the inter-relationship between physical buildings, objects and their social context. The couple worked on-site within the framework of 3-hour ‘rest’ periods in various ‘short-stay’ hotels creating improvised, spontaneous sculpture works with the existing objects found in the rented love hotel rooms. Slightly amorphous structures, the rearranged inanimate objects hint at entangled anthropomorphic creations in this fantasy space devoid of actual human presence.

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Miao Xiaochun: Index

ALEXANDER OCHS GALLERIES BEIJING + WHITE SPACE BEIJING
September 7th – November 7th , 2009

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Miao Xiaochun, R17 09.4.11, 2009 Digital print, 25 x 95 cm and 42 x 160 cm © M. Xiaochun, A.O.Galleries

Artist Statement/PR-Text: “We all give priority to the ‘objectivity’ of photographs; however, everyone makes a subjective choice prior to shooting. We choose the theme, the location, the time of shooting, the aperture and the shutter speed; we decide on the people and objects entering the frame. If we really don’t know what to shoot, we can shoot first and select later or we can ask someone else to choose for us. [...]

Therefore, I use a Seitz Roundshot-Camera for the Beijing Index. This way, I don’t have to choose the shooting angle, since it is a 360 degree anyway, with all angles included. I took a map of Beijing and draw longitudes and latitudes of equal distance. The crossing points of those lines define the shooting locations. It does not matter if those locations are important and interesting or not. I set up the camera and took a photograph in order to shoot something that’s not planned. I just wanted to shoot more and more. [...]“