The 5th Edition of ASIA NOW—Parisian art fair will be held from 16–20 October 2019, at 9 Avenue Hoche, Paris 8e. Artist Chen Qiulin from A Thousand Plateaus Art Space is honoured to be selected into this year's curatorial program IRL {In Real Life}, curated by the invited guest curator Xiaorui Zhu-Nowell, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim New York. The series of video and photography about hometown and city from Chen Qiulin's early work Farewell Poem and River, River will be presented in the Unboxing section of IRL curatorial platform.
About IRL {In Real Life} in Aisa Now 2019
Building upon the success of its previous guest curator programs, ASIA NOW has invited Xiaorui Zhu-Nowell, Assistant Curator at the Guggenheim New York, to devise this year's Curatorial Platform. Taking its title from the popular Internet abbreviation IRL {In Real Life}, the Platform celebrates an emerging generation of artists who are digital natives and whose work critically engages with new media, issues of technology, and the challenges of contemporary art practice within our new sensorial environments.
Works included in the IRL {In Real Life} Platform approach the subject of digital media and technology through a broader conceptual lens, instead of the often conceived realm of technology as 'cutting-edge', 'innovative', or even 'awe-inspiring'. The IRL {In Real Life} Platform will be enacted in four sections, each of the sections referring to a different mode of interaction: Unboxing, Peer-to-Peer, Hyperlink, and Chat Room.
About exhibited works Farewell Poem and River, River
The exhibited photography work Farewell Poem is a photographic presentation of the artist Chen Qiulin's 2002 video work Farewell Poem. In June, 2002, artist Qiulin and her film production team travelled through Wanxian, Yunyang, Fengjie, Wushan, and the ancient town Dachang cites, and shot for 14 days, then the Farewell Poem (2002) came out from this trip as a 9-minute short film. There are three chapters in this short film: Firstly, a documentary that records the demolition of these cities and the daily life of the immigrants in reality; Secondly, another demonstration of the upcoming or already destroyed Three Gorges cultural sites, integrating with performing the fragments of the Beijing opera Farewell My Concubine at these sites; The third chapter is a performance of the artist herself in the destroyed ruins. These three parts are intertwined with one and another in the film. The farewells of two different historical backgrounds imply the same helpless mood; there is no dialogue inside, only the real documentation, singing the farewell elegy with its voiceless speech. For the artist Chen Qiulin, in her unique language, Farewell Poem is dedicated to our beloved parents who love us selflessly and to the people who live on that land just as us.
The work River, River is the result of Qiulin's desire to shoot another video about the three gorges dam project after the Farewell Poem. At the time of Farewell Poem, the three gorges dam construction had lead to the huge demolitions and mass migrations. Two years later the banks were flat and empty, waiting for the rise of high buildings and modern docks. The reason why she chose to shoot River, River against the background of these construction sites is threefold. Despite the three gorges dam construction was a huge project in China at that time, it also well represents the rapid development process of China. Additionally, it is a continuation of the artist's own work. The appearance in this video of Sichuan opera amidst presents life conditions, the construction site and the opera stage, the past and the present, the misplacement of time and the scene ... all these represent her memory of the second construction phase of the Three Gorges Dam project in China.