HU JIEMING

ShanghART Beijing is pleased to present Hu Jieming’s first solo exhibition: Synchrony in Beijing on September 17^th, 2016. The exhibition will combine three sets of artworks from different time spans: Synchrony (2016), The Remnant of Images (2013–now) and Related to Happiness (1999).

Synchrony is Hu Jieming’s latest work. It is a large-scale video that will take up the entire expanse of the exhibition room’s wall (7 x 20 metres). The style of group shots is used to present a gathering of people that appears to spread across the realms of space and time. The identities of these people are hybridised, creating a unique space-time relation and a narrative that switches back and forth between settings. The artist employs digital technology to assemble people from different areas, eras and social hierarchy, and uses image synthesis technology to activate their facial expressions and movements. Hence, the fragments of people in the image can narrate and deliver information from afar.

The Remnant of Images consists of more than 60 videos with different screen sizes and will be scattered around the exhibition room. The images of the video are also from a distant time and space. They are single images much like scenes within a photo album, and are divided into categories of ‘people’ and ‘scenery’. In the centre of the exhibition room will be the artist’s video installation Related to Happiness created in 1999. The lyrical sounds generated from the body itself will echo melodiously in this dialogue between the past and present.

Hu Jieming was born in Shanghai in 1957. He raises views and questions about time, space, history and memory, while his art covers a range of medium working with photography, video and digital interactive technology.

Recent exhibitions include: Busan Biennial, KISWIRE Suyeong Factory, Busan Korean (2016); China 8, Contemporary Art from China at the Rhine and Ruhr, Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg (2015); Chinese Contemporary Photography, Shanghai (2011-2014); Portrait of the Times , 30 Years of Chinese Contemporary Art, Shanghai (2013); Reactivation - 9^th Shanghai Biennale, Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2012); N Minutes Video Art Festival, Shanghai (2011); 100 Years in 1 Minute, HU Jieming Solo Exhibition, ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai (2010); Fantastic Illusions, Media Art Exhibition of Chinese And Belgian Artists, MoCA Shanghai (2009); DEAF07, Interact or Die!, V2, Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (2007); The Thirteen: Chinese Video Art Now, P.S.1, New York (2006); Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China, various cities in the US, U.K. and Germany (2006/2005), Zooming into Focus, National Art Museum, Beijing (2005), In their 40’s, ShanghART Gallery, H-Space (2005) and 5^th Shanghai Biennale: Techniques of the Visible, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai (2004).