Hide and Seek
Artist: Tian Taiquan
Exhibition Dates: March 14, 2009 — June 14, 2009
Address: D/No.1 Artistic Area, Hegezhuang Village, Cuigezhuang Town, Chaoyang District Beijing
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From the Curator Meg O’Rourke:
In all of Tian Taiquan’s work, the single common denominator is the human figure, appearing in different states – fragmented, fading and ghost-like, naked, absent from a uniform, or eclipsed by words. Using new digital technologies in photography, the artist intervenes in the past and plucks from collective responses to current cultural events, inventing scenes and portraits that are seductive and provocative without being didactic. Tapping into universal themes of sacrifice, death, the yearning to commune through language and identification, and the desire to be heard, he probes the human psyche, creating a sense of disorientation that reflects the massive shift that China (and the whole planet) is undergoing. Hide and Seek is a game where we lose people and find them, where people hide and have to be found. One could say that Tian Taiquan is playing hide and seek with concepts about the human being and its role in society. Just when we have pulled one out from hiding, it is time for another turn, and we must go seeking once again.
The Blog Series
Tian Taiquan’s “Blog Series” illustrates the modern cultural phenomenon of the rise and fall of a new generation of blog celebrities— a blogosphere celeb culture. A sea of bloggers have used their blogs to speak out about political and social issues relevant to their personal interests, resulting in a gradual shift on the national level from censored mainstream media to voices of individuals traveling at the speed of light, and in such masses that censorship is impossible. Collectively, they have built up a new grassroots media platform to monitor, debate, support, crash, push, and ultimately make things happen outside of the mainstream media territory. All of Tian Taiquan’s works in this series draw from highly publicized events or people in China’s blogosphere, thus portraying an accurate reflection of social and economic current events.
The Cultural Revolution Series
The peak of struggle in China’s ten year Cultural Revolution was from 1966 to 1968, during which time the fighting of Red Guards was extremely brutal. The setting used for Tian Taiquan’s Cultural Revolution photography is in the nation’s only Red Guard cemetery, a large park in the city of Chongqing, which is one of the only remaining Cultural Revolution relics still in existence today. This cemetery covers 3,000 square meters (approximately 4.5 mu), and contains 113 tombs of the estimated 500 Red Guards of Chongqing 815 who were killed. The ages of the deceased range from age 14 (of which age there were five killed) to age 60.
The Golden Plum Vase or Jin Ping Mei Series
In present-day China as well as in the Ming Dynasty, during which period The Golden Plum Vase (also known as Jin Ping Mei) was written, the novel has been infinitely regarded by scholars as a revealing piece of literature displaying a strong sense of reality. The piece has been banned repeatedly for its fine attention to detail in erotic sexual scenes, and even today, it is difficult to come across a complete, unedited version of the novel. Here Tian Taiquan has transformed idealized character skechings common of Qing Dynasty literature into realism-based figures to match the realistic features of The Golden Plum Vase. The photography thus hints that in today’s reality of shameless exchange of money for sexual services, we are once again faced with the equivalent of the novel’s womanizing, misogynistic hero Xi Men Qing.
About Tian Taiquan
With a degree from one of China’s most prestigious art academies, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Tian Taiquan is a prominent avant-garde Chinese artist in today’s booming art market. His work represents a natural reflection on the interaction of China’s past with its present, which dichotomy is deeply rooted in Chinese societal retrospection on the the dark age Cultural Revolution. The memories of this era and its effects on Modern China have inspired the origin of his creativity.
Tian’s “Lost,” “Marks,” “Crack” series alike serve to express his personal reflections on the human life cycle and his concerns for society, although the ideology behind his works has gradually evolved through different pieces. Tian Taiquan’s style is always visually stimulating without over-emphasis on digitalization. His photography transcends a mere recollection of historical events, instead maintaining these events as a provocative propelling force from which to reach new artistic depth.
