Liang Juhui

signed in pinyin, titled in English, dated 2004 and numbered 2/3

Denmark, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Made in China: Works from the Estella Collection, March - August 2007, fig. 44
Jerusalem, The Israel Museum, Made in China: Contemporary Chinese Art at the Israel Museum, September 2007 - March 2008

 

Exh. cat., In Transience... Liang Juhui Memorial Exhibition, Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai, 2007, p. 2

Generally in very good condition. Some extremely light and minor surface abrasions to the upper corners.
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Liang Juhui embodies the paradox of the artist who is at once deeply rooted in his specific cultural and historical context and, simultaneously, of universal relevance. Although much of his work is set in Guangzhou, the themes that are raised in it translate readily into the context of other mercurial metropolises. As skyscrapers shoot up on every corner and people pour into ever-expanding commercial and industrial centers at an alarming pace, our greatest asset is our adaptability. Liang is the chronicler of this contemporary urban life, a cartographer of the geography of nowhere. In the midst of China's fabled economic and architectural boom, Liang explores the nature of the constantly-changing cities in which we live. The importance of his work has been recognized in solo shows and group exhibitions at PS1 in New York, HanArt TZ Gallery in Hong Kong, two Guangzhou Triennials and the 50^th Venice Biennale. Liang Juhui passed away in 2006.

Ah Hui, as he was known, stepped into the limelight as a founding member of the Guangzhou-based Big Tail Elephant Group. Established by Liang Juhui, Chen Shaoxiong and Lin Yilin a year after the fateful Tian'anmen Incident and the infamous China/Avantgarde exhibition, the Big Tail Elephant Group held its first exhibition in 1991 and was joined by Xu Tan the following year. An important trading port and point of contact with foreign lands since the 16^th century, Guangzhou became one of the country's fastest-growing cities. The work of the Big Tail Elephants reflects on the impact of the great changes that Guangzhou, and by extension China as a whole, has experienced since Deng Xiaoping's reforms.

Liang's work is semi-anthropological in its examination of our interactions with one another and of the way in which we shape our environment and are, in turn, shaped by it. Like fossilized remains eternalized in pre-historic amber, the translucent suitcase Baggage (Lot 1174) preserves the photographic memories and experiences of a peripatetic life. In Re-make (Lot 1175), a traditional Chinese cabinet is painted silver and its drawers furnished with images of the contemporary urban life. The old and the new, the local and the global are thus juxtaposed and synthesized. It is difficult to imagine a piece of furniture such as this looking at home in the apartment depicted in its own interior - or indeed anywhere. The compartmentalized life we glimpse as we pull out the drawers is the height of functionality; everything that we need is here. A sleeping area, a cooking and a dining area, a living area and a television provide a setting for modern life. And yet it all seems remarkably cold and sterile. Photographs of the exteriors of multi-story buildings in which such an apartment could be located are refracted, appearing like cells in a beehive and entitled "Zoo Era". They tower above us like monstrous termite mounds in the "Lost Horizon" series. People and Cockroaches (Employed Farmer) (Lot 1176), a set of four chromogenic prints, depicts snapshots of life in rural China: a young family stands among the paraphernalia of its everyday life. First shown at the Big Tail Elephant exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland, these photographs are overlaid with plastic cockroaches, thus making the comparison between man and insect both unavoidable and explicit. This theme is mirrored in the ant-like swarms of people that make up the Supertribe (Lot 1177). Liang once commented that "The rhythm of urban life is very fast: when you walk to public areas such as stations, department stores etc., you can feel the view of people's backs disappearing transiently in front of you. To express the status quo of human existence through people's backs may be more complete, concise, and implicit."[1] Here, the countless people, all facing the same direction and walking away from the viewer, have been decontextualized and divorced from the Singapore streets in which they were photographed before being shrunk to the size of ants. Liang's work can thus be seen to emphasize not the ways in which we differ from insects or our individuality but our nameless, faceless affinity with them. The trappings of modern life are presented not as the very epitome of sophistication but as nests or anthills made of steel and glass.

[1] Liang Juhui, quoted in "'In Transience...' Liang Juhui Memorial Exhibition", exhibition catalogue, Contrasts Gallery, Shanghai, China, 2007.