This weekend I saw an exciting large video piece called "Yellow Signal" at the Ullen's Center from artist Wang Jianwei.  

The piece was exhibited in the tremendous, cavernous back room of the museum and consists of five separated "rooms" with silent projections above each side of each entrance, making it only possible to see two at once.  The videos show scenes and settings like a crowded migrant worker's dormitory, a turbulent courtroom scene, a sports arena a military medical examination and a housing community.  The sets are all filled with characters acting in disturbing ways in each setting, like frantically practicing ping pong in the sports arena or violently criticizing the accused in the court setting.  The characters also move from set to set, creating a "storyline" of sorts and giving the effect that the entire piece is performed live.  The color yellow, which is in the name of the piece and is notable in the stage lighting, has pornographic or forbidden undertones in Chinese, so this may also tie in.

Also notable was the Faurschou show of photographs of Lucian Freud by David Dawson as well a painting of said photographer.  I remember the last and only time I saw a Freud painting in person I was 16 or so and it was the rather infamous Leigh Bowery series.

David and Eli, 2003-4

Not so notable was the preposterously self important Diane von Furstenberg "Journey of a Dress," which features endless paintings and photographs of the designer over the past few decades along with "you go girl" type inspirational drivel slapped all over the walls.

Sad Love Song, Andreas Golder

Pastry Bag, Song Yuanyuan

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I saw a few nice shows at Caoshangdi yesterday.  Galerie Urs Meile had a great show from the rather famous Andreas Golder.  Huge, hideous and confrontational work with a clever mocking of classical themes.  I especially liked the layout of the main hall with several huge paintings and crudely painted leather lounge in the center, "artifing" it and making it useless for sitting on and contemplating the work.

A lesser known gallery, 01100001, had some surprising painting by Chinese artist Song Yuanyuan.  Lots of depictions of construction materials with "zoom-in" panels.  Somehow the construction materials, Christmas trees and sofas depicted seem anatomical, or naked in some way.  Very "photography painting."  Several of the works combined grotesque images with desirable ones, all in domestic settings.

[Hu Jin's (胡晋) tiny, but arresting, blue tiger cub.  Part of an altogether kitschy collection of tiger-themed Chinese ink painting.]

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Today Ariel and I saw a rather great collection of Czech sculpture from the sixties to the eighties at the National Art Museum of China, along with a few not so great Soviet Realist oil paintings, redeemable only for that dramatic grotesqueness that can be interesting.

Some highlights include Jiri Kolar's "egg object," which is a collaged egg with three circular panels each covered with cut out flowers and bird's plumage, all with the technicolor look of 50s "Life" magazines, and Eva Kmentova's "plants:" an evocative watercolor of hand shapes with multiple sprouting fingers.

(It snowed all day yesterday. Pretty!)

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This Sunday, the gang and I had a busy day at the 798 art district. Highlights:

• Kehinde Wiley's paintings of African soccer players at UCCA. (Disappointingly, the actual paintings did not arrive at the opening, so copies were on display.)
• H.H. Lim's "Gone with the Wind" installation, also at UCCA. (Which consisted of ceiling fans "cutting" provocatively through slits in walls, cars and furniture, all of which is surrounded by slightly pointless painting.)
• Tony Oursler's solo exhibit at Faurschou. (Ambitious, large show with two new, site specific video pieces including a talking Mao projection.)
• 798 Photo Gallery's "Linger." (A group show that suspiciously resembled a solo show of eerie, sad plastic looking girls in photographic collage scenes.)
• Iberia Center's "Asian Landmark" group show. (Spy cameras, a motion sensor robotic lotus blossom, light sculptures, video and a life sized tractor made out of faux fir. Really delightful!)

Sunrise with Sea Monsters

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A show of the Tate's collection of Turner paintings opened Friday, and Silvia and I went to check it out. The exhibition was brilliantly set up with full paintings side-by-side with studies, and smaller watercolors set up in vitrines. I've seen only a couple of Turners in person and they just explode. The layering and melty, washy paint is hard to render photographically, and as Turner ages his work takes on this hard to reproduce, abstract quality. Incredibly beautiful to look at, and I'll go with Ariel once he comes back from Europe.

A word about The National Gallery: it has to be the best place in Beijing for traveling shows and the worst place for permanent collections. With few exceptions, the work is pointless, tacky and Communist-friendly, like really 80s Chinese ink paintings of tigers hidden in bamboo, Chinese dignitaries shaking hands (these I slightly love) or minority children cavorting in some idyllic place. However, they've organized some great traveling exhibitions including a show of the history of American painting, a Goya show, a "recreation" of the Buddhist caves of western China, etc.