Shanghype (Shanghai)

Co-exhibitors:

Olivo Barbieri, Pierre Giner, Alexander Brandt, Melanie Jackson, Mattia Matteucci / Patrick Tuttofuoc,徐震(Xu Zhen),杨福东(Yang Fudong),张鼎(Zhang Ding),杨振中(Yang Zhenzhong),梁玥(Liang Yue),宋涛(Song Tao),黄奎(Huang Gui)

Shangype! Portrait of the city from dawn to dusk

Curated by Davide Quadrio,
With the support of Artissima, Turin, Italy, in collaboration with Bund18 Creative Center

Exoticm, incongruence, variations on the theme. Shanghai is hype. We talk about it without seeing the multifaceted reality of this city. We do not respect the contradictions, the different angles and the shadowed zones. We can not see the quotidian difficulties and the fake amiability of the post-hyper-commercialization. Shanghype offers a visual experience in the city with a group of international artists: an amazing and fascinating urban trip in the true Shanghai, the Shanghai "beyond dazzling lights, the city of the people who live there and who trade their own survival."

Shanghai's aspiration and desire to again become the legendary place it once was, the need to be an international and modern China and the idea of power that Shanghai is seeking between local identity and globalisation, are to some extent symbolised and investigated in the Artissima Cinema preview. The "ogg" story of the contemporary art revolution in he late 1990s is presented through documents, catalogues and documentary videos. Alexander Brandt and Davide Quadrio will offer an untold vision of Shanghai. The art of the suburbs and of closures. A journey through three exhibitions that have made their mark in Shanghai. A group of artists who challenged the city of Shanghai from its suburbs. Pictures from the city's past, when negotiations with the government for "proper" visibility were at the heart of the art work of an avant-garde group headed by Xu Zhen, Yang Zhenzhong and Alexander Brandt, supported by the organization of BizArt."Art for sale", 1999 : "Fan Mingzhen and Fang Mingzhu", 2004; "Solo exhibition", 2006. A part and backdrop of this evening will be the presentation of Hipic.org, an image for all time: an online project as a place of the ephemeral, where a photo sums up in 1 minute the need for vision before disappearing for all time in a cybernetic void: forever.

Art without an artist, art without economic value, art that appears and disappears, the quest for attention and observation, knowing that this is the sole possibility in the world and the only simultaneous moment in the world (of the worldwide web). Hipic, a democratic archive location with no hope for the future, is very fitting in the case of Shanghai and China today, with specific reference to Shanghai: this idea of the continuous move towards something else, with no past and possibly no idea of the future either – this impertinent, optimistic and flattering present that leaves no time other than for a cursory glance at reality. A glance like so many others: totally useless.

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