Wu Shanzhuan, i=per·pro·c·c·c (i: imagination, per: perspective, pro: projection, c: cloud), Steel frame construction and wood, 240 x 160 x 330 cm, 2010

Zhang Hui, Open Ground or Clear Turning to Cloudy, acrylic on canvas, 42 x 30 cm (60 panels), 30 x 42 cm (60 panels), 2010

Rather than viewing ‘borders’ as a structure that prevents individuals from connecting with each other, Zhang Hui stages an aesthetic situation that emphasizes the natural influence between adjacent color fields and visual elements. To do this, Zhang Hui takes a China Airlines advertisement and pixelates the original image onto sixty uniform canvases. He then accentuates the physicality of each painting by rendering illusionary convex volumes on top. These bulging bodies of gray are re-arranged into a new matrix structure of relationships.

Chen Chieh-jen, On the Empire’s Borders: My Guerilla-Style Art Project Report

Symposium at Long March Space

Chen Chieh-jen engages Beijing artists, scholars and writers in a two day conference to together unravel the original social and historical contexts relevant to his ongoing artistic focus. What is the rationale behind his distinct aesthetic strategy? When his work is presented in a foreign context, how does it communicate with viewers from alien communities? How can we critically examine ineffective habits of institutionalized international exchanges, artistic exhibitions, and other common communication platforms in order re-activate the possibilities of conversation?

Wang Jianwei, Output of the Labor Force on Timeline, five channel video, 1 hour 20 minutes, 2010

‘The starting point of Output of the Labor Force on Timeline is based on a true report: a 16 year old teenager from rural China went to the city one day. Naturally inclined to retreat from reality, the boy was only able to find his true social place in fantasy and internet games. In his fictitious world, misconceptions and misunderstandings were foundations to human behavior, while reality and illusion were perfectly synchronized. In the end, murder in his fantastical world became a true incident.

MadeIn Company, Spread (20100904), Installation, performance, a young artist, cotton rope, Sponge, acrylic, light box, DVD-ROM, size variable, 2010

In continuation of the Spread series, MadeIn Company selects at random geometric icons and shapes from popular media and playfully arranges them as a giant architectural assemblage of colorful abstract forms made of foam. As a manual pulley elevates the naked actor up and down with mundane rhythm, the theatre of monumental foam sculptures invites the viewer into a mental exercise on the visual economy of symbols and values that surrounds us everyday.

Liu Wei, Merely a Mistake, wood, steel and cement, size variable, 2010

Liu Wei and a twenty-person team worked day and night for two weeks in the project room—first drilling two-meter deep pits into the cement floor, then erecting, pulling down, revising and constructing again architectural forms using recycled furniture wood, steel pipes, construction safety net, and edible chew. Through this organic building process, the workers rhythmically pulsed out a schizophrenic cityscape that restlessly negotiates against a fixed final completion.

Long March Project––Ho Chi Minh Trail work station at Long March Space during the exhibit