Curator: Wu Hung
The title of this exhibition has two implications, one referring to China’s urban transformation, the other to Rong Rong and inri’s personal lives. First, this title ties the exhibition to two places in Beijing’s east suburbs: Liulitun – Six Mile Village – where the two artists lived together before this traditional village was demolished in 2003, and the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre at Caochangdi, which they together established in 2006. In a general sense, the fate of these two places represents Beijing’s ongoing destruction and construction, as well as the rapid changes in contemporary Chinese art over the past five years.
But “From Six Mile Village to Three Shadows” also has a more intimate meaning to the two artists: with the founding of Three Shadows, their family has grown and now they are parents of three children. The birth of a new place is intertwined with that of human lives.
Employing different visual languages, this exhibition represents these two transformations in six sections. Two series of photographs, one placed at the beginning of the gallery space, and one at the end, record the final days of the Six Mile Village and the construction of Three Shadows. With an explicit documentary style, these images contrast with while framing the other four sequences, which explore the artists’ relationship and the mystery of human reproduction. Displayed in a winding “tunnel” constructed inside the gallery, works in this second group form an interior landscape within the external world of Beijing’s transformation.
Wu Hung
July 2008